Berkeley has 30,000 undergraduates versus about 6,000 each at HYP and about 2,000 at LACs. It is more competitve than it used to be for undergraduate, but maybe not to 30. Its graduate programs are much harder to get into. It isn’t at all sure that someone who presumably got turned down by Oxbridge would get into Berkeley graduate school.
@sattut, poor comparison, IMO. Grad school (PhD programs) depend solely on subject prowess and what you did as an undergrad (and master’s program in Europe). That’s a different level from even A-Levels.
Also, @netsa1, as the OP is Brit, being close to SF and Silicon Valley is nice, but getting a work permit straight out of undergrad would still be tough.
With overseas undergrads, I would wager that what may keep them from top grad schools would be English proficiency, which a Brit would not have to worry about.
Berkeley is at a similar level to top 5 US universities in terms of research, but it has about the same number of undergraduates as all 5 of them combined. It isn’t at the very top level in undergraduate academic competitveness.
If you are a “public school” type with the money, and you care about that sort of thing, many people go to Berkeley because it is cheaper for them. Top LACs and Ivies are supposed to be “preppy” and good for making connections. There isn’t the rigid class system here, but there is more difference like that between schools.