<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>I had a couple of questions regarding Berkley. First things first, I am thinking of applying to Berkley for Computer Engineering. I've heard it's harder to get into Berkley for that specific major than others. Is that true and if so how much harder is it?</p>
<p>More importantly, I have a college counseler and whenever I bring up Berkley he belittles the college. He says that they won't accept OOS Asains (I'm Indian and live in Wisconsin), the school has no money, because of the lack of money all of the school's good professors are being poached away, and the school is full of ridiculously liberal people who are flat-out weird. I don't buy his arguments at all and I don't understand how he can discount such a top-tier school in computer engineering despite me telling him that's what I want to do. Could you all please give me evidence to show him that he is wrong about Berkley?</p>
<p>The rankings. I Believe berkely is #3 overall in engineering and in the top5 for most engineering majors and top 10 for nearly every one. Of course the lack of funding might come to be a more serious and as OOS you won’t get any aid. I
Don’t think being Asian affects, UC’s are legally barred from considering race.</p>
<p>Seems like your counselor is repeating overexaggerated school-partisan claims that seem to be floating around.</p>
<p>However, if you live in Wisconsin, the flagship there is a much better deal for the money.</p>
<p>The EECS major at Berkeley is one of the most selective majors. However, if admitted, you are in the major. For the L&S CS major, you apply just to L&S for frosh admission; declaring the L&S CS major later requires a 3.0 GPA in the prerequisite courses.</p>
<p>The reason EECS is competitive is because it’s an amazing program. Thousands of students apply, but they can only accept a certain number. Any good program is going to be hard to get into. The good news is that for CoE, if you get into Berkeley you know you’re in your major.</p>
<p>For budget… some departments really struggle and it shows, but I haven’t seen any signs of it in EECS. They renovated the CS labs a year ago, they just finished some remodeling in the EE building. [EECS</a> faculty](<a href=“http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Faculty/Lists/list.shtml"]EECS”>http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Faculty/Lists/list.shtml) is huge, and I’d say they’re all pretty amazing people. There’s also tons of research going on, with lots of opportunities to get involved. Classes themselves keep growing in size, but they always seem to find enough GSIs for the semester.</p>
<p>Anyways, rankings don’t lie, most put EECS in the top 5. And here’s where some students have ended up after graduating, if you’re curious: <a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/EECS.stm”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/EECS.stm</a></p>
<p>But I’m not sure why you need to convince your counselor that it’s a good school… if you want to come here, apply. I can’t imagine they’d consider race in admissions, pretty sure it’s illegal, and I’d guess ~70% of students in CS classes here are asian. 
But you should make sure you’ll be able to afford it before you apply… OOS tuition here is expensive ($20,000+ more per year than in-state tuition).</p>
<p>You’re actually at an advantage for being out of state. Less Californians were accepted than out of state of state students. It doesn’t matter if you’re asian, indian, white, black. The California budget allocations for education is so bad to the point where UCs now have to rely on the out of state tuition.</p>
<p>He should not belittle any school you are looking at…perhaps he was rejected at some point. Can you ask him to stop?
Oh, and please spell Berkeley correctly, especially if you have any direct contact with the school…</p>
<p>You don’t have to prove anything. If you think a school is good for you, it’s good for you. You asked for the counselor’s opinion, and you’ve had it. You don’t need his approval, nor do you need to show him that he’s wrong.</p>
<p>I’m not so sure about “at an advantage for being out of state.” UCB, or UC system, still admits more CA students than OOS students. See <a href=“Student Profile - Office of Undergraduate Admissions”>http://admissions.berkeley.edu/studentprofile</a></p>