<p>I really learn a lot from you guys, I’ll get rid of those prestige things from my mind and just do the best job I can do at present. Thank you!</p>
<p>I would go with the better school. What if you end up not getting a graduate degree? You will have far better options as Berkeley grad than if you went to SD. </p>
<p>Your undergrad school may not matter much if you get an advanced degree right after college, but if you find yourself looking for entry level jobs it has a BIG impact. There are many companies that hire from UCB that won’t even consider an SD grad.</p>
<p>6281597, name one.</p>
<p>McKinsey or BCG.</p>
<p>I can name two people who work at McKinsey from UCSD without an MBA. There were no OCIs, but that doesn’t exclude applicants from getting hired anyway.</p>
<p>Did those two get jobs right out of school?
Did they have some sort of family connections, like a high up in the firm?</p>
<p>
These are hardly the “entry level” jobs you were referring to. I can guarantee you that if your GPA was not good enough for graduate school at Berkeley, you’re not going to find a job at one of these firms either. </p>
<p>Also, only Haas is prestigious for many of these firms, not Berkeley in general. It makes Berkeley a poor/negligible backup. Except the Investment Banking / Finance industry, there are no firms that would pay any premium for a Berkeley alumnus. </p>
<p>All this is not to mention that most lucky Haas undergrad students actually end up working as manager at Wal-mart or something. You’re twisting reality to make a snotty, largely irrelevant argument. There are almost no benefits to choosing Berkeley over UCSD.</p>
<p>6281597 is correct that the biggest impact of a prestigious undergraduate degree comes just after graduation and usually with financial/business/engineering companies. Again, though, it doesn’t mean that a student from another university won’t get an entry-level position at the same company. It just means that a degree from a top school impresses certain prospective employers.</p>
<p>“Prestige” is a fluid, sometimes contradictory, concept. The UC system, Stanford, and the Claremont colleges tend to have their greatest prestige on the West Coast, while the Ivies and the New England LACs have their greatest impact on the East Coast. Duke, the College of William and Mary, and UVA have their greatest prestige in the South. Some schools have regional wow factors. The same holds true for graduate admissions; different undergraduate degrees impress different admissions committees, although in addition to regional issues, you have to throw in field-specific knowledge. It is indeed more difficult to get into a top graduate program from a lesser known, less competitive undergraduate institution, but an excellent student who seizes and creates opportunities can do it. In this case, however, I think you’re talking about smaller increments of prestige generated by the likes of USNWR, which means almost nothing.</p>
<p>You should always attend the most rigorous undergraduate college you can get into that also best serves your personal needs. That means that you may attend a “lower ranked” school over another because you feel more comfortable on campus or because it is stronger in your intended major or because it offers the best FA. You should never attend a college because you think you’ll get a better GPA there. That condescending attitude toward the students and professors at that college can turn around and bite you.</p>