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Berkeley is a large public university. Why you would go there for the same cost as going to private schools Georgetown or CMU!? It makes no sense at all. It is a pretty campus and Berkeley is a nice town, but there are a lot of bums and such because it is in a large metropolitan urban area. For graduate school it would make sense, but not for undergrad. Your classes are going to be gigantic and almost all the students are from California. Your upper division will be smaller size, but to me, you can scratch it off the list and add it back on for graduate school. It has wonderful weather and no snow. Economics, of course, is top rate at Berkeley, so I suppose you could consider that aspect of it. I just have trouble figuring out why someone who is not a California resident would attend a public UC university and pay the same price as you would for a private with much smaller classes. Wouldn't it bother you to know 90% of student are paying half of what you have to pay??
Georgetown is in a very pretty town outside of Washington, DC, of course. Lots going on there. Lots of prestige. It is a large, safe and pretty campus. You will have a better undergrad experience at Georgetown because it is a private school with much smaller classes. You will pay around the same for an education there as you will for Berkeley. Housing is hard to get at Berkeley after the first year and you will likely have to get a place near campus and pay a ton for it. Georgetown has better housing.
I do not know enough about CMU to comment, but my gut feeling is that Georgetown should be your choice. It has everything you are looking for and is not a public university. Berkeley has everything except Georgetown is a prettier, safer campus. You will have other international students there, too. It snows in the winter, of course.
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