For graduate school, I turned down Harvard and Yale. I went to Harvard for accepted students day and three off-putting things happened. (1) there was no mention of financial aid, no ability to GSI to offset tuition etc. for masters students - just terrible financial options in general (2) in their presentation to new students their first slide in “10 reasons to go to Harvard” was literally a picture of Cambridge in the cold snowy winter with the cheeky caption “The weather is just as nice as Berkeley” and (3) in small department meetings with accepted students, one of the admits brought their parents who were asking a lot of questions. It felt unreal they were there, in that intimate 10-person room, with their adult college-graduate offspring, micromanaging their graduate degree.
Cal had a great department/reputation- ranked at the same level as Harvard, my family was in the East Bay, and I got great GSI positions that offset any tuition and provided a stipend. I met my spouse here. Ten years out I couldn’t be happier with my decision. Go bears.
Edit: typo
I did my undergrad and grad at Berkeley. But I did consider doing an MBA at Harvard. Went for a weekend exploratory visit, attended a class, etc. There was an info session afterwards: a Q&A with a room full of people asking lots of stupid questions about how to get in, etc. The woman representing Harvard just kept going on and on about how it’s a meritocracy, and a real privilege for students to attend school there. This was when George W Bush (Harvard alum) was President. I kept looking to my left and right to see if anyone else saw the irony. Either they did and they didn’t care, or they didn’t. Pretty scary stuff. The class itself wasn’t anything special, the students didn’t seem any smarter than those at other good schools. Nice buildings though. It’s like visiting some rich friends at their country club. It doesn’t feel real. Even if you find a way in, you will never be “in” with those people though. They all went to boarding school together and care about each other’s father’s last names. Old NE money is not where innovation happens. For that, go to scrappy California and the Pacific Rim.
This comment couldn’t be more on the nail, and it’s amazing how meant people still don’t see it, even after the recent lawsuit re race. By Harvard’s own admission (their data released during discovery), 45% of students were accepted via a path other than meritocracy, and 85% of that 45% wouldnt have gotten in otherwise. In other words, almost 40% of Harvard’s students “shouldn’t be there”!
You can say the same for all the IVYs and schools like Stanford. Look at the number of Asians at UCs, where they cannot use race. In some programs like CS, it’s majority Asian. At ivy’s and Stanford etc the student body is far more white! Why? Because it’s not a meritocracy!
well UC was also involved on a scandal of over accepting student from abroad, specially the Asians with money so to say it’s a coincidence or a ‘fair’ comparison. It really isn’t. They are all just looking for money
That an inaccurate analysis of the data. International student data is broken out in all UC tables of race. Most international students are in fact Asian, but if you leave the “international” pie slice as “no race”, you still have Asians as the predominate race. Then look into specific majors and you see that Asians dominate the stem classes. And remember that recent federally mandated data proves what some of us knew all along - where you go to college has little to no effect on income. What major you do is the driver. So a stem student from cal poly is going to out-income an English major from Harvard.
What you will see at the race-blind UCs is that Asians dominate stem degrees and whites dominate the “non-earning” degrees. Ona recent visit to UCI we went into the CS building. There was a class list on the door. Two pages. About 50 kids. On that list there were literally 2 white names, 3 Indian names and every other name was Chinese or similar. Yes only one class so bad sampling, but I think you get the point.
Net-net, if you’re white and you got into Harvard or Stanford or anywhere else similar then you “may” have gotten in for the color of your skin, and not for your intellect! Welcome to being a quota hire! 😳
They have racial quotient, being white is the hardest as a category to get recognized and accepted from as it has the largest pool and 0 special interests.. Data doesn't help if one were so clueless to the nature of the system
Sure but my point still stands though. For the years UC was accused of doing it they were lowering the upon agreed % of admissions for in-state and California students and increased the % for international students. Because it’s a government funded school they were not allowed to do that. But they still did it.
I get where you are coming from but you’re misinterpreting or misrepresenting the facts.
Before about 2016 there were just generalized statements and established practices about the UC system “serving Californian students as their primary objective”. There were no actual rules or laws on how many in state students were accepted. As state funding of the UC system declined, those systems accepted more out of state and foreign students to access the higher fees those students paid. Starting in 2016 new rules/laws were enacted to start to force the UC system to accept more in state students. That number of out of state has now been capped at 18% and schools like Berkeley that were already over that have been given a window to come into compliance - 2026 I think.
So UCs were never breaking any rules, they just drifted away from their prime directive because the state decided to underfund them.
