Hey y’all! As the title suggests, I have been admitted to the UC Berkeley EECS program, the UT Austin (in-state) ECE + Business honors program, and the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science. To start, I’m extremely elated to have received these admissions, however I now face a pretty difficult decision on which institution to select.
Important Notes:
Cost: My family is in a privileged position such that cost is not a significant factor. That being said, Berkeley and CMU end up being nearly the same price (~80k/year) with UT being significantly cheaper (~30k/year).
Location: I do prefer going OOS, so my primary considerations are with Berkeley and CMU.
I would greatly appreciate any insight y’all have into these programs/schools!
All are good options. What kind of experience do you want to have? UT and Cal are fairly analogous, but CMU is quite different. Are big time athletics important? Being around a wide diversity of majors? Location? Weather?
If you have desire to grow into management and understand the economic side, this would be pretty hard to beat!! If you’re not interested in the business aspects, then it’d be easy to drop it.
Thank you for linking this thread! I took a look and I found a lot of good insights.
One idea I feel was lacking was how to choose between two equally high-ranked schools (CMU and Berkeley). I have heard issues from both schools (Berkeley with massive class sizes and more limited resources, and CMU with a more isolated/limited small school vibe) but I’m having trouble getting insights on whether these issues are true (and if so, to what degree).
My preferred major is CS and I would love to specialize in AI/Machine Learning (as that is primarily where the bulk of my research focus has been). That being said, I do recognize the importance of a basic (at the very least) EE/CompE education and would end up taking those sorts of classes no matter which university I end up deciding.
UT ECB is definitely a really really amazing program, especially for my fit. I’ve been attending their events over the past week and it’s definitely giving UCB and CMU a run for their money.
I think the experience will be the biggest differentiator between the schools. In terms of location, weather, and diversity of majors, I think UCB has UT and CMU beat by a fair bit. That being said, I am concerned about the problems that come with a big public school like Berkeley (namely massive class sizes, unguaranteed housing, and limited resources).
Housing is very available in Berkeley if you can pay the going price. There is a ton of new student housing in Berkeley that has been built in the past few years and more being built every day.
Lower division EECS classes are quite large but seem well run, and my son (a sophomore) has loved every one of them. Upper div classes in CS / AI can be large and hard to get a spot, because of the popularity of this side of the EECS major… but my son’s friends in CS / AI are still very happy with the education they are getting and quality of teaching. My son is on the hardware side of EECS and his upper div classes are much smaller with more personal attention.
Please see below. Class sizes have reduced dramatically and the CS classes are extremely well run. My son was able to complete all of his upper div requirements by the 5th semester. Also you will be in the brand new state of the art Grimes Engineering Center so honestly there is no need to worry about things like resources and class sizes.
Regarding housing, did the cost of attendance increase significantly after your son started renting?
Regarding class sizes, you mentioned how upper div CS/AI classes can be hard to spot. Few follow up questions: What factor/s determines who gets priority for registration (first come first serve, or other methods)? What happens to the students that miss out on registering for those classes, do they have to revert to a different specialization?
For most upper division CS courses, Getting into CS Classes - EECS at Berkeley indicates that the first two phases and adjustment period of enrollment allow only CoE majors (including EECS) and CCDSS CS majors to enroll or waitlist, plus a limited number of data science majors can enroll or waitlist.
Thank you for your insight, these are some really interesting statistics!
I noticed you talked about how the recent policy changes are drastically decreasing class sizes and therefore addressing some former issues, are these relatively new changes? Additionally, may I ask where you got those class enrollment numbers from, I’d love to take a look.
L&S CS was moved to the new CCDSS and made direct admit. Previously, L&S CS required a 3.3 college GPA in three prerequisite CS courses to declare the major, but the volume became unmanageably large, since they did not want to make this secondary admission excessively competitive. Changing the CS major to direct admission allows them to better regulate the size of the major and hence the needed capacity for CS courses (EECS is already direct admission).
I would choose CMU for the stronger program and the ease of getting into classes. However, can you explain why you think ECB is a good fit given your interest in CS? Did you not apply for CSB and if so, why not? Why do you think the business component is useful to you?
These changes started going into effect fall 2023 but there was a lot of backlog from the old policies. Now that those under the old policies are in the junior/senior year or have graduated, the enrollment and capacity #s now reflect the fully intent of the new enrollment policies.