<p>^I would say that either Berkeley or Stanford offer a more balanced academic environment. Good luck getting into either, though.</p>
<p>I strongly disagree with phantasmagoric.</p>
<p>These two sites prove that generally Stanford has more lax grading than Berkeley, a GPA difference of 0.31 in 2005:
[Stanford[/url</a>]
[url=<a href=“http://gradeinflation.com/Ucberkeley.html]UC-Berkeley[/url”>UC-Berkeley]UC-Berkeley[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Another piece of evidence is the fact that at Stanford an A+ is a 4.3, and at Berkeley an A+ is just a 4.0.</p>
<p>This article from the Stanford Review claims that only a few Stanford Engineering classes have an average grade lower than a B+:
[url=<a href=“http://stanfordreview.org/article/grade-inflation-must-go/]Grade”>http://stanfordreview.org/article/grade-inflation-must-go/]Grade</a> Inflation Must Go](<a href=“http://gradeinflation.com/Stanford.html]Stanford[/url”>Stanford)
Meanwhile, these are the Berkeley EECS grading guidelines, which state that the average lower division GPA should be in the range of 2.5-2.9 and for upper division it should be in the range of a 2.7-3.1 (my guess is that it falls in the upper range, which is still a C+/B- average):
[Grading</a> Guidelines for Undergraduate Courses | EECS at UC Berkeley](<a href=“http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Policies/ugrad.grading.shtml]Grading”>Grading Guidelines for Undergraduate Courses | EECS at UC Berkeley)</p>
<p>Anecdotal evidence supports this:
A friend of mine at Berkeley told me how a professor who had taught at both Stanford and Berkeley admitted that people getting B’s at Berkeley would have gotten A’s at Stanford (presumably, A-'s?).
Family relations, who are Stanford alumni, also tell me, anecdotally, that the Stanford workload is less.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that this is all relative. I spoke to another friend from Berkeley, and he told me that as long as you put in the time for the CS projects, and have some aptitude, you will get a good grade.</p>