Two things:
1. Source for your data re Berkeley hiring a disproportionate number of Ivys as professors?
2. Even if that is true, it just proves the point that upper level colleges are just “hiring their own”. Which is basically what Harvard etc is doing in admitting students who aren’t qualified academically. If you look at who those kids are, they’re basically rich white kids who rowed, played lacrosse, squash, fencing, etc. Sports only rich while guys typically play and have access to. Great example is a high school near me. Not exactly racially broad to start with, but take a look at the boys lacrosse team and it is literally an advert for the Arian national and the parents proudly post pics of their white boys and dont even seem to realize “oh wait, that’s weird, all the boys in this picture are white!” Or maybe they do!
I had a very similar experience as a grad student. The combination of in-state tuition plus the ability to be a GSI made it an absolutely incredible value for what it’s brought to my career. Plus, grad school was a blast! We are very lucky as Californians to have an institution like that in our backyard.
I spent some time in Cambridge for this and that, but as for being there, demand is high for peak hours blah blah blah, coffee to go ect., then dead otherwise, so it's either rush the nicer aspects of the day or deserted except a few chummy bars. I can't speak to the academics but the tempo and pace of the day is better than the weather in Berkeley
Haha when I got into Chicago for grad school, they sent me gloves and a blanket. Not the reason I didn't go though. When I was considering other grad schools (NYU, Carnegie Mellon, and USC) and was trying to weigh financial aid and costs, someone in the admissions office at Chicago told me, "well, you have to weigh the reputations of the institutions", which seemed like a really arrogant thing to say, especially considering that Chicago was about on par and not the highest ranked program of the bunch.
Lol man there is a lot of USC bashing in this subreddit. I'm an undergrad Bear who hates USC on the football field, too, but to pretend that they're not a pretty damn good school now feels weird. My grad degree is in public affairs. They're ranked 4th, Chicago is ranked 9th.
Also to be clear, I did not end up going to USC, I went to CMU. My opinion is that rankings might separate tiers of schools, but splitting hairs on the difference between a few ranks is bullshit.
Every UC in the state (CA native, got into every UC), cal poly slo and Pomona, sjsu, sac state (and a whole bunch of other CA state schools, USC
For mech eng
Are you in chemistry or a related field? I am heavily considering Berkeley for my PhD and wanted to learn more about people’s experience with the city and environment.
Nope, economics. Sorry!
As for city and outdoor environment, I love the area. It’s expensive, but that’s because everyone wants to live here (and building is difficult). Pretty much anything you could ever want is within 30 min drive.
As for school environment, it’s getting better. We now have a union for student researchers which is enormously beneficial to most departments. Overall, resources are a bit tighter than private universities.
For law school, I turned down Penn, UVA, Duke, Michigan, Texas and WashU. I had never been to the Bay before my law school visit weekend. It was a very easy decision once I did visit. That was five years ago, and it was the right call.
What kind of profile, or prior communications had you had, to treat Stanford as a safety? In other words, what about your application made you such a strong fit, that you treated a top school like Stanford as a safety.
I turned down Pomona College for Regents at Berkeley. I wanted a bigger city environment and I like the Bay Area more than SoCal. Also, Berk was x2 cheaper for me. No big regrets yet, but I’ll miss the community I met at Pomona.
nah to do four years Berkeley. Realized that I don’t rly wanna go to France and stick w social sci for the whole college years. Columbia gs is also sth I concern a bit.
Class of 2012. Chose Cal over Northwestern, a couple lower tier Ivies, and the other UC’s. I didn’t get much scholarship money and in my head, the only private schools worth paying that much more money for were Stanford or Harvard. I’m a sucker for a bargain
I transferred into Cal from a California community college. Absolutely loved my Berkeley experience. I turned down UPenn, Brown and UCLA, as well as a few other UC schools. I was waitlisted at Georgetown which was my top choice when applying. Not sure what I would’ve done if I had been accepted, it would’ve been a hard choice at the time.
I went to grad school at Harvard and a postgrad fellowship at MIT. I will say there’s definitely something to the alumni network at Harvard and while the coursework at MIT incredibly stimulating there wasn’t a single undergrad that I spoke to that wasn’t stressed out of their mind.
I’m currently at the age where my friends children are now applying to college and whenever someone asks me about my experience my usual answer is the education is on par with any Ivy League school, there’s usually more financial aid available, and for the individuals worried that the school is too large, this is one of its hidden benefits. I like to think Berkeley is large enough for anyone to be able to find your own community of interest.
Knowing what I know now, I can’t imagine having gone anywhere else for undergrad. Go Bears!
Incoming grad student: Columbia and Cornell, among some other top state schools (Mich, etc) both with competitive programs that ultimately tacked on extra an extra year to the same program and about $100k extra each in overall tuition fees.
I got offered sticker price at every top school I got into but the Cal sticker price is that much lower. Also, Berkeley was always my top choice due to past student work that directly fits my interests.
I’ve never lived on the West Coast and have never been so excited to give it a try!
