<p>If you’re planning on going to med school, I would seriously consider going to Berkeley just because of the money difference. 120k debt and that’s not even counting costs of med school. IMO, the difference between the engineering departments is not worth 120k in debt.</p>
<p>Considering you’re doing BioE, I’d say Berkeley.</p>
<p>Our BioE/Chem/Other engineering program is top-notch, and everyone I know in it has gotten good research positions & 1 on 1 professorial attention. Especially if there’s a 100k price difference, there’s no real contest between the two.</p>
<p>Overall, med school will probably be another 300-500k (depending on your specialty). </p>
<p>And if you don’t get into Med School, you’ll have to start paying your loans right out of college. No matter what job you get, the difference in salary between a Berkeley degree and a Stanford degree won’t be worth 120k…</p>
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<p>Frankly, I am not so sure that’s a selling point :)</p>
<p>Like people said before, Stanford is freaking Stanford but in all honesty and no bias, you seriously shouldn’t be over 120k in debt going into graduate/med school just because Stanford’s ranked a bit higher than Berkeley. Think about it like this, when you’re a successful doctor and say you went to Harvard Medical School for your MD, will a single soul in the world really care to even ask where you got your undergraduate degree? They just will look up at the H diploma above your desk in your office and awe with respect. Then you’ll probably be wishing you kept that 120k in your bank account or just used it to drive home in a lamborghini.</p>
<p>^^ on the other hand, Stanford pre-med MAY be more helpful in getting into that pesky Harvard Med.</p>
<p>It’s a legit dilemma to my mind. One thing that couldn’t hurt, is giving Stanford’s Fin Aid a ring and see if they got it right. They do claim meeting 100% need. I hear at times people manage to negotiate better deals.</p>
<p>@ConcernedDad, it is a selling point because it means a good student who is no genius need not be scared of being thrashed by the school. A genius will never run out of stuff to do either.</p>
<p>To be clear, a vast majority of Stanford and Berkeley is non geniuses. The point of my post was in assurance that, although Berkeley engineering is considered grade deflating, it is not impossible or anythhing for a normal but diligent student. But you can’t expect your high school work to be enough and just cruise.</p>
<p>Mathboy, you’re right. I was just trying to joke a little. It doesn’t sound like the original poster is worried about competition though. I am sure he’ll do very well at either school and beyond.</p>
<p>Doubtful that you will truly get a leg up in getting a job straight out of College by going to Stanford compared to Berkeley. A recently retired vp from Hewlett-Packard who did alot of the engineering hires said they didn’t care if the graduate came from UCB, Stanford, MIT, UCLA etc–all good schools and at high levels of performance what mattered was the course work, gpa, and how much they liked the person in the interview. Hiring degrees were more critical from post grad institutions-and again at that level they were more interested in who was your head researcher and what area you worked under. The $120K difference in the “quality” of Stanford education will not recouped during the course of your career.
As far as medicine goes, what groups/doctors/hiring organizations care about is where you did your medical school, and actually, even more important, where you did your Residency/Fellowship (yes, for many areas Fellowship year or two is required, and at that point when you finish no one cares where you did your residency, let alone medical school, let alone undergrad!). Patient’s may care that you went to UCSF, Stanford, or Harvard, but most do not know, and will not pay you more attention, nor more money because you went to these institutions (in fact most have probably never heard of UCSF, and it is higher rated than most med schools, and it’s residency programs are higher rated than most other residency programs…)
So, if money is no object because you either come from a very low income family, or a very rich one, then who cares? If you are in the vast middle class and money is a consideration, think twice when taking out loans for bragging rights and perhaps smaller classes, and a prettier dorm room.</p>
<p>@concernedDad, sure, I was just clarifying for good measure. I think a good student not worried about competition should not be scared of Berkeley and this whole image of it painted that there are no cushions. You have to be willing to work hard if you have a hard class. </p>
<p>Honestly I don’t get what is so nice about a private school, unless one has very specific desires to meet that are met there. General statistics about percentage of students from a school doing so and so are only helpful to an extent, as in the end it is the individual’s decision what to do in college. I think concrete differences in opportunity are worth discussing.</p>
<p>There are plenty of small classes at Berkeley, but intro general purpose ones are huge. Big surprise.</p>
<p>ConcernedDad raises a good point. Advising at Cal stinks, and is essentially worthless for premed. OTOH, premed advising on The Farm is not one of its strengths.</p>
<p>Engineering is not a recommended major for a premed. Just too hard to earn As.</p>
<p>To the poster who is considering Brown…think hard if grad/professional school is in your long-term thinking. Brown has the highest mean gpa – even better than Harvard and Stanford. Even many science courses are curved to an A-. In contrast, you could fight the gunners at Cal for a C+.</p>
