<p>hey, i'm an engineering freshman, currently at berkeley - i applied and was accepted to transfer to columbia. should i?</p>
<p>(i know that berkeley ranks higher for engineering... but other factors...?)</p>
<p>curious. what was ur gpa? and what kind of engineering?</p>
<p>well i mean, you applied for transfer because you wanted to transfer, right? so..</p>
<p>i'm "engineering math" (applied math) but also interested in c.s.
my gpa was 3.9 when i applied - though i think i got in mostly coz of high school stuff.</p>
<p>How's the fin. aid situation at Columbia for you compared to Cal?</p>
<p>woah 3.9 what made your hs stuff special?</p>
<p>i haven't found out about financial aid yet.. the thing is, at berkeley i'm out-of-state, but if i get in-state (big if), it becomes very cheap... if i don't, it'll basically be full ($25,000+ out-of-state)... whatever columbia offers should be consistent over the 4 years.</p>
<p>my hs stuff included many 800s, salutatorian, many 5s, a national competition, president of a bunch of clubs</p>
<p>It seems like if you already decided to apply for transfer, and they decided that you had a good enough reason...then you probably want to transfer. Why did you want to transfer in the first place?</p>
<p>The environments are quite different. Do you like having a medium sized campus? Do you want to be near the heart of New York City for three or so years? Where would you rather be for three or so years? Is what you have here worth giving up for a potentially better, but possibly worse situation? Go visit if you can.</p>
<p>david: Are you mad ? Berkeley Eng. is far better than Foo :p.
Berkeley is the "Big Three" in engineering, along with MIT and Stanford.</p>
<p>But of course if you want to experience the NYC night life and all the agonies/sufferings that comes with it, by all means go for it ;)</p>
<p>i applied to transfer to stanford (haven't heard - will go if accepted), and thought i'd try columbia while i was at it.</p>
<p>columbia has better/more rounded students and supposedly has a more intimate environment etc...</p>
<ul>
<li>my family is in nyc.</li>
</ul>
<p>
[quote]
+ my family is in nyc.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Oh, I didn't know that. In that case, the dynamic equation is no more linear, so I don't know what to tell you~~~ sorry. But, one thing is certain: MIT & Berkeley are known as the best engineering schools in the world :)</p>
<p>yeah, but in berkeley's case, its reputation comes from its research/phd - i don't think there's any doubt, for example, that columbia's undergraduate students are better.</p>
<p>berkeley has to choose most of its undergraduates from california, and it has to take many, especially compared to columbia. plus, any1 that's thinking of berkeley but is good enough for stanford goes to stanford - filtering out the best students.</p>
<p>also, if i want to go in to business after college (business school eventually..?) then nyc and columbia are the place to be, no?</p>
<p>
[quote]
also, if i want to go in to business after college (business school eventually..?) then nyc and columbia are the place to be, no?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Combining Eng and Business is a very good idea- hot market with great pay potential. I think Stanford GSB and berkely Haas are also comparable to NYU Stern & Columbia.</p>
<p>david, I strongly disagree about: "any1 that's thinking of berkeley but is good enough for stanford goes to stanford - filtering out the best students". A lot of applicants prefer Berkeley's envirnoment to Stanford's silicon valley/suburbia campus bubble. Perhaps more do go the other way, but usually people who go to Stanford over Berkeley are more swayed by its social cachet and better placement, if they can afford the price difference. Stanford's environment and campus experience is less interesting than Cal's. Most of the people who've experienced both campuses as students would agree (though there is some personal variance due to fit.)</p>
<p>The best 7,000-8,000 students at Berkeley are as bright as the student body at Stanford, and perhaps also more interesting people. Likewise between Cal and Columbia.</p>
<p>My best friend at Cal went to Columbia for grad school (architecture), and another very close Cal friend transferred from Cal into Columbia to follow her BF who graduated from Cal and got a job there. We still hang out a lot together (they both live in Manhattan, near Columbia) and there is no question among us that the Cal years were more stimulating.</p>
<p>It's easy to start slow at Cal because it's a bigger place and it takes a longer time to meet people and make close friends, particularly in the engineering dept (I was a Cal engineer too.) I'll admit that all my closest friends were outside of the engineering dept. But I had the time of my life in my last three years at Cal. I think a lot of your mindset is the greener grass syndrome.</p>
<p>BTW Columbia's environment is not more intimate than Cal, it is less intimate, the campus being a small enclave in the Upper West Side and is much more urban than Cal's.</p>
<p>david, you should do the ORMS major at Cal, it's better than Haas undergrad. More social students and better atmosphere too. A lot of Cal IEOR/ORMS grads go on to business careers and top MBAs.</p>
<p>I hate when people pull the "the reputation is from grad school" card. All research Universities gain respect from grad school, not just Cal. MIT would be about as respected as Harvey Mudd if it didn't have grad school. Harvard would be Amherst.</p>
<p>As well, your research has shown that the top knock on "big bad impersonal Cal undergrad experience", class size, is largely BS:</p>
<p>I think we really need to drive that point here, the BS and USNWR crap is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy...</p>
<p>CalX, I put those numbers together and I'm not sure they're right. Cal's common data set doesn't show numbers in their subsections (Labs, sections etc.) and stanford does. I'm not sure if Cal just didn't put those numbers in, or if they counted them in the regular section A classes. The numbers that make up Stanfords percentages are based soley on regular section A classes, without adding in subsections. If you add in Stanford's subsections the numbers come out like this:</p>
<p>Percent of classes 30 and under is 84
Percent of classes 100 and over is 3</p>
<p>Again, its unclear how Cal calculated thier numbers and whether or not we should count Stanfords subsection classes when comparing the two.</p>
<p>I don't think the best 6000 students at Cal are like Stanford students - I did think so before I got here, but I've been here for a year now, and I don't see it. Stanford offers a lot of financial aid - I don't think many people choose Berkeley over Stanford because of money.</p>
<p>Like you, I make friends mostly with non-engineering students, and at Berkeley, the standard is very low for non-engineering students (not that SAT is everything, but some indicator, and the average is maybe ~150pts less than Stanford?).</p>
<p>And come on, Berkeley grad is truly up there with MIT - but undergrad, there is no comparison. Someone accepted to MIT grad and Berkeley grad wouldn't have an easy decision - someone accepted to MIT undergrad and Berkeley undergrad would have a very easy decision (even more so for non-engineering)</p>