<p>I submitted my enrollment deposit to CMU yesterday, but now I'm not so sure that I want to go there.</p>
<p>The thing is, I already submitted the form to Berkeley (where I would go instead) declining their offer of admission.</p>
<p>If I do decide that I want to go to Berkeley, is it possible to contact both of the colleges and tell them that I want to go to Berkeley instead of CMU? Or have I trapped myself by declining Berkeley's offer of admission online?</p>
<p>(I know, I should have thought about this more before I submitted my SIRs... But I'm still a teenager, and I make rash decisions, just like any other teenager. Not that that's a good excuse.)</p>
<p>(And yes, I am aware that I probably won't be able to reverse the decision of going to Berkeley after this, nor will I receive a refund for the deposit.)</p>
<p>You’re not trapped at CMU. If for some reason, another and better option comes along (even your unlikely Berkeley scenario), you just tell CMU you’re withdrawing. It happens all the time. You just lose your deposit and CMU turns around and offers it to someone off of their waitlist.</p>
<p>What is unethical is telling two schools simultaneously that you’re attending and double depositing only to withdraw one later.</p>
<p>The main problem is money. I’m in California, so Berkeley will cost me about $30k/year, whereas without financial aid, CMU would cost almost $60k/year. We used CMU’s financial aid estimator, which gave us about $10k/year in aid, but that would still result in about a difference of about $20k/year. (Not to mention that my parents say they’ve earned more this year than last year, so the aid will likely decrease.) Despite the fact that they’re fine with me going to CMU, I’m not sure if I’m comfortable making my parents pay that much more for an education at a school that is equally as strong as the alternative.</p>
<p>In addition, there are a few other factors I’m considering.</p>
<p>Advantages of going to Berkeley:
[<em>]Pittsburgh is much farther away, and I’m not sure I want to leave California for East Coast weather. (At least it doesn’t snow over here.) Since I want to work in software or technology, I might have more opportunities over here, where I’m close to the Silicon Valley. Berkeley is also more convenient in terms of transportation and being relatively close to home (but far enough!).
[</em>]More vibrant social life. On a related note, most of my friends (excluding the HYPSMC people) are going to Berkeley; only one or two are considering CMU. (My high school sends 30-50 people to Berkeley each year.) Though this is probably not that significant considering how large the student population is, I think it would be comforting to know a bunch of people that are going to the same college when you’re still trying to adjust to college life. (I feel that this is kind of silly, but it’s hard to ignore.)
[<em>]Academic strengths. In CS and engineering, Berkeley and CMU are fairly matched, but for most other fields, Berkeley tends to be better, especially in Math (which I’m considering a double major in). It’s not like CMU’s programs are much worse, but I like knowing that I can have contact with the very best professors in just about any field.
[</em>]I won’t need to retake multivariable calculus or linear algebra. The community college that I’m taking these classes from has those courses articulated with the UCs’ courses. So I could start taking upper-division math classes my first semester at Berkeley, while at CMU, the possibility of transferring credit is less likely.
Disadvantages of going to Berkeley:
[ul]
[<em>]Size. Berkeley is huge, and I’m not sure about the availability of personal attention, or how easily one can get, say, research opportunities. (Not to mention gigantic class sizes.) CMU, on the other hand, is a mid-sized university, so you can get decent access to professors and the like.
[</em>]Administrative concerns/bureaucracy. It might be difficult to enroll in classes that I want to take, and it doesn’t sound like students like the registration system very much. (There might also be a lot of red tape? I’m not sure about this.)
[li]Ease of double majoring. I’m considering double majoring in (EE)CS and Math, but I think that requires additional distribution requirements due to Math being in L&S at Berkeley. At CMU, on the other hand, I wouldn’t have to satisfy any distribution requirements besides those of SCS.[/li][/ul]</p>
<p>CMU hasn’t even released financial aid packages yet. I think you made a poor decision in enrolling in CMU without even considering their actual aid package and comparing it to Berkley’s and the cost of going to berkley.</p>
<p>I would contact UCBerkeley right away. Tell them you have made a mistake and want to rescind your decision. You don’t have to do anything until May. I beleive they don’t go into the waitlist until later.</p>
<p>@cortana: Yeah, it was a pretty bad decision. I take full responsibility for that. Even though my parents just told me to submit the CMU enrollment form without asking me if I was completely sure that I would rather go to CMU over Berkeley, I think it’s my fault since I didn’t protest. @DrGoogle: I emailed my Berkeley admissions rep. They’re not in the office until Monday, so I’ll have to wait until then.</p>
<p>If you do go to Berkeley and want to double major in CS and Math, you can do CS in the College of Letters and Science (same division as Math). This will make it administratively easier (don’t have to worry about different breadth requirements or additional EECS major requirements).</p>
<p>Of course, this presumes that your main interest is CS rather than EE. If your main interest is EE, then you will want to major in EECS.</p>
<p>Regarding Math courses, note that Berkeley combines linear algebra and differential equations into one course. So if you took linear algebra, but not differential equations, at community college, you may have to partially repeat that course.</p>
<p>I think what I’ll do is stay in EECS, and if I feel that I want to double major in Math, I’ll transfer to L&S and do CS there instead. (Assuming that I’m going to Berkeley, of course.)</p>
<p>I forgot to include differential equations in my list of math classes up there for some reason… I’m taking it this semester, and judging by assist.org, I should be good to go for passing out of Math 53 and 54.</p>