<p>I love everything about UCLA, but I'm just afraid that the academics might be too rough for me. The fact that our GPA resets when we transfer is what makes me scared about going to UCLA or Berkeley because we have no GE's to cushion our GPA. I want to go to Law School, so GPA matters a lot to me. I'm an Economics major. Is it really that hard at UCLA as people say? I don't want to transfer to a school to just study all day, I want to actually enjoy my time there as well. All I've done so far with my life at CC is go to school then go to work every day, just to prepare for my transfer. I know UCSD isn't easy, but it's definitely not as rigorous as UCLA right?</p>
<p>The difference in rigor between the two are probably very small anyways. UCSD requires more UD econ classes I believe and 3 quarters of econometrics. Just off the top of my head though.</p>
<p>All three are very rigorous so I expect if you’re willing to put the work in I’m sure you’ll be able to do fine where ever you go. That being said, I have heard that the level of competition within classes is far higher at Berkeley than any other of the UCs. Don’t know how accurate that is, but that’s what I’ve heard </p>
<p>Sent from my SGH-T999 using CC</p>
<p>When applying to law school you send off all of your transcripts to the LSAC. There they will recalculate your gpa using every grade you have ever taken in any college. This is not the same uc transferable gpa only from your ccc, it will be all classes. Even if it was not a college level course, it is still added. The link below lists which classes will not be used.</p>
<p>[Policies</a> Related to Transcript Summarization | LSAC.org](<a href=“http://www.lsac.org/policies/transcript-summarization.asp]Policies”>http://www.lsac.org/policies/transcript-summarization.asp)</p>
<p>This may or may not surprise you, but my intuition would be that UCLA and Berkeley would be significantly more competitive than UCSD for Economics. I have that impression just looking at the admission stats alone. Here at UCSD the average admitted transfer GPA, IIRC, is somewhere around a 3.5-3.6. And the more competitive majors to get into are majors in the department of Engineering and Biological Sciences. At UCLA both Economics and Business Economics are the two of the most competitive majors in the College of L&S at UCLA and year in and year out have an average admitted GPA of 3.9+. I think when you consider that most college classes grade on a curve, you have to acknowledge that the quality of competition in those classes is likely to be stronger at UCLA than it would be for UCSD for that particular major. And that’s not really because of the difference in schools, it’s more a testament to how strong that particular major is at UCLA. By the same criteria you could say that Economics at UCLA is significantly more competitive within the department than Human Biology BS, which had an average admitted GPA of 3.53 in 2012. </p>
<p>That being said, I could be completely off base because I’ve never taken an Economics class here at UCSD. And furthermore, I’m actually a firm believer that the difficulty of courses amongst the UC’s isn’t just extremely variable between universities, but is actually highly variable between specific terms at a UC and between professors. For example, here at UCSD they constantly switch lecturers for a lot of courses. One professor, may teach a class Fall quarter and then Winter quarter it can be someone completely different. I’m currently taking a Genetics class that was notoriously easy Fall quarter, whereas this quarter the professor has been much more demanding of her students in terms of assignments and exams. </p>
<p>Also just anecdotally, I took one upper division Biology course at UCLA last summer and four upper division biology courses here at UCSD thus far and from my perspective there hasn’t been a significant difference in difficulty between the professors nor is there any significant variation between the student populations. So that should be encouraging for you. That being said though, I think Biology here is very competitive at UCSD because it’s impacted and it really is seen as the premier department on campus. </p>
<p>If it’s possible my advice for you would be to attempt to sit through lectures at those schools and get a feel for them yourself in person. If you show up on a midterm day, you could probably even sit through an exam and take it to seen how difficult it is (a lot of the times they don’t check). I know both UCSD and UCLA have classes that regularly allow non-students to sit through. You can find a list of those courses here:
<a href=“http://admissions.ucsd.edu/_files/lectures-offered.pdf[/url]”>http://admissions.ucsd.edu/_files/lectures-offered.pdf</a><br>
[Campus</a> Tours - Campus Lecture Experience - UCLA Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/Prospect/tours_lectures.htm]Campus”>http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/Prospect/tours_lectures.htm)
<a href=“http://visitors.berkeley.edu/know/class.shtml[/url]”>http://visitors.berkeley.edu/know/class.shtml</a></p>
<p>So, if you see any courses on those lists that are relevant to your major, that could be a good way of getting firsthand experience to gauge how difficult those classes are at the respective schools. Although, I know getting to those schools depends on where you live. Finally, I’ll close with this, if you’re admitted into Econ at UCLA or HAAS at Berkeley, both of which are super competitive, chances are you’ll do just fine there. They’re admitting you for a reason and if you have the stats to get in, they obviously feel that you have the ability to succeed and do well at their school and you should too. </p>
<p>And here’s a little caveat, the average GPA of an enrolled student at UCLA and Berkeley is actually higher than at UCSD. Where the average GPA at UCLA and Berkeley tends to be around the 3.2-3.3 range the average here at UCSD has consistently stayed near 3.0. That means more students are graduating from Berkeley and UCLA with higher GPAs than they do here at UCSD. And you might try and rationalize that thinking Berkeley and UCLA are more competitive to get into and will have better students, so that’s to be expected, right?. But the truth is both schools GPAs have been steadily increasing for the last 20 years or so, without a real correlation in the admission statistics (at least when compared to other schools). It’s something many people refer to as grade inflation. In fact, UCSD has more recently had larger changes in their admit rates than either and has still been fairly consistent reporting an average between 3.00-3.02 GPA for the last decade. Lastly, in theory, a more competitive student body would mean more competitive curves at Berkeley and UCLA, which should average out the GPA lower, but that’s clearly not the case. Sorry for the random tangent at the end, but I thought it was something interesting to think about. </p>
<p>P.S. Sorry or the lengthy reply. I swear I take this site way too seriously lol. I just felt I could relate because I when I applied I felt similarly and I’ve attended both UCLA and UCSD.</p>
<p>Note that all three of the campuses do have A+ grades. Although A+ counts as 4.00 for GPA purposes at UCs, it counts as 4.33 for law school admissions GPA.</p>
<p>dilapidatedmind - Don’t apologize man. Haha. I take my academics seriously, so any response, lengthy or short, is greatly appreciated. Unfortunately I live all the way in San Jose, so I don’t have the luxury of visiting the campuses, especially with work and school. I’ve only been to the campuses once the previous summer. To be honest, I loved UCLA a lot more. I just don’t want to be miserable from studying 24/7 and not getting results, I really want to get good grades and enjoy my time. I haven’t been able to enjoy any school the last couple years at my CSU and CC.</p>
<p>When you go to law school your community college grades will be used in your gpa.</p>
<p>I didnt notice a change in rigor between CCC classes and UCB classes so I highly doubt there is a difference between individual UCs.</p>
<p>Instead of worrying if one school is harder, look at the required curriculum. Does one school require more nath? Does one require a senior thesis? If you want to maintain a high gpa, then these are the types of questions you need to ask.</p>
<p>UCSD might actually be harder because the different colleges require extra upper division ge which may be hard for you.</p>
<p>How much time are you willing to spend out of class studying? 10 hours a week? 30 hours a week? 50 hours a week? You need to be more specific on what get good grades and enjoy my time means.</p>
<p>I have a high 3.8 right now.</p>