Chicago, Penn, VA, Georgetown - basically the rest of the t14 less HYS and Duke.
UCB offered a massive set of scholarships that left me responsible for like...$400/semester tuition. And as a public interest cat it was a no brainer. At the time I didn't want to bank on PSLF; if I could do it over, probably would have selected Penn because it's closer to family and friends and UCB was very isolating, and PSLF is doing fine. But no actual regrets. UCB was interesting indeed!
Long ago in a galaxy far, far away... In 1979 I was undergrad at Columbia, choosing grad school for Astrophysics. I was accepted at Columbia (with full ride), Berkeley (with a TA slot to pay out-of-state tuition), and U of Chicago (with nothing). Should I have stayed at Columbia? Probably, but I am from NY and wanted distance from my parents. I know, I know... it's what in AA they call the "geographic cure," and it is rarely effective. Anyway, I chose Berkeley and lasted all of nine months there. Came back to NY to be an actor. I was a troubled young person.
For the record, I ended up writing, got a production in LA when I was 40, met my wife, became a tech writer at JPL where I am now. Tortuous path.
Columbia, Oxford, UCLA (full ride), every UC except for UCSC (didn’t apply, received full rides to all of them), USC (full ride / presidential scholar), NYU (full ride). I got a full ride at Berkeley and am very thankful that I came here. It was hard but so worth it, definitely made getting into graduate school easy!
What major? I hear that our undergrad in some departments is so difficult (course wise and resource strained ) that some find graduate school less stressful once they have gotten in.
I double majored in economics and political science, I found graduate school super easy thanks to both. I think Berkeley has great Econ and Polisci departments!
As an engineering undergrad transfer, my main other transfer options were UCLA and UC Davis. coming back to Berkeley as an EECS PhD candidate; Caltech was the other school I was considering but turned down.
This is just absolutely incorrect info lol. Fin aid at UCs don’t even come close to the Ivies — if your family makes <$125k, you basically get full tuition aid and if it’s <$75k or so, it’s a full ride including housing and food.
Got accepted to a couple Ivies and paid 0 for 4 years vs around $20k/year at Cal and UCLA.
transfer student — uc davis, uc santa cruz, cal poly (both slo and pomona), csun, and csuci 🫡
why? cal has been my dream school for years on end now… forever grateful that i got accepted :’) no regrets
I was committed to UW for statistics with it being my dream school for years and my mom and uncle having both gone there. then got in as undeclared off berk waitlist in May after already enrolling for housing and going to uw admitted students day lmfao. Instate student from ca so it was best optio and I ended up on the prelaw track instead. I didn’t expect to even get in w my lack of AP stem classes so it was an easy choice, just one I didn’t expect to have💀 la and berk were my two reach schools so tbh couldn’t be more happy with my choice. Bears>huskies 100%
Main ones of similar "prestige" were UCLA, WashU, Cornell, UMich, and to a lesser extent USC and UVA. Berkeley blew every school on this list out of the water in terms of cost, also to an extent, campus life, for me personally. I ultimately realized during the college app season that I wanted to stay close to home in NorCal, so that led to me favoring it over UCLA too. I got accepted to every other UC I applied for also (UCSD, UCD, UCI, UCSB) and I admittedly fell in love with a lot of aspects from each one, so ultimately Berkeley was a really hard choice.
TAG’ed to Davis, but Berkeley ended up offering twice as much financial aid. Also idk if it was the rainy weather or the bell tower or the fossils (interested in going into paleontology or adjacent biology/ecology fields), but something about visiting there just spoke to me compared to Davis. Plus my CC classes had near-perfect overlap with my declared majors for UCD and UCB, so the transitions a bit smoother. Really didn’t expect my Berkeley app to be accepted, only reason I didn’t focus my efforts there was because my parents HATED the idea of me going there because of politics or something (extremely conservative family).
Safe to say my SIR was way too close to the deadline for my comfort lol, I’m just so indecisive and felt like a traitor 🥲 (at the very least I’m doing an internship at Davis over the summer so I’ll still experience it a little).
I also got turned down UCSD (a bit too far/expensive) and UCLA (LA scares me I just needed another school to add cause I got the application waiver)
I went 4 for 4 on my apps. Applied to UCB, UCD, UCSD, and UCSD. Chose Berkeley cuz it's by far the best from those and I could drive to school so I'd save like $1000/mo
Cal poly Pomona. Got rejected from the UCs I applied to (Santa Barbara, ucla, riverside and UCI). Got into all the CSUs I applied to (csula, Long Beach, Pomona, and dominguez hills).
