<p>Pardon me. I’m just bothered why academics are rather low in your criteria. You mentioned food, for one. I find it weird that someone would rather go to a school - and pay the full price of about 50k - that offers a more delectable food than a school that offers a wider range of academics all of which is top 10 in the nation. </p>
<p>Speaking of food, the food in Berkeley’s campus isn’t the most delectable, for sure. But outside the campus has a lot of cuisines that you can choose from. Amherst doesn’t offer you that. </p>
<p>Please show any post of mine that infer such a thing. Do your critical reading skills need a refresh?</p>
<p>btw: do you have any source for undergraduate rankings/quality by major? And while you are looking for that item – which of course, does not exist – you might take a gander at the grad school rankings for comp sci. Sure, Cal is #3. But there are plenty of other great schools in the top 20. What about #15 at instate rates with instate scholarships? What is the value prop for that over Cal for $55k? (For example, GA Tech is ~15, is less than half the cost of Cal, since GA offers the Hope scholarships.) Alternatively, I’d take Cornell CS over Cal at OOS rates.</p>
<p>^I don’t believe that ranking, there must be an updated one. I don’t believe that UCSB ranks the same as Carnegie Mellon or MIT and Princeton. While I recognize UCSB is good but not that good.</p>
<p>Bluebeyou, when you have a top 10 English department, for example, you have a top 10 English department, period. When you have a top 10 engineering department, you have a top 10 Engineering department, period. And, that’s what I meant when I said Berkeley’s academics are top 10 in the nation, including economics, maths, and business. </p>
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<p>Of course, with the maybe more than 3 thousand schools and colleges throughout America offering CS, Berkeley (MIT, Stanford and CMU) couldn’t be the only great schools for CS. But that’s not the issue I have with you. The issue here is you saying Berkeley for OOS rate is not worth it despite it’s a top-ranked department. If you would be willing to pay a full 55k for say, Emory undergrad degree, why wouldn’t you think it’s wise to do the same for Berkeley?</p>
<p>OP, both schools would be great but they are different in many regards. </p>
<p>Berkeley is a big school with about 25k undergrads. That may be the deal breaker for you. Amherst is a pretty small college in a bucolic town in MA. Berkeley has SF just across the bay, which to me is a major plus. Berkeley has a fantastic weather. Amherst has clean and tidy campus - many buildings are well-kept. I have been to Amherst back in 2006 and I thought the campus was gorgeous, but I was there for only about half a day and it was in a summer. I don’t know how it would feel to be there during winter. I would imagine it’s not going to be as lovely as it is in summer, but that’s not a problem for some people, as it probably going to be for you. My only issue with Amherst is it’s such a lonely, quiet place – less activities going on compared to the vibrant scene at Cal. </p>
<p>As for your future careers, both will serve you what you want to accomplish later on, with Berkeley having the edge in the West Coast and Amherst in the East Coast. </p>
<p>The problem with Berkeley in my opinion is that it has too many students for each to receive enough support and for lectures to be small. I have no doubt that it’s a great school but I truly believe that the opportunities available at a LAC (especially one like Amherst) are literally amazing. LAC’s provide the best education anywhere. I am not attending a LAC next year but the education they provide is really amazing. Professors are there because they want to teach not to do research. And small class sizes=more attention=better rec letters. Yes Berkeley will have great professors but the difference in schools will come about when you want to make an appointment and need to wait 2 weeks or when there is 500 kids in the same class with you and getting research opportunities becomes increasing difficult. Take the offer from Amherst and never look back-this is from someone who was wait listed this year from amherst!</p>
<p>Almost all available department rankings are graduate program rankings. That fact that Berkeley has top 10 graduate programs isn’t completely meaningless to an undergraduate. Some of that quality, at least, must trickle down to undergraduates. How much of it? That depends on several factors such as class sizes and the availability of top professors to teach and advise undergraduates. It is the reputation of those professors, through their research output (not their teaching ability), that drives up the graduate program rankings. Undergrads don’t benefit from their presence just by osmosis, not in the classroom anyway. There may be a “honey pot” effect that benefits undergrads in research opportunities or recruiting just by having distinguished professors around.</p>
<p>Compare the economics courses offered at both schools.
