<p>given you got into both schools and onto both programs and the cost difference for attending Caltech EECS (or its equivalent there) is 50k more than Berkeley for the whole program?</p>
<p>I would take Caltech.</p>
<p>there is already a thread like this:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-berkeley/683354-berkeley-eecs-vs-caltech-cs.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-berkeley/683354-berkeley-eecs-vs-caltech-cs.html</a></p>
<p>plus it can’t be 50k more, Caltech has good financial aid, they give the best financial aid: </p>
<p>[Welcome</a> to Financial Aid - Caltech Caltech Financial Aid Office](<a href=“http://www.finaid.caltech.edu/]Welcome”>http://www.finaid.caltech.edu/)</p>
<p>^^^look at the bottom of the page to see a list of rankings for their financial aid</p>
<p>Caltech, but I’m not an engineer so my opinion doesn’t hold much weight.</p>
<p>Berkeley for the full college experience…plus the Bay Area. Though Pasadena is nice.</p>
<p>No. Getting into Caltech would make me feel good, but I do not fancy having to take hard classes in all the sciences as their core does. I would like to do so if college were, say, six years long, or if I were a genius and could absorb all that material with minimal study. For now I am content reading about chem, QM, etc on Wikipedia.</p>
<p>Plus Berkeley has an isanely vibrant EECS dept.</p>
<p>I’m in Berkeley EECS atm, and no, I would stick with Cal. Cal’s got the Bay Area, and I’m not too fond of too many hardcore sciences at the same time. Wrecks havoc on one’s GPA, unless you’re one of those geniuses (and there are several in EECS) who can handle it. I for one cannot, haha.</p>
<p>I’m a freshman in CS and not EECS, but I basically have the EECS experience as I’m taking mostly EECS courses and most of my friends are in EECS. We study together, cry together, blah blah blah.</p>
<p>I love Berkeley and what it has to offer me and I enjoy college very much. The only one problem I have w/ the EECS department is that classes are so big. And no, it won’t only be like this until upper divs. I checked the class sizes of upper division classes and they’re all still very large. None of them are even close to 15 people or so. Most of the class interaction is still student-student or student-graduate student, not student-professor. I know research is probably the best way to get to know a professor, but it seems a bit sad that most EECS kids won’t have a single EECS professor know their name.</p>
<p>I would probably choose Caltech mostly because it’s such a small school and because (im guessing here) nearly all of its students are geniuses. Only a fraction of Berkeley EECS are geniuses imo.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Depends what one means by geniuses. I think most of Caltech’s students are in the range of “quite smart, top of very strong high schools” to “extremely hardcore” … and then there are the geniuses, but this category is quite the exception whether at MIT or Caltech, from what I hear from people who actually go there. I realize I invented a whole bunch of vague terminology here… </p>
<p>Definitely you’re right that a lot of EECS probably didn’t go through as rigorous an admissions process, but it has its share of people who are way out there. I think geniuses are hard to come by, but certainly exist. </p>
<p>The point about class size is well taken. If it weren’t for Caltech’s brutal core requirements, I might enjoy its atmosphere a lot.</p>
<p>
i wonder where did you base this claim on…</p>
<p>if you’ll take the top quartile of Berkeley students, their stats would rival Caltech’s – both on SATs and HS GPAs. So, to have 1 genius for every 4 smart students (1/4) isn’t bad at all. if you’d take the top half of Berkeley students, they’re still as competitive as Caltech’s general student body. So, 2 super smart students for even 4 smart students, or 1/2, isn’t really bad at all.</p>
<p>It depends. But I would choose Caltech if I want to have an easier life that professors and other faculties will essentially spoon-feed me every semester to get a research position and internships over summer. I’m certain Berkeley EECS has a bigger program in a wider range of topics (assuming that more professors leads to more intellectual pool), but Caltech is (just slightly) easier place to be when it comes to college experience.</p>
<p>Then again, why would you go to a school that disbanded their own football team when it’s right next to the Rose Bowl Stadium…</p>
<p>Have you guys actually met any Caltech undergraduates? Yes, RML, I would bet a large chunk of Berkeley students have comparable GPA and SAT numbers. However, what makes the Caltech students stand out is the extracurriculars they did in high school–you almost HAVE to do well in academic competitions to stand a chance at getting accepted. A lot of Caltech undergrads are USAMO qualifiers, for example. This isn’t true for Berkeley students.</p>
