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indecisivegal said:
Hello, I am currently a senior in high school. I have no idea if I am allowed to post this here but I would appreciate it if any pre-dental/dental students can help me choose where to go to college. I plan on going on the pre-dental track. The cost for both of these schools is very similar.

UC Berkeley Pros
- World-class academics
- Prestige
- Convenient location (many nearby hospitals)
- Public transportation
- Beautiful campus
- Great networking
- Better social life with work hard/play hard culture (rumor)

UC Berkeley Cons
- Grade deflation
- Competitive student body
- Dangerous area
- Hard to get research positions (rumor)
- Hard to get into clubs (rumor)

UCSD Pros
- Near home
- Large pre-dental society (could be a con because there's more people to compete with, I'm not too sure)
- Less competitive student body (don't get me wrong, I'm not underestimating the difficulty)
- Many research opportunities
- Convenient location (many nearby hospitals)
- I have connections in SD because one of my family members is a dentist there

UCSD Cons
- Musty campus
- Not in a big city
- Socially dead (I'm pretty fine with this though)

Any feedback would be appreciated, thank you!
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ucsd has the best predental club in the country...
 
macsak said:
ucsd has the best predental club in the country...
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yes, i'm aware that it has a very large and renowned pre-dental society. however, i'm scared that that means more competition within the school itself. if everyone is doing pre-dental, it would be hard for me to stand out and comepte with everyone else for opportunities, positions, etc. does that make sense?
 
indecisivegal said:
yes, i'm aware that it has a very large and renowned pre-dental society. however, i'm scared that that means more competition within the school itself. if everyone is doing pre-dental, it would be hard for me to stand out and comepte with everyone else for opportunities, positions, etc. does that make sense?
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more opportunities for volunteering and activities, more networking and events, better guidance from advisors and fellow students...
i also wouldn't want to compete with UC berkeley premeds and other students...
 
Admission into dental school is heavily influenced by GPA (and DAT).

maintaining a high GPA at Cal will be a challenge. More so than UCSD at least.

Also, research isn’t hard to get into. Email a bunch of professors and show interest. You’re bound to get into a lab. But if you only want to work for a superstar researcher/professor, then yeah it’s going to be competitive. Which is true for most top tier research schools.
 
Cal alum here! I’d like to confirm that those last two cons (research and clubs being hard to get into) are def true, at least pre covid. Get ready for tons of apps and interviews for both extracurriculars T_T

I’d also like to confirm that the last pro, work hard/play hard culture, is def true as well! The college town vibe throughout Berkeley makes it super easy to go out and enjoy drinks/party after midterms!!! But also be prepared for tons of crime alerts...

the Bay Area is lovely as well, and made my experience at Cal much more worth it....your GPA might suffer but the rigor of science classes should over prepare you for the DAT.
 
indecisivegal said:
Hello, I am currently a senior in high school. I have no idea if I am allowed to post this here but I would appreciate it if any pre-dental/dental students can help me choose where to go to college. I plan on going on the pre-dental track. The cost for both of these schools is very similar.

UC Berkeley Pros
- World-class academics
- Prestige
- Convenient location (many nearby hospitals)
- Public transportation
- Beautiful campus
- Great networking
- Better social life with work hard/play hard culture (rumor)

UC Berkeley Cons
- Grade deflation
- Competitive student body
- Dangerous area
- Hard to get research positions (rumor)
- Hard to get into clubs (rumor)

UCSD Pros
- Near home
- Large pre-dental society (could be a con because there's more people to compete with, I'm not too sure)
- Less competitive student body (don't get me wrong, I'm not underestimating the difficulty)
- Many research opportunities
- Convenient location (many nearby hospitals)
- I have connections in SD because one of my family members is a dentist there

UCSD Cons
- Musty campus
- Not in a big city
- Socially dead (I'm pretty fine with this though)

Any feedback would be appreciated, thank you!
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Go to the school that is closer to your home. You need that support more than the school name.
 
UCSD and it's not close. Beautiful weather, located by the beach, closer to home and it's easier to maintain your GPA.

A Berkeley degree won't get you anywhere if it's paired with a mediocre GPA. You'd be better off going to some no-name school and getting a high GPA.

I know a number of people at Cal who gave up on med school/dental school because the competition in lower division science courses was so stiff. I also know people who went to "top schools" and got low GPAs. They had to do a postbac or SMP. They were all top caliber students in high school, too.

Go to UCSD.
 
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which one is cheaper? I would pick UCSD honestly.

I have a classmate who went to UC Berkeley. sounded all fancy when she was talking about it.

later found it she tanked her GPA while there as it is very competitive. She had to do a Masters degree at another school and apply multiple times, she ended up starting d school at 30. Not that it is a bad thing to start school later, but few years of lost income for the experience of 'prestige' is not worth it to me.
 
PerioDont said:
which one is cheaper? I would pick UCSD honestly.

I have a classmate who went to UC Berkeley. sounded all fancy when she was talking about it.

later found it she tanked her GPA while there as it is very competitive. She had to do a Masters degree at another school and apply multiple times, she ended up starting d school at 30. Not that it is a bad thing to start school later, but few years of lost income for the experience of 'prestige' is not worth it to me.
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they're both nearly the same price. i think UCSD is 2k cheaper but at the end of the day, they only sent me the estimated costs of attendance. regardless, thank you for your insight! this is definitely not the first time i've heard about numerous failed med/dental cycles at UC berkeley because of the grade deflation.
 
I’d go to UCSD. It’s still a great school. Sure, it’s not S tier like UC Berkeley or UCLA, but it’s definitely A tier. Grade deflation is real, and it can have a lot more impact mentally than most people realize.

Everyone getting into Berkeley is obviously pretty smart, but let’s be honest, high school is kind of a joke in most areas in terms of rigor. So kids who were top of their class, used to getting A’s without putting in a ton of work end up at a school with a bunch of other kids on the same level. But all of a sudden they’re putting in a ton of effort to scrape out a B/B- and all of a sudden the imposter syndrome starts to set in and they question their abilities. They are obviously smart but only an average student at Berkeley whereas they likely would’ve been a top student at UCSD

Malcolm Gladwell has touched on this a few times. Persistence in science/math degrees is not only a function of how smart you are but more so a function of how smart you are relative to your peers.

ultimately no one will care where you went to school, they’ll care about your GPA and DAT. So I’d choose the school that would allow me to more easily maintain a high GPA while still giving me a solid foundation for the DAT and D school
 
I graduated from La Jolla High School and my dad was a med school professor at UCSD, and my first college was UC Berkeley ... although this was back in the stone age. ;-)

I like the advice you've received here, and these folks know more about dental school than me by a long shot. But just in terms of the communities, the crime rate in Berkeley these days is scary, whereas La Jolla and nearby is generally not high crime (presuming you can live on campus your first year or two).

Btw, I assume you live in California. If you don't, admission is of course more challenging.
 
You have no idea how important GPA and DAT score are to admissions committees. No offense but there's a pretty good chance you will be murdered by the competition at UC Berkeley regardless of how smart you think you are in high school. UCSD is a much safer choice. Nobody cares about undergrad prestige in the grad world.
 
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