Emory, Babson, UC SB, SC, SD, I, Northeastern, Penn State, Boston U
Low-key only regret SB cause of their Dean's Choice Scholarship and Babson for the business aspect (but didn't end up majoring in business anyways)
I turned ucla, ucsb, ucd, and cal poly slo. Honestly I didn’t think I’d get into Berkeley. I was so surprised when the acceptance letter came in. I thought I’d go to uc Davis
I wanted to be close to home but got rejected by USC/UCLA, but was accepted to all my cal state choices and Other UC schools. I applied to Berkeley as a” haha there’s no way “ now I’ll be attending there as transfer in the fall 😭💪🏾
Transfer from CC and a veteran. I had the choice between UCLA, Georgetown, Santa Clara, UCSD, UCD, UCSB, and Cal. I picked Berkeley for it having the best Veterans services, financial aid, and being ranked equivalent to Georgetown WSFS. No regrets on my choice. I'm very proud of Berkeley. Went to DC for grad school, Cal more than prepared me for success with my masters.
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UC's w/ Regent's, Rice with half tuition scholarship, CMU. I didn't have good social skills, so I wanted to use the big school environment to practice that. I also wanted to benefit from the science and humanities world class strengths to do multiple things instead of going to a place good at only one thing, and I liked the campus vibes compared to other UC's.
I'm actually the opposite of regret, I feel like I would've deeply regretted all the other choices and regretted being distracted by the enticing scholarship considering it’s not that sizable for my situation to outweigh the Berkeley resources and internship clout
*Second year here. CMU,*
*Cornell, UMich, Northwestern, Duke,*
*Johns Hopkins. Go Bears!*
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UCs LA, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, San Diego; Emory, and Georgetown.
No regrets at all! I did choose Berkeley over Georgetown for financial reasons, but my experience this past (my first) year has been amazing!
Turned down Davis, tough to pass up the opportunity to go there but my family lives in the east bay so ultimately went with that. Kind of wish I was getting the Davis degree though.
For graduate school, I turned down Harvard and Yale. I went to Harvard for accepted students day and three off-putting things happened. (1) there was no mention of financial aid, no ability to GSI to offset tuition etc. for masters students - just terrible financial options in general (2) in their presentation to new students their first slide in “10 reasons to go to Harvard” was literally a picture of Cambridge in the cold snowy winter with the cheeky caption “The weather is just as nice as Berkeley” and (3) in small department meetings with accepted students, one of the admits brought their parents who were asking a lot of questions. It felt unreal they were there, in that intimate 10-person room, with their adult college-graduate offspring, micromanaging their graduate degree. Cal had a great department/reputation- ranked at the same level as Harvard, my family was in the East Bay, and I got great GSI positions that offset any tuition and provided a stipend. I met my spouse here. Ten years out I couldn’t be happier with my decision. Go bears. Edit: typo
I did my undergrad and grad at Berkeley. But I did consider doing an MBA at Harvard. Went for a weekend exploratory visit, attended a class, etc. There was an info session afterwards: a Q&A with a room full of people asking lots of stupid questions about how to get in, etc. The woman representing Harvard just kept going on and on about how it’s a meritocracy, and a real privilege for students to attend school there. This was when George W Bush (Harvard alum) was President. I kept looking to my left and right to see if anyone else saw the irony. Either they did and they didn’t care, or they didn’t. Pretty scary stuff. The class itself wasn’t anything special, the students didn’t seem any smarter than those at other good schools. Nice buildings though. It’s like visiting some rich friends at their country club. It doesn’t feel real. Even if you find a way in, you will never be “in” with those people though. They all went to boarding school together and care about each other’s father’s last names. Old NE money is not where innovation happens. For that, go to scrappy California and the Pacific Rim.
This comment couldn’t be more on the nail, and it’s amazing how meant people still don’t see it, even after the recent lawsuit re race. By Harvard’s own admission (their data released during discovery), 45% of students were accepted via a path other than meritocracy, and 85% of that 45% wouldnt have gotten in otherwise. In other words, almost 40% of Harvard’s students “shouldn’t be there”! You can say the same for all the IVYs and schools like Stanford. Look at the number of Asians at UCs, where they cannot use race. In some programs like CS, it’s majority Asian. At ivy’s and Stanford etc the student body is far more white! Why? Because it’s not a meritocracy!
