<p>I’m not a student at Berkeley, but I can say this.</p>
<p>Why choose Berkeley over USC? Better faculty (Berkeley’s faculty is on par with Stanford’s and Harvard’s). Better programs (top-10 departments across the board; there isn’t anything that Berkeley is actually “weak” in). Stronger library (roughly 11 million volumes, 3rd largest in the US). The classes aren’t smaller at USC. Berkeley and USC are about the same size in student body. Berkeley is substantially cheaper for in-state students. The city of Berkeley >>> the area that USC is in. Berkeley has more national and international prestige. I’d say Berkeley is a tad bit harder to get into and manages to attract slightly stronger students, partly because of its reputation.</p>
<p>Re: diversity, Asians don’t dominate (as in, make up the majority); Berkeley is 40% Asian. In addition, it’s roughly 12-13% Hispanic, ~5% black, ~1% Native American. Now, “Asian” encompasses everything from Japanese to Cambodian to Malaysian to Chinese to Korean to Indian to Pakistani. “Asian” in and of itself has tons of diversity. In fact, if you look at it by culture–which is the ultimate goal of diversity in a college setting, not really ethnicity–“Asian” tends to mean much more cultural diversity. Why? Because Asians tend to retain their cultures–the language, the food, the customs.</p>
<p>So let’s look at USC. It’s 50% white. How is that “more diverse”? Most of the time, white students don’t retain their European cultures. They usually don’t speak the language, don’t know the foods, don’t know the customs. So how is that any more diverse? Isn’t having more non-white students (in other words, minorities–which includes Asians as well as Hispanics, blacks, and so on) preferable? You might argue that USC better reflects the US population. But if that’s the goal of diversity in a college setting, then the ideal student population would be (this includes overlap): ~80% white, ~4% Asian, ~13% black, ~15% Hispanic/Latino (of any race), ~1% Native American. IMO, that is far from ideal. I wouldn’t even apply to a college that’s 80% white. It isn’t racist–I just prefer to have more students from diverse backgrounds.</p>
<p>So, if you accept the argument that Asians (blanket term for ALL of Asia, which is the most populous continent and spans tons of countries) bring more cultural diversity than do their white counterparts, then USC is even less diverse than Berkeley. I don’t buy the whole “USC beats Berkeley in diversity”; that clearly isn’t the case.</p>
<p>Just my personal preference, but I’d choose Berkeley over USC any day.</p>
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<p>Sorry, celsius_233, but you’ve fallen prey to the stereotypes as well. For one, USC isn’t much smaller than Berkeley–USC has 33k-34k students. Berkeley is about the same. For another, small does not always mean better. Try UC Santa Cruz–13,000 students, and yet its classes are much larger than Berkeley’s. Heck, Cornell has larger classes than Berkeley (it has 60% under 20 / 16% over 50, whereas Berkeley is 62% / 14%).</p>