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<p>[National</a> Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com%5DNational”>http://www.gradeinflation.com) says (generally, not a specific school) that different majors’ GPA goes like this (according to [this</a> paper](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/tcr2010grading.pdf]this”>http://www.gradeinflation.com/tcr2010grading.pdf)):</p>
<p>humanities > social studies and engineering > science</p>
<p>Yet most pre-meds major in science, specifically biology. Which is odd if it has the least grade inflation as well as poor job and career prospects if one does not get into medical school.</p>
<p>not so odd for two reasons. </p>
<p>First, the list of pre-req classes needed to apply to medical school is long enough to complicate class scheduling unless the classes are also satisfying the undergrad degree requirements. Sciences degrees are likely to have most/all of the chem, bio, physics and math coursework in common with the pre-med list. </p>
<p>Second, many who are attracted to medicine are also good at sciences, enjoy them, and are attuned to the black or white definition of success in those subject areas. Solve a calculus problem and then compare it to the ‘official’ answer, the result is either equivalent and the method employed is just as sound, or the student went wrong. Any reasonable and educated person can reach the same conclusion about correctness.</p>
<p>Correspondingly, they may feel less of an affinity with humanities work where, for example, the interpretation of a literary work is a matter of personal judgement, commonly held positions inside that academic community, and is not patently verifiable; A single official answer may not exist, from which the student submission could deemed patently correct or false by any reasonable, educated person. </p>
<p>Thus, both personal fit and overlap with pre-med leads to the trend to major in sciences. Certainly some may not realize that medical schools do not require a sciences degree from applicants nor do they seem to weigh them strongly in decisions. I think most either know those facts, or learn them almost immediately once in college, yet they overwhelmingly declare two years later in sciences. More ironic, they do this AFTER having personally experienced most of the weeder courses and curves.</p>
<p>thanks much for all your feedbacks & info sharing. much appreciated, and im seriously weighing everyone’s opinion. we tried appealing to stanford FA, but the most they gave us is add’l $1300. i still dont understand the FA computation, but reality is closing in. much as i would like to go to stanford (my dream & i worked hard to get in!), we just cant afford it. i guess i have to make the most of my cal regents opportunities, esp the 1 on 1 pairing with professor advisor and research opportunity. cal is not stanford, but it’s a wonderful institution as well. (one last time ~ i still wish i can go to stanford. oh, so close!) anyway, thanks again!</p>
<p>if there are any more take on this, or any related info sharing, keep it coming. and at this point, words of encouragement are welcome as well. lol.</p>
<p>I guarantee you will not regret your time at Cal once you come here. In my honest opinion you did the right thing and that’s coming from someone who can afford Stanford if I was in your situation.</p>
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my word of advice: don’t look down on us like that. you’ll be surprised at what “second rate” people who work hard can accomplish</p>
<p>@eminemgotrobbed ~ i never looked down on cal and never considered its students as second rate. those words came fr you, not fr me. i would never even think like that. please do not read more into it than what i actually meant. cal & stanford are my top 2 choices.</p>
<p>interesting article ucb, thanks for posting. But unless I’m reading incorrectly (which is usually the case), the Engineering line is a strange beast: half (grade-inflated?) private colleges, and half publics. Thus, in general, the Eng gpa gonna be a little higher than the average Eng school (I think). In contrast, over half of the natural science grades were from public colleges, which have a lower gpa than their private brethren.</p>
<p>ok, i believe you. i apologize and wish you the best</p>
<p>Someone at a recent cultural gathering in a park with a friend of mine was also torn between Berkeley and Stanford. I kinda thought that the answer was an easy Stanford, but when I really think about it, they are different but at the same time very much the same. I too am torn between a couple “high-class” privates and Berkeley/LA. I found that getting a killer GPA at Berkeley will make you as qualified as the same at a higher known private.</p>
<p>got2havK, I’ve been reading your posts here and I feel your pain here. I had the same decision years ago, was torn too (did not want to burden my parents much - and Stanford was really very stingy, while Berkeley was generous), and went to Berkeley over Stanford.</p>
<p>There are times I have regretted it, that’s for sure. I did super well at Berkeley, think it is a much more interesting college town than Palo Alto, got into all the grad schools I applied to, etc - but nothing can bring your college years back. You can always take loans and pay them off later.</p>
<p>If your mind and heart are truly set on Stanford, you can figure out ways to pay for it somehow - trust me. Nothing is worse than looking back at the best years of your life with regrets.</p>