University of California Alums: Help me in making a huge decision!!

In My Humble Opinion
1

So background information on me before I introduce my dilemma: I am a long-time lurker of straight dope, reading maybe one or two hours a day. The compassion and respect on this message board outdoes any message board on the Internet, and I am honored to now be a part of it. As I have read the wisdom of so many people on these boards, I realized that you all probably could help me more than any counselor or adult I know.

So as a high school senior, I have narrowed my college choices down to two: UC Berkeley and UC Davis.

Thoughts on UCB: They are giving me a few thousand to go, and I am entering their college of chemistry, which is supposed to be very prestigious. However, I am pretty sure I’m not smart enough to compete at Berk. I do pretty well in high school, but I know there are much better people out there who will totally own me in Berk. I fear that I’ll drop out of the school and become a withering piece of loser on the street in a few years. The one thing I can’t get over at this school is the name. Such a great public university! But the competition is fierce, and that scares me.

Thoughts on UCD: Ah the campus is so ME. The trees, the foliage, the open space, the family-like community. I’d be studying biology there, which is respected, but not at the top or anything. But the thing about Davis is that they are giving me considerably more money to go, and I get privledges like priority class registration and housing (I’d live in a new dorm with people like me who have done well in high school, thereby making it much more probable that I won’t have a big asshole as my roommate).

The problem I guess is the name. But I have never been that big into names…although I’m wondering if graduate schools are? So Dopers, if you are kind enough to share your wisdom on a newbie, could you help out a poor, young old high school senior out here? I am wondering if studying at a certain university with a bigger reputation will help in grad school…ie a 2.7 at Berk is better or worse than a 3.5 at Davis? I am pretty sure I will be happier at Davis, with less competition and an environment I like more (Davis = suburbia, Berk = city). And isn’t being happy what it’s all about? I honestly am lost here. Thanks for all the input!

2

Honestly, go where you think you’d prefer to live. You’re going to be there for four years. Your education will be what you make of it, but you can’t change the community you will be living in.

I’m a University of California alum, but totally unprepared to answer your more specific questions re: department and campuses. (I have a degree in anthropology from UC Santa Cruz.)

3

Oops, on second thought, anybody 18 or older could probably answer this question pretty well. Thanks Kyla, I think you are right…happiness over name.

4

At UCB, you will be a small faceless cog in a campus that is normally unforgiving to undergrads.

At UCD, you will be a slightly larger faceless cog in a campus that is normally unforgiving to undergrads.

The prestige difference between the two schools is most illusory at the undergrad level. Go where you feel happy.

5

I’m from Sacramento, and going to UC Santa Cruz but I’ve spent a lot of time in both Davis and Berkeley, and I’ve got to suggest that you do Berkeley. Not for the name- names are worthless- but for the environment.

The competition at Berkeley is pretty insane. But that is something you can deal with. Either you decide to focus on your personal education and not worry about the competition, or you decide that it’s worth your four years and however many dollers to try your best to keep up. Either way you win. Honestly- and you don’t have to believe me here- it’s somewhat unlikely that you’ll stick to your major. I only know a couple people that have graduated with the major they started out with. Now you might be one of those exceptions- I was- but when you are just starting your undergrad degree, you really don’t need to worry about what any particular major is like. There is a place for you somewhere that you are perfectly suited. They wouldn’t let you in if they thought you were just going to flunk out. You’ll do fine.

What you do need to worry about is where your going to live. I know you say you don’t like cities, but Berkeley kicks ass. There is always something to do. There are always people that are good to hang out with. It’s a fun place, and it isn’t really as big and overwhelming as you’d think it is. The great thing about a city is there is always a niche where you can fit in, where you can be more than just a little fish and where you can have your community. That isn’t so true in a smaller place. In Davis, there are just a few niches. And if you don’t fit into one of those- well- too bad. I went to a smaller university (UC Santa Cruz) thinking that there I would make more of a difference and not be so lost. But I found out that I really didn’t fit in with all the main subcultures and that the whole university was dominated by those subcultures. So I ended up a fish in no pond, a cog in no machine. Maybe I just made a really really bad choice, but I’ve made more friends in one night at Berkeley than I have in my four years at Santa Cruz.

