No I didn’t apply to Rice. I didn’t find their CS program compelling.
Their Biology related programs are extremely good - on par with the best universities in the world. But I didn’t find the research output and undergrad course variety for CS impressive.
Their engineering and CS programs are excellent, but no matter
I don’t know where you get the info re. UCB, but many things in you posts about UCB are just wrong, or at least questionable. These are the most obvious:
- Berkeley will force you to take only three classes first semester and it will be killer. - Can you point to something on UCB’s website, brochures,… that says this? My D never took less than 4 classes (16 units) a semester.
- Berkeley offers Lawrence Berkeley Labs up on the hill. - You should mention Simons Institute down the hill as well.
- Berkeley you may get pummeled hard, and have fewer friends. - Not my D’s experience. In fact, she feels there are too many clubs there.
- Both schools offer an easier CS and a harder CS. - From what I know, at UCB, CS in LS is not easier nor harder than CS in EECS.
- Its much much easier to get into Cal Berkeley from out of state, lower stats required. - Where did you get this from? Anything to back it up, especially the “much much easier” part?
- GaTech is … better connected to top US government jobs compared to Berkeley. - Again, where did you get this from? Anything to back it up?
- Some departments at Berkeley take their own, check about EECS, they may NOT like their own grads or even force you to change schools. - Not my D’s nor my experience. My D was an EECS undergrad and is currently a CS PhD student at UCB. Before my D applied to PhD program at UCB, I brought this issue up to a friend of mine, an EE professor at UCB. He told me that during his more than 30 years at UCB (he turns 83 this year, and no longer holds classes, but still has advisees), many times volunteering in Ad Com, he had never seen a case in which a candidate’s undergrad school was used as a reason to be rejected.
Some notes about chances for grad school if you go to UCB: (1) There are plenty of research opportunities for undergrads. But no one will hand them to you. Rather, you’ll have to find them, and there are many chances for you to do so. (2) Since UCB is so big, its alumnae are everywhere. When my D applied to PhD program at various schools, she was interviewed by (and later accepted to) 3 professors at 3 different schools who turned out to be former advisees of the UCB professors who wrote LoRs for my D. I guess that had a big (and positive) impact on their decisions.
I have also heard that although the research opportunities at UC Berkeley are abundant, the huge number of students willing to participate make it very competitive to get one, especially with famous professors and big projects effectively reducing the chances of freshman students landing one. On the other hand, I have read that professors at GaTech are very open towards accepting young undergrad students for research assistantships. Please correct me if I am wrong.
When you visit, tour the labs in the area of your interest (set it up in advance if you can) and ask.
I am definitely going to do that. By posting here I was primarily hoping to get a 3rd party view of the situation.
@Coloradomama, you’ve made a lot of misleading statements about Berkeley in this thread as others have pointed out. Here are a couple:
"Its much much easier to get into Cal Berkeley from out of state, lower stats required. Its much harder to get into GaTech from out of state than in state for 2017:
in-state stats for UCB admits: 3.91/1334/31, acceptance rate is 19%
out-of-state for UCB admits: 3.92/1449/33, acceptance rate is 22%
Higher stats are actually required at least on test scores.
"Atlanta is just more OPEN. Berkeley it full of itself, ragged around the edges, has a dangerous feel in places, and a “you can fall through the cracks and we don’;t give a damn " feel to the undergrad education. GaTech will bend over backwards to help undergrads.”
Atlanta violent crimes per 1,000 -11
Berkeley violent crimes per 1.000 - 3
“If Berkeley will really make it a lot easier for me to get into the top universities for PhD (MIT, CalTech, Stanford) then I don’t think I will really continue considering GaTech. Regardless, from what I have heard from other undergrads/grads, reputation doesn’t REALLY matter and GaTech and UC Berkeley are awfully close (in CS/Engineering) anyways. Please correct me if I am wrong.”
You’re going to visit both so that should break the tie if you will, where you think you fit best is where you should go. That being said if you dig into the EE, CS faculty at Stanford and MIT and see where they got their PHds, you’ll find more Berkeley than Georgia Tech. In fact I’m not sure you’ll run into too many GT professors. Stanford thinks maybe only 3 or 4 universities is at their level for EE and CS, and Berkeley is one of them. They will have visiting professors from UCB, MIT, CMU, maybe Michigan. Similarly MIT will have visiting professors from those colleges. Georgia Tech is not in this group, they’re just not.
@thelonliestmonk I think it is pretty obvious that UC Berkeley is better than GaTech for Grad Education (Masters and PhD) primarily due to their funding and as also reflected by more UC Berkeley PhD grads (emphasis added) landing at top-tier universities. However, we are talking about choosing a college for Undergrad education not Graduate education. I honestly don’t think the fact that more UC Berkeley PhD grads landing at top-tier universities is going to give undergraduate students going from UC Berkeley an advantage somehow. Heck, some of these PhD grads got their undergrad education from universities you wouldn’t have even heard of. All else being equal, I don’t think an undergraduate from UC Berkeley is going get ahead of an undergrad from GaTech - at that point it’s surely going to boil down to subjective things like LOR and SOP. Don’t talk about where PhD grads from these schools go, talk about whats happening there that makes it special.
And even if one is in a case similar to that of Pentaprism’s D, I think if another GaTech undergrad conducted research with a famous professor there, they would be weighted similarly. Now again I do want to make this clear - I am not pro GaTech. I just want to make the best decision possible. I just think that more UC Berkeley PhD grads getting to top-tier colleges is not a valid reason for choosing it for undergrad education (especially given that UC Berkeley is a Grad student oriented college).
I work with tons of Berkeley EECS grads. I find them to be indistinguishable from graduates of other good state flagships. The reputation of the undergraduate program is riding on the coattails of its graduate program.
I would go to whichever program feels like a better fit, and not worry about reputation.
Also, I don’t know where this idea that Berkeley is cutthroat comes from. All the people I know who went there seem pretty normal, and I can’t imagine any of them trying to drag down their fellow students in order to get a better grade.
It doesn’t take that long to get from Berkeley to Silicon Valley. Stanford’s in Silicon Valley, and it takes about an hour to get from Berkeley to Stanford (outside of commute hours.)
The key is just that- outside the commute. Sometimes it can take almost an hour just to get across the bay bridge.
And it was another poster who said it would or could take 2 hrs. I was just clarifying that she meant down to SV, not the SF Bay Area.
True dat. That’s happened to me the last two times I crossed it, and both times were outside of commute hours.
Does the San Mateo bridge save much time if going to SV?
Sorry we are getting off topic again
If you’re coming from Berkeley, the San Mateo Bridge probably isn’t going to be much better than the Bay Bridge. The San Mateo Bridge itself rarely seems to get backed up, but I-880 and I-580 through Oakland on the way to the bridge do.
When DS lived in Berkeley and commuted to Fremont, I think he had well over an hour and a half commute. Now he is in SF and commutes to Palo Alto… and its the same 
Pre-meds?