Hello! This is my first post here, and I was hoping someone would be able to help me out:
I was lucky to have been admitted to Northwestern and Berkeley and some other colleges, but those are the two that I am torn between. I live in Japan, and haven’t been able to visit Northwestern, and only went to see Berkeley once or twice. My family is pushing for me to attend Northwestern, but there are some questions that I have:
What is the student atmosphere like at both of these schools? My brother (who graduated from Berkeley) said that Berkeley is very liberal, but other than that, I don't know much about what the student environment is like. Are the students very competitive?
How easy is it to change or declare majors?
I applied for both schools as a psychology major, but that was more of a spur-of-the-moment thing and I really don't know if I'm going to stick with it when I get to college. I know that in Northwestern it is relatively easy to double major, but do they have a set date when you have to declare your major by? And is it the same for Berkeley? If you do decide to take on a different major, is it difficult to get caught up again?
How are the research opportunities?
My brother mentioned how Berkeley is very cut-throat in terms of student competition, but would you say this is true? I would really like to do some research at college, but is it easier to get research positions at Northwestern?
Grade deflation or inflation and Class difficulty?
I heard lots of rumours that Berkeley and Northwestern has grade deflation, and I was wondering how much of this is true? Also, are the average classes extremely difficult?
Money isn’t an issue for me, but what are your opinions about them? Are there any features that make one stand out over the other?
I am in a very similar position! These are two of the three final schools I’m deciding between, the third being a financial safety school. I intend to follow a pre-med track, but am not yet 100% invested in it.
Comment if you’d like to talk out pros and cons of each… So very torn and they are so different from one another!
Hi! Before I start, I just want to let you know that my post is mostly pro-Northwestern, not necessarily because I like it more, but because of valid reasons (in my opinion, at least, lol).
A little background: I’ve never visited Berkeley, but my family have lived there when I was really young, so I heard a little about it. On the other hand, I’ve lived a couple blocks from NU (also when I was young) so the campus is very familiar to me. Also, I am going to NU.
Student atmosphere: Berkeley is a large public school, compared to NU, a smaller private school. From that alone, I'd infer that there is more competition purely on numbers (also my mom says its quite competitive). In addition, I'd think NU would have better individual care for students. On CC I hear that professors are quite willing to help students out. Professors at Berkeley probably (hopefully) are very helpful too, but again, the sheer number of students probably make it more difficult for them to get to all the students.
Very easy, for NU. In fact, I did it already, and school hasn't started yet, haha. I went from Weinberg to McCormick with one email. You declare majors at the end of sophomore year, but I hear people can still change afterwards (but probably a bad idea if you want to graduate on time). However, at NU, because it is a quarter system, it should be relatively easier (than a semester based system school) to catch up. Sorry, I don't know anything about Berkeley on this. I searched up their academic calender though, and it seems that they have switched to the quarter system recently. One thing though: if you happen to become interested in business, I hear it's quite hard to get into Haas (Berkeley). Northwestern does not have an undergrad business program, but it does offer Kellogg certificates that you can do junior/senior year, and they're quite prestigious, I hear.
Sorry, don't know for sure, but NU has a lot of resources and opportunities in general. I'd guess its the same for Berkeley. You might want to consider location.
From another thread I heard that Northwestern's average GPA is about 3.4? Not sure how true this is. Not sure about Berkeley.
Sorry for writing such a biased post, I hope someone will come along and tell you more about Berkeley. In general, I’d say berkeley is particularly strong in engineering/computer science whereas NU is well rounded (with a good material science program). I think you should scour through each university’s websites and hunt around CC more to get a general feel for both. Whichever way you go, I’m sure you’ll do fine–it’s how you make out of it, after all. If you end up choosing NU though, I’ll be seeing you around
