<p>bubbles: please could you help me understand what specific aspects of EECS at ucb make it the best. i would like to know at the undergrad level.</p>
<p>is it the quality of professors and their teaching rigor, the caliber of students, research opportunities, are the professors and GSIs committed to helping undergrads?</p>
<p>is it the better job opportunities? is it the proximity to stanford and silicon valley and VCs/start-ups?</p>
<p>and despite this lead, if i choose to go to UTA for whatever reason, how do you think i can consciously try to make up whatever opportunity i may have given up?</p>
<p>to all the wonderful givers of advice…please let me know if you are working professionals and how long ago you graduated from UCB or other univs. and in which field you work. what did you study as an undergrad? your answers and advice are definitely very valuable because you come at it from the industry angle, i suppose</p>
<p>You would be throwing away a chance of a lifetime by not going to UT Austin for free.</p>
<p>Yes, Berkeley does have the local-to-Silicon-Valley advantage in terms of recruiting by smaller companies (it does not matter for big companies like GAFAM that recruit everywhere). But UT Austin is a prominent enough school to attract recruiters from those companies that have a limited fly-to-recruit budget, and has its own cluster of computer companies around it. Of course, you can always look for and apply to Silicon Valley computer companies anyway.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The courses do tend to have high standards and expectations, even though faculty and GSIs do vary in terms of teaching quality. The high standards and expectations do mean that graduates are generally expected to know what they are doing. But UT Austin is similar in this respect, as well as in the research opportunities.</p>
<p>I think the only thing you’d be missing out on is the prestige factor. Berkeley is the #1 ranked public university in the nation and on most rankings is in the top 3 for EECS … up there with Stanford and MIT. There’s really no way to “make up” for that, which is why most people would choose Stanford or MIT over Berkeley if they had the choice. The only reason I would give up MIT or Stanford over Berkeley is cost. So my advice to you is the same: Go to UT.</p>
<p>*In other words, a 3.8GPA Berkeley EECS degree is almost certainly worth an extra 220k over a 3.8 UTA degree.
*</p>
<p>??? do you have a typo in that sentence. No way is that sentence true. Did you mean to say, “certainly NOT worth”? </p>
<p>A person could take that $220k and invest it in a reasonable fashion.</p>
<p>It would be hard to argue that the cost difference is worth $200k if the choices were Cal vs a whole bunch of schools, including some CSUs or Cal Polys. Most certainly the cost is not worth it for Cal vs UTexas. Heck, go to Cal for grad school for EECS. [Information</a> for Prospective Graduate Students](<a href=“http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Gradadm/]Information”>Graduate Admissions & Programs | EECS at UC Berkeley)</p>
<p>How did OP come up with the figures of $0 for Texas, $45K for Rice, and $55K for Cal? He certainly wasn’t awarded free food and housing at Texas.</p>
<p>Rice has the smartest students and smallest classes and is $10K cheaper than Cal. Berkeley makes no sense whatsoever for OP. Rice also has a residential college system like Yale’s.</p>
<p>One could get to zero with stackable merit aid. </p>
<p>And, yes, OP, you should jump on a plane to Oakland and check Cal asap. It might help you picture yourself there, check the area, check the housing situation, check the impact of the transfer admissions, check the overcrowding, talk to potential employers, etc. </p>
<p>Of course, remember that 2017 might be very different from 2013 in terms of employment. All bubbles tend to burst. </p>
<p>Concentrate on where your next four years will be the happiest. And weigh the cost.</p>
<p>Oh, unless cost is not an issue and you/your folks have enough disposable income that it won’t create a hardship or mean trading off going to grad school. Then choose Cal. If cost isn’t much of a factor and you’re going to do all that work, you might as well get your degree from a school in the top 3.</p>
<p>He said that he has a “full ride” to UTexas. Maybe he’s one of those students given that 40 Acres awards or some other major award??</p>
<p>UT Austin offered me admission to Elec and Comp Eng Hons with a full-ride merit scholarship. I’d live in a dorm if I chose UT, not at home with parents.</p>
<p>“Then choose Cal. If cost isn’t much of a factor and you’re going to do all that work, you might as well get your degree from a school in the top 3.”</p>
<p>Harvard, Yale and Princeton are the top three. Sorry, Cal doesn’t make the top twenty.</p>
<p>it’s stackable merit aid, as xiggi suggested, but not the ‘forty acres’ scholarship , unfortunately, the 40 acres schol would have been awesome but my profile was not that good!</p>
<p>I really like the idea of transfer admissions, as suggested by xiggi. perhaps do a year at UTA, find out more in-depth about the differences between UCB and UTA and then perhaps see if a transfer makes sense. i will probably talk to the office of admissions at UCB about it, </p>
<p>any suggestions re how to go about talking to UCB about this?</p>