<p>uhhh yeah i live in berkeley and i go to berkeley high which is like 2-3 blocks from the campus.
<p>Anyun, it’s unbelievable for someone who lives in the city to spread this misinformation. You must be living high up on the hills and never stop on the flats.
Check out this crime report:
[Violent</a> Crime Skyrockets on UC Berkeley Campus. Category: Front Page News from The Berkeley Daily Planet - Thursday June 12, 2008](<a href=“Violent Crime Skyrockets on UC Berkeley Campus. Category: Page One from The Berkeley Daily Planet”>Violent Crime Skyrockets on UC Berkeley Campus. Category: Page One from The Berkeley Daily Planet)</p>
<p>As for on campus sexual assault, how about 20 times by the same perv in the last few months alone?</p>
<p>BioE, go for SD. But be prepared to work hard.</p>
<p>[Another</a> Berkeley skirt-lifting attack reported](<a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/20/BAHE161C19.DTL]Another”>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/20/BAHE161C19.DTL)</p>
<p>didnt you guys hear about all those skirt lifting sexual assualts??</p>
<p>i live an hour away so i cant really say how the enviorment really is on a daily basis but i have been there and walked around the city and thats just what i personally saw and experienced.</p>
<p>im not trying to bag on CAL, the school it self is highly academic and prestigious :]
i just would prefer UCSD… and o0o i heard BioE is lots of dedicated and hard work at UCSD</p>
<p>What does everyone mean when they say “competitive?” That it’s harder to get good grades? Well, consider this: the average GPA at Berkeley is a 3.3. It’s about a 3.0 at SD. On the other hand, Berkeley students tend to be smarter/work harder/succeed more for whatever reason (hence why they got into Berkeley while, to be honest, a lot of SD students didn’t), so your fellow students will also be striving for (and perhaps reaching) those good grades. Does the higher GPA offset the caliber of the students? I don’t know.</p>
<p>Also remember that SD is a little miserable without a car; the campus feels like an island. Cal is in the middle of everything and there’s public transportation everywhere. But it really depends on personal preference.</p>
<p>Competition in the sense that: are people willing to help a fellow student out or is it a cutthroat competition for who gets the best grade? Are people willing to fill you in if you missed a lecture or will they sabotage your grade?</p>
<p>I got into both Berkeley and UCSD and at first I thought oh yeah Berkeley for sure but now I dont know. I live in San Diego and I feel like it will be a lot more convenient living here and plus I like the whole idea of 6 colleges and how its like 3,000ish students at Thurgood marshal (the college i got into) but on the other hand i’m majoring in economics at ucsd and if i was at berkeley i wold major in business and try to get into haas business school which i know is really good, but iduno if ill like the campus there and the whole competitiveness especially cuz i get really stressed out and worry about everything, i feel like berkeley will be too much. what do you guys think?</p>
<p>@lala91: I’m in the same boat as you, except I’m still waiting on one private school. Accepted to Chemical Biology at Cal and biochem/chem at UCSD. I love chem and understand the subject well, but I am afraid of being pwned in chem at Berkeley.</p>
<p>I’m torn between the fierce competition but prestigous Chem department at Cal and the lovely weather and campus of SD. I’ve spent some summers at berkeley for ATDP, so I’m kind of bored of the physical features of campus. It might be a completely different scene during the school year though!</p>
<p>I’ve decided: Berkeley.</p>
<p>Faced with the same choice, here’s my analysis:</p>
<p>Pro Cal:
Higher prestige in most majors
More stately architecture
Close to San Fran with unbeatable cultural scene
Bay area climate
Ecelctic student body
Notable professors</p>
<p>Con Cal:
Large incoming freshman class not divided into more intimate colleges
Housing shortage and not enough support for finding off campus housing
Lots of competition to get into extracurriculars
Seedy area surrounding campus
Huge lower division classes
Bay area climate (yes, it’s on both pro and con lists)
Parking nightmares
Safety concerns
Students didn’t look so happy and friendly during tour
Not so much community atmosphere
Semester system (yuck)</p>
<p>SD Pros:
Stellar academics in some majors
Noatable professors
Small college system better for social connections
San Diego Climate (not on con list this time)
Beach
Friendly. more relaxed students on tour
More campus celebratory atmosphere like Sungod festival, college events, etc.
