I know. But imagine being told every day that you need to be a doctor and letting down everyone you know when you tell them that you don’t.
Not being able to graduate in 8 semesters is probably due to student reasons in most cases. Examples:
- Student plans prerequisite sequencing poorly when choosing courses, or delays taking needed prerequisites for non-academic reasons (e.g. does not want to take the 8am class).
- Student changes major at a relatively late stage, not having completed expected prerequisites for the new major. (Can occur if the student is rejected in secondary admission to preferred major, and did not make any backup major plans.)
- Student voluntarily takes lower course loads than the 15-16 credits (or equivalent) needed to finish in 8 semesters (12 credits or equivalent is the minimum “full time” for financial aid purposes, and the minimum that many colleges require for “full time” students).
- Student needs to take lower course loads to have time to work to help pay for school.
- Student needs remedial course work.
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I think that once I move away from home, I’ll be able to realize what I actually want to do. I’ll also be exposed to new interests and career paths in college. Maybe I should stop thinking about it now.
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Yep!
Congrats! IMHO, given that these outstanding institutions could not be more different (in structure and experience), I think it comes down to whether you want a more intimate/residential college which you would definitely get with Williams and much less likely with UCB (given things are more off-campus). Do you want the late night intellectual conversations with your peers/etc and the close interactions with faculty?
That’s not a good reason to become a doctor.
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Assuming that “W” is “Washington” (or Wisconsin), UW is also a very good choice.
I have seen many cases of students under-appreciating their in-state public universities. For example I know someone from Massachusetts whose daughter went to UVM, and someone from Vermont whose daughter went to U.Mass Amherst at the exact same time. Both parents paid about an extra $80,000 over four years to get a very good education. Fortunately both daughters had earned good merit scholarships, and both sets of parents could afford it without debt.
The good news is that you have multiple very good choices. The bad news is that it is hard to pick one!
The problem with Washington is that if the OP is admitted to the business major, changing into CS and some other majors could be very difficult. This is less of an issue for CS at Wisconsin.
I can understand why you like those majors. They sound dynamic. However, the name of a major may not necessarily capture its material underpinnings, which may coincide or overlap with available courses at other colleges. Nonetheless, with respect to your interests, it might be preferable to have the option of a formally defined neuroscience major.
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Williams offers neuroscience, cognitive science, and science and technology studies as concentrations. Williams doesn’t have minors and considers concentrations the best approach to interdisciplinary studies.
From their website
If you’re still planning to visit, they can explain further.
Tufts looks like a good choice for you for several reasons. I would however look closely at Tufts’ distribution requirements as well as their foreign language requirement. Williams also has distribution requirements, but no language requirement.
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UCB, as others have noted, as long as it’s CS, engineering, or EECS major from Berkeley, you’ll have options from early on (late spring semester freshman year, say) at a place like Google for tech roles. You would also have a pretty good idea of the smaller companies and startups in the bay area, which could be a better experience for you.
“I know. But imagine being told every day that you need to be a doctor and letting down everyone you know when you tell them that you don’t.”
I do understand that, but are you saying that a tech role at a place like Google would not be a way to counter some of that? Anyway, you have to do what you really think is right down the road. good luck!
Sorry for the late response on this, but yes less PM roles and they need a technical undergrad degree. I was a PM back in the day and while you don’t write code, you’re pretty close to doing it 
.
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Re: Cal and research opportunities, Cal has the best research departments in many different areas, and you would have opportunities to conduct undergraduate research with these world-class faculty. For instance, I know a colleague who did undergrad research in this neuroscience lab: https://cnl.berkeley.edu/ and published in Nature.
In addition, with UCB, you get the university name recognition, a broader network, diversity of academic programs and research areas, and diversity and larger size of student population.
I think you have a good understanding of the tradeoffs between UCB and Williams. I typically make a complete list of all of the tradeoffs among different options, and then go with my gut feeling. 
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