<p>Regarding Berkeley vs. USC, Berkeley has a better academic reputation in most subjects and may be a better social fit, although you will find partiers and very pre-professional students at both schools. Berkeley has an active and obvious Greek system, but only about 11% of undergraduates are in it (versus 17% for USC).</p>
<p>However, Berkeley does not give a lot of financial aid to out of state students. Run the net price calculators at each school if that is a concern. There are merit scholarships, but getting big ones is pretty hard (e.g. Drake for mechanical engineering majors). USC has a reputation of having more large merit scholarship opportunities, including National Merit ones.</p>
<p>You will be applying to UT Austin and perhaps other Texas public universities as safeties (your class rank of 1/517 means automatic admit to all of them, although the caution is that automatic admission to a campus does not necessarily mean automatic admission to a desired major or division, such as engineering at UT Austin)?</p>