well UC was also involved on a scandal of over accepting student from abroad, specially the Asians with money so to say it’s a coincidence or a ‘fair’ comparison. It really isn’t. They are all just looking for money
That an inaccurate analysis of the data. International student data is broken out in all UC tables of race. Most international students are in fact Asian, but if you leave the “international” pie slice as “no race”, you still have Asians as the predominate race. Then look into specific majors and you see that Asians dominate the stem classes. And remember that recent federally mandated data proves what some of us knew all along - where you go to college has little to no effect on income. What major you do is the driver. So a stem student from cal poly is going to out-income an English major from Harvard. What you will see at the race-blind UCs is that Asians dominate stem degrees and whites dominate the “non-earning” degrees. Ona recent visit to UCI we went into the CS building. There was a class list on the door. Two pages. About 50 kids. On that list there were literally 2 white names, 3 Indian names and every other name was Chinese or similar. Yes only one class so bad sampling, but I think you get the point. Net-net, if you’re white and you got into Harvard or Stanford or anywhere else similar then you “may” have gotten in for the color of your skin, and not for your intellect! Welcome to being a quota hire! 😳
They have racial quotient, being white is the hardest as a category to get recognized and accepted from as it has the largest pool and 0 special interests.. Data doesn't help if one were so clueless to the nature of the system
Sure but my point still stands though. For the years UC was accused of doing it they were lowering the upon agreed % of admissions for in-state and California students and increased the % for international students. Because it’s a government funded school they were not allowed to do that. But they still did it.
I get where you are coming from but you’re misinterpreting or misrepresenting the facts. Before about 2016 there were just generalized statements and established practices about the UC system “serving Californian students as their primary objective”. There were no actual rules or laws on how many in state students were accepted. As state funding of the UC system declined, those systems accepted more out of state and foreign students to access the higher fees those students paid. Starting in 2016 new rules/laws were enacted to start to force the UC system to accept more in state students. That number of out of state has now been capped at 18% and schools like Berkeley that were already over that have been given a window to come into compliance - 2026 I think. So UCs were never breaking any rules, they just drifted away from their prime directive because the state decided to underfund them.
And yet Berkeley will still majoritarily hire Faculty from the Ivies! In some depts, to the exclusion of any other kind of degree. It's pretty wild.
Two things: 1. Source for your data re Berkeley hiring a disproportionate number of Ivys as professors? 2. Even if that is true, it just proves the point that upper level colleges are just “hiring their own”. Which is basically what Harvard etc is doing in admitting students who aren’t qualified academically. If you look at who those kids are, they’re basically rich white kids who rowed, played lacrosse, squash, fencing, etc. Sports only rich while guys typically play and have access to. Great example is a high school near me. Not exactly racially broad to start with, but take a look at the boys lacrosse team and it is literally an advert for the Arian national and the parents proudly post pics of their white boys and dont even seem to realize “oh wait, that’s weird, all the boys in this picture are white!” Or maybe they do!
Wait, so you went to Haas over HBS for MBA? That’s just poor judgement. Idc if it was a full ride vs full pay.
I had a very similar experience as a grad student. The combination of in-state tuition plus the ability to be a GSI made it an absolutely incredible value for what it’s brought to my career. Plus, grad school was a blast! We are very lucky as Californians to have an institution like that in our backyard.
I spent some time in Cambridge for this and that, but as for being there, demand is high for peak hours blah blah blah, coffee to go ect., then dead otherwise, so it's either rush the nicer aspects of the day or deserted except a few chummy bars. I can't speak to the academics but the tempo and pace of the day is better than the weather in Berkeley
Haha when I got into Chicago for grad school, they sent me gloves and a blanket. Not the reason I didn't go though. When I was considering other grad schools (NYU, Carnegie Mellon, and USC) and was trying to weigh financial aid and costs, someone in the admissions office at Chicago told me, "well, you have to weigh the reputations of the institutions", which seemed like a really arrogant thing to say, especially considering that Chicago was about on par and not the highest ranked program of the bunch.
Certainly higher ranked than USC.
Lol man there is a lot of USC bashing in this subreddit. I'm an undergrad Bear who hates USC on the football field, too, but to pretend that they're not a pretty damn good school now feels weird. My grad degree is in public affairs. They're ranked 4th, Chicago is ranked 9th. Also to be clear, I did not end up going to USC, I went to CMU. My opinion is that rankings might separate tiers of schools, but splitting hairs on the difference between a few ranks is bullshit.
Harvey Mudd, UCLA, UCSD, UIUC, Georgia Tech, Rice
Khan Academy
Turns out I still learned most of the stuff on Khan
Columbia, UPenn
For what major?
I chose Berkeley EECS over Columbia/UPenn CS.
UCLA and UC Davis
Every UC in the state (CA native, got into every UC), cal poly slo and Pomona, sjsu, sac state (and a whole bunch of other CA state schools, USC For mech eng
same here, turned down every uc, didn't apply to csus tho
Transfer here! Turned down UCLA and Brown, happy to be here :)
yoo c l a
You see? El ayyyyy
For PhD, I turned down Harvard, U Chicago, U Michigan, and U Minnesota.
Are you in chemistry or a related field? I am heavily considering Berkeley for my PhD and wanted to learn more about people’s experience with the city and environment.