<a href=“https://www.amherst.edu/course_scheduler?tab=search&result=1”>https://www.amherst.edu/course_scheduler?tab=search&result=1</a>
<a href=“http://schedule.berkeley.edu/srchsprg.html”>http://schedule.berkeley.edu/srchsprg.html</a>
Berkeley econ courses enroll as many as 689 students this term (Spring 2014).
The instructors who answer your questions in the smaller discussion sections and who grade your work often will be grad students, not the distinguished professors who drive up Berkeley’s reputation. At Amherst, even Intro to Economics is limited to 25 or 30 Amherst students per section. Those sections are taught by professors with doctorates from top schools (e.g. Yale, Stanford, London School, Penn). They are professors who, by choosing to work at Amherst, are committed to teaching undergraduates. If a Berkeley student can accelerate out of the most heavily-attended elementary and intermediate courses, s/he might begin to get the small classes and faculty attention available at a LAC. S/he might even get a few professors who are more distinguished in their fields than even the best professors at a top LAC like Amherst. I doubt many students place out of econ (or philosophy) courses, though. </p>
<p>hello, did you receive FA for Amherst? Money could be a major factor in your decision.</p>
<p>I spent years in the Amherst area and really liked it. I learned to X-country ski. I worked with a wonderful Amherst prof for my MS. I’m a fan of LACs for UG. This is my personal feelings, so I hope I’m not flamed for expressing my ideas. Think about your learning style; do you like smaller classes with discussions? Are you the type to seek out profs in their offices? Jobs in your field are competitive; you will need LORs and internships to move ahead.</p>
<p>What I would do is check the links above to determine how competitive your major would be at Cal, if you need a certain GPA to major in your field of interest. </p>
<p>Actually, you have a problem with yourself. Unlike you, I don’t make this personal. :)</p>
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<p>Again, back to the straw man arguments. Is your position really that weak that you have to resort to straw men?</p>
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<p>On this, we agree. But since the OP applied to a rural LAC, I assumed that s/he was interested in that type of experience. (Most high school seniors are not.)</p>
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<p>Sorry, doc but the nrc is the only one out there by academics for academics. It gets updated about once a decade. (check out the history of it.)</p>
<p>You are missing the point (particulalry since we are discussing Econ): IMO, it’s all a value proposition. For example, I have great respect for Cal’s College of Chem (top 3), which is almost LAC-like, and one of the few programs worth OOS fees, (IMO). Yet, I know of a kid who took a full ride at Boston College (top 50 in Chem), graduated with honors, and is now at Stanford grad in Chem. Why spend $2s0k to attend Cal, just because it has a much higher-ranked graduate school, when one could attend a lower-ranked undergraduate college for free, and start grad school with $220k in your pocket? It’s all a value proposition.</p>
<p>In the OP’s case, Amherst, a private school, offers a lot of extras over a public for the same price. IMO, that is better value.</p>
<p>At list price, Cornell is non-trivially more expensive (about $8,000 more than Berkeley OOS in the dorm, about $14,000 more than Berkeley OOS living in off-campus housing other than parents’ house). Of course, Cornell would be more favorable on price for an OOS student who receives significant need-based financial aid.</p>
<p>Cornell may not exactly give the small intimate private school feel (the school is relatively large for a private school, and CS classes can be quite large, based on the number of discussions associated with each lecture listed in its class schedule). However, CS enrollment is bulging everywhere, so a CS major may find big CS class sizes at many good schools for CS.</p>
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<p>What is LAC-like about the Berkeley College of Chemistry? Even though College of Chemistry students take a more rigorous version of frosh general chemistry, separating them from the hordes of biology majors, premeds, and non-chemical engineering majors taking the “regular” frosh general chemistry, their version is still in the hundreds of students due to the enrollment in the College of Chemistry (majors in chemistry, chemical engineering, and chemical biology).</p>
<p>In any case, this thread wandering into school-partisanship and LAC-partisanship is probably not all that helpful for the OP (though it is odd that the OP does not have a clear preference between two very different schools).</p>
<p>You’re comparing two colleges that are (within the ranks of the top 100-or-so schools, anyway) about as different as two colleges can be: public v. private, huge v. tiny, West Coast v. New England, urban v. rural (sorta). You haven’t indicated any personal preferences for one type of school or another, other than how they might help you get a finance/consulting job after college. There is probably no available data that can assure you whether Berkeley or Amherst is more likely to get you a better job in those fields. So, if you really have no personal preference at this late date, or if you do have a mild preference but the price difference is very large, then why not just go with the cheaper school? </p>
knowing the answer to this question is a reason why the top LAC vs. top public school experience is different.</p>
<p>For some students, a private LAC that meets full need will be (much) cheaper than an in-state private.</p>
<p>OOS prices aren’t worth it unless the family’s flush with money or you happen to live in Nevada. If you pay 55K you better have your money’s worth and if you don’t have 55K it’s not worth getting into major debt.
