<p>Unless your family is upper class, go for the in state tuition.</p>
<p>Berkeley is not the better school. Perhaps it’s worldwide reputation has a slight edge but when Mich is ranked top 20 in the world, what does it matter? But all that ranking stuff is overblown. Rankings don’t mean you get a better education, only that professors publish more.</p>
<p>Mich does much more for its undergraduates.</p>
<p>Ann Arbor has the edge of Berkeley as far as the town goes. Obviously, San Fran beats Detroit. But the state of Michigan is lovely, great lakes incredible. I take them over the Pacific.</p>
<p>You could say Berkeley weather is better if you like having one season only - basically. Mich has four seasons. Fall is radiant, spring and summer green. Winter is a bit too long and grey; although it’s cozy in those old brick buildings.</p>
<p>Tough choice, but money is key. College is no guarantee for a job.</p>
<p>FWIW, I chose Michigan over Berkeley, even though I was in-state and got about $10k/year in grants/scholarships from Berkeley, making tuition about 120k cheaper. I made absolutely sure my parents were ok with this first, obviously, but in the end, this was my reasoning.</p>
<p>Ross = Haas
Ann Arbor trumps Berkeley
UM school spirit trumps Cal
Michigan athletics destroy Cal’s
Berkeley has the edge by A WIDE MARGIN in terms of weather though
Michigan social scene is better than Cal’s (I’ve spent quite a few weekends up in Berkeley as my sister and cousin both went there)
People at Michigan are way more attractive in my personal opinion</p>
This simply isn’t true. There’s no question but Michigan has more school spirit but Cal has done better than Michigan in the Director’s Cup in the past 2 years. Even before that, Michigan usually finished in the top 10 while Cal placed at least in the top 20.</p>
I’m glad your parents were ok with paying the cost differential between Cal and Michigan but I hope you realize this wasn’t a smart financial move on your part at all. You’re paying over $100,000 to go to a school just because it has a better social life (debatable), more attractive students (agreed), and more school spirit (agreed).</p>
<p>“I’m glad your parents were ok with paying the cost differential between Cal and Michigan but I hope you realize this wasn’t a smart financial move on your part at all.”</p>
<p>I am not sure I agree. Academically, Michigan and Cal are peers. If a student’s family has the means and one school is a much better fit than the other, paying more for that school is worth it. College should be about personal experience as much as it should be about academics. As a citizen of France, I could have attended LSE or UCL in London one third the price of Michigan. Admittedly, LSE and UCL are not on par with Michigan (they lack the resources and academic breadth and depth), but they come close. However, in terms of overall campus experience, it was a no brainer. I preferred Michigan to LSE or UCL by a large margin and my parents could easily afford paying the difference.</p>
<p>“This simply isn’t true. There’s no question but Michigan has more school spirit but Cal has done better than Michigan in the Director’s Cup in the past 2 years.”</p>
<p>Ok, so remind me what athletic program at Cal matches Michigan football in terms of history, tradition, student/alumni support, school price, national interest, rivalry etc…Campus life is not affected by dominance in non-revenue sports. Only dominance in Football and Basketball really enhance campus life.</p>
<p>I was referring to Football, Basketball, and Hockey, which wasn’t clear at all in my post. Berkeley football and basketball aren’t that great, and they don’t have a hockey team, which was something I really enjoyed about Michigan, as my dad played high school hockey growing up in Michigan, and my brother and I both play, so it’s something we did growing up. </p>
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<p>I agree that for most people this doesn’t make sense, and I realize I’m incredibly fortunate to be in a situation where my family’s ability to pay for my college education had no bearing on where I attended school, but thankfully, my mom alone makes enough to pay for my tuition, and if I had to estimate conservatively what my dad makes, it’s about 5 times that. I’m altogether aware of just how lucky I am. I’m hoping that my Ross degree will put me in a situation later on down the line where I can pay for my children’s education much like my parents did for me, and also give my parents something back in the form of vacations, etc. But we’ll see.</p>
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To be honest, I would say Cal is very slightly better at the undergrad level as well in some areas, most notably engineering/the hard sciences. You can’t compete with that kind of recruiting, either, given Cal’s proximity to Silicon Valley.</p>
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I disagree about Berkeley offering more than Ann Arbor, but my experience is limited in this regard, so I guess I could see it going both ways. I probably don’t have enough experience to make an informed opinion regarding this.</p>
<p>However, hands down, no-questions-asked, San Francisco is an AWESOME city and dwarfs basically anything Detroit could offer. And it’s like a 30-40 minute BART ride away. I would love to live in SF, it’s an awesome awesome city. My only issue is that it seems like everything in SF is sooo incredibly expensive.</p>
<p>Also, Michigan is 10th in the Director’s Cup this year, while Cal is 15th, despite Michigan’s basketball team’s abysmal performance in March Madness and the hockey team’s loss in the first round of the Frozen Four.</p>
<p>^I’ve been to both, and I live in A2 obviously. In my opinion the college feel of Ann Arbor is absolutely not there in Berkeley and downtown Ann Arbor is right on state street, whereas when I went to Berkeley it felt like a lot of the dorms and places that students frequented were pretty far east of downtown. Everything in Ann Arbor is also pretty reasonably priced/catered to college kids while Berkeley seemed pretty expensive essentially anywhere I went.</p>
<p>“I agree that for most people this doesn’t make sense, and I realize I’m incredibly fortunate to be in a situation where my family’s ability to pay for my college education had no bearing on where I attended school, but thankfully, my mom alone makes enough to pay for my tuition, and if I had to estimate conservatively what my dad makes, it’s about 5 times that”</p>
<p>Berkeley is a college city. It is pedestrian friendly with numerous stores, cafes, and cheap eats in the Gourmet Ghetto. A ton of food diversity as well. San Fran and area airports are accessible via BART with the Downtown Berkeley BART station one block west of campus. </p>
<p>I dont think Directors Cup standing includes spring sports yet. Berkeley won national championships in mens and womens swimming and diving.</p>
<p>UCB, Cal and Michigan are peers at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. I definitely agree that there is no gap at the undergraduate level while there is a gap in favor of Cal at the graduate level, but that gap is negligible with the exception of the Sciences, where Cal has a significant edge, particularly in Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science and Physics. In the professional fields, Social Sciences and Humanities, the gap is negligible to non-existant.</p>
<p>Where we disagree is in your evaluation of Ann Arbor vs Berkeley. As far as I am concerned, Ann Arbor is a much nicer place for students. </p>
<p>At any rate, the only way one should choose the significantly more expensive option between those two schools is if they come from a wealthy family.</p>
<p>Cal has the edge in most academic fields. Faculty achievement at Cal greatly exceeds Michigan faculty achievement.</p>
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USNWR disagrees a bit… Berkeley is on the best undergrad teaching list, ranked higher overall and in the undergrad disciplines USNWR ranks, and has higher peer assessment score (Berkeley’s academic programs are near “distinguished”, Michigan’s are closer to “strong”).</p>
<p>But IMO, they’re peers as top public research universities.</p>
<p>I have a theory that Ann Arbor benefits from the problems in Detroit because it attracts most of the artists, intellectuals, and all sorts of interesting people within a thousand square miles whereas San Fran takes away from Berkeley.</p>