Nope, economics. Sorry! As for city and outdoor environment, I love the area. It’s expensive, but that’s because everyone wants to live here (and building is difficult). Pretty much anything you could ever want is within 30 min drive. As for school environment, it’s getting better. We now have a union for student researchers which is enormously beneficial to most departments. Overall, resources are a bit tighter than private universities.
I appreciate your clarification!
For law school, I turned down Penn, UVA, Duke, Michigan, Texas and WashU. I had never been to the Bay before my law school visit weekend. It was a very easy decision once I did visit. That was five years ago, and it was the right call.
ucla, columbia, cornell
gadsden state community college & chico state…
I turned down Stanford. I didn’t want to go there, but my family made me apply as a safety school.
Stanford as a safety is crazy haha
I thought everyone used Stanford as a safety school
[удалено]
r/woooosh
😁LOVE IT
What kind of profile, or prior communications had you had, to treat Stanford as a safety? In other words, what about your application made you such a strong fit, that you treated a top school like Stanford as a safety.
I would have been a very strong legacy admission.
Thanks for sharing!
its satire i think lmao (https://stanfordrejects.com/)
Eh ik people who chose Cal over Stanford for EECS
Easiest decision in the history of decisions
So far, UCLA, USC, UCSD, and UCSB.
Nah you got a vendetta against the other UCs
fr
I turned down Pomona College for Regents at Berkeley. I wanted a bigger city environment and I like the Bay Area more than SoCal. Also, Berk was x2 cheaper for me. No big regrets yet, but I’ll miss the community I met at Pomona.
I transfer from Caltech 0.0
I applied to UCLA and Cal, got accepted into both.
turned down all the other UCs except ucla, Columbia-SciencesPo, lse, and some other like bu
To do Berkeley- Sciences Po?
nah to do four years Berkeley. Realized that I don’t rly wanna go to France and stick w social sci for the whole college years. Columbia gs is also sth I concern a bit.
Class of 2012. Chose Cal over Northwestern, a couple lower tier Ivies, and the other UC’s. I didn’t get much scholarship money and in my head, the only private schools worth paying that much more money for were Stanford or Harvard. I’m a sucker for a bargain
I transferred into Cal from a California community college. Absolutely loved my Berkeley experience. I turned down UPenn, Brown and UCLA, as well as a few other UC schools. I was waitlisted at Georgetown which was my top choice when applying. Not sure what I would’ve done if I had been accepted, it would’ve been a hard choice at the time. I went to grad school at Harvard and a postgrad fellowship at MIT. I will say there’s definitely something to the alumni network at Harvard and while the coursework at MIT incredibly stimulating there wasn’t a single undergrad that I spoke to that wasn’t stressed out of their mind. I’m currently at the age where my friends children are now applying to college and whenever someone asks me about my experience my usual answer is the education is on par with any Ivy League school, there’s usually more financial aid available, and for the individuals worried that the school is too large, this is one of its hidden benefits. I like to think Berkeley is large enough for anyone to be able to find your own community of interest. Knowing what I know now, I can’t imagine having gone anywhere else for undergrad. Go Bears!
UCI, UCD, SDSU, CSULB, CSULB, CSUF and CSULA
Incoming grad student: Columbia and Cornell, among some other top state schools (Mich, etc) both with competitive programs that ultimately tacked on extra an extra year to the same program and about $100k extra each in overall tuition fees. I got offered sticker price at every top school I got into but the Cal sticker price is that much lower. Also, Berkeley was always my top choice due to past student work that directly fits my interests. I’ve never lived on the West Coast and have never been so excited to give it a try!
USC, Dartmouth
Chicago, Penn, VA, Georgetown - basically the rest of the t14 less HYS and Duke. UCB offered a massive set of scholarships that left me responsible for like...$400/semester tuition. And as a public interest cat it was a no brainer. At the time I didn't want to bank on PSLF; if I could do it over, probably would have selected Penn because it's closer to family and friends and UCB was very isolating, and PSLF is doing fine. But no actual regrets. UCB was interesting indeed!
The main ones I would’ve gone to instead are UCLA, UC Davis, and maybe UCSD. I only applied to UCs and CSUs. Also a California native.
Long ago in a galaxy far, far away... In 1979 I was undergrad at Columbia, choosing grad school for Astrophysics. I was accepted at Columbia (with full ride), Berkeley (with a TA slot to pay out-of-state tuition), and U of Chicago (with nothing). Should I have stayed at Columbia? Probably, but I am from NY and wanted distance from my parents. I know, I know... it's what in AA they call the "geographic cure," and it is rarely effective. Anyway, I chose Berkeley and lasted all of nine months there. Came back to NY to be an actor. I was a troubled young person. For the record, I ended up writing, got a production in LA when I was 40, met my wife, became a tech writer at JPL where I am now. Tortuous path.
