My son is lucky enough to have been accepted at both schools! He was accepted at UCLA for his second choice major, Electrical Engneering. He wants to major in Computer Science. He’s in Cal for College of Letters and Sciences, CS. His dream has always been CAL and we live 90 miles away…
We are going to visit UCLA for Bruin day… Any advice on what school to choose?
I’m reading Cal students are more stressed.
If his dream has always been Cal and he got into the major of his choice, why even consider UCLA?
Go to the flagship University of California campus and ignore the extension campus offer.
If you go to bRuin day you should go to Cal Day as well.
Well here’s a perspective from the “extension” campus. Ucla has admitted your son directly to an engineering major. That means he only needs to maintain a 2.0 gpa to stay in engineering. At cal he would need a 3.3 in the CS pre reqs to declare the major which is easier said than done. Being a part of the Bruin family has been the best experience of my life. I’ve grown so much as a person, made lifelong friends, learned more than I could ever have imagined all while staying in sunny California only 3 miles from Santa Monica beach. Engineering is plenty rigorous at Ucla and you do get one switch as well. We also offer computer engineering, computer science and engineering as well as computer science all offered at the engineering school. Hope this helps!
My husband is a Bruin with degree in EE, but both my kids are engineering students at Cal. Like 10s4life said, there’s no guarantee your son will be admitted to CS and it’s nearly impossible to transfer to college of engineering in Cal. UCLA sounds more like a sure thing.
I also want to bring up another perspective: one of the reasons my s2 didn’t choose UCLA is because he thought the campus is too similar to where we live, beautiful community close to beach. He wanted to explore something different.
Both school are great. Good luck to your son!
The southern satellite campus is less risky if your accepted in the COE there. As others have noted no guarantees getting into L&S CS. And the gpa cutoff for CS could change if it continues to gain in popularity at Cal- which is likely.
My D got into both schools. As we had already visited Cal, we went down to LA for Bruin Day. It was a beautiful April day, UCLA has a beautiful campus, the dining hall food was stellar, and we were convinced that she would want to go there. Wound up at Cal (enviro science, so stronger program). Both schools are great, but I do think that trying to get into CS is a bit like rolling the dice vs. being admitted directly into a program at UCLA. Just because your son is a certain student now, you have NO idea what kind of college student he’ll be. The GPA requirement doesn’t seem like a big deal to kids who are used to getting 4.0’s - trust me, it’s a big deal. Those that don’t make the grade have to go to a plan B. Certainly attainable, but requires hard work and discipline (i.e. keeping distractions to a minimum).
I’ll be biased here: my D is a former EECS undergrad and a current CS PhD student at Cal. In fact, she once was a GSI for one of those “core” classes.
If your S keeps focused and disciplined, he should not have any problem maintaining the average GPA requirement to declare CS major.
90 miles from UCB is nice, very nice. It’s not too close to home, yet not too far. If needed, you can easily make it a day trip.
If you S like computing theory, Simons Institute at UCB offers many seminars, boot camps, workshops, … all free of charge to students (or anybody). My D got her research assistantship by contacting a professor teaching a boot camp at Simons. At the time he didn’t have any opening, but introduced her to one of his colleagues who did. She kept that assistantship for 2 years until she graduated. That assistantship helped tremendously in her application to PhD program.
https://www.seasoasa.ucla.edu/within-engineering/ describes the change of major process within the engineering division at UCLA. Note that “Meeting the minimum criteria does not guarantee approval”, and it is not stated what GPA will result in approval to change to CS (probably varies based on student demand).
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-berkeley/2071932-grade-distributions-in-prerequisite-courses-for-gpa-based-goals.html has some grade distribution information that prospective L&S CS majors may find useful.
From what i’ve heard, it’s gonna be hard the first year! Tell him to study hard and use office hours. Cal was my dream school as well and I can totally see why it was his 
The payoff of a CS degree at Cal is worth it. Silicon Valley companies like Google hire the most engineers from Cal.
My son is deciding between UCLA and CAL. He wants to major in CS, he was admitted to UCLA for EE (second choice) … but when we went to Bruin Day yesterday we were told that’s it would be relatively easy for him to switch majora after a year there with him needing around a 3.0 in prereq CS classes.
Cal he’s admitted to College of L&S, so he’ll have to apply for CS and have at least a 3.3 to get in.
I have read other recent threads about CS at different schools and realize that the requirements are not wildly different, but he’s concerned that Cal standards are higher and it may be harder to make it.
Oh- and Cal has always been his dream school, we live 90 miles away and he would like to end up working in Silicon Valley.
I’d appreciate any advice!