The difference between various UCs is much smaller than the difference between UC and CSU. Adcoms and premedical advisers at both systems admit that there is bias against CSUs. And it is a fact that students at the UCs who get weeded out in biology transfer to CSU so that they can pass. This comes from a CSU adviser. The exodus from UC to CSU happens every year and med schools in CA know about this.
In terms of UCs, when you are comparing closely ranked schools, it doesn't really matter. But I was told that usually it is better to attend a school that has a teaching hospital available nearby, i.e., likely a medical school. But that's only if everything else is pretty much the same. I had to make some difficult choices myself, and the bottom line was that it will help if you can go to a top UC school, but not as much as to supersede the rest of the variables. Maybe for medical school it doesn't matter much, but in the sciences (like engineering) Cal is in a class of it's own. So if you were to attend it and major in physics and succeed, that would count for much more than the same feat at any other UC. Berkeley is a public Ivy. If you can get into Berkeley, chances are that you have a good shot at the top schools in the country. UCLA - you can get in with the right major. The rest of the schools, like UCI, UCR, USCD, UCSB, etc., are pretty much the same. You have to get buried in minutiae to find differences among these schools.
I'll share a few of the details that I found out about different UCs when I was making a decision: for example, UCSD may not be a bad school, but the faculty and the administration there came off as very unfriendly. I was unable to find out some specific information that I needed. They kept transferring my calls about five times on one occasion and at the end the person had to direct me to their website for that information because she either didn't know the answer or didn't care to disclose it. The website didn't have the full information either. I also know some people who went to law school in San Diego and thought that the population was generally pretty shallow. Having been in that city several times, I agreed with that observation. Then you have Berkeley (or any other strongly technical school, such as Harvey Mudd, Caltech, etc). One of issues here is money - it is tough to get a good scholarship at such competitive schools. But a more important issue is the risk because very few people make it out from there with a good GPA - if they major in the department that the school is known for. So then the decision is whether you are willing to risk your GPA taking courses at one of the toughest schools in the nation. One of my teachers at one of these schools said outright that you have to be a genius to get an A in her class. The text we used was the exact same text they use at medical school and we were expected to know about 70% of the book (around 700 pages) almost by heart. Around half of the class dropped out after the midterm, and most of those who stayed behind were graduate students. This class was a lot of work. Can it be done? Of course. But imagine having three classes like this, trying to volunteer, join clubs, and work. If you do get a low GPA, you're not going to make it. There are people from places like Caltech and Mudd that have not been able to get into any medical school with low GPAs. Med schools just don't realize or care about the difficulty at these schools. If you get a low GPA, you won't make it. Then there is UCI - classes are not easy, but they are not as bad as the big three mentioned above. However, UCI has it's own drawbacks - there is more competition to get research positions, there is a class you have to take before you can do any research (losing an entire quarter), and premedical advisers are non-existent. I had to talk to someone in the UCI med school about med schools because UCI undergrad doesn't have anyone officially involved with that. UCR is another school - it has probably one of the friendliest faculty, classes are small, campus is almost the smallest (some love small schools), there are specific med school advisers and there is a special program where premeds exclusively from UCR can apply to UCLA med school and 24 seats are reserved only for UCR students every year, there are a lot of research opportunities and the students are actively asked to participate, but the location sucks and there is no medical school...
The above list goes on and on, but I hope that it clarifies a bit more as to what "Best UC" really means. It's not something static. There are many pros