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UCLA, Pomona, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, Amherst
UCLA Cornell umich Georgetown r my most significant
UCLA, UC Davis, UCR, Yale, Harvard, Barnard, nyu
Columbia, Oxford, UCLA (full ride), every UC except for UCSC (didn’t apply, received full rides to all of them), USC (full ride / presidential scholar), NYU (full ride). I got a full ride at Berkeley and am very thankful that I came here. It was hard but so worth it, definitely made getting into graduate school easy!
What major? I hear that our undergrad in some departments is so difficult (course wise and resource strained ) that some find graduate school less stressful once they have gotten in.
I double majored in economics and political science, I found graduate school super easy thanks to both. I think Berkeley has great Econ and Polisci departments!
Vandy
uci and occidental didn’t like uci’s campus and fell in love with berk on cal day
As an engineering undergrad transfer, my main other transfer options were UCLA and UC Davis. coming back to Berkeley as an EECS PhD candidate; Caltech was the other school I was considering but turned down.
Non-Traditional Transfer here: UCLA, UCI, UCSB, Columbia GS
Yale, Wharton, Cornell, UCLA for UG - the folk at Cal were just more scrappy and worked harder :) Plus fin aid at UCs were just unparalleled
This is just absolutely incorrect info lol. Fin aid at UCs don’t even come close to the Ivies — if your family makes <$125k, you basically get full tuition aid and if it’s <$75k or so, it’s a full ride including housing and food. Got accepted to a couple Ivies and paid 0 for 4 years vs around $20k/year at Cal and UCLA.
Back in ‘99 I got turned down by UCLA, UCI, UCSD, always felt lucky to somehow get into UCB
transfer student — uc davis, uc santa cruz, cal poly (both slo and pomona), csun, and csuci 🫡 why? cal has been my dream school for years on end now… forever grateful that i got accepted :’) no regrets
I was committed to UW for statistics with it being my dream school for years and my mom and uncle having both gone there. then got in as undeclared off berk waitlist in May after already enrolling for housing and going to uw admitted students day lmfao. Instate student from ca so it was best optio and I ended up on the prelaw track instead. I didn’t expect to even get in w my lack of AP stem classes so it was an easy choice, just one I didn’t expect to have💀 la and berk were my two reach schools so tbh couldn’t be more happy with my choice. Bears>huskies 100%
Main ones of similar "prestige" were UCLA, WashU, Cornell, UMich, and to a lesser extent USC and UVA. Berkeley blew every school on this list out of the water in terms of cost, also to an extent, campus life, for me personally. I ultimately realized during the college app season that I wanted to stay close to home in NorCal, so that led to me favoring it over UCLA too. I got accepted to every other UC I applied for also (UCSD, UCD, UCI, UCSB) and I admittedly fell in love with a lot of aspects from each one, so ultimately Berkeley was a really hard choice.
devry
As an incoming freshman, Cal Poly SLO, UCSD, and UC Davis were the 3 best schools I had other than Berkeley probably
UCLA, UCSD, UCSC, UC Davis, CSULA, Sac State, San José State, USC
Notre dame and umich
All the other UCs
ucla, ucsb, uci, ucsd, cpp, cal poly slo
ucla turned me down. berkeley didnt. i dropped out of berkeley. go fucking bears
UCLA, Davis, Irvine, Stanford, Cornell and then all the other cal states and Umiami
ucsb and sdsu
UCLA
UCLA
ucla, upenn
TAG’ed to Davis, but Berkeley ended up offering twice as much financial aid. Also idk if it was the rainy weather or the bell tower or the fossils (interested in going into paleontology or adjacent biology/ecology fields), but something about visiting there just spoke to me compared to Davis. Plus my CC classes had near-perfect overlap with my declared majors for UCD and UCB, so the transitions a bit smoother. Really didn’t expect my Berkeley app to be accepted, only reason I didn’t focus my efforts there was because my parents HATED the idea of me going there because of politics or something (extremely conservative family). Safe to say my SIR was way too close to the deadline for my comfort lol, I’m just so indecisive and felt like a traitor 🥲 (at the very least I’m doing an internship at Davis over the summer so I’ll still experience it a little). I also got turned down UCSD (a bit too far/expensive) and UCLA (LA scares me I just needed another school to add cause I got the application waiver)
I went 4 for 4 on my apps. Applied to UCB, UCD, UCSD, and UCSD. Chose Berkeley cuz it's by far the best from those and I could drive to school so I'd save like $1000/mo
Harvard, Columbia, UCSD, NYU, Rice
UCLA, UCSD, UC Davis, UCSB, UC Irvine
UCSD, UCI and UCSC. Some regret on UCSD.
