<p>Aside from academics, housing, and weather, here are some other pros and cons that I thought of:
Surrounding community - Cambridge is the Berkeley of the East, you'll feel right at home. Just like Berkeley, the big city is easily accessible by subway (unlike SF, Boston has a very functional public transportation system).
Campus appearance - prepare for it, Cal is much prettier, at least to a Californian's eyes.
Big-time college sports - none of that at MIT, which is DivIII. Forget about going to the Big Game in a stadium with 50,000 other people and screaming your brains out. However, if you want to continue with a sport in college and aren't DivI caliber, that might be a plus (it was for my D). MIT is outstanding in the pirate sports - anything that involves a gun, sword, or boat.</p>
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Hmmmm...maybe because 80% of the positions are paid this creates incentive for participation and skews the numbers, don't you think?</p>
<p><a href="unlike%20SF,%20Boston%20has%20a%20very%20functional%20public%20transportation%20system">quote=MarinMom</a>
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All things are relative. Living in Marin county this may be true, but going from Berkeley into San Francisco and the airport I found BART to be very efficient.</p>
<p>MIT. Done. Simple.</p>
<p>alansda, I was wondering when someone was going to challenge the "equal cost" premis the OP mentioned.</p>
<p>I would bet that MIT (and also HYP + Williams/Amherst/Swarthmore) will be less expensive for a below $80,000 a year earning family than any UC . And as the OP said "very low income" I am guessing under $50,000 family income. At Cal, you've still got to come up with most of the $22,000 cost (or take out loans, not grants) -- let's call it $18,000 - loans. At MIT, I'll bet 80-90% of the $45,000 cost will be covered by their financial aid office. Let's call that $8,000 + $2,000 anuual airfare = $10,000</p>
<p>MIT all the way=Stronger Program and Better Job Placement I think.</p>
<p>I would pick MIT if money is not a problem. UCB has nicer weather. However, I almost felt out of my chair when somebody from one of the UC campuses mentioned the biggest class size at UCSB is 500 and similarly 700 at UCB. A class is as big as a small college(Harvey Mudd has 750). In addition, this year and the next few years, all the UCs have budget cut so it's even more severely affect your college experience.</p>
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I almost felt out of my chair when somebody from one of the UC campuses mentioned the biggest class size at UCSB is 500 and similarly 700 at UCB.
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</p>
<p>Not true, and such huge classes are few and far in between. (Not to mention that you're not going to care about a difference between 500 and 700 students.)</p>
<p>On top of that, such large lectures are usually ones that don't need to be small. Consequently, many students don't go. Heck, many of those courses are online, so you can just watch the podcast.</p>
<p>Another important point, I'll add in favor of both Berkeley and MIT, is that such lectures aren't about discussion. The professor demonstrates the material. You don't ask questions; you don't discuss the material. That happens in the discussion sections. If you must ask a question, you can sit in the front; or you can just do so in your discussions section. A grad student can explain basic intro material, sometimes better than the professor. So it isn't so bad that the two have large courses where they see it necessary. And this is clearly what MIT sees: the student body is much smaller than Berkeley, and has a $10 billion endowment. Why wouldn't they make classes smaller? Because intro chemistry or calculus doesn't need a bunch of small lectures; you can use a large lecture, and then have lots of small discussions.</p>
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all the UCs have budget cut so it's even more severely affect your college experience.
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</p>
<p>And Berkeley is more vigorously seeking private funding (see the myriad articles on the Hewlett Foundation donation).</p>
<p>kyledavid, that was the answer of he Dean gave but I'm not sure anybody bought into his answer. I certainly don't want to pay for tuition fee when I can do online. Why bother goes to college for?</p>
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On top of that, such large lectures are usually ones that don't need to be small. Consequently, many students don't go. Heck, many of those courses are online, so you can just watch the podcast.
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</p>
<p>I'm not fond of colleges/schools that are there for for testing students and not teaching them.</p>
<p>The largest class size that I had to attend was Intro to Chem and Intro to Physics that were 100-130 max.</p>
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The largest class size that I had to attend was Intro to Chem and Intro to Physics that were 100-130 max.
