My close friend growing up always wanted to go to UCB for engineering since he was in middle school. And sure enough that is exactly what he did. Having that stretch goal really helped him get into Cal as he is one of the most competitive people I have ever known and nothing was going to stop him. I’m sure some teacher in middle school mentioned UCB having a great engineering program and that sealed the deal for him. Btw - he did everything “right”, science fairs, top programming classes, summer internships at Fortune 100 company, Mensa club, V sports, etc. and this was back in the late 80’s.