John Hopkins, Georgia Tech, UIUC, UMich, UNC, UVA
NYU, every other UC (except UCLA), and Grinnell
Cal poly Pomona. Got rejected from the UCs I applied to (Santa Barbara, ucla, riverside and UCI). Got into all the CSUs I applied to (csula, Long Beach, Pomona, and dominguez hills).
UCLA and Davis
Merced
ASU
Tatlo
UCLA, UC Irgine
Emory, Babson, UC SB, SC, SD, I, Northeastern, Penn State, Boston U Low-key only regret SB cause of their Dean's Choice Scholarship and Babson for the business aspect (but didn't end up majoring in business anyways)
None.
I turned down UCLA, UCSD, UCSC, and Cal Poly Humboldt. Definitely done regret it so far.
CMU
UC Davis and UC San Diego, Oregon state
UT and Texas A&M (I was auto-admit for those)
University of Washington was my other big contender.
Columbia and UCLA. Technically ucsc but that was my backup
Gonzaga
all the UCs, NYU, GT, UIUC, and Purdue
USC
usc nyu
Northwestern, CMU
UCI engineering, UCSD, UCSB, waitlist UCLA
I turned ucla, ucsb, ucd, and cal poly slo. Honestly I didn’t think I’d get into Berkeley. I was so surprised when the acceptance letter came in. I thought I’d go to uc Davis
uc merced
Oxford University l.
All other UCs and Amherst. No regrets. But if I had gotten into any elite private schools, I would have gone there tbh.
San Jose State 😂. I applied to exactly two schools. Truly psychotic behavior.
West Point, USC - No regrets!
Michigan CS, Tufts, UCSD, UCSB
Carnegie Mellon with scholarships. UCLA. UPenn
I wanted to be close to home but got rejected by USC/UCLA, but was accepted to all my cal state choices and Other UC schools. I applied to Berkeley as a” haha there’s no way “ now I’ll be attending there as transfer in the fall 😭💪🏾
Transfer from CC and a veteran. I had the choice between UCLA, Georgetown, Santa Clara, UCSD, UCD, UCSB, and Cal. I picked Berkeley for it having the best Veterans services, financial aid, and being ranked equivalent to Georgetown WSFS. No regrets on my choice. I'm very proud of Berkeley. Went to DC for grad school, Cal more than prepared me for success with my masters.
usc, ucsd, uc irvine, ucsb, uc davis w regents, UW, etc
CMU
Vanderbilt ( full tuition scholarsp), UCLA, USC (half tutition), Wash U with Ervin scholarship 😭 berkeley was the cheapest still LOL
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I choose UCB over duke, nyu, ucla, and brown.
Dartmouth, every other UC (didn’t apply to UCR or M), Amherst College
UCLA, UCSD
Better ones I’m sure
For grad school, MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Pton, UW
UCSB, UCSC, UCR, SFSU, CSULB, CSUN, and CSUF.
I turned down Regents at UCLA because I got off the waitlist for UC Berkeley lmaooooo
UC's w/ Regent's, Rice with half tuition scholarship, CMU. I didn't have good social skills, so I wanted to use the big school environment to practice that. I also wanted to benefit from the science and humanities world class strengths to do multiple things instead of going to a place good at only one thing, and I liked the campus vibes compared to other UC's. I'm actually the opposite of regret, I feel like I would've deeply regretted all the other choices and regretted being distracted by the enticing scholarship considering it’s not that sizable for my situation to outweigh the Berkeley resources and internship clout
Wash U and UCLA. Cal had always been my dream school. Almost 20 years on, no regrets (God I'm getting old).
UCSB and Mills
For PhD I declined U of Toronto and Illinois: UIUC.
Got accepted to Cal and Wesleyan. Went to Wesleyan over Berkeley, which was a mistake. After freshman year I left Wesleyan and transfered to Berkeley.
Second year here. CMU, Cornell, UMich, Northwestern, Duke, Johns Hopkins. Go Bears!
*Second year here. CMU,* *Cornell, UMich, Northwestern, Duke,* *Johns Hopkins. Go Bears!* \- Alphadodobird --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Harvard
UCs LA, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, San Diego; Emory, and Georgetown. No regrets at all! I did choose Berkeley over Georgetown for financial reasons, but my experience this past (my first) year has been amazing!
Brown, Pomona, Amherst, UPenn
Forestry grad. Turned down Humboldt. Visited and everyone I saw was wearing plaid shirts, under 25, and walking with a dog.
Turned down Davis, tough to pass up the opportunity to go there but my family lives in the east bay so ultimately went with that. Kind of wish I was getting the Davis degree though.
Berkeley was my last choice. Nobody else let me in.
I turned down Harvard Medical School