Hi everyone, I have been admitted to WashU St. Louis as well as UC Berkeley as a physics major. I very much would like to be in CS and/or Engineering, so which would you recommend? I’ve heard that Berkeley can get quite competitive (comprhenesive review and resources cuz public school) and that WashU is more collaborative and tight-knit as a private school. WashU also seems to have better dorms and dining. However, California and the bay area as well as Silicon valley is so hard to say no to. I’m and international student and tuition isn’t a problem. Thank you so much for all the help!
If you want to change your engineering, you need to look at transfer policies. Which is easiest to transfer majors? That’s where you go.
At UCB, changing from L&S to CoE for engineering majors is unlikely: Change of college - Berkeley Engineering
Changing into CS in CDSS requires a comprehensive review: Majors and Minors | CDSS at UC Berkeley
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As others are saying, transferring into your desired majors at Cal is by no means guaranteed, and might be a longshot.
In contrast, it would be very easy at WashU.
So if your choices were limited to doing CS/Engineering at WashU or Physics at Cal, which would you prefer?
By the way, if it helps, one of the interesting things about WashU being located in the middle of the country is in fact students come from all over, not least California, and then head all over after graduation, again not least California. And lots of students will be doing things like summer internships in California.
Of course I would not suggest that is quite the same thing as being at Cal with a Silicon Valley interest, but then again . . . you and how many OTHER students at Cal would be looking for internships and entry level jobs and such in Silicon Valley? If you add in the fact they may actually have been in more relevant degree programs, well, I would be cautious about assuming putting yourself into that competitive set is actually in your best interests even with such a destination in mind.
You mention that you are International. This may mean that one of these schools is better-known or more respected in your location or desired profession.
Honestly, just went back from Berkeley and felt it was a great school. It seems like you are admitted by L&S college. not easy transfer from L&S to engineering.
However, I have a different view about WashU and other Pre-med schools like Vandy. The big companies like google will not go there for recruiting unlike Berkeley. My older one went to a school like WashU (vibe and ranking similarly). She fortunately transferred out of it in the second year. The location and reputation of WashU will not help much recruiting the engineering jobs.
I’ll respectfully disagree. Yes, UCB better if you can study what you want. But you can’t. And 1/6 of Wash U engineers do end up in CA, presumably in the Bay Area given who the top employers show. Kids today find jobs by applying to jobs in places they want to be. But that’s a pretty potent # for a midwestern school. So much today is done on the net/zoom. My son had 19 interviews and 5 offers b4 Xmas. Only one company met him in person (didn’t offer him). My Alabama engineer, who I just described, works in CA in fact.
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I kind of agree with you. But paying the private school tuition to WashU with not much significant reputation in Engineering. I would rather go to a local public college like Alabama. The price tag was not justified for WashU in engineering.
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That I agree with but that’s the option the student presented.
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The OP said “tuition isn’t a problem”, so I assumed that was that for cost purposes.
As a general observation, I do think there is something to be said for going to a large traditional engineering powerhouse sort of program, even independent of cost issues. There are a few privates like that, but most are publics. Programs with that sort of scale might have more labs, more student clubs, more specialty majors, and so on. So kids who really enjoy being engineering students might really like them.
But . . . the OP was not admitted to Cal for Engineering. And at Cal, my understanding is that can be a problem.
Paying out-of-state tuition to attend a large public school where you stand almost zero chance of switching majors is a ludicrous proposition. I am sure WashU will serve the student just fine if he/she takes the right courses and networks enough with the right recruiters. It is a first-class institution in the eyes of those who need to know.
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Honestly, I felt like US news should publish a new ranking by getting rid of all pre-med skewed priority for all the other majors outside biomedical field. The biomedical field costs too much Fed money with little results. I have two cousins with biochemical engineering PHD (one from Harvard) all said to me that the biomedical field did not generate as much results as it costs.
For all the other majors, without the noise of pre-med, we can evaluate our choices better and it will show the true color of the private schools in return.
So WashU’s Pre-Health advising handily provides a lot of public information, including a fact sheet available here:
They report 1176 students to med schools over the last 5 years, so that is an average of about 235 per year. Which is quite a lot, actually.
Still, using NCES data:
WashU had 1994 graduating primary majors in this one-year cohort, so obviously the vast majority of WashU grads are not in fact heading to med school. To be sure, likely more first years STARTED at least strongly considering premed at WashU than ended up at medical school. A lot more, in fact, although I don’t think it is actually a majority of first years, just a larger minority to start than it ends up at the finish.
And in fact, 292 primary majors were in Engineering, so that’s at least roughly comparable to the graduates heading to med schools (understanding there could be some overlap). I note as an aside that in recent years, WashU has gotten some large new donations for CS/Engineering (causing the renaming of the school to McKelvey), they’ve basically built out a new quad for McKelvey, and generally have ambitions to keep upgrading this program.
And that’s part of the point, really. This is the pattern at almost every selective college, a lot more people start off in difficult but well-known paths like premed, and then change out. But, a well-chosen college, including one that is comfortably affordable for the family, can still do a good job supporting whatever else the student eventually decides to pursue.
And this is then relevant to the OP as well. Right now they are interested in CS and/or Engineering, but that could change as well. In fact, Engineering is another area in which a lot of kids end up switching out, including at very selective colleges.
So that’s part of the value proposition for these highly resourced private research universities. Not only do they have the resources to fund high-level programs in basically everything they offer, they are often not facing serious capacity constraints in their undergrad programs. So, their students can be left much more free to explore and switch around before finally deciding on a major.
But because that IS a costly model, they can be expensive full pay. Of course some people are not full pay, and some families can comfortably afford full pay. But for sure this exploratory model offered by highly resourced private universities is not something every family can comfortably afford at the price they would be charged.
If your family can comfortably afford it, however? I think it is a real value worth considering.
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WashU and Cal are both great schools, and you’re lucky to be facing this dilemma.
In your case, I recommend WashU because you’ll be able to study whatever you want to study. The same is not certain at Cal.
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U.S. News rankings are simply a popularity contest. They are not skewed by data but rather popularity. This is why, as o showed you in another thread, I showed you how an unranked state school has better career stats than Ga Tech - because the rank that makes Tech high is a popularity rank and not a data driven one.
“The U.S. News rankings for undergraduate programs in business, computer science, economics, engineering, nursing and psychology are based on peer assessment surveys of deans and senior faculty from accredited U.S. institutions.
How Programs Are Assessed and Ranked
In spring and summer of 2025, deans and senior faculty rated the academic quality of peer programs they were familiar with on a 5-point scale: outstanding (5), strong (4), good (3), adequate (2) or marginal (1). Individuals who were unfamiliar with a particular program were asked to select “don’t know.”
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Each qualifying school or program was sent two peer assessment surveys.
An average peer assessment score was calculated for each program using a trimmed mean, which removes the two highest and two lowest scores to reduce the impact of outliers. Programs with at least 10 ratings after trimming were then ranked in descending order based on this score.
Programs with an average score below 2.0 (1.5 for computer science) are grouped alphabetically in a ranking range rather than receiving a specific numerical rank. These schools can request their numerical rank by emailing official@usnews.com”