And don’t doubt for a minute that Davis is very, very small (warning: gross and probably unfair generalizations about Davis follow). By the time you get out of that town, you’ll have eaten at every restraunt. You’ll have walked down every street. You’ll have met and gotten bored with every interesting person there is to know. Sacramento is a great city, and I love it. But Davis people don’t get there much. Somehow they get stuck in the blackhole that is Davis, drinking in the same old bars, talking to the same old people wearing the same old preppy UCD sweatshirts, living the same boring, dull, uninspiring lives. It’s not a fun place, unless you like living in a town that feels like one giangantic but very dull fraternity.

Money is a factor, but unless you are getting a full-ride at Davis and ten bucks at Berkeley, it’s a factor you can work around. And once you’ve lived in an expensive city like Berkeley, you know how to live anywhere. Try looking into the co-ops- five hundred a month pays for food and rent. Trust me, you’ll be able to come up with some way to live. Priority enrollment only matters your freshman year- after that you’ll either have enough priority to get what you want or enough seniority to crash whatever you want. Dorms suck no matter where you go. Assholes go to Ivy Leagues and they go to JC’s. In my experience there are more assholes in Davis than in Berkeley in general, because Berkeley weeds out a lot of the I’m-here-to-drink-beer types. But don’t factor dorms into your decision. They are pretty much all alike no matter who is in them or where you are.

But most importantly, go with your heart. And have fun!

6

Given a choice between being a small fish in a big pond or vice-versa, always choose to be the small fish in the big pond. College is really about what you can be when it’s over.

You can have fun at any school (or any other place for that matter); it’s just a matter of finding it and/or creating it. But an education is really what you’re there for. You’ll learn so much more in so many ways by taking the tougher road. It’ll be a great struggle, but you can do it and you’ll be better for it.

7

I am currently an UCD undergrad.

First off. What the FUCK are you doing?
You’re entering into chemistry and Berkeley and biology(Biology btw, is very well respected at davis.) at Davis?
Don’t goto a school and major what the school is prestigious in. Major in what YOU want to major in. That said, I can move on.

Competition is GOOD. It pushes you higher, harder and longer then you’ll ever go on your own. That said, don’t knock yourself before you’ve seen the competition. I may attend UC Davis, but I am absolutely certain(and absolutely pretentious for saying so, but eh) , that I am just as smart/smarter then quite a number of my friends whom attend UCB.

I come from a big city(Los Angeles). Davis is a massive change for me. The entire town shuts down at 9 o clock. Since Davis students don’t vote Davis Residents get pretty much every-anti-college-student law they want put into action.

I’m a sophomore. I’ve done that thrice.

Oh yea, and remember that it’s the last school on your resume that counts. If you plan to goto Grad school it’s not going to matter where you Undergrad. Just kick ass in college and you’ll be able to Grad just about anywhere.

Hrm… It might be good to note that since you’ve been accepted to both Berkeley and Davis you can pretty much instantaniously transfer after 1 quarter if you dislike either school. (They give you admission for up to a full year after, although it might be a little more difficult transfering from davis to berkeley immediately).

That said, I like UCD, but I have my regrets and I might transfer back to UCLA. In anycase, if you’re going to davis shoot me an e-mail. I’d like to meet some fellow dopers.

8

I went to Berkeley. Personally, I did feel any competition, but I was studying liberal arts. I have no idea what the sciences are like, but I know engineering student hardly study.

UC Davis is prestigious enough that I wouldn’t consider prestige as a factor.

I would never consider living in a town like Davis. But if you like Davis, I don’t see any question here.

9

My majors were Bio & Art at UCSD, which I thought was neat cause UCSD is a medical school. Frankly, for the wow factor, I don’t think Davis Vs UCB matters.

Better to consider where you would be staying & the other costs too.

