<p>Wow this has really snowballed hasn’t it :D</p>
<p>Actually, this is something I’m pretty interested to know – RML, for those 3 people who chose Berkeley over Oxbridge, what were their reasons?</p>
<p>Might help the OP in evaluating his/her own reasons. Plus, I’m just curious.</p>
<p>^ Mostly due to Berkeley’s worldwide reputation and its location which is California, USA. </p>
<p>Two of the guys got onto CS at Berkeley and Cambridge. They both believe Berkeley is superior to Cambridge for CS, and its being close to Silicon Valley probably sealed the deal for Berkeley. The other guy who chose Berkeley over Oxford was doing maths. His reason was that Berkeley is in California and he loves to be relocated there someday. He’s of Indian decent, and I believe he also got into IIT-Bangalore(??). The three didn’t come from the same year. </p>
<p>I did apply to Berkeley but got rejected. I got into 3 Ivies and Mudd, however. Unfortunately none of the Ives where I got into excelled in CS, and Mudd is too different fro my liking. So I eventually decided to take my offer from Cambridge, which for me was the best uni that I got into. This was about 14-15 years ago though. lol … </p>
<p>Very recently, another kid that I know well turned down Oxford for Berkeley Civil Engineering. The kid’s parents are wealthy and the cost of going to Berkeley wasn’t an issue for his parents. His dad is a civil engineer. </p>
<p>All in all, I don’t often bump into a Berkeley - Oxbridge cross-admit. Oftentimes, the ones that apply to Oxbridge apply to HYPSM. Berkeley gets into the picture only mostly when the student is interested in science, engineering or CS. Opps, and before I forget, one former classmate turned down Wharton for Berkeley. She’s now an IBker in Wall Street.</p>
<p>And, again, I was serious when I said I have not met anyone who turned down Berkeley for Imperial. The ones I’ve known who got into both unis turned down Imperial for Berkeley. Berkeley and Imperial don’t fall in the same group. Berkeley is in a league above Imperial. And, quite honestly, prestige-wise, it’s not even close even in most parts of Europe. I can vouch for this.</p>
<p>I gotta agree that those are good reasons 
Berkeley CS and Engineering can’t be beat.</p>
<p>Interestingly, I got into both Berkeley and Imperial, and I picked Berkeley, although not for any particular prestige- or discipline-related reasons. I didn’t like the narrow focus of Imperial nor its one-big-exam format.</p>
<p>You’ve attended both US and UK schools; what would you say regarding the teaching style in both countries? Oxbridge has tutorials/supervisions… but does Imperial have something similar?</p>
<p>@meakame Oxbridge’s supervision is unique, Imperial doesn’t have that; but Imperial does have tutorials (like most other universities I believe).</p>
<p>One of my family friends, who is going to Imperial, said the school was great, but one thing he had to admit was that the quality of lectures was not that great at times. He said that the lecture notes usually don’t provide enough for the tutorial questions. How is it in this area at UC Berkeley?</p>
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<p>This poster had a very nice, useful post, though I’ve seen this point floating around, don’t at all disagree, but think there’s some clarification to be made.</p>
<p>Berkeley definitely doesn’t force a well-rounded experience on you. For instance, some schools have a very rigid “core” requirement of courses, and Berkeley’s doesn’t really seem to compare to those. Usually, it is perfectly possible to take a very specialized curriculum. Further, Berkeley is such a giant academic school that the number of interesting classes in different topics is remarkable, so you can conceivably spend a LOT of time taking classes in a few areas. That option doesn’t happen everywhere. </p>
<p>However, it is true that the point of the 4-ish year college model is to allow some experimenting to happen during the college years. I think English schools often have 3-year undergraduate degrees, 1-2 years of master’s, and then possibly PhD for 3-4 years. </p>
<p>Sure, you have breadth requirements at Berkeley, but nothing that takes more than a course or so for many semesters in a subject outside one’s specialty, and often there are so many easy classes you can take that you’ll not really even think about your breadth requirements unless you specifically want to take an intense class in some of those areas.</p>
<p>So in some ways, I think going to a research powerhouse school with a lot of specialized activity going on both in terms of research and classes makes Berkeley a great place to specialize a lot too.</p>
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<p>I feel like these kinds of things are so dependent on what field you’re going to, who you’re trying to please, etc, that when giving advice, the best is to get more specifics before committing much. There are circles where UCB simply has a better brand name, and ones where Princeton does. There are some truths, such as the fact that Princeton undergraduate is elite in the U.S., whereas UCB isn’t considered the same. </p>
<p>Yet that “truth” breaks down if you get down to specific majors and career paths. So why even bother?</p>
<p>I have a similar issue. Someone was accepted to Cal for CL&S and Geography at Cambridge. While we think that Cambridge has a better brand name worldwide, Berkeley has a more well rounded education and better job prospects with a Econ degree. Please share your thoughts.</p>
