jlm382

Thanks for the input! Yea, one reason why I'm not a big fan of EE/CS at Berkeley is because they have so many requirements to fulfill... Stanford is much more lenient, which allows students to pursue their own independent projects.

vc08

Cal has a better mascot and better school colors.

I mean, bear vs. tree.....



good luck, and congrats!

BerkeleySenior

Stanford for undergrad. It's the "Harvard" of the West.

anonamous

Stanford's mascot is a tree???? OMG dats sad

student14x

Sakky, if the OP is smart enough to make it into Stanford, he can graduate from Berkeley. Especially since Stanford is impossibly selective for transfers. I have friends that dream of making it to Stanford. They get rejected, go to Cal, and manage to graduate. Also, as you've mentioned before, the tough part about Berkeley are the weeders, of which the OP gets to skip. Unless Berkeley's upper div is still harder than Stanford's, I don't see the risk.

middsmith

Actually Stanford has a lot more students in EE/CS than Berkeley. Berkeley do not have a lot of MS students. By comparison, Stanford has thousands due to the popularity in their MS program. The number of engineers from Berkeley and Stanford I said earlier include Stanford MS students.

sakky

Yeah, he probably would be able to graduate from Cal. But why take the chance? It's like choosing to drive a car without a seatbelt. Sure, you probably won't get hurt because you won't even get in an accident, but, again, why take chances when you don't have to?

Uh, no, the OP doesn't get to skip over all the weeders. He gets to skip some . The ones that remain can still snag him.

The very fact that he is coming in as a transfer will make Cal more dangerous, not less, for several reasons. One, he can't build up a 'reservoir' of relatively easy lower-division non-EECS classes to use as a GPA buffer the way that freshman-admits can. To graduate from Berkeley, you need a 2.0 GPA in your classes at Berkeley. Having top grades from your other school doesn't help you fulfill that requirement. Hence, if you transfer to Berkeley and you get a bunch of C's and C-'s in your first semester, you'll be immediately placed on academic probation because your Berkeley GPA will already be below a 2.0, and hence you'll be close to expulsion. On the other hand, those students who had come in as freshmen had the opportunity to take a bunch of easier breadth requirements that will pump up their GPA. {Heck, I know an EECS student who avoided expulsion only because he had high grades in a bunch of Spanish courses, and that kept him over the 2.0 threshold.}

Secondly, and even more importantly, Berkeley has strict limits about how much time you are allowed to be there - far stricter than Stanford does. Hence, if the OP comes to Berkeley and then finds out that he doesn't want to major in CS after all (or finds out that it's just too hard), then he will have to present an action plan regarding what he will now major in and how he plans to graduate in a timely fashion. Stanford seems to be significantly more lenient about people who want to take extra time to graduate.

Then your point is irrelevant to the OP, because the OP is clearly going to be going to an undergrad program. Who cares about what the graduate students are doing if the OP isn't going to graduate school?

The relevant question is then who has more employees in SV - the Berkeley undergrad EECS/CS program, or the Stanford undergrad EE/CS program.

student14x

Good point. I guess Berkeley imposes more risk in just about every facet. The best plan of action is to first matriculate at Stanford, then make a decision. Berkeley is a fairly easy school to make it into. If the chooses to go to Stanford and dislikes it, he can just opt to transfer to Cal. However, the converse doesn't work in the sense that its almost impossible to be admitted to Stanford twice; last yrs' admission rate is <2%(this yr it could be even lower). Making it twice reminds me of the futileness of expecting to win the lottery again after having won it once.

vc08

^^i can't tell if you're being sarcastic or serious.

When was Berkeley a "fairly easy" school to be admitted to?

student14x

Because all one needs to have is a 3.7+ gpa from a JC to transfer into Cal. But Stanford on the other hand....

BerkeleySenior

^ Easy for transfers, hard for freshmen admits.

This is why I somewhat regret applying as a freshman and working my butt off in high school.

student14x

Even for freshmen, its still like a 21.5% admit rate. Fairly high compared to Stanford's 10.3%. Lets analyze transfers; the admission rate for Cal here is about 29% compared to Stanford's 1.5%. For transfers, it almost seems like the only choice is to attend Cal.

middsmith

^^ that is if you transfer from a JC, if you transfer from a 4-year university, the odd is against you. If he doesn't like it at Stanford, he probably wouldn't be able to get back to Cal.

It is very relevant because it shows the potential of finding a good job as a Cal undergrad. When come to think of it, from family members and from friends, I only can think of a single person who got a BS from Stanford. Most are international students with a MS degree from Stanford. In these company, a BS from Cal does the same as a MS from Stanford.

student14x

His academic/extracurricular resume far exceeds virtually any successful Cal applicant from another 4yr university if he was accepted to Stanford as a transfer. So much so, that if he applied as a transfer from Stanford to Cal, he'll easily still be over qualified(in the good sense).

middsmith

No, Cal takes a student after 2 years. By the time he reapply, he would be in his third year == automatic reject.