@shadow219 Exact same boat for me. I was deciding between UCLA Bus Econ and UC Berkeley undeclared pre-business. I’m not sure I really buy the whole “grade deflation is worse at Berkeley than at UCLA” argument. If you look at the student bodies at both schools, they’re virtually identical. I find it hard to believe that the grading rigor is all that different. I think Cal just historically had a reputation for being an academics-first kind of a place, whereas UCLA historically had a rep for being a place for more “well-rounded” types. I’m not sure there’s really much of a difference nowadays, considering both schools accept roughly 15% of applicants, and both have student bodies with average HS weighted GPAs of 4.4+.
For me, I liked the fact that the Haas option is “available” if I want it and if I do well enough in the first two years. Whereas UCLA bus econ is a great option, it’s not a “traditional” business ad degree program. Yes, Haas admissions are competitive (3.6 or 3.7 to transfer in after soph year), but again, at least the option is there if you want to pursue it.
For me, it really came down to just wanting something new. I’d worked for 2 summers as an intern at UCLA, and it was a very familiar and comfortable environment. Berkeley is a bit further away from home, but the campus “look and feel” and overall environment felt pretty different from UCLA. Finally, I felt like the academic reputation of Berkeley was a strong selling point, especially given my interest in something quantitative like data science/analytics, statistics, or maybe finance.
I finally sent in my SIR last week, but I took a lot of time to finally decide on Cal. Good luck.