<p>I got accepted to UCLA recently. I never really considered going all the way to California for college (I live on the east coast) but I did some research anyway. I was surprised to find that UCLA's acceptance rate is actually LOWER than UC berkeley's? I was always under the impression that UC berkeley was more prestigious/harder to get into than UCLA. Does getting into UCLA mean that I have a pretty good chance at berkeley as well, or am I missing something here? I saw a lot of posts about how UCLA looks more for extracurriculars, and UC berkeley looks more at gpa/sat. Is this true? In my situation, My extracurriculars are FAR superior to my academics (although my academics aren't bad by any means). How will this effect my chances at Berkeley compared to my acceptance at UCLA? </p>
<p>Also, I'm kind of interested in hearing the West-coast side of things. Obviously I've been misinformed about the UC system. Is there anything that Californians know that the east coast misses or misinterprets in some way?</p>
<p>I’d like to know this as well. I was accepted into UCLA and although both my academics and extra curriculars are pretty amazing, I don’t have a very great SAT score. So, do you think I can get into UC Berkeley as well?</p>
<p>Well, I used to live on the West Coast…I’d have to say that UC Berkeley’s pool of applicants is going to be stronger than that of UCLA. Right now, I live in New York, and all the top kids at my school applied to UC Berkeley, but have absolutely no interest in UCLA (apparently it doesn’t sound as prestigious to them). Kids with 2250+ applied to UC Berkeley, whereas the kids in the 2000-2100’s range tended to apply to UCLA. That’s just from my experience though.</p>
<p>However, I believe that College Board’s website supports what I see. If you look at the SAT scores for UC Berkeley and then UCLA on the BigFuture part of College Board, you can see that the middle 50% SAT scores are higher for UC Berkeley.</p>
<p>Acceptance rate doesn’t necessarily mean that anything is better. UCLA has a lower acceptance rate because it receives more applicants than Berkeley does. So, basic percentage math, if Berkeley were to accept 2,000 kids but only had 10,000 applicants then it would have 20% acceptance rate, but if UCLA accepted 1,500 kids but had 15,000 applicants then it would have a 10% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>The difference in acceptance rates between the two is minor (less than 5%). It is because UCLA is a slightly more popular school at the moment so more people apply. With more people applying, especially for the reason of popularity, the applicant pool is probably weaker. Cal definitely has more prestige when in comes to things like ranking and “name brandness”. Cal is the original UC and has a long history of excellence, UCLA is just starting to rise to that glory in its own right.</p>
<p>I’ve gotten into both, but Cal offered me Regents (the highest possible scholarship + early admittance) while UCLA did not. I have the maximum GPA possible as capped by the UC system, but my ACT was meh at only 33. My ECs were strong and focused but nothing like curing cancer or publishing a bestseller.</p>
<p>As a Californian I think people consider Cal to be the more academically serious school that could even compete with Ivies. UCLA is slightly more fun, but still a serious place to go. UCLA is definitely more of your TV California experience if you want to go to the beach every other day and never wear anything but flip flops. The beaches or colder up north (still bearable though). San Francisco just has a different culture than LA.</p>
<p>Dreams is right on the mark. You get more prestige going to Cal. The way I see it, more important points are graduate and professional schools. Cal doesn’t have dental, medical and MBA schools. However, all the majors other than these you can name, Cal ranks one of the best, top five in US in any field. As a result, you will get to see more intellectual grad students, renowned faculty and research facilities, to name one LBL.</p>
<p>It seems Cal wins particularly in engineering for academics and admission is a smidge more competitive. No question Cal wins on reputation. But UCLA is such a beautiful campus and offers an entirely different college experience. I think each person has to decide it they want reputation and the high ranking program at Cal, or if they want a very respected engineering but lifestyle of UCLA. I wouldn’t pay OOS rates for either of them, too crowded. For that $, I would go to good private school.</p>
<p>I’ve heard it both ways: some people think that Cal looks more at GPA/test scores, and some think it takes extracurriculars and essays into consideration. I do know that they usually look for unique applicants, so if you have interesting essays and ECs <em>AS WELL AS</em> their standard grades (3.89)/test scores (30 on ACT, 2040 on SAT, etc.), you have a pretty good chance of acceptance! Plus, a lot of the time people get rejected at UCLA but accepted to UCB, so you never really know.</p>
<p>Looks like I caught you with your guard down ;)</p>
<p>Cal has the edge on faculty and most professional schools. UCLA has an edge in its hospital (and perhaps the health sciences in general.) As much more prestigious as Cal is than UCLA, the ranking of the two universities generally only give a slight edge to Cal, between 3 to 5 spots. It’s not by any means significant.</p>
<p>I would argue that UCSF off sets Cal’s lack of medical and dental programs (for graduate school). UCSF significantly outranks UCLA (4 to 13). Cal also significantly out ranks UCLA in both Bio (2 to 24) and Chem (1 to 16) programs (both things I would assume are ciritcal to premed). In addition, in most other areas Cal outranks UCLA such as Business (7 to 14), Law (T14 to not-T14), Engineering (3 to 16), Physics (5 to 19), and Econ (5 to 15) (just a few random ones I looked at that seemed like popular programs). Although the difference in these is about 10 spots (give or take), being in the top 5 versus not being in the top 5 (or 10 for that matter) is significant.</p>
<p>Cal can’t claim UCSF anymore than it can claim UCLA as a ‘satellite campus.’ UCSF is a distinct university with its own Chancellor and funding.</p>
<p>And although UCSF has a better medical school, UCLA has the better hospital. It’s the best in the west coast and top five in the nation, as you can see here:</p>
<p>It’s also interesting that you noted Cal’s T-14, and UCLA’s lack of one. Especially considering that the median mid-career salary of a UCLA graduate is nearly 10k higher than that of a Cal graduate:</p>
<p>And since we’re on the subject of Forbes, you should know that it lists UCLA as a ‘power factory’ for producing the world’s most powerful people (it doesn’t list Cal.)</p>
<p>And lastly, overall, the differences in subject rankings manifest themselves in the skills of the researchers (and probably better letters of rec.) but not in the quality of the classes. I don’t think Cal students are getting a significantly better education than UCLA students in their premed classes.</p>
<p>Look, we can do this all day. They’re both very fine universities. And like i noted in my earlier post, although you make these 10+ ranking differences seem significant, it doesn’t ultimately manifest itself to large differences in rankings of the institutions as a whole:</p>
<p>USNWR: Cal: 21; UCLA: 24
THE World Ranking: Cal: 9; UCLA 13
THE Reputation Ranking: Cal: 5; UCLA: 8</p>
<p>My bad on MBA program. Never tracked MBA program closely. BTW, UCSF stands by itself and is not a part of Cal. At any rate, you tell your hiring manager you are from Cal or UCLA and see which one impresses more.</p>
<p>USNWR Peer Assessment reputation gap is also considerable.
Berkeley: 4.7
UCLA: 4.2</p>
<p>Berkeley’s academic programs are considered “distinguished” while UCLA’s are merely “strong”.</p>
<p>Gaps in faculty achievements are huge. Berkeley has roughly 3 times the number of faculty academic awards (Nobel prizes, Academy membership, etc.) on staff than UCLA.
Berkeley is also a few thousand undergrad students smaller than UCLA.</p>
<p>Cal never developed a separate medical campus because it was decided to remain across the Bay to better serve the larger population. UCSF has not developed into a full, traditional research university offering undergrad or academic programs overlapping with Cal’s offerings…UCLA and UC Davis have. Joint programs and academic appointments still tie Cal and UCSF.</p>