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<p>That complaint does not really appear on the Berkeley forum. Berkeley does class selection and registration in several stages to ensure that each student gets about half of his/her schedule at high priority, and most departments reserve spaces in classes for those in the major. This means that “not getting your major courses” is not that likely to be a problem. However, non-major breadth or elective course selection is likely to be diminished.</p>
<p>The UCs do have an incentive to graduate students on time, since each student graduating late is a student who needs another semester of in-state tuition subsidy.</p>
<p>CSUs (including the Cal Polys) are generally less expensive than UCs. If your stats meet minimum CSU eligibility, then the several non-impacted campuses and majors can be considered admissions safeties.</p>
<p>[CSUMentor</a> - Plan for College - High School Students - Eligibility Index](<a href=“Cal State Apply | CSU”>GPA Calculator | CSU)
[Impaction</a> | Student Academic Support | CSU](<a href=“http://www.calstate.edu/SAS/impactioninfo.shtml]Impaction”>http://www.calstate.edu/SAS/impactioninfo.shtml)</p>
<p>At least one impacted campus (San Jose) posts the past eligibility index for admission to its various majors, so you can get an idea of how likely you are to be admitted.</p>
<p>[SJSU</a> Admission](<a href=“http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/narr/admission/rec-1208.html]SJSU”>http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/narr/admission/rec-1208.html)</p>
<p>Cheapest of all is likely going to community college and then transfer to a UC or CSU (see <a href=“http://www.assist.org%5B/url%5D”>http://www.assist.org</a> to match community college courses to UC and CSU courses and majors). However, community colleges respond to budget cuts by reducing course offerings, so that it may be very hard to find non-full courses at many community colleges.</p>