<p>(to answer the original question: Caltech if I were an incoming undergrad; Berkeley if I were an incoming grad, if only because Berkeley grad classes are less time-consuming, thus allowing you to spend more time on your dissertation)</p>
<p>If you want to have the traditional college experience, not quite sure about your major, want to meet lots of different people and take interesting classes outside of science, Berkeley.</p>
<p>If you are completely focused on science & research and you are sure that’s what you want to do in the future, Caltech.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>People who do academic competitions often feed into Harvard, MIT, etc too. Maybe some to Princeton, UChicago, and even other Ivies. What you’re saying might be exaggerating quite a bit, in my experience with actual Caltech students, depending on your definitions. Doing “well” in academic competitions isn’t the same as doing beastly well, and at a certain point a motivated, strong student with commitment to his/her major can be just as or more effective than someone who did “well”. </p>
<p>Remember, Caltech is a very different kind of college experience, and lots of ultra-talented people simply choose to go elsewhere. There are plenty of people who seem to get in with “just” extremely good test scores, GPA, good recommendations, very strong high school backgrounds, and perhaps a little partaking in competitions and some reasonably significant science extracurriculars.</p>
<p>Yes, many have very significant science/engineering extracurriculars </p>
<p>Sometimes that just points to their having gotten a good idea what they want to do earlier, and made that extra effort to pad their resumes. Now I agree padding the resume with hard and fast evidence of scientific inclination can be a good predictor of making it through and enjoying the Caltech experience. But it doesn’t indicate any kind of magic talent or passion making for a strong undergraduate. </p>
<p>In fact, the atmosphere of Caltech seems to weigh down on the average, non-genius student quite noticeably, as the tendency to complain the school is depressingly hard is easily observable, when sometimes…it may be hard but not that bad. And sometimes the overload of work can kill one’s actual love for the subject, and have one resign (again, if not a genius) to the brutality that is the Caltech experience, and focus on surviving rather than on opportunities for enrichment.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, it’s a killer school with a very nice philosophy, and I like how it does admissions better than practically any top school. However, worshipping the undergraduates as kings/queens of science, mathematics and engineering based on high school accomplishments is not worth it. </p>
<p>I wanted to make this post because yes, I am probably quite acutely aware of the range of talents that are present at Caltech. There are some people who are unstoppable out there, but that simply isn’t the image I think accurately defines the average Caltech student.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well a general “you” might not be applicable, simply because it’s very conceivable to want to do science and research forever, but find the specific (and rather different) experience of Caltech not ideal for one’s tastes.</p>
<p>you almost HAVE to do well in academic competitions to stand a chance at getting accepted</p>
<p>Cupola, I understand Caltech is hard to get into, but I am sure many Berkeley kids would have gotten in there if THEY APPLIED THERE.</p>
<p>Many of the people I know got into Caltech without listing at academic competitions. One person I know is attending Berkeley currently over Caltech. I am sure that the students at Caltech are likely to have more academic competition awards of some sort but Berkeley students are not so behind… A lot of kids just apply to UC schools without even bother applying to private schools. If they do apply to private schools, it will be havard or stanford…usually not caltech.</p>
<p>Do you want a normal college experience? Or would you rather be solving PDE’s and reading QM on Friday and Saturday nights? The biggest difference between the two schools is that Caltech has a more “hardcore” vibe of doing math and science 24/7.</p>
<p>BTW, this is an interesting hypothetical for another reason: EECS is (IMO) Caltech’s relatively weakest field and Cal’s strongest.</p>
<p>In case some of you did not understand it, my question was: </p>
<p>Is Caltech’s EECS worth 50k more (for the whole program) than Berkeley’s EECS?</p>
<p>@RML, yes for the right kind of student…if coming from a family who is not severely unable to pay. Caltech is no ‘normal’ school to be replaced by Berkeley just because Berkeley has academics of excellent caliber. It is unique.</p>
<p>^ Kindly explain what made it worth 50k more than Berkeley’s EECS?</p>
<p>Is Berkeley’s EECS that bad, or is Caltech’s EECS that extremely good that the 50k more difference is justified?</p>