Uci chp vs berkeley vs carnegie mellon

Colleges & Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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<p>After an intense stretch (and many rejections), I got accepted to and narrowed my choices to:</p>

<p>1) UCI's campus-wide honors program (undecided social sciences)
2) UC Berkeley (undecided social sciences)
3) Carnegie Mellon (economics)</p>

<p>UCI PROS</p>

<p>-perks of campus-wide honors program (priority dorming, class registration, parking, etc.)
-awesome for road biking
-beautiful campus
-not incredibly "cutthroat" or competitive, CHP is rather collaborative
-great weather
-west coast</p>

<p>UCI CONS</p>

<p>-relative lack of prestige
-boring setting (almost identical to that of my old boarding school)</p>

<p>BERKELEY PROS</p>

<p>-high prestige
-strong academics
-amazing campus
-good weather
-feels "different," fresh smell of salt from the ocean, yet still west coast
-San Francisco WOOT</p>

<p>BERKELEY CONS</p>

<p>-extremely competitive (i'm trying for econ)</p>

<p>Carnegie Mellon PROS (haven't visited yet)</p>

<p>-high prestige, although arguably lower than berkeley
-strong academics
-east coast
-specific major already decided (not undecided)</p>

<p>Carnegie Mellon CONS</p>

<p>-bad weather
-low endowment?
-from what i heard from my friend, pittsburgh isn't that welcoming</p>

<p>About myself:</p>

<p>I'm really into astronomy and chess (club presidents for both at my school) and badminton (team captain). I'm also really into road biking, which is pretty much 90% of my work out.</p>

<p>I'm decently social, nobody really hates me in high school and I have my "groups" that I hang out with. Not sure if it makes a difference, but I'm really sarcastic. I also like smart people who aren't cocky.</p>

<p>I'm really laidback in high school but maintaining straight As isn't hard if I keep one eye on my academics. Our school is supposed to be pretty hard (best boarding school in the west). The only thing stopping me from registering at Berkeley immediately is the fact that I heard there's a huge cutthroat attitude there, even more predominant than in schools like Northwestern, the Ivies, or like schools.</p>

<p>I change my mind a lot, must've changed my major like three times before deciding on econ (hence the undecided on my earlier UC apps) but I intend to major in econ if going to UCI or Berkeley. As of now, I plan to get an MBA sometime after graduating but I wouldn't say it's a completely decided matter since I'm somewhat fickle.</p>

<p>Not to be arrogant or anything, but I'm fairly smart. No Einstein or anything but I can hold a conversation =)</p>

<p>Thanks!!</p>

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<p>I got accepted into all three as Econ, but I ended up choosing UC Berkeley. Although UCI has really nice perks, like you, i come from a pretty static place, so going to UCI was not very appealing. Carnegie Mellon didn’t offer me enough money to make it worth my time and paying more to go there than UCI/Berkeley was ridiculous. And yes, pittsburgh is a bit dangerous from what I’ve heard… I chose Berkeley in the end. The econ major is not that competitive. The requirement to get in is a 3.0 gpa (and it’s not that hard to get a 3.0 gpa unless you’re in engineering or something). Berkeley’s atmosphere is definitely exciting and it’s a opportunity to be independent without your parents hassling you, but close enough they can still check up on you. Berkeley also has a pretty strong astronomy department with very prestigious professors. Even if you change your major again, you know that changing majors at UC Berkeley isn’t a loss because most of its departments are top-notch…don’t know about UCI/Carnegie Mellon…I also know there’s a cycling club somewhere in Cal…they bike miles every weekend or something. Once they sealed off a couple of streets for a competition too ^^</p>

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<p>thanks for answering, totalcaprice!!</p>

<p>just curious, since i applied to uc berkeley social sciences undecided, is it difficult to make a change to a full-time economics undergrad major?</p>

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<p>So first off, nobody is a declared Econ major until they have completed the prerequisites like Econ 1 and Stats. You apply to the major around second semester sophomore year and if you have above a 3.0 you are accepted. </p>

<p>Berkeley Econ is not ‘cutthroat’ at all and the curves are always pretty nice unlike in premed or prebusiness classes. There are a lot of great professors here and amazing research that I don’t think you can even start to compare to Irvine.</p>