I’m a current UCLA transfer, so hopefully my perspective will help a little.
UCLA seems to have a more active social scene than Cal, but I could be wrong, so maybe the frats here are more active. The social scene at UCLA is definitely active. You may want to look into Berkeley’s frats more.
Both schools are research universities with very high activity. No shortage of research opportunities here, though it may be harder to get one as a transfer since you’re only there for a couple of years.
Better social life? Hard to say. They say Berkeley students study all the time and UCLA’s more well-rounded, but I’ve always thought Berkeley was a place with lots of cool things to do. Also, San Francisco isn’t far away thanks to the BART transportation system there. That’s hard to beat. Los Angeles has crappy public transportation, so having a car here will help a lot. Still, there’s lots of things to do in Westwood and elsewhere in the city.
Internships are plentiful at both schools, so I doubt there’s a competitive advantage to going to either.
Overall campus environment? Well, I’m biased, so I think you’ll know which campus environment I think is better. I recommend that if you can, try to explore the campuses of both schools.
Quarter v. semester: Quarter systems feel more rushed since you have to study more in smaller amounts of time, but there seems to be more variety in the classes you can take for your major, and as @goldencub already said, a bad professor is someone you only have to deal with for 10 weeks.
Semesters drag out more, but they seem to be more relaxed. One caveat I should mention: people consistently complain about how hard Berkeley is(I think it’s exaggerated, but whatever), so it seems Berkeley adjusts the difficulty of their classes so that you don’t slack off on the semester system, which is a real possibility. Also, as @goldencub said, there’s a dead week before finals. You get a lot of time to study.
The schools have roughly equal transfer graduation rates from what I’ve seen. I don’t know about Berkeley, but UCLA’s poli sci program is very impacted. This may make it a little harder to graduate on time, but it can probably still be done without taking summer session classes. Even if you have to do that, UCLA gives pretty good summer session financial aid if you go full time in the summers.
Top three reasons to go to either school? I’ll try to give you some.
UCLA:
- It's UCLA. #2 public university in the country.
- Great food and a very active campus that always has activities going on in the campus.
- Renowned professors.
Berkeley:
- It's Berkeley. #1 public university in the country. Renowned professors all around and poli sci is no exception.
- Although I think the intellectual capabilities of students at UCLA and Berkeley are equal overall, Berkeley seems to be known for its intellectual campus atmosphere. UCLA students are definitely capable of holding an intelligent and high level conversation on just about anything from what I've seen, but aren't as inclined to do so as freely as Berkeley students are.
- It's a very liberal school, if you're into that sort of thing as a poli sci major. Maybe you're left wing and maybe you're not, but regardless, political activism is at the heart of the culture of UC Berkeley. As a poli sci major, you'll no doubt appreciate that if you decide to go here.