Succeeding as a pre-med at Cal vs. other UCs?

Colleges & Universities University of California - Berkeley
1

Hi, my daughter has been admitted to the following UCs and is having a hard time deciding which one to go to:
Cal (Regents’ candidate, results haven’t been released yet)
UCLA
UCSD
UCD (Regents’ awarded)
UCSC (Regents’ awarded)
UCI
(Still waiting for UCSB to release decision - Tuesday the 21st, I believe)

Cal is her top choice, but she has not really explored the other UCs in any detail, so we need to visit the top choices during admitted students’ weekends.

Why Cal? Because it is the most prestigious, has a history of social and political activism, has strong STEM programs, and is not too far from home (she likes the idea of us visiting from time to time). She likes Berkeley as a town. She also has close friends at Cal, but that’s true of the other UCs, so that’s not a deciding factor. Right now, she is considering Cognitive Science as her major. She is interested in going to medical school and becoming a psychiatrist. However, she intends to take a lot of Computer Science classes (part of Cog Sci also) in order to build up marketable skills as a fallback, in case she changes her mind and decides to join the workforce after college. As a hiring manager for a Fortune 100 high tech company, I can tell you that for a job seeker in the SF Bay Area (or anywhere, for that matter), having Cal on your resume is a huge advantage over any of the other UCs.

That said, I am extremely concerned about the prospect of being a pre-med at Cal. The life of a pre-med is miserable to begin with, particularly during freshman and sophomore years, when you are trying to get through the weeder classes in intro sciences. If, on top of that, the students at your college are highly competitive (not necessarily in attitude but certainly in performance) and your classes are graded on a curve, you will have a hard time maintaining a GPA medical schools want to see. Even if they know your school is tough, they still care about the GPA and want to take the students who stand out. I don’t want her to get discouraged and burn out. Going to a less competitive UC would potentially help boost her GPA (and UCD, for example, is giving her a $30K scholarship).

I would like to hear from pre-meds about life at Cal, and what you hear from your friends at other UCs. Thank you.

2

I should also say, lest I am misunderstood, that I have respect for all the UCs. I believe the quality of education will be comparable. However, selectivity drives the caliber of the average student at a college, so some UCs are more competitive than others, with Cal and UCLA being the most competitive. Plus, Berkeley’s institutional status and fame is comparable to the top Ivy League schools, Stanford, MIT, etc. That won’t determine how well an undergrad alum does in life or how good she’ll be at her job, but it raises the prospects of getting a call from a recruiter. The question is, how much bearing will it have on medical school admissions, if your GPA is lower than it might have been at a college where it is easier to get a B+ or an A in organic chemistry?

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My D is a freshman with a lot of pre-med friends. It is tough (CHEMISTRY) but not insane, especially since it appears that your daughter has the academic chops. I will caution your daughter to take it very seriously right off the bat. One Regents scholar D knows threw up 2 C’s her first semester, so you must keep on top of things and do all of the things you are supposed to do (go to lecture, read the book, etc.). D and her friends do have some down time, but they also work extremely hard.