<p>One thing that RML brought up in regard to admission is that Berkeley recently it did not admit a lot of international students. As recently as 2009, its international admit was only 5.7% of the total. It has steadily increased to 9.6% for 2011. The current chancelor has indicated that he’d like to see it increased to 20% over time. This is largely due to the fact that the state of California is going through a difficult financial situation and both out-of-state and international students pay signifiantly more in tuition than in-state students.</p>
<p>Berkeley>Imperial hands down. Noone even knows what Imperial College London is in Asia. They probably think since it’s foreign country, it must be good.</p>
<p>When I say Asia, I am referring to China/Korea/Japan and not India. Who cares about India? Sorry guys… you guys are too populated and not really… China too but it seems only handful of Chinese come to US.</p>
<p>Anyway, as with cambridge and Oxford, they could be better than Berkeley depending on fields, but overall, United States Univ.> English Univ.</p>
<p>Besides, people in US know Berkeley. They don’t know what ICL is. Oxford and Cambridge they would probably know.</p>
<p>And Princeton, Darthmouth, and Penn are not that popular in Asia. They probably don’t even know they are Ivy league schools. Popular I mean compared to Harvard and Yale level.</p>
<p>What’s the situation on applying for internships at UCB? Also, I may wish to do my masters at a different university, will going to UCB affect me in that area?</p>
<p>Also, what is the accommodation like at UCB? Can students live on campus for as long as they want? Or do they have to leave after 1st year?</p>
<p>Do you usually need so much hand holding? Why don’t you see the other posts…there is like a big post on dorms. Check out the website [Residential</a> and Student Service Programs, UC Berkeley](<a href=“http://housing.berkeley.edu/]Residential”>http://housing.berkeley.edu/)</p>
<p>I think normally, campus housing at UCB is for 2 years or so, but students do at times live past the second year. This is what’s normally the case – I imagine there are exceptions, and/or I could be slightly mistaken.</p>
<p>I’ll chime in…</p>
<p>I completely agree with RML. In the US, the 4 horsemen of the top institutions are Stanford and Berkeley on the west coast AND Harvard and MIT on the east coast. </p>
<p>As an American who is half Japanese, I’ve come into contact with lots of Asians. I can tell you that Berkeley’s pedigree is extremely strong. When I talk to people from China, Korea, or Japan, they have a reverence for Berkeley. In fact, my brother, who got his Ph.D from Berkeley years ago, tells me that people see him differently, even among the Ph.D crowd. </p>
<p>Believe me, hiring managers around the world have Berkeley high up on their radar screens.</p>
<p>Yes, Berkeley is very well-known and highly regarded around the world. I know most Indians think the top universities in the world are Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Oxford, and Cambridge.</p>
<p>And OP, this isn’t how a forum works. You don’t just make a thread and keep asking all your questions in it. Look at the UC Berkeley forum and you’ll see threads about housing and classes and all of that. There’s also a search function.</p>
<p>There is the option of graduating early if time is an issue for you. I have a brilliant applied math major friend who was only here for 3 years (including a couple summer session classes) to save money; granted, he worked his *** off, planned his schedule very carefully so he can graduate with an amazing GPA as well. He just got accepted to Yale for graduate school in math and plans on doing something in finance after.
Also, I think Berkeley gives its students more opportunity to explore different areas of study and to prepare themselves well for jobs (I can only say this about technical majors). One of my good friends is pursuing 2 majors (Statistics and Economics) and 2 minors (Demography and Industrial Engineering) to prepare herself for Econ grad school or actuarial work, and another is doing a CS + Stats double so she can be an analyst or a programmer. I also know quite a few people who are Math + some other major like Econ or Stats or some kind of engineering (because either they are just interested or they are afraid the pure math route might not work out for them and the second major is plan B) and quite a few who have more diverse interest and are Engineering + music or some other random/cool major. You can learn a lot of things by the time you graduate – basically create your own little cluster of classes/major to cater to your interest or to prepare you for jobs.
I personally benefited a lot from UCB’s flexibility and wide variety of classes – I’m a Statistics Major but got really interested in IEOR through recommendation of a good friend and is also taking a bunch of CS classes on the side as well as Psychology classes. I don’t know if the diversity of classes and flexibility are things you might be looking for but I think they are things you can consider in your decision.
My boyfriend’s sister goes to Imperial College and I heard from him that the focus is very narrow, and you don’t get the opportunity to explore classes in other departments as much.</p>
<p>What is Imperial College. It isn’t Oxford or Cambridge. General population would not know. General population is more likely to know Berkeley than Imperial College. As with Oxford and Cambridge, it may be other way around as they have been around for such a long time…It’s like comparing Harvard with Duke.</p>