UC Berkeley vs Amherst

ucbalumnus
Sun, 11 May 2014 16:39:58 +0000

bluebayou:

Alternatively, I’d take Cornell CS over Cal at OOS rates.



At list price, Cornell is non-trivially more expensive (about $8,000 more than Berkeley OOS in the dorm, about $14,000 more than Berkeley OOS living in off-campus housing other than parents’ house). Of course, Cornell would be more favorable on price for an OOS student who receives significant need-based financial aid.

Cornell may not exactly give the small intimate private school feel (the school is relatively large for a private school, and CS classes can be quite large, based on the number of discussions associated with each lecture listed in its class schedule). However, CS enrollment is bulging everywhere, so a CS major may find big CS class sizes at many good schools for CS.



bluebayou:

I have great respect for Cal’s College of Chem (top 3), which is almost LAC-like,



What is LAC-like about the Berkeley College of Chemistry? Even though College of Chemistry students take a more rigorous version of frosh general chemistry, separating them from the hordes of biology majors, premeds, and non-chemical engineering majors taking the “regular” frosh general chemistry, their version is still in the hundreds of students due to the enrollment in the College of Chemistry (majors in chemistry, chemical engineering, and chemical biology).

In any case, this thread wandering into school-partisanship and LAC-partisanship is probably not all that helpful for the OP (though it is odd that the OP does not have a clear preference between two very different schools).