I was recently accepted to both UC Berkeley and USC. USC offered me a huge scholarship making an $8k difference in cost per year. This is a manageable difference for me but still to be considered. I was offered admission to the Thematic Option Honors Program at USC as well. That being said Berkeley has been my dream school for 4 years and I’m finding it very difficult to turn down. What do you all think?
follow your heart, GO GOLDEN BEARS!
Congrats on being accepted to two amazing, world class universities. To me, the answer is simple: one of these great schools is your dream school, and evidently cost is not a major factor–follow your dreams, and FIGHT ON!
The reasons my sister choose USC over UCB:
USC has a huge alumni network that is important when it’s time to intern or apply for jobs.
Also, USC is “old school” in how they have the students connect to each other.
USC is in Southern California: a lot less rain than the Bay Area, and a lot warmer.
Competition is reported to be fierce and cut throat at Cal.
Congrats on getting into two great schools. Having attended Berkeley, I feel that I got a solid liberal arts education but being that it’s a public school I always felt like a number and the resources could have been better. It’s definitely more of a sink or swim environment as far as navigating resources. Maybe it’s different now, idk. But now that I have a son at a private university I can tell the difference in the quality of service from admissions, financial aid and housing. So my two cents is that USC would be better overall. Good luck!
Another vote for USC for many of the reasons mentioned above re: student quality of life, alumni network, weather, etc.
USC’s Thematic Option program looks amazing, and it will give you access to top faculty and a cohort of very intellectually engaged students. Would you be living in the new USC Village?
You can’t go wrong with either school and if the net price puts them in range of one another, you should go with your gut, If you end up choosing Cal, bear in mind that housing is not guaranteed after the first year (and that forced triples for freshmen are not uncommon). Moreover, certain majors are impacted and it can sometimes be difficult to graduate in four years because you can’t get all of the classes you need.
The Honors program at UCS would give you much smaller classes and far more faculty attention than you’d get in your lower-division classes at Cal. Berkeley is an excellent school, but there’s a lot of competition for resources - difficulty getting into classes, housing crunch, lots of being taught by grad students. For similar $ I would consider the Thematic Option Honors Program a better value and educational experience. At Berkeley you’d be paying for the name but waiting in line for UCB to deliver on its reputation. JMHO.
@aquapt “At Berkeley you’d be paying for the name but waiting in line for UCB to deliver on its reputation. “
The actual academics are meaningless at Cal and you are only paying for the name of the institution? Not buying this argument at all…
I’m not sure how you got to that paraphrase of what I said.
I did not say that Cal would not deliver, and I’m not sure where “The actual academics are meaningless” came from. I said that one has to wait in line, because there is significant competition for resources. Not sure why that’s a controversial statement, as it’s easily supported by the facts.
To me the main factors in USC’s favor would be smaller class sizes and more personal attention than at Berkeley. I do think Berkeley is a great place for grad or professional school, but it’s not all that different than other good state flagships for undergrad.
I heard someone once describe Cal following a “self-motivated educational philosophy”, which is a nice way of saying that if you’re a student, you’re pretty much on your own. Some students have no problems with that, while others have a hard time with it.
@aquapt is exactly right.
@jalrawi I just want to add that my 4 years at Cal were the best of my young life. For all the cons I listed, dealing with the ‘sink or swim’ environment I believe made me very resourceful and adaptable…all great qualities for employers. I never had summer internships but I held a p/t job on campus. I was recruited for my first job on campus too. As for housing I can attest that was not a perfect scenario for me. I ended up living in student co-op housing, dorms (even the dreaded triple, ugh) and then rent controlled off campus apartment. And even with less than perfect housing I met the most diverse group of people some of whom are still my friends 30 years later. Plus with Cal being across from San Francisco, I was able to take advantage of all the City had to offer. Yes, I had undergrad classes as large as 800 but I thought they were fun and they were few and far between. Again, congrats and good luck in your decision.
Depends what your major is. For most STEM majors I would think Cal wins.
One difference that might not have been a factor a generation ago, but which is definitely a difference today, is geographic diversity.
There’s been a lot of concern about non-resident enrollment at UC campuses, especially Berkeley and UCLA. But even so, more than 3 out of 4 Berkeley students are Californians, and since the UC system recently capped non-resident enrollment, that’s not going to change. Berkeley regularly turns down better-qualified out-of-staters in favor of less-qualified state residents (and as a state school, this is probably the right thing to do).
But USC (as a private school) doesn’t have to do that – they will cheerfully accept the highly-qualified non-residents that Berkeley doesn’t have room for (USC is also happy to offer them financial aid). The days when USC was overwhelmingly Californian are long gone. The Class of 2021 was only 42% in-state, with 43% from other states and 15% international. The in-state share will probably continue to drop in the future; other top privates in California, like Pomona, Caltech, or Stanford, only have around 25-35% in-state enrollment.
So USC is becoming nationally and internationally diverse in a way that Berkeley cannot duplicate. On the other hand, it’s probably true that there is more socioeconomic diversity at Berkeley.
OP Honestly you could easily ask the question in reverse
Cals hard earned international acclaim, Nobel laureates and advance stem research is most definately not a result of undergraduate studies. And the PhDs didn’t go to cal. They actually refuse to take Berkeley undergrads into advanced stem studies at cal. as part of their admittance policy.
I would have to have an economic incentive to choose cal over usc for undergrad.
And I appreciate someones positive experience as the best years of their life. That presupposes that the same individual might not have had an equally or better experience somewhere else. One will never know.
It’s just amusing to me that students are now deciding between USC and Cal…back in the day they were never mentioned in the same breath lol. Cal needs to seriously start a major PR push.
This varies by department. UCB chemical engineering explicitly has that policy, but that is not necessarily true for other departments at UCB (for example, there is at least one CS PhD student at UCB who was did an EECS bachelor’s degree at UCB). And some departments at other universities may have similar policies.
No knock at all. It’s Cal and all that means on the prestige side of things. And I defer to you on the
Berkeley insights. I stand corrected. It’s just a policy for some departments. And I wasn’t aware of how common this is. Perhaps it’s a stem thing. Harvard bu and Bc, which I am more familiar with, have the mobility ug to grad.
I had a couple that did exactly that, chose USC over UCB and UCLA. We like the perks of a private education and in particular the ability to shape your education exactly the way you want to during your time there. Changing majors is simple or double majoring even with a minor is very do-able in four years at USC (and particularly easy for students with high gpa’s that get perks of taking additional credits without additional cost). Relationships/connections made at USC and the alumni network are as strong and valuable as the education. Engineering project and research opportunities during the four years were crazy good. So those were our big draws for USC over UCB. But truth is, mine never connected with UCB on the many visits we did there, so it was never that tempting.
You mention UCB is your dream school and that carries weight. Years from now, if you want to say you graduated from UCB then go there. You can excel at either school and both are fabulous in their own way - so go where you feel you really want to be, simple as that. Good luck!
I happened to see the US News “National University” ranking from 1996. USC was ranked four spots below Davis.