10

I am currently a fourth-year senior at UCD (graduating in roughly eight weeks! yay!), and I’ve got a couple thoughts.

  1. Davis is a Very Small Place. There are (I think) 53,000 residents and about 35,000 undergrads. There are a couple bars, most of which suck unless you happen to be an active member of the reigning clique (i.e. the 'Tina = frat/sorority heaven, the G-street has a definite ‘crowd’ etc), while my roommate is a big G-st fan and goes there several times a week, I’ve been exactly twice. Just not my thing. Sophia’s is decent for Thai food, Guadalajara is great Mexican, Osaka has very excellent sushi, but it’s expensive. Fuji has a great all you can eat sushi lunch special, but get in line at least a half hour early.
    The upshot is we’re only fifteen minutes from Sac and an hourish from San Francisco so a lot of people go to either place for entertainment. You’re only an hour and a half from the amphitheater-formerly-known-as-the-Sacramento-Valley-Amphitheater and about two hours from the Shoreline Amphitheater (in San Jose) so you’ve got a decent concert selection.
    The point is, there’s not much to do in Davis. It’s a nice enough place to be, but pretty boring. This is good for the GPA, because you don’t have to spend a lot of time debating over whether to write your paper or go out ;).

  2. Davis is also known as “The People’s Republic of Davis,” or simply “That Communist Town” (heh) by people who live or have lived here. There’s always an Issue Of The Moment ™ --which doesn’t really affect the student population, but is an amusing side-note to living here. Some of the more recent ones are the toad tunnel* and the dark sky ordinance**, as well as people who inadvertently violate noise and pollution ordinances with snoring and cigarette smoke in their own homes.

  3. Davis is a pretty respectable school for the hard sciences. There’s competition, but it’s not cut-throat like at Berkeley. A friend of mine is a Berkeley alumna; she had friends in chem labs who’s work was sabatoged because they were setting the curve in the class. Berkeley is high-stress, to be sure. On the other hand, Berkeley is a great place to hang out… and Davis is only a forty minute drive from Telegraph.

  4. I have no idea what the housing situation is like in Berkeley, but in Davis, there is about a half-percent vacancy rate, and the cost of housing is roughly 300% of the national average. I’m paying more for my bedroom in Davis than I will be on a mortgage for a four bedroom house with Mr. Armadillo in Oregon, where we are headed for grad school. I had an absolutely wonderful time in the dorms (see next note) but after that, find good roommates and a good house or apartment and stay there until you graduate. The vacancy rate is so low, it makes finding a new place and new roommates is an absolute nightmare.

  5. If you do choose UCD, live in the Cuarto dorm area your freshman year. Castilian South or the ones by the Oxford Circle park are awesome–they’re converted apartment complexes, so you get three or four bedrooms, multiple bathrooms, and a good sized living room shared between five people, rather than the rest of the dorm halls, which, for the most part, are just rooms that open into a hallway with locker-room style bathrooms. Suckage. Also, the Castilian South DC is the least crappy of all of them, because that building has it’s own DC, so they’re only cooking for that one building rather than six buildings worth of people. It’s not too bad.

I think UCD is a prestigious enough school to not make a terrible amount of difference in grad school applications. It’s not as though you’re debating between UC Berkeley and, say, Sierra College. In my opinion, the far more laid back atmosphere in Davis is worth any benefits Berkeley has–and you’re close enough to Berkeley to reap those benefits if you so desire. Also, as someone else pointed out, if you really dislike wherever you choose, you can pretty easily transfer at any time during your first year.

I think they are close enough in quality to make it a decision over which environment you’d rather be in, more than anything. The name isn’t going to matter much past your sophmore year.

Peace,
~mixie

*The city spent about $14,000 to build a little tunnel under the Pole Line overpass crossing Highway 80, in order to allow the frogs who’s annual migration crossed that area to not get squished on the road. I recently heard that the tunnel does not have adequate allowance for ventellation, and that the frogs asphyxiate somewhere in the middle anyway. That part could be rumor. Let’s hope.