To the poster who asked about OOS fees to Amherst: Amherst doesn’t have instate vs. oos, the poster is referring to the top private college, not the state school.</p>
<p>OP:
Can you give us (tuition+ R&B) - (grants+scholarships) = ?
for each?
What’s your parents’ budget?</p>
<p>Parent here – as some other posters have said, you are comparing two schools which are at the very top of their own pyramid. Many people consider Berkeley to be the top public university in the country (you can argue about whether Michigan is also the top or not), and Amherst is (along with Williams and some will say Swarthmore) the top LAC. </p>
<p>My husband and I both attended LACs and we have a kid at an excellent public flagship. The experiences are entirely different. We had small classes, small departments, and sometimes, due to faculty being on leave etc., only a few choices for classes in specific departments. Professors knew us, we took classes over and over again from the same core faculty in different departments. We wrote a lot of papers. </p>
<p>For our kid, he had big intro classes, TAs leading discussion sections (who are Ph.D. candidates in their department), and an absolute wealth of choices for classes. Looking at his course list for the next semester is jaw-dropping. There must be 30 or more upper level classes offered in his major each semester. Personality-wise, it takes a different kind of person to thrive in that environment. He likes the option of being able to disappear into anonymity sometimes, and does not want to be “on” in every single class every day. At the same time, he has had options in his first two years to participate in field work with his professor, and has had meetings with professors in his major where they are excited about his work and eager to bring him into their area of interest. (He is a Humanities/Social Science major, not science/STEM). </p>
<p>I really don’t think you can say one experience is “better” than the other. They are entirely different. My kid was fine visiting the small LACs, but when he stepped onto campus at his school, he knew “this was it.” I don’t think this is a decision made by weighing pros and cons. With that being said, instate tuition at Berkeley is a great opportunity, plus you get to live in the Bay area. After the winter we had this year, the option to skip snow is really appealing . . . . </p>
<p>To the OP: what do you love, where did you feel “this is it.”<br>
Good luck with your decision, there is no right or wrong here. </p>
<p>i always wanted a small college. i applied to pomona ed because it combined what i wanted in terms of location (california) and academics. i also applied cmc ed2. i was rejected at both sadly. amherst seems to have exactly what i wanted at pomona and cmc, but it is just so far away and my parents feel like it might be better to go to berkeley because it is so close and still a good school…</p>
<p>“I want to study econ/philosophy/political science and eventually go into finance or consulting after college.”</p>
<p>Amherst is a better choice than either Pomona or CMC. Only drawback is that it’s more connected to NYC, Boston and the Northeast than California. I’d take Amherst because at Berkeley you’ll need to be in Haas to do as well as at Amherst with respect to you career goals. </p>
<p>^better in what sense? Do you have objective stats or better yet <em>any</em> qualifications to back up your assertions? I work at and have done entry level interviews for McKinsey. Your statements are extremely wrong, to say the least. </p>