lol @ the idea that Berkeley is harder than UCLA (Or any other UC, for that matter) across most majors, including engineering. The same material is taught at both schools and isn’t spoonfed. My roommate at UCLA is a mechanical engineering major; I’ve seen the work he has to put in to do well, and he studies a lot. Engineering is hard…everywhere. It seems to be commonly believed on these boards that Berkeley is ridiculously hard compared to UCLA, and there really is no evidence to support that idea.
By the way, the little information on grade deflation seems to show that average GPAs are lower at UCLA than at Berkeley. It indicates that grade deflation is more pronounced at UCLA. http://www.gradeinflation.com/Ucla.html
Compare that to Berkeley: http://www.gradeinflation.com/Ucberkeley.html
Still, at the end of the day, the safest thing to assume is that both schools are roughly the same in terms of difficulty. Don’t let Berkeley scare any of you away because you think it may be too hard. If you can’t handle it there, you probably couldn’t handle it at UCLA either.