**The city spent somewhere in the viscinity of a quarter million dollars implementing a new style of street lamp, in order to reduce light pollution, so that the stars are more visible. Stars are nice. Building a new school would probably have been nicer.

11

Haha well back in November when I was applying, I both very much enjoyed Chemistry AP and Biology AP. The case still remains the same today. So I figured “Well, if I am going into chemistry, Berkeley would be the best place to study that. For Biology, I’ll choose Davis.” So there ya go.

Yeah. Okay I doubt it will ever be that fierce (hopefully), but I know Berkeley is filled with absolute geniuses that will dominate me no matter how hard I try.

And I really don’t mind the small town atmosphere. I grew up in a small town where the big attraction was a Target and a movie theater. My idea of a good time is spending a night playing Napoleon or Mafia or Monopoly (any fans out there??) with friends, not going out and getting wasted at clubs.

It just seems that my stress level would go way down at UCD…the people there just seem more chill. Thanks for all the input so far!

12

I majored in Bio at UCB, and rather enjoyed it. I didn’t live on campus, though, so can’t say anything about the city life.

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned yet is the quarter/semester system: UCB was, last I knew, the only UC school using a semester system, rather than a quarter system. This made things rather less stressful for me, it seemed, than for my friends who attended quarter-based schools.

I also didn’t notice anything in the way of competition, though that may have had more to do with my major and the courses I took than the school. In the Paleo courses I took, those who did the best were simply those who had the most interest. That, and the professors did not grade on a curve. Things may be very different in the Chemistry department, though. Still, if you are truly interested in Chemistry, I don’t see competition as an issue.

13

No, it is that fierce. That’s what I’m saying, heh. I’m not saying anything against you, or your intelligence, or academic prowess, I’m simply saying it’s a very competitive school.

Well, a lot of people are into the club or bar scene that don’t drink. You know, people, music, socialization. I like it here well enough because I’m not into the clubbing or party scene at all. My social life consists of Mr. Armadillo, a couple close friends, roommates who I adore, lots of books, and my art. I’m a total square. I can hang in Davis and be perfectly happy, a lot of people can’t.
I realized that Mr. Armadillo and I are getting old, heh, when we started looking for houses and made sure to start in areas as far from those young, whippersnapper college kids as possible ;).
We’re both twenty one years old.

Peace,
~mixie

14

WOW!!!

Believe it or not, back in 1990 I had to make the exact same decision (UCD or UCB)! Only I would major in poli. sci.

I had grown up in Woodland, which is only about 15 miles from Davis. There were therefore around 25 seniors in my class headed for UCD and about 15 of us actually knew each other pretty well in high school. That convinced me to head to UCD. It’s a great school and I had a wonderful and memorable experience . . .

. . . but, I do think “What if?” and honestly, have some regret for not having chosen Cal. instead . . .

15

. . . and I forgot to add, based on the reason’s you seem to be leaning towards Davis (environment, campus), I prefer the opposite (city, “busy” environment), that I think I would have liked Berkeley better.

In your case, I would suggest Davis.

16

(Hey, El Gui, my husband lived in Woodland for awhile as a kid. Wonder if you knew each other…)

I went to UCB, and I’m not a genius. So I’m going to address your “I know Berkeley is filled with absolute geniuses that will dominate me no matter how hard I try” thing.

First, many of those same geniuses never developed actual study habits, because HS was so easy for them. They will sink like stones, and flunk out in the first year, unless they learn new habits. If you have good study habits, you will do better than this. Also, many of these same geniuses are lacking in any common sense whatsoever, which is something of a handicap, even in Berkeley. A more average person with some balance and sense can do better, just by not screwing up life too badly.

Second, many of them are very concerned with showing everyone else how clever they are. This is not actually a necessary exercise. You don’t have to show off too. This makes life easier.

Third, it is entirely possible for complete idiots to get into Cal. You will meet them. They even graduate, and you wonder how it happened. So you can do better than they can.

