<p>My daughter is trying to choose between UC Berkeley and University of Virginia. She was accepted to UVA's Echols Scholar program, which exempts her from area requirements (12 credits in science), gives her first pick of classes, preferred housing with other Echols students, and the option of making her own interdisciplinary major. She is currently thinking of majoring in biology and history, but is also interested in political science. From what we've read/heard, Berkeley is more prestigious, has a stronger brand name, and a greater emphasis on science, but students need to be very mature, independent and self-driven to succeed because the advisory/admin system is a maze. UVA would be a more protective and nurturing environment with a "carefully selected advisor" as part of Echols, although still academically challenging. However, my daughter is liberal and coming from a very large, diverse city public school in the northeast and is worried UVA is too preppy and conservative for her and is focused more on business than science. She visited both schools last summer and fell in love with Berkeley; she's going back to both this month. She's very smart and mature, but not the most organized person (was voted "most likely to be late for graduation" for her yearbook). Not sure if Berkeley would make or break her. Thoughts?</p>
<p>I do not think the OOS tuition is worth it at Cal. The school has a wonderful reputation, but that is based on its grad school and not its undergraduate teaching. You can get the same large classes, lack of attention, and other attributes of a large public for far less in your home state. Here is an article published a few years ago about the student experience at Cal: <a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/UC-Berkeley-s-lack-of-services-leaves-many-2923526.php[/url]”>http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/UC-Berkeley-s-lack-of-services-leaves-many-2923526.php</a></p>
<p>As a California resident, though, I would welcome your $100K gift to our public universities.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, both Berkeley and UVA are OOS and a fortune.</p>
<p>What you’ve heard about UVA is false. I made it as an echols scholar myself, and have 50+ friends who are currently attending UVA. UVA is the kind of school that gathers the kids with the highest GPAs and SAT scores, which kills diversity and extracurricular activity. Its filled with pompous jerks and ivy league rejects who think that their school is “all that”. This is the school that redirected “UVArejects.com” to the Vtech homepage. Whats worse is that these pompous jerks are actually very intelligent when it comes to book smarts, which makes getting good grades in UVA really hard. Especially for bio/pre-med major. There is absolutely no grade inflation at UVA, since GPA operates on a bell curve. This means that if your d falls even a little behind her classmates, she’ll be in for a hard time. I don’t know why UVA’s perception outside Virginia is so high. Basically, UVA is filled with really smart, uninteresting, pompous jerks, which makes it a horrible learning environment. Don’t take my word for it, ask nearly all of my classmates who attended the university. I would liken it to Johns Hopkins, where the academics are excellent, but thats about all there is. Berkeley on the other hand is much more prestigious, has WAY better faculty, better learning environment, and is situated at a much better location than UVA. Please trust someone from the area and go to UC Berkeley.</p>