Cool library
Warren Internship program
Easier to get research opportunities (less agressive competition)
Somewhat smaller lower division classes
Quarter system (this is huge)
Really good textbook alternatives (used books, purchased notes, extracted readings
Great dining options
Beautiful natural environment
No run-down Telegraph Avenue full of homeless people (yes they are sad, I’m not blaming them but until I’m in a position to help them, I don’t want to face them every day.)</p>
<p>SD Cons:
Less prestigious reputation
Where are the non-Asian girls? (Not meaning this badly, just like a diverse population)
Not as much breadth of cultural stuff to do/see in SD as in San Fran
Dingy classrooms in Warren area</p>
<p>Some of my reasons will seem irrelevant to you but some you might not have thought about. Overall, I put quality of life over school’s reputation and went with SD. Both are academically excellent, the academic world just hasn’t heard about SD as much yet because it’s much newer.</p>
<p>Good luck with your decision. You can’t really go wrong with either.</p>
<p>I’m definitely leaning toward SD. I don’t think that will change when I visit the campuses, but it might. It would hurt to say no to Berkeley because of the prestige, yet I don’t want to pick a school solely on that.</p>
<p>Comp Sci Guy- why do you prefer the quarter system over the semester system?
Just wondering, I myself am a fan of the semester system. Except that it starts earlier than the quarter system. :(</p>
<p>i also like it better - im in it right now in high school and its just all around better! you only get 4 classes which you get to spend more time in which = less hw and in a semester everything seems like middle school and like ur not learning anything! just my opinion though. go quarter sytem!</p>
<p>Lemon<em>Lime</em>Rush, there are good reasons for both but for me, the quarter system allows for a greater selection of classes, you simply get more different topics to explore during the year and because they change more frequently I have more sense of momentum. In the semester system, the second half of the semester drags for me. Under a quarter system, the subject moves fast and I don’t lose interest. Maybe I just have ADD !?! lol.</p>
<p>I am having the same problem with picking between UCSD and UCB. I am a UCSD winter admit, but got into Berkely in the fall. I will tell you I honestly did not deserve to get into Berkeley, so the last few weeks since UCSD came out I have been getting my head wrapped around the fact that I would be going to UCSD. There are more people from my school that will most likely end up at UCSD that I am closer with and I would really like that part of it. I would like to be familiar with people that I can hang with until I get close enoguh to others and can branch out. The problem with it is that I got into UCSD in the winter so I’m not guaranteed housing and I don’t start until January. With Cal, it’s Cal for god’s sake, I would be considered an idiot to turn down Cal after I messed around so much in HS, but I find myself not that excited about it and actually afraid of this new environment and how difficult I have heard it is. I just don’t know. My parents are pressuring me to go to Cal after I got rejected from my first choice UCLA and didn’t get in in the fall for San Diego. And then I miraculously got into Berkeley in the fall. I was actually rejected from Irvine, but accepted to Cal, I might be the first person this has ever happened to. I was honestly shocked after seeing the Acceptance. Now the decision is actually in my hands after it had basically been made for me after UCLA rejected me and UCSD accepted me for winter. I just need time to think about it</p>
<p>The UCs don’t all use the same admissions formulas so you really can’t always tell which you will be chosen by. Especially the top 3 (Cal, SD, LA) use their own formulas. Also the financial aid packages vary wildly. I got a great offer form UCSD and a crappy one from UCD. Go figure.</p>
<p>Hmm, nice to see your point of view. I’ve always felt that the quarter system is too rushed, but I can see how it give more variety.</p>