My own attitude was that I had gotten in by the skin of my teeth and some luck, and was therefore perfectly happy with almost straight Bs (I was a lit major, so didn’t have to think about the curve or insane tests designed to flunk out half the class, as you will). As long as I was doing OK, I was happy. My more intellectual friends expected more of themselves and would then kill themselves over every paper because an A- just wasn’t good enough. The papers would then be late, and they would be nervous wrecks. So my advice is–don’t do that. Do your best, turn things in on time, have a little common sense, and you’ll probably do OK.

–Oh, and don’t try to take Honors O Chem if your scholarship is depending on your GPA. Little advice from my BIL there.

17

Hah, I hear voldhart( the guy who wrote the book)
sucks!

Dr. Schore (the other guy who wrote the book) is a rocking teacher!

w00t!

18

I went to Berkeley and grad school as well, and know that going to Cal was a big plus when applying to law schools.

The campus, people, teachers, and history are great.

I certainly am not a genius, and I did quite well for myself there.

I got into UCLA, UC Berkeley, and UC Davis, and quickly jumped onto the opportunity to go to Cal. You should to. Oh, majors can change- keep an open mind.

And no matter what, always remember-- Stanford sucks!

19

My brother went to UCB, I went to CSU Hayward. I would second the idea of getting into a co-op if you go to Berkeley, and point out that if you go to Davis, you probably want to take your bike with you…

Otherwise, it seems to be stratifying out into Berkeley = competitive, lots of people & stuff to do, Davis = more laid back, smaller & quieter, which agrees with what I saw of the two campuses.

20

Several years ago, I was in a situation remarkably similar to yours. Chancellor’s Scholarship at Berkeley, Regent’s at Davis; Berkeley has a “name” and Davis has “no name”; I’d like either place and I’m scared of screwing this decision up.

I chose Davis. I’m still here, as a matter of fact, having chosen Davis over CMU for grad school.

My point is not to persuade you to pick Davis over Berkeley, on the grounds that it worked for me and therefore will work for you too. I think that would be doing you a disservice. I can, however, assuage some of the fears that I had and that you’re having.

  1. Davis has “no name”. This bothered me for a long time–I’m turning down Cal for freaking Davis??? What am I, nuts?–but I really don’t worry about it anymore. It’s my considered opinion that Davis is massively underrated. I think its reputation will catch up to reality sooner rather than later. It is, for example, a powerhouse engineering school. I, personally, know two people who turned down Cal Tech for Davis, along with many people who, like me, turned down “bigger name” schools for Davis.

Besides, you’d be surprised how highly Davis is regarded. I always am.

  1. Davis is boring. I actually like Davis. You can bike anywhere. It’s open and green. In my heady undergrad days, I spent a lot of time walking and biking along the greenbelt, an enormous network of parks and paths threading through the city.

Contrary to popular belief, you can keep yourself happily busy in Davis. (Caveat: I’m not at all into the bar scene.)
The city has an art center with tons of classes year-round. The university has the Craft Center, with passes if you know what you’re doing and classes if you don’t. The Experimental College offers classes in dance, music, firewalking, etc.

Sacto is fifteen minutes away. Berkeley is an hour away. SF is an hour and a half away. I go to concerts in the Bay Area all the time. I have a blast here.

  1. I’m not smart enough for Berkeley. Bollocks. You got in, so Cal thinks you’re smart enough to survive there. In fact, they’re giving you money, which means that they think you’re a cut above the herd. And they know more about your classmates than you do. :slight_smile:

As to scholarships:
Do consider the benefits of having the Regent’s. (I know you’ve been offered it because you’re considering IS.) It’s super-prestigious. It’s great to be able to say, “I have the most prestigious scholarship offered by the UC system.” Also, the priority registration is GREAT, especially if your major is impacted. Mine was (I was in engineering), and I always got the classes I wanted. I finished in four. Many friends were not so lucky.

You’re considering Integrated Studies. I had a great time in IS, but then again my year was a good one. You do get a less crowded dorm, in centrally-located Tercero. Just don’t take Nora too seriously. :slight_smile: