So I was all set to go to UC Berkeley – I visited it, I loved it and I paid my SIR. But today, I found out I just got off the waitlist at Vassar. I have until Wednesday to decide. Which one should I choose? I loved Vassar so much when I visited, probably more than Berkeley, but it would be like 30k more a year. Any advice?
Is that 30k a year feasible for your parents - Will it mean loans? If yes, then it is probably a bad idea to switch to Vassar. UCB is a world class institution (that I assume is affordable for your family.)
Berkeley is a better school, but if the costs were similar, I would make a strong case for picking your school based on your personal preference. But I would not pay $120k extra for Vassar.
what are you planning on studying?
For that much money, it’d be wise to save it towards your grad school, and attend Berkeley. It’s not like you didn’t like Berkeley. You like Vassar “probably” more than Berkeley. Besides, Berkeley enjoys international recognition. Of course, one shouldn’t choose a college based on reputation or prestige alone, but it does help. One of my grad degrees was from Berkeley, and I loved every day of my life while there.
Talk to you parents. Can they afford the difference without loans/hardship? Would they prefer to save the money or have you at the smaller school?
Vassar students arrive notably well prepared for collegiate academic pursuits (34th below), outperforming the, also excellent, students at Berkeley (42nd), at least when measured by entering standardized scoring:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-50-smartest-colleges-in-america-2016-10
Reputational factors associated with graduate programs, sheer size, or degree of familiarity may not be of concern to the OP.
@merc81 I think you are knowledgeable about colleges in general and LACs in particular, but your bias for LACs is so obvious. If you knitpick at any stats and data, you can make the case that anything is better than something else. Berkeley is the top feeder school to Silicon Valley and ranked #2 for google. Berkeley has a higher ROI and median starting salary ($60,800 vs $49,300). Berkeley has a lower acceptance rate than Vassar.
Both are great schools and it is a matter of cost and fit.
I never stated that Vassar is better than Berkeley. I responded to a statement that Berkeley is better than Vassar.
If you think I have a bias against Berkeley, which as an allegation I regard as poor form, you can review what I posted earlier today:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20641441#Comment_20641441
This seems like a biased statement, or, at the very least, an unsubstantiated opinion.
Both Berkeley and Vassar are top feeder schools.
https://hubpages.com/education/Wall-Street-Journal-College-Rankings-The-Full-List-and-Rating-Criteria
Vassar # 33…Berkeley # 40… no meaningful difference.
https://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/#tab:rank
Here’s an interesting output ranking using four metrics,
Vassar and Berkeley offer 2 very different experiences. If you value them equally, I would let money be the driver. The only advice I would give on that is to make sure you can complete your degree at Berkeley in 4 years. There are students who find it takes longer because they cannot enroll in required classes when they need them to stay on track. This may happen more in some departments (or for students who are particular about having certain profs or avoiding classes at certain times of day). I am guessing this is not the norm, but worth being aware of…
Given the vagueness of the OP’s college preference criteria, and the lack of detail on whether the $30,000 per year difference means huge debt, is pocket change to his/her parents, or is something in between, it is rather hard for anyone replying to make a meaningful recommendation that is not based on pre-existing biases for or against one or both colleges or types of colleges.
Note that bias and preference represent distinctly different sets of underpinnings. Posters would be more in accord if they chose their words with discretion. That said, I think biased was correctly applied once on this thread.
I’m willing to give Dontskipthemoose the benefit of the doubt. I don’t believe he said that Berkeley was a better school with malicious intent or that he’s unfairly prejudiced for or against either college.
I have a number of friends who are MIT alumni. They have no qualms saying that MIT is a better school than Caltech… and often do. 
@ucbalumnus i would say its somewhere in between – in the words of my mom, if it’s a place i’d really want to go, “i can make it work”. Being in-state at berkeley, i would graduate debt-free and would be able to afford grad school etc. at the same time, i think I would do better at Vassar – but is that worth 30k a year? currently emailing vassar financial aid and seeing if there’s anything i can do.
When your mother says “I can make it work”, you may want to find out what it means in terms of:
A. Your parents’ retirement funding. Will paying for the more expensive college force them to retire significantly later than the would otherwise, or possibly require support from you when they retire?
B. College for any younger siblings you have. If you have any younger siblings, would your parents be able and willing to pay for the more expensive college for you and comparably expensive college for them without destroying their retirement funding (question A)?
@ucbalumnus I am only child – thankfully, my mom, a television writer, has a great pension from her union and thus would not need to take any money out of her retirement account.
N.B. Businessinsider’s ranking is very inaccurate. Vassar reports superscored SATs. Berkeley does not.
@CrewDad : Vassar reports superscored standardized testing results on their Common Data Set (the basis for the BI article)?
$30Kx4 is a lot of money. If you do, in fact, have that much money to spend, I would encourage you to at least go through a “thought exercise” re: what that money represents in terms of other opportunities forfeited. If you went to Berkeley and had a $120K budget for additional enrichment opportunities (i.e. in the summers and in the 1-2 years after graduation), what could you do? Do you value the difference between Vassar and Berkeley more than the most amazing plan you can think of for spending that additional money as a Berkeley student?
(I don’t mean that as a rhetorical question. Maybe you do value Vassar that much. It’s just a suggested way or wrapping your head around a sum of money that is likely quite abstract to you.)
Good luck with a tough decision!!