<p>Should I go to Berkeley for a BS in ME, most likely end up with a fairly low GPA, and maybe lucky enough and make it into Berkeley's ME Graduate program to get a MS... or should I go to UCLA, which is not as stressful as UCB and closer to home, get a BS in ME, and maybe have a higher chance of getting into Berkeley ME Graduate program? My eventual Graduate school goal is Berkeley, I wonder if the giant gap (3 and 20) between the undergrad ME ranking of the two schools really matters. I have visited both schools, and I like them both. UCLA appears to be a little overprotected compared to UCB.
Also, is it possible to transfer to the other school maybe after the first semester in case I felt I have made the wrong choice? If possible, will the other school give me the original financial aid package? I just want to have some kind of backup plan in case I regret my decision. I'll start out with UCB, and if things don't work out, I might want to transfer to UCLA.</p>
<p>Bottom line: no</p>
<p>Colleges know getting a 3.8 at Cal is harder than getting a 3.8 at UCI.</p>
<p>When you apply to graduate school, the admissions committee is composed of people in the department to which you are applying. What will count (not necessarily in this order) includes, undergraduate GPA in the major field and related subjects, GRE scores, letters of recommendation from your faculty in your major, work and/or research experience in the field.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, every academic field is a fairly small community. The professors at UCLA and the professors at UCB know each other by reputation if they don't know each other personally from going to grad school together, or working with each other at some time in their careers.</p>
<p>So, I say go to the school YOU like best right now. Work hard. Get good grades. Figure out if you really want to major in ME after all. Then if after the four or five years it takes you to finish an engineering degree, see if you still want to go straight on to grad school, or if you'd rather make money for a while. If you do well in class, and if you develop good relationships with your professors, you will have the letters of recommendation you need to get into a good post-graduate program.</p>
<p>Wishing you all the best.</p>
<p>You're mistaken if you think that engineering at UCLA will be perceptibly easier than engineering at Cal. I'll grant that UCLA may be slightly less cutthroat but that doesn't make the coursework any less difficult. Also, factor in the mental adjustment you'll have to make from Cal's semester to UCLA's quarter system. Going from taking a midterm at week 7/8 in a 15 week semester system to taking one at week 3/4 and another one at 6/7 in a 10 week quarter system overwhelms a lot of people.</p>
<p>I'll put it this way: if your aim is Berkeley grad school, you'd probably need a GPA that places you in the top 5-10 students in your major at UCLA. At Berkeley, maybe you'd "only" need to be in the top 15-20 students to have a decent shot. Neither one is easy to do, given the slightly higher competition at Berkeley.</p>
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You're mistaken if you think that engineering at UCLA will be perceptibly easier than engineering at Cal. I'll grant that UCLA may be slightly less cutthroat but that doesn't make the coursework any less difficult.
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<p>While I agree that UCLA won't be easier, I don't think it's any less "cutthroat."</p>
<p>To answer your question, undergraduate does not matter. You have 2 good choices here. If you like UCB go to UCB. If you like UCLA go to UCLA.</p>
<p>Anecdote evidences, but I have read that people graduate from UCI do go to MIT for graduate school, similarly from UCI to Penn graduate school, and UCSB to Yale.</p>
<p>Yeah, I know one guy here at Caltech that went to UCI for undergrad, and one of the guys in my lab I spent a summer in at UCI while doing an REU got offers from MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and Caltech for grad school.</p>
<p>Undergrad does matter and anyone who tells you differently is wrong. There is way less margin for error at lesser institutions. That aside, your choices are not separated by enough to be concerned about this.</p>