<p>I have been accepted to both, and I will be paying full tuition for both (out of state for Berkeley). I honestly am stuck between both. I visited both and loved both campuses! Thoughts?</p>
<p>Full tuition for pre-med? Yikes!<br>
Can you and your parents easily afford them without loans?
Do you have any cheaper options?</p>
<p>I would choose based on the campus environment you like better. Berkeley and the Bay Area are different from LA and USC. Do you have a preference even though you loved both campuses? Coming from OOS you can get around the Bay Area more easily without a car.</p>
<p>Im a UC Berkeley MCB student, and having been to both campuses, in terms of academics now, I think they are very comparable. Also, you know you don’t have to major in biology for being a premed right? You can be whatever major you want if you take the right prerequisites.</p>
<p>Now, I think the two schools differ a lot in two big areas.</p>
<p>1.Clinical Opportunities/Clinical Research: Berkeley has many research labs, but no medical school or hospital officially associated with it, so getting physician shadowing opportunities and clinical research opportunities might be a little tougher, since you would be more on your own for this. There is UCSF and Alta-Bates hospitals, but this really requires if you have your own connections and effort if you want some hands-on clinical opportunities. USC does have it’s own medical school and hospital, but I have no idea of any pre-med programs that might have there that provide shadowing and clinical research opportunities, but they probably exist.</p>
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<li>The atmosphere of Berkeley is drastically different from USC. USC is a landmark southern california school, so people will be more a mix between liberal and conservative, and they where more glitzy and glamorous clothing. Overall USC has a more upper class, preppy atmosphere due to more affluent students attending there. And overall, its a private school, so they have the cash to provide experiences a public school cant, like washing the sidewalk and fancy buildings. Berkeley is much more liberal, and people wear old clothes, they don’t care much about designer brands. Berkeley students are much more active about change and will protest often if they feel unjust about something.</li>
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<p>Just my two cents</p>
<p>UCBChemEGrad, my parents will pay for either school without having to deal with loans. </p>
<p>Jweinst1, thank you for the information. Your thoughts are very helpful. Are you a premed student at Berkeley? And if so, do you participate in any clinical opportunities?</p>
<p>At USC, our friend who was a chem major interested in med school worked at the student health center and caught the free shuttle to the med school to do research at the USC Med School, at the Health Sciences Center. I believe he also did research at the main USC campus as well. He got into his 1st choice med school.</p>
<p>One thing that USC does have is greater flexibility if you change majors or decide you want to have a major and minor or double-major. You can even take biomedical engineering courses or audit them if you’re interested in them. Because the UC schools are impacted due to budget cuts, folks I know have had trouble getting the courses they needed in the sequence they needed, which has delayed their graduations. Have not heard of that happening at USC.</p>
<p>Both of my kids loved USC and didn’t apply to the UCs because of the budget cuts made it seem not worth it to us to pay OOS tuition for.</p>
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<p>Probably an excuse made up by students who do not want to admit their own mistakes (poor scheduling choices, failing courses, changing major late, etc.).</p>
<p>^Seriously, it’s rarely ever a problem getting into the classes you need, especially if you’re on top of it.</p>