UC Berkeley vs Lewis & Clark vs Hampshire

somemom
Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:28:06 +0000

My DD and her friends all had no problem graduating from Cal on time. There are several of her GFs who are also applying for med school this year, so they all had heavy courseloads and were all in the Greek system, so did have a social life. DD did not use AP credits to test out of coursework and still could have finished 1 term early. She did take 2 GE classes in summer school, but they are classes most CA HS kids have no need to take so I don’t think that would add time to others.

We saw most kids who needed more time had either changed majors, or changed to a major with more difficult pre-reqs, such that if they had taken the easy calculus, etc, they were needing to take more classes to meet additional requirements.

My nephew was a transfer student and did not get good advising (apparently) and he took extra time as while his coursework counted as units it did not count as completing a requirement. This is also a risk on study abroad, the catalog says all classes taken abroad count, but that does not mean they count in your major nor for a GE. My Dds did, but she only stayed abroad one term for fear of not being able to finish on time, as you don’t go abroad until you are a junior and your GE classes are mostly done. Her major would only take two classes from abroad to complete requirements. It was no simple thing to get courses taken abroad pre-approved, no one at Cal seemed to want to review them before DD left, she really had to work the system to get syllabi from the potential abroad classes and then get them approved before she left.

DD went from day one making sure all classes “Checked a box” on the list and studied abroad and was still okay. She was undeclared, but took the pre-reqs that would work for the toughest major so she would be safe with any major.

She knew some kids who did not finish in 4 years, but it was usually due to their choices along the way, possibly choices freshman year that affected them in unexpected ways down the road. The kid who takes a smattering of interesting classes without ensuring every one counts as a requirement may very well end up with out the pre-reqs done in time.

DD did have a tough time getting in her ochem class when she made an error on her registration date, she had to attend class and petition- she did get in. So, it is possible, but she is pretty organised. If she had not gotten into Ochem that term it would have had a cascade effect on other coursework. I can totally see my D3 not staying on top of the requirements and feeling screwed by the system ;)

My Cal DD was a senior the same time my other DD began at an LAC. LAC DD knew as many professors just as well as the Cal senior by that Christmas. It is just a different environment. Many times DD experienced frustrations at Cal, but she still thinks it was the best of her choices, which did include LACs. There is no perfect place, it is more fit to personality.

LAC DD loves her small school, though sometimes it is very small and people feel very sheltered in their prior life experiences. There is still some frustration with inflexabiity, but not like Berkeley :D