Appreciate any insights!
caltech
Can you please share more your thoughts? Appreciate it!
Are they all equally affordable? What is your goal?
The net prices are pretty much the same for OOS. Plan to go for work for a few years after school and then for graduate school
What’s the price of each? All great schools. If you go by ranking Berkeley is ranked the “best.” Then it appears Cal Tech and UPenn. Some advantages for Berkeley is that it’s relatively close to Silicon Valley. But the CS classes are huge. At least in the initial classes. Talking about 1500+ students in one class. And in upper division the class sizes remain large in the hundreds. I understand that many students just stop going to class.
With Cal Tech being so small, 500 total students and maybe 130 per grade, it’s bound to provide some intimate classes. Looks like Penn is pretty large at 1600 or so CIS students total.
So there’s advantages and disadvantages with all three schools.
Interesting opportunities after graduating from Cal Tech:
Thanks for the insight. I heard the incoming UCB CS class is getting smaller, but I’m not sure if it is true or not cause everyone says the class is close to 2000 in some points. The costs are pretty much the same around 90k
If I’m full pay, I’m not going to UCB.
There are no job guarantees. UCB is big and impersonal. I’d go to Penn or Cal Tech - depending on the type of school you want - larger with so many majors or tiny.
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It also depends on what you want from your college experience. D24 likes Berkeley, but she is instate. OOS is pretty expensive to get no attention and have to fight for internships, jobs, classes. CalTech is so small that I would think classes would be easier to enroll. But it’s not in the SV which can be helpful in landing a job, plus it’s known of course more for their physics and engineering. And the student population is very unique. Penn seems to be a little more intimate in size than Cal but not as “unique” as CalTech.
I was just about to call @auntbea when I say the pie and the ellipses show up 
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Our son attended Caltech.
What people need to realize about Caltech is that it is unique.
It is a research institution.
Yes it’s small but that doesn’t mean you’ll have a relationship with the professors. The professors are there to conduct research- publish or perish. The students will spend most of their time with research assistants who are teaching courses that they’ve never taught before.
So let me repeat it’s a research institution. You won’t get a typical university experience.
A lot of the work is done independently by the students, in their rooms. There’s a lot of ordering from Uber and DoorDash.
It can get very stressful.
If the original poster of this thread, wants to spend a lot of money at Caltech, for studying CS, independently, then I would suggest Caltech, but that’s a lot of money to spend at an institution where the primary goal is to complete research.
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Did not realize that there’s such little interaction at CalTech between undergrads and professors. But it does make sense. Their focus is on their research and grad students. I always think about Richard Feynman when I think of Caltech.
I had two retired Caltech professors as patients. One managed a very famous NASA program. Both spoke with me when my son was looking at schools. Both dissuaded him from even applying. As one said, “Caltech is a great graduate school. It is not an undergraduate institution.” Their opinion seems pretty much in line with what @aunt_bea’s son experienced.
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Net price at each?
Did you get admitted to the EECS or CCDSS CS major at UCB?
Net prices are pretty much the same for OOS students. Admitted to CCDSS CS at UCB.
I always think of Sheldon Cooper lol
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Are you a high school senior and if so have you already been admitted to all of these schools?
Can your family comfortably afford to pay for any of these schools with no debt and no family hardship?
Have you been admitted to other schools also?
That’s not the case in even the entry level classes since they’ve significantly reduced the availability of unreserved seats and made BA CS a direct admit via CDSS. As an example, the class sizes for Fall 2025 for the lower div CS courses.
CS 61A: 744
CS 61B: 261
CS 61C: 292
OP - the other thing to know about these classes are that they are extremely well resourced and well run with some of the largest cohorts of course staff on campus.
OP - I’d even argue that there is a critical mass of CS students on campus that generates significantly higher academic, research, and career opportunities. You’ve got into some great schools and IMO the choice lies between Berkeley and Caltech depending on the type of educational environment you like.
Thanks for sharing this. It is a tough decision between Berkeley and Caltech, both are good with pros and cons…
Thanks for sharing your son’s experience. Sounds like pretty touch and competitive environment at Caltech. Where did you son end up with doing? Did he go to graduate school or work at industry after Caltech? Appreciate for sharing the story!