<p>You’ll have to decide if the extra cost is worth it, but you will likely get much more individual attention at Mudd and you will get far more direct contact with your professors. Mud has no grad school, so the professors are their to serve only the undergrads whereas Berkeley will have a lot of TA’s for undergraduate classes. Much of Berkeley’s reputation is based on there grad school. Classes will be much smaller at Mudd and Mudd Graduates earn some of the highest salaries of any colleges. Mud undergrads do a lot of research - much more part of the norm than for Cal undergrads. Also a very high percentage of Mud Graduates get into grad school. On the down side, Mudd is one of the best schools that almost no-one knows about. You won’t be able to tell people you go to Harvey Mudd and have very many of them know what that means.</p>
<p>When you say >50% - You already know exactly what you will be majoring in at Cal - not very easy to change your major. You got to choose one major and that’s what you got accepted for. At Mudd you are not locked in - you have an opportunity to explore a bit before you decide. My take is that Mudd is more collaborative where Cal is more competitive between students. As a general rule, you are not going to have a problem getting the classes you want/need at a private school like Mudd. That can be a problem at Cal although many people get through in 4 years.</p>
<p>It is a lot of extra money - only you can say whether it is worth it - but you would certainly get a good education at Mudd - whether that would be better than Cal depends on what you make of it. If you are hung up on recognition for getting into and going to a great school, only a thin sliver of the population will understand what your Mudd degree is all about. If you can afford either and the money is not a big issue, Mudd might have an edge for an undergraduate degree, especially if you think you want to go to grad school. If you have to take out loans to do it, I don’t think I’d advocate for that.</p>