<p>If you want to live in Berkeley, live somewhere closeby, and not in the city. Albany, El Cerrito, Pinole, Oakland, San Pablo…all of these cities/towns are cheap alternatives to Berkeley, and are very BUS/BART friendly. </p>
<p>In terms of community college, I suggest BCC. CCSF is a great school, but unless you actually live in SF, commuting can be pretty expensive ($7/round trip bart ticket per day). I’m actually transferring from Berkeley City College to UCB this fall, and the amount of support I was able to get from UCB because of how close I am to the campus really made it easy to transfer. Also, we have a really tight transfer rate to CAL. Out of the 94 students admitted to Haas, 12 of them came from Berkeley City College (that I know of). </p>
<p>There are a lot of great transfer programs on CAL’s campus that are much more accesible when you’re right next door, like:
-Stiles Hall
-TAP
-Starting Point Mentorship</p>
<p>Plus, the college itself is all in one building, so getting from class to class isn’t too much of a hassle. I suggest that no matter what community college you go to that you do Concurrent Enrollment, which will allow you to take a UCB class for community college prices for two semesters. </p>
<p>If you need any further advice, feel free to PM me.</p>