<p>Ahhh help! I'm extremely grateful to have gotten into all three of these amazing schools, but I have NO idea where I should go next year. UCLA was my top choice, but now I'm reading about their huge class sizes and lack of individual attention and I'm having doubts... So, what would you guys say are the pros and cons of each school, and where would you go if you were in my position? Any opinions/additional information are greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>By the way, I'm a Biology major. </p>
<p>Also, UCLA and USC are giving me absolutely no aid (trying to appeal USC; if they don't give me aid there's no way I can afford it), and UCSD is giving me 5k/year.</p>
<p>If you were looking for small class sizes you should’ve just applied to small liberal colleges. All three schools are pretty big in class sizes with UCLA being the biggest (like 18% more in comparison to SD). I doubt your appeal would work for USC as you already didn’t get any aid from LA so your best bet is to just choose from LA or SD. SD would be the better option for any bio majors as their bio program is the best though LA is also good as well. If you hold any value to prestige, LA should be the best one. Also if your not already well informed about biology majors, job prospects are quite low unless your going to graduate school school</p>
<p>@hakuex, I’m a first year premed at UCLA right now and I can tell you I’m having no problems with getting classes or anything (no Regent’s BTW). The only people who I have heard had problems with getting their classes either are rushing their curriculum way too much, or are trying to double major so if you fall into either of these two categories I advise caution there.</p>
<p>The concerns you have about large class sizes and lack of individual attention natural to the UC’s you listed; classes are pretty big (chemistry, life science classes especially) so if you really want that type of attention you really need to be proactive and go to TA and professor office hours on your own time to build those relationships and get the help you want. It isn’t going to be readily available to you like it is a small liberal arts/private school like it is at USC (generalizing here) but it’s definitely attainable at least here at UCLA.</p>
<p>And if you’re looking to do just bio (not bioengineering for that I’d recommend UCSD) I really recommend UCLA over USC and UCSD. Call me biased but UCLA’s biology departments are top-notch in graduate research and there are many opportunities to get involved in those labs even as an undergrad that I’m not sure the other two offer.</p>
<p>There isn’t a substantial difference in class sizes at any of the 3 schools you listed as your final choices. The lower division classes will be very large and the upper division classes will be much better in terms of size and personal attention. I doubt it will matter for you if your lower division classes are 200 people instead of 400. There’s no way either is more of a personal experience than the other. You would probably get more 200 size lectures at USC than UCLA. For this reason, the common myth is that UCLA is extremely impersonal and turns you into a number in the system. While that is true to an extent in lower division coursework, it is true across the board for large public or private universities including USC. Sure, you might have 50-150 less people in your huge lectures at USC, but at that point, who cares. Aside from that, I can personally attest that my upper division coursework experience here has been fantastic. For reference my class sizes last quarter were:</p>
<p>Here’s the US News class size comparison at the bottom of the page for each school. You’ll notice that USC and UCLA’s are very similar, with USC having a small ~10% more classes under 20 than UCLA - pretty negligible. </p>