UCB vs UCSB Chemical Engineering Transfer

Hello Everyone,

I’m a community college transfer student who is transferring next Fall. I’ve bee admitted to several schools but the only two I am considering are UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara, both for chemical engineering. My dilemma is choosing between both schools, and because of that I would like to ask all of you for advice based on your personal experiences.

My goals include attending grad school, but going directly into industry after graduating with my BS is not out the question. I would really like to do undergraduate research with a professor at my university. My worry is that UCB mostly caters to graduate students, especially since there are only 760 undergraduates in the college, in comparison to the 632 graduate students and postdocs. Whereas in UCSB, the undergraduate enrollment for engineering is 1,457 compared to 743 graduate students. The student-to-faculty ratio at UCSB is 10:1 for the college of engineering; I could not find what Berkeley’s ratio was for college of chemistry.

Also, UCSB is a much smaller school compared to UCB.

It’s worth nothing that my cost of attendance will be roughly the same at both schools.

Would I be missing out on much by choosing UCSB over Cal’s program?

UCSB is an excellent school with strong engineering. If it is the school that fits you best, then go for it and don’t worry that you are missing out.