<p>fall2016parent:
Technically, pre-business and pre-med aren’t specific majors either. You can apply to medical school with any undergraduate major as long as you took the prerequisite courses. Most pre-law folks over here major in political science, rhetoric, or english. </p>
<p>Econ classes aren’t really “hard” per se; the competition and the grading curve make it harder to get an A. Its pretty similar to pre-med class conditions. </p>
<p>EECS is pretty crazy when you consider the workload per class.</p>
<p>Hello Blackaddr. Nice to hear from a Berkeley student. How hard is it to enroll in desired set of classes over there? We keep hearing that it takes more than four years for a lot of people to graduate because of scheduling conflicts.</p>
<p>I’ve had no difficulty so far, nor do I know anyone who has had any. The worst it can ever get is waitlists (again, most people get in, as either people drop the class, or the professors open up new sections), and for some really popular classes (ie classes that fulfill university requirements and have a reputation of being “easy”) it may be hard to get in if you enroll too late. I personally think the registration system (you register in “phases”, the times of which depend on your class level) works, unless you’re really unsure of what classes you want to take. If you do your research, graduating within 4 years isn’t a problem. I’m graduating in 3.5 myself, and if I choose to kill myself for two more semesters by taking an extra class each time, I can easily graduate in 3. AP/IB credit helps A LOT; the university is quite generous in that respect. </p>
<p>Also, “scheduling conflicts” exist at pretty much every university: you have so many different classes, and only so many hours in the 5-day week. There are bound to be conflicts.</p>
<p>Sorry if this may seem overly harsh, but scratch Indian students- I reckon all students need to be disillusioned when it comes to college apps. </p>
<p>When I was in school I knew people with 1800 SATs who had their hearts set on places like UPenn and were sure they’d get into Cornell since it was and to an extent still is perceived to be a pseudo Ivy. I’m sorry to say all of them found out the hard way that those particular schools were out of their reach.</p>
<p>However, I definitely disagree with your generalized claim that schools (like Cornell) who say they are need blind really do take into account your financial aid status when making decisions. I was an applicant with mediocre scores, great essays (imo) and competitive EC’s- statistically I was an average applicant to Cornell (based on 2104 class profile) since my SAT was exactly at the 50th percentile. I’m not an international Olympiad winner or a genius of some sort and yet my need were met without any issues.</p>
<p>The discussion about Berkeley vis-a-vis MIT was interesting. For those of you interested, here is a link to some advice by a berkeley faculty. note that he got his graduate degrees from MIT, enjoy;</p>
<p>However the fact that Cornell is a ‘chill’ school is surprising. I’ve always heard that Cornell is easy to get in, relative to the other Ivies, but insanely hard to get out of - no grade inflation, extremely difficult classes, etc. Also, I’d assume Stanford is a more ‘chill’ school but hey what do I know? :)</p>
<p>My list for Engineering would be : MIT ,Stanford , UC Berkeley , Georgia Tech and CalTech . But my brother who is studying at CalTech for Engineering (MS) found Georgia Tech better (BS) - First year Tranfer from IIT Delhi …</p>
<p>Caltech is a pure research school, great place for pure sciences. For undergrad work smaller schools are better. In most large schools you won’t get to see the profs until you start the core cirriculum (3rd year). The good thing irrespective of the school Rep, the cirriculum is pretty standard across the board for engg. What makes the difference is the quality of students to a large degree and the profs to some extent. It is not unusual to find a famous prof at 3 tier state university. unlike desis folks in US still do what want to, rather than run after money and fame all the time.</p>
<p>There exist stories of kids going through ridiculous hardship and overcoming gargantuan odds. Point is for every Anshuman Panda who gets into MIT, there are a thousand who try and don’t. Just because there are exceptions to the rule doesn’t mean the rule changes at all.</p>
<p>Anshuman Panda was a highly intelligent student who got full scores on his SAT Subject Tests and actually had the gall to apply to MIT despite being almost impoverished. Don’t compare your lives to his.</p>