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</p>
<p>Does it really matter if there are another 200 students? 300? Really, beyond a certain point, it doesn't matter a whole lot.</p>
<p>Same 3-4 UCB students post at every thread mentioning Berkeley obsessively defending their school to death.</p>
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Most of the facts in that article are very different today.
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That is true. unfortunately things are getter WORSE not better.</p>
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state per-student funding for educating UC students has fallen from $15,830 in 1990-91 to $10,370 today, in current dollars
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</p>
<p>This compares to an investment of around $75,000 per undergrad per year at MIT. </p>
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The result, as noted, is a state-funded budget $417 million below the level the regents have identified as necessary.</p>
<p>No decisions have been made about how to fill that gap, but a variety of impacts are possible, including larger class sizes, reductions in campus services, reductions in instructional support and research programs, student- fee increases, and employee-workforce reductions and pay freezes.
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</p>
<p>Fair or unfair, the financial divide between well endowed private universities and larger public universities affected by budget cuts is only getting larger. To claim that this has no impact on the student learning experience is naive at best.</p>
<p>It may not matter to you but it mattered to me. How about the curves that are set by each class? The more students the more likely there are better students.</p>
<p>I went to a large school like Berkeley and got lost and then I transfered to a smaller school around ~15,000 students and that is just the right size. And yes, I thrived there.</p>
<p>Besides, if you go to MIT you can take classes at Harvard or Wellesley. How cool is that? In addition, Boston is a great town for one's college experience.</p>
<p>Yes, and the poor economy affects public universities in isolation...:rolleyes:</p>
<p>The economic downturn affects private university fundraising and endowment returns as well.</p>
<p>Those data are for UC as a whole...not Berkeley in particular.</p>
<p>^Less so than public schools because private colleges can raise tuition. Also, this year my guess is that full paying applicants will fare better than students that need financial aid.</p>
<p>I think people have been dancing about the major issue here, but I'll come out and say it...prestige.</p>
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Same 3-4 UCB students post at every thread mentioning Berkeley obsessively defending their school to death.
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Defending it from attacks from people that don't even go to the school...all they hear are some anecdotal data and make assumptions. Engineering at Cal rocks...in-state tuition is $8,000/year. If the OP gets grants he/she can save more money. Also, the OP can live at home and save tons more money. You're in dream land if you think you're going to get a higher paying job because you have an MIT engineering degree versus a Berkeley engineering degree. There is absolutely no difference.</p>
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I went to a large school like Berkeley and got lost and then I transfered to a smaller school around ~15,000 students and that is just the right size. And yes, I thrived there.
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Good for you! However, if everyone were like you, the world would be a very boring place.</p>
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Besides, if you go to MIT you can take classes at Harvard or Wellesley. How cool is that?
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I can take classes from top notch faculty in top departments right on the same campus at Berkeley...and I don't have to trudge through the snow to get there...how cool is that?</p>
<p>Berkeley and San Francisco are just as exciting as Boston.</p>
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I think people have been dancing about the major issue here, but I'll come out and say it...prestige.
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Berkeley engineering = MIT engineering in terms of prestige. Pull up the salary figures to see if the difference in pay translates into "prestige". Prestige in engineering circles is over rated.</p>
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Less so than public schools because private colleges can raise tuition.
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And public schools can't raise tuition?
UCs</a> and Cal States raise tuition for 5th straight year - News</p>
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Same 3-4 UCB students post at every thread mentioning Berkeley obsessively defending their school to death.
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</p>
<p>LOL I know.</p>
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And public schools can't raise tuition?
UCs and Cal States raise tuition for 5th straight year - News
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</p>
<p>I did not say they can't . Private schools are less affected by this subprime crisis than UCs because the majority of their income comes from tuition. While UCs depend on some of the subsidies from the state for the money. Look at the tuition for in-state and out-state, you can see the difference.</p>
<p>I don't think prestigue is an issue but more like fit and experience.</p>