<p>So I'm trying to make a decision between the two schools and weighing the pros and cons and most of the threads like this are a bit older. Right now leaning towards WashU, but feel free to sway me otherwise. Right now I'm between an Econ or Mechanical Engineering major but I would like to get an MBA regardless. No med school for me. Below is just my thoughts so you don't have to read the whole thing. </p>
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<p>DISTANCE: WashU is much closer than Berkeley for me. My dad, however, goes on a lot of business trips to the Berkeley area so he could see me more.</p>
<p>TUITION: I did not apply for aid, so Berkeley is cheaper. By maybe $10,000 a year. I am fortunate enough that finance is not a driving factor in my decision but that is a large sum of savings. However, Berkeley is public and I've heard the CA government isn't doing so hot in education funding right now. </p>
<p>CAMPUS/LOCATION: I'm leaning towards more medium/smaller schools. I have not, however, visited Berkeley campus yet (I have visited WashU). I will be visiting later in April but please feel free to tell me about the campus now. The good thing about Berkeley, I think, is that it's probably easier to find jobs/internships after graduation in CA than it is in the Midwest. Then again I could be wrong.</p>
<p>PRESTIGE/EDUCATION: I come from an Asian family so all my family members and family friends think I should go to Berkeley, however, I'm slightly biased to WashU (probably because I have visited WashU campus). I actually do take prestige into account because networking is fairly important to me after graduation. Currently WashU is ranked higher (on US News which I take with a grain of salt) but Berkeley has more name value. I do think most of that name value comes from graduate programs though and that WashU has more undergrad focus. </p>
<p>@UCBChemEGrad Unfortunately I cannot attend Cal Day but I’ll be visiting on my own time. When I was applying I didn’t know what I wanted to do so I put undecided/Pre-Business because I wanted to get an MBA. I didn’t realize they would put me in Letters and Sciences. I guess I’ll have to sort that should I choose to go to Berkeley.</p>
<p>Since you weren’t admitted into the College of Engineering, it will be tougher going if you want an engineering degree from Berkeley. Berkeley’s Haas undergrad program is an MBA-lite. You can complete the prerequisties for Haas and then apply to Haas during your sophomore year. About 50% get into Haas.</p>
<p>I think you need to decide what you ultimately want to pursue though before you enroll in classes this fall since engineering will require more physics and Haas more economics prerequisites.</p>
<p>WashU may allow you more opportunity and time to explore majors, since it is less beauracratic.</p>
<p>Very, very few people with WashU undergrad get accepted onto a top MBA program. Berkeley, on the other hand, is well within the top 8 feeder schools to top grad business school, even beating half of the Ivies. </p>
<p>At Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago Booth and Dartmouth Tuck, 84 students come from Berkeley as opposed to only 17 from WashU.</p>
<p>For economics, both Berkeley’s more-math version (101A-101B-141) and WUStL have a heavier math emphasis than most schools’ economics majors. Economics at Berkeley does require a 3.0 GPA in the prerequisite courses to declare the major.</p>
<p>For MBA program admissions, your post-graduation work experience will be important. So you may want to consider which region you want to work in (and how that relates to what industries are in the regions), since most employers will have some local recruiting bias out of convenience.</p>
<p>Thanks for the links guys. @RML Good point on the number of students attending grad school. Another point to think on, however, is that Cal’s average graduating class is a thousand shy of the whole undergrad population at WashU. So percentage-wise Berkeley is only a little bit ahead in sending to top schools. </p>
<p>Since I posted in the Berkeley forum, I’d think that I’d get most of the responses from current or graduated students of Cal. What do you think of the effects of CA government education funding? Is it a huge problem? I’ve heard a lot of worse case scenarios so I’d like to hear a realistic view. </p>
<p>About the funding, it is a problem on the grand scale, but the individual student, I don’t believe, notices a difference. Especially if you’re in the sciences, since they tend to get more of the funding.
WashU does focus more on it’s undergrads than Berkeley does, but I think if you’re caring about prestige, Berkeley’s name goes a lot further than WashU (especially in the business field). </p>
<p>@dina4119 I’ve heard that sometimes classes are taken off the roster because of funding issues. I’d think they’d keep a lot of the core and basic classes, but do you know what kinds of classes they have to cut (or where I can find that information0?</p>
<p>Ya, I’ve no idea which classes they’ve cut and since I wasn’t aware/haven’t heard about this from other students, I’m assuming it isn’t happening much? But that’s just my experience…I’m willing to bet the classes cut were not from the sciences since they unfortunately (or fortunately depending on who you are) tend to go after the humanities/arts. </p>