I don’t know what this means.
San Diego State has successes and failures. MIT has successes and failures. At last report, 22% of UCB grads in 2024 were still seeking. It was 18% for their chemical biology major (they don’t list bio). Near half were in grad school as it sounds like you’d be. So actually getting jobs, not that many.
If the goal is to not pay more than a UC for an equal or less, then why apply to equal I suppose - UW - however you determine equal.
So I would apply to schools that would be equal or lower in cost - lower because they buy a ton of kids like you in to help raise their profile.
Example - at an Alabama, your cost would be $22K a year - so half a UC but it’s a big flagship like a UC. Florida - would be $45K or so - it’s ranked higher if that’s what their basis of excellent is - than a UC. A U of Kansas would be under $30K, etc. While you are exceptional, these schools have exceptional kids like you all over.
As for research, it’s everywhere - just ask. That’s a fallacy that kids can’t do research but College of Wooster is exceptionally known for research - it’s required.
You want quality teaching? Well - every school will have great…and not so great profs. Small classes - even small schools may have big classes but UCs will have lots of big classes. You can go to each school’s common data set section I3 to see.
That’s UCLA’s lecture sections - they’ll have subsections too (probably many taught by TAs).
It’s 3rd party so take it for what it’s worth, but best professors below. I’m sure there’s other links. And you might want to look at W&L - and apply for the Johnson scholarship.
To me, if you want a UC or UW, these are just big flagships. I don’t see them as better - I see US News ranks them and people take that into their eco system. I do think they are harder admits - but that doesn’t mean better.
Since you mention things like career prep, most don’t do this…although they’ll have opportunities for you to work with their career centers. There are some that do - W&L comes up again and for a big school, @momofboiler1 speaks often about Purdue (her student was engineering) that was big into career prep. On the other hand, you mention you’d continue schooling - so the career pep would matter less.
Finally, I put a PhD feeder link below. Use the right side for per capita. You’ll find schools like Hendrix (will match UC’s cost) and Kalamazoo (likely cheaper) - likely schools you never heard of and yet for a wanna be PhD, are home runs.
Good luck to you.
Colleges with the Best Professors | The Princeton Review