I was accepted to UC Berkeley (College of Letter & Science) today and to Santa Clara (Leavey school of business) early last year. I was accepted to other universities but would like to stay close to home, therefore am deciding between these two universities. For both schools, tuition would be around 30k (awarded grants/scholarships @SCU & Berkeley full price in-state tuition), so money isn’t a huge factor here. But I just want to know which school would be best for business, especially undergrad (college experience, academic opportunities, internships, etc.)?
SCU Leavey is a decent business school (I think ranked in the 60s) while Berkeley Haas if you can get in is pretty close to #1 if not #1. Obviously Berkeley has more prestige which can be important when it comes to business and management.
However, SCU does have a couple of potential advantages - smaller class sizes most likely and a lot less chaotic on campus in general. Dorms are a bit nicer at SCU (except for Blackwell at UCB which is brand new). You have to take 3 religion classes which may or may not be of use to you.
Santa Clara is good, but it’s not close to Cal academically.
For business, cal offers more networking opportunities, the prestige(which is beneficial in some cases), and overall more student opportunities.
However, there are a few things to note about cal.
a.) political environment is very liberal-- Santa Clara is slightly more moderate in this regard.
b.) peer pressure–cal is very intense. SCU is more lean back in this regard. Esp. the entry to HAAS in your junior year could be extremely stressful.
Santa Clara was my top choice but if I got in berkley then defintely Berkley it doesn’t compare