<p>If you were to consider UCLA as less prestigious, should I go to Cal just because it is more prestigious? Thanks :)</p>
<p>Go to the school you feel you will do better at. Both are excellent schools.</p>
<p>Depends on your major.</p>
<p>Go to the one that you feel a better fit in.</p>
<p>I consider Cal to be more prestigious… UCLA to be more “popular.” But, that doesn’t mean you should go to Cal just because it is more prestigious.</p>
<p>@excelblue: i’m planning to prep for pre-med and got into both ucla and cal for mcb</p>
<p>UCLA and Cal have its strengths in certain areas. </p>
<p>For most pure science majors like bio, physics, math, engineering,psychology as a social science, political science, majors that do well on the LSAT, business- Cal is stronger. </p>
<p>If you want to do pre-med in Cal, keep in mind that you will have to do undergrad research in UCSF which is a 40 minute drive from Cal depending on traffic. </p>
<p>For pre-med/health, any discipline in the health sciences, psychology as a medical discipline (psychobiology), neuropsychology, theater, film, performing arts, music- UCLA is stronger</p>
<p>UCLA has a medical center on campus. </p>
<p>Our family friend told me this. In fact, he works at UC Berkeley.</p>
<p>Berkeley is slightly more prestigious but you can not go wrong with these two great schools.</p>
<p>P916’s post is a fair point of departure.</p>
<p>TheMom has worked at UCLA for 30+ years and the D has just been accepted into a Cal PhD program (in a field where it’s stronger than UCLA). So it’s all good.</p>
<p>I think making decisions based upon perceived prestige is a mug’s game anyway. Next thing you know, you’ll buy the car others think you should buy and marry the person that your friends think is “hot.” That way madness lies.</p>
<p>It all depends upon your prospective major. For instance, as someone who is interested in business, Berkeley is the obvious #1 choice for me.</p>
<p>^^^ i agree with you sphinx123.</p>
<p>Yeah it depends. I think for subjects like business, engineering or chemistry Berkeley may be a better choice, while for premed people seem to favor UCLA. But it all comes down to fit at the end…</p>
<p>As an aside, there is a misconception I have seen posted on this site many times. If you are premed you do not need to do research in a medical schooloor in a medical related field per se–medical schools look for research experience but it can be in Chemistry, Biology, Physics, or whatever. The icing on the cake is to have published, NOT to have performed research in medicine.</p>