But not that many students are enrolled in the small classes, because they are small. Popular courses (including those for popular majors) tend to be larger.
Looking in the schedule of classes for class sizes of specific courses of interest may give a more realistic view of what class sizes a student is likely to encounter.
Yes, we don’t know anything about major - just pre law or med. The majors that could do those - every!!
Because pre-med is associated with a specific set of courses (which overlap with many biology major courses), the popularity of pre-med and biology at the college influences the class sizes of those pre-med courses.
Pre-law is less strongly associated with any specific courses, although political science and related majors are popular among pre-law students. Political science and related majors tend to be popular majors in general, so a student who chooses such a major is likely to encounter larger class sizes. Of course, a pre-law student could choose a small major whose courses do not overlap much with those for large majors.
Number of recent bachelor’s graduates in majors:
| Major | Georgetown | Berkeley |
|---|---|---|
| Biological and biomedical sciences | 134 | 935 |
| Political science + international relations | 467 | 386 |
| All majors | 1835 | 9207 |
Yes but OP can major in anything - even for pre med. I’m just noting given we don’t know their major of choice, it’s hard to know class size based on a schedule except for core courses at each.
You are showing possibles but we just don’t know it’s Celtic Studies (a major at UCB). So when the OP provides more info, it can be evaluated if they have interest.
We visited GT on the admitted students day last month (applied to government/polictical economy and leaning on pre-law) and liked the following a lot:
Spoke to someone whose kid is a senior in GT and they echoed all of the above.
We are deciding between the same + LA. For us, it is in-state UCs so CoA changes a lot for GT. I’d say visit if you haven’t and talk to students. We’ll be visiting LA and Berkeley hoping to get clarity as well.
The majors that require more than just completing the prerequisites to switch into at UCB are:
At UCB, a few subjects like introductory English composition and world language are taught in multiple small classes (and your teacher is likely to be a PhD student). If you are studying something relatively unpopular, you might also have small classes once you get to the advanced levels in your subject. Since UCB is a strong school for a very wide range of subjects, there are lots of niche subjects with small classes at the advanced levels.
But if you are studying something popular, you are likely to have mostly large lectures, combined with smaller discussions or labs.
Agree with several responses that UCB would make sense for CA families, but perhaps not an East Coast family. G-town is a much nicer town, has better diversity and a closer-knit community - not to mention the faculty-to-students ratio. Also consider the alumni network – UCB has produced many outstanding graduates, but a smaller % of them give back to their alma mater.