<p>I heard Berkeley has a good EECS program. Are there any others? How difficult is to apply compared to other majors? </p>
<p>Looking forward to replies, thanks.</p>
<p>Engineering undeclared, EECS, and some have told me BioE but I don’t know for sure, are considered the hardest engineering majors to get into. This is based on what I’ve heard from other CCers and I have no cited proof to verify this.</p>
<p>I do believe that momfirst said in an old post about talking to the chancellor apparently he said EECS and Eng Undeclared are the hardest to get into</p>
<p>I’ve heard that the Mech E program and Civil and Environmental Engineering programs also have a good reputation rankings wise, but overall I think the COE for undergrad is rated 3rd according to US News</p>
<p>I have no idea as to how hard it is to get into EE at Berkeley. But last fall my son applied to Berkeley for mechanical engineering and was rejected. He had a 31 ACT, with a 35 in the Math section. a 800 on the Math II Subject test, and his class rank was 10/505. He got admitted to UCLA with those stats though, but Berkeley did not accept him…He didn’t want to really major in mechanical engineering though so the rejection didn’t bother him. It makes you wonder, though, what you have to do to get in there though. (PS. he is not going to UCLA either).</p>
<p>^ What was his GPA? Berkeley’s COE looks mainly at GPA, then test scores and extracurriculars, and a 31 ACT is probably around the average for engineers.</p>
<p>EECS is one of the hardest engineering majors to get into here (along with BioE and Engineering Undeclared), so I’m guessing a 4.2+ weighted GPA and 2100+ SAT would net you atleast a decent shot. Acceptance rate is around 12 - 15% from what I’ve heard from professors.</p>
<p>Yes, the stats are quite high for engineering majors, esp. for the three above mentioned majors. My son had very high stats and we were complete nervous wrecks until we saw that acceptance letter. Even with high stats, you just never know with Berkeley.</p>
<p>I felt as though it was fairly easy to get into EECS, at least for me. Although it was a nice ego boost after I was accepted, I eventually decided to choose one of the better options I had available for my engineering education.</p>
<p>Is the acceptance rate for EECS really 15% though? Do any of you guys have any data or just guessing</p>
<p>I’m not guessing. I actually talked to the Dean last April and he told me it was 11% for Undeclared Engineering so EECS has got to be around that.</p>
<p>When I went to orientation as a freshman, one of the EECS professors mentioned that they accepted ~300 out of ~2500 applicants for our class (this was in 2008), so I’m guessing it’s at most under 20% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>His GPA was a 4.0 unweighted,4.22 weighted…</p>
<p>The acceptance rate of the College of Engineering in 2008 is 17%. But there were only about 44k applicants for the whole program at that time. last year’s applicants number to over 50k. So, I’m guessing the admit rate has dwindled a bit.</p>
<p>yeah at the BioE seminar during the first week of instruction at Cal, I remember the Dean of BioE showing us that the average SAT math score of an accepted BioE undergrad was 760 and 720 for Reading and Writing, and the average weighted GPA was 4.6. I was accepted with an ACT of 32 (Math 32, Reading 31, English 34, Science 32), Sat subject tests of 740 and 760 (Bio M and Math 2) and I also sent in my APs. My unweighted was 4.0 and weighted was only 4.4 but at my high school it was almost impossible to go higher than that so I guess other schools must have had more AP classes or something.</p>
<p>Also a friend of mine said that BioE for this year had the lowest number of acceptances in CoE, but I have no way to verify if that’s true.</p>
<p>In the end apply for the engineering major you are most interested in. If you can’t decided, just apply undeclared and don’t try to anticipate which engineering majors are easy to get into or not. None of them will be a golden ticket in so you might have well apply to the one you like since switching into EECS if that’s what you decided to do later on is difficult if you don’t have a high GPA (that’s what I’ve heard anyway)</p>
<p>My main advice is that if you really want to do EECS, then you should apply EECS. That’s the easiest way to get in.</p>
<p>Otherwise, you probably won’t get in the program as they let very few people change into EECS. The major is in high demand as-is, and there are tons of lower-div requirements that start as early as second semester freshman year!</p>
<p>11% sounds really low (but very possible). I tried looking online and couldn’t find much, but there was this one powerpoint that talked about women in EECS and how to recruit and retain more of them and on one of the slides was the admision rate to the EECS department. It said the admissions rate was 21%. I don’t know how accurate this is. 50% of those who were admitted matriculated so out of the about 2000 students who applied, 200 joined the EECS program in Berkeley, but the admissions rate is still considered to be 21%.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~humphrys/Faculty_Lunch_2-9-1.ppt[/url]”>www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~humphrys/Faculty_Lunch_2-9-1.ppt</a></p>
<p>Yeah, who really knows for sure. All I know is that it’s just plain tough to get into engineering at Berkeley. My son’s stats for those who are curious as to what it takes to get in Undeclared Engineering were 34 ACT, 780,770 and 700 SAT II’s, 4.0 uw GPA, 4.73 W, Class rank #1 out of 772, National AP Scholar and nationally ranked athlete (no, he is not playing his sport at Cal). He did receive the supplemental questionnaire for his talent. This is to answer post #3.</p>
<p>Wow I guess Berkeley depends a lot on the stats, mostly GPA I guess.</p>
<p>Since it’s a pretty hard shot for Cal’s EECS, I think it’d be better to spread my eggs. I heard MIT’s and Carnegie’s EECS program is good too? I think the combined program is a bit rare among colleges.</p>
<p>MIT is no easier, that’s for sure! My son applied there too and was waitlisted (he took himself off the list). Bottom line is admission to the top engineering schools is tough to predict. Just apply, do your best on the applications, and see what happens. It will all work out in the end. Good luck. :-)</p>
<p>umm…I don’t think Berkeley engineers would say that MIT is no easier to get into that Berkeley (undergrad) no matter what the major is. Most Berkeley Engineers applied to MIT, Stanford, etc and would rather go there … </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean Berkeley Engineering isn’t “as good” but I’m pretty sure it’s easier to get into.</p>
<p>It’s “easier” to get into in the sense that you need pretty much the same stats to get in, except Berkeley doesn’t care about recs and extracurriculars as much.</p>
<p>Uh yeah, you totally misunderstood me. The OP was suggesting MIT as an alternative to Berkeley. I was suggesting that MIT was harder, not easier. I know I’m older and losing brain cells, but there is no way I would suggest MIT is easier to get into then Cal! haha That being said, not everyone would pick MIT over Cal. Some people like the whole Division I sports, large research university, California thing… my son was one of those. :-)</p>