UCLA or UC Berkeley (Business)

[firmament2x]

@GeronimoAlpaca . . . well stated.

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+.

I agree with you principally about the matching quality of students at each.

And the reason why the 15% isn’t lower is because there’s a UC-gpa floor of 3.0 for CA residents and a 3.4 for non-CA residents. It is a bit more restrictive for non-residents, but someone with a 3.4 wasn’t going to gain entry to either university anyway as admissions for this cohort is more about stats. People place too much emphasis on which college has the lowest acceptance rate. Is it Stanford with a 3-4% rate or Columbia? Actually there’s a self-selection process (big word here on this board) that points to Harvard and Cal Tech having the most naturally smart people of all colleges. But UCLA and Cal do pretty well in the brainiac department.

What I find impressive about both universities is when I see gpa unfiltered through weights, which can hide a fairly pedestrian gpa. The average unweighted gpa, 10-11, a-g at both is ~ 3.9. Cal isn’t quite as transparent as UCLA, and certainly UCLA is more free-flowing in its information: 3.92 uwgpa to 38th percentile; 3.85 to the 25th; and these imply or project to a 3.95 median uwgpa at UCLA. Both undoubtedly have > 1,400 median SAT, if both superscored, UCLA’s would be ~ 1,430 and Cal’s a bit higher.

I believe the main difference between them, though, is the personality traits of the students at each, and I think it is true that Cal’s are a bit more brooding and UCLA’s more friendly; I believe that a lot of this has to do with the mindsets that each of the student bodies takes on with respect to being in NorCal or SoCal, with component things as weather, and Hollywood and the tech industry within these two regions.

But this difference is what makes the UC colleges so incredible. Not one is like the other; they are all unique. Clearly the best university system in the world.

Edit…I wanted to add a [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQzVAfSUeU4]link[/url] that UCLA Housing just put out last month.