<p>My D has been accepted into all three schools and we are torn about the pros and cons of each. We know each is a very different experience. We are particularly interested in the freshman experience, the joy of learning at each school, and the academic pressure. Any thoughts would be welcome.</p>
<p>to contrast UC Berkeley with these schools, it depends on the major. In some majors, the lower division courses could be quite large and individual access to professors requires making an effort; that would be very different than at these two other schools. In other majors, especially some in the humanities, classes would not be as large. Overall, it would be hard to beat the education at Berkeley, which has great faculty and smart, engaged students. But it is not like going to a LAC, and it does not have an open curriculum like Hampshire.</p>
<p>I went to Cal and loved the experience. Yes some of the classes are huge, and I think every student will have a few of those huge classes regardless of major. But every professor has office hours and so do the TA (teaching assistants) and if you visit during those hours, you do make the big school seem smaller.</p>
<p>Cal is so large that your student will, no doubt, find at least a few students that have the same interests. I don’t know anything about the other schools other than I’ve heard they are good. I would love for my kids to go to Cal but they want to major in things Cal is not best at.</p>
<p>I know zilch about L&C but Hampshire is still somewhat of a hippy kind of place. It’s in a lovely town, really a gem of a place, along with UMass and Amherst, so there are a gazillion kids around. The area is otherwise fairly upscale and of course you know the other schools - Smith, etc. - are connected by a bus. I know kids at UMass who take dance classes at Hampshire, but you could easily walk or ride a bike between those.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine a lot of academic pressure at Hampshire. I don’t know about the social world.</p>
<p>My D is faced with a similar, more limited situation: she is down to Berkeley vs. Lewis & Clark. She plans on majoring in English, but that could change. We have been to L&C twice and found it friendly, cozy, and laid back. My D is concerned that is may be a little too cozy. She did an overnighter in the dorms and thought it was pretty slow…but then, it was a Monday night. We visited Berkeley a few days later. The campus was hopping with activity. My D’s concern with Berkeley is it’s intensity and the stories about difficulty navigating registration, getting desired classes, etc. But then there’s Berkeley’s outstanding professors and the wide variety of programs/opportunities offered. Fortunately, the dilemma will soon be resolved as she has to pick one or the other in the next few days.</p>
<p>I’d recommend logging onto the course scheduling modules of all three schools. Search the lower-division English classes that were offered last fall and this spring. That will give your daughter a really good picture of the classes actually offered (versus what’s in the catalog). </p>
<p>Socially, Berkeley now is a very different place than Berkeley 10 years ago. It can be difficult to get the classes you need, and although large often seems to equate to highly energetic and the possibility of making many friends, large can often be quite lonely. It’s been a mixed bag for my daughter’s friends, young women who entered in Fall of 2007. For one family in particular, that 30+% increase in tuition and fees after the first year was a shock, and prices are supposed to rise again next year as well.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about Hampshire, but Lewis and Clark would be a great place for a student interested in study abroad and travel. My niece attended there and went abroad three times, studying biology on the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, sociology in Africa, and urban studies in an east European country. She loved it there, but she also described the on-campus life as sleepy.</p>
<p>If you are paying OOS for Cal, you should keep in mind that you may be looking at 5 years of payments, rather than 4 years. So says my brother, a California resident. I have not actually verified that by looking for data and it may depend on your major.</p>
<p>
If your D is accomplished enough and smart enough to be accepted to UCB, she’ll be able to handle navigating registration just fine. </p>
<p>
I don’t see why although some people lump all of California’s state colleges (all the UCs and all the CSUs) together and sometimes make this statement. At least at UCLA and UCSD there isn’t a major issue in being able to graduate in 4 years and many could do it in less if they really wanted to. Depending on the major, some of the AP credits the students have will count and most of those accepted have AP credits. I’d expect it’d be similar at UCB and the few people I know who attend there will graduate in 4 years.</p>
<p>I agree with UCLA<em>UCSD</em>Dad. My H teaches at Cal. The kids who take more than four years tend to have part time jobs, and have a hard time fitting courses into their job schedule. His department gives also priority registration to majors needing a particular class to graduate.</p>
<p>For what it is worth, I know three kids who graduated from Cal in the last 2 years (all alums of our local high school) and none were able to get out in 4 years. As for priority registration if you need a particular class, one of them could not get the class she needed for 2 years - and finally graduated with a different major rather than wait to see if she got it in the third year.</p>
<p>^^ That’s weird about not getting a class for 2 years and it even pre-dates the current economic impact. If that’s all that was holding up graduation it seems very odd to me that she couldn’t work something out between her, an academic advisor, and whichever profs were applicable. There usually is some flexibility, especially for a class needed to be able to get the degree. </p>
<p>There are several reasons for extending beyond 4 years besides not getting classes - </p>
<ul>
<li>One is pursuing a rigorous schedule-filling major together with a tough minor (think of something like CS major and Chem minor).</li>
<li>One takes a light load - i.e only 3 courses per quarter for a number of quarters. There are a fair number of students who seem to do this purposely even when they have an easier major.</li>
<li>One changes their major a time or two (or three) and has to catch up on prereq classes for their final chosen major.</li>
<li>One refuses to take the 8am or Friday classes or classes from certain profs (when multiple profs teach a course).</li>
<li>Some students seem to stretch it out at a UC - “because they can” - i.e. the UC is affordable enough (compared to a full pay private) to be able to stay longer and perhaps take different classes or the lighter load if one wishes.</li>
</ul>
<p>There are plenty of students who take longer than 4 years but many times it’s due to reasons other than ‘not getting classes’.</p>
<p>My DD and her friends all had no problem graduating from Cal on time. There are several of her GFs who are also applying for med school this year, so they all had heavy courseloads and were all in the Greek system, so did have a social life. DD did not use AP credits to test out of coursework and still could have finished 1 term early. She did take 2 GE classes in summer school, but they are classes most CA HS kids have no need to take so I don’t think that would add time to others.</p>
<p>We saw most kids who needed more time had either changed majors, or changed to a major with more difficult pre-reqs, such that if they had taken the easy calculus, etc, they were needing to take more classes to meet additional requirements. </p>
<p>My nephew was a transfer student and did not get good advising (apparently) and he took extra time as while his coursework counted as units it did not count as completing a requirement. This is also a risk on study abroad, the catalog says all classes taken abroad count, but that does not mean they count in your major nor for a GE. My Dds did, but she only stayed abroad one term for fear of not being able to finish on time, as you don’t go abroad until you are a junior and your GE classes are mostly done. Her major would only take two classes from abroad to complete requirements. It was no simple thing to get courses taken abroad pre-approved, no one at Cal seemed to want to review them before DD left, she really had to work the system to get syllabi from the potential abroad classes and then get them approved before she left.</p>
<p>DD went from day one making sure all classes “Checked a box” on the list and studied abroad and was still okay. She was undeclared, but took the pre-reqs that would work for the toughest major so she would be safe with any major.</p>
<p>She knew some kids who did not finish in 4 years, but it was usually due to their choices along the way, possibly choices freshman year that affected them in unexpected ways down the road. The kid who takes a smattering of interesting classes without ensuring every one counts as a requirement may very well end up with out the pre-reqs done in time.</p>
<p>DD did have a tough time getting in her ochem class when she made an error on her registration date, she had to attend class and petition- she did get in. So, it is possible, but she is pretty organised. If she had not gotten into Ochem that term it would have had a cascade effect on other coursework. I can totally see my D3 not staying on top of the requirements and feeling screwed by the system ;)</p>
<p>My Cal DD was a senior the same time my other DD began at an LAC. LAC DD knew as many professors just as well as the Cal senior by that Christmas. It is just a different environment. Many times DD experienced frustrations at Cal, but she still thinks it was the best of her choices, which did include LACs. There is no perfect place, it is more fit to personality.</p>
<p>LAC DD loves her small school, though sometimes it is very small and people feel very sheltered in their prior life experiences. There is still some frustration with inflexabiity, but not like Berkeley :D</p>
<p>It is absolutely possible to graduate from Cal in 4 years. English there has a very large faculty, and historically ranks as one of the top 2-3 in the US. Nearly all the courses, apart from first year writing, are taught by professors (they now also have some newly minted PhD’s from the department as post-docs teaching a few of the courses). There are loads of courses to choose from. There is also a comparative literature department and rhetoric department offering courses that might be interesting for an English major - and great German, French, Spanish, etc. departments, with courses in translation as well as in the original languages. Some of the courses in the English department are large, but not unreasonably so (and no larger than those at comparable top universities, including Yale and Harvard), many are small - the humanities actually are very different than the sciences at Cal in that respect.<br>
If the choice was between an LAC with a particularly strong English department (Williams or Oberlin, for example), it might be a closer call because of the greater ease of contact with faculty.</p>