<p>My son was in this exact situation and chose USC. We live about 20 minutes from Berkeley. REMEMBER!!! UC is undergoing major budget cuts- your classes will be huge and you will fight to get into them. Not unusual to take 5 years to graduate because of this. My son decided that if he started at Cal and didn’t get into Haas he would regret not accepting USC or one of the other smaller private schools. There have been front page articles in our local paper about the state of the UC and Cal State Univ systems due to monetary issues. I am a UC alum and wish I could recommend this to my son, but I just can’t seeing what is on the horizon. We have local students here excited to go to Cal and wish them the best. You can always apply to Haas while a sophomore at USC too. Good luck and congrats to you on working so hard to position yourself for this exciting decision!</p>