Before Ivy Day, I was pretty certain I’d attend Berkeley. But now I’m not entirely sure. I don’t want to rule out any school just because of low departmental rankings so I just want to make sure I am making the correct decision. I’ve mainly been deciding between UC Berkeley and Princeton. I’m not sure about the other schools on my list, but engineering isn’t ranked high. Is that a good reason to not consider them? I was admitted to Berkeley as a Mechanical Engineer with Regents (priority class enrollment from regents will allow me to get the classes I need as easily as if I were at Princeton). I’m considering switching to EECS (not guaranteed, I would need to take EECS classes and attain a good gpa [around a 3.5]) for Berkeley or maybe staying in MechE and minoring in CS. Princeton I applied as a Computer Science B.S.E. major but admits are all technically undeclared and have the freedom to switch when they attend.
Cost of attendance will not be a factor for my decision, all of these schools gave me fantastic financial aid
I live in California and only visited Berkeley once during the regents rohp and interview and it was pretty nice. I can’t afford to fly out to the other schools so I’m in the dark about the atmosphere for the other schools. I plan to start working after my bachelors and might possibly get a masters (or try to get into the 5 year masters program) for better opportunities and job placement. I’m only swayed to Berkeley because of their engineering ranking and location. I’m concerned about the large population and limited availability of undergraduate research and internship opportunities. But I’m really interested in the internships some people can get at Berkeley for its location (tech companies/startups) and want to maybe someday work for Google or Microsoft. I read some stuff where Princeton and other private schools provide research opportunities and internships to almost all undergraduates because of the low class sizes so that’s a pro for Princeton.
College location does not matter for internship at Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon,… These companies take students from faraway top colleges like MIT, CMU, Penn, Princeton,…
If you want to work in California, UCB or UCLA will be more attractive to smaller employers in California who may not want to travel as far to recruit. If you want to work on Wall Street or in consulting, Princeton is much more highly recruited for that. You will probably find Google, Microsoft, etc. recruiting at all of the schools on your list (and more).
If you are likely to change majors, that increases reasons to favor schools where you can change into your possible new majors more easily. At UCB, if you want to major in CS, you can also do it via L&S CS, but the minimum GPA was recently raised to 3.3 (up from 3.0 which itself was an increase from 2.0 a few years back) due to capacity constraints, so the difference between changing into L&S CS versus EECS is no longer as large as before (though EECS is still competitive after meeting the GPA, while meeting the GPA means that you are in for L&S CS).
“I’m not sure about the other schools on my list, but engineering isn’t ranked high.”
=> I would pick princeton for this reason. If you’re sure about engineering (specificially EECS) I would pick berkeley. Even for MechE, I’m not sure I would pick Berkeley over princeton.
Assuming money is not an issue, Princeton and Duke (Pratt) are obvious choices. California is going to continue to face financial problems which are going impact Berkeley (and UCLA) short and long term. Short term you will be one of many in large classes and not get the attention available at Princeton and Duke, and longer term you are very likely to see reputational decline as Berkeley is unable to attract and retain the best professors. Be wary of the rankings, as they under rate universities with smaller departments. Duke and Princeton provide outstanding teaching, excellent professorial access, and opportunities for on campus research and internships.
UCB is a much better school for graduate than undergraduate because of its large size. I’d pick Princeton without a second thought. Go to Berkeley for grad school if you pursue that. Princeton has excellent engineering and you’ll have no trouble finding employment with a top company if your skills are good.
(My second choice would be Rice over the others, because its engineering is also top of the line, it’s relatively small, and it has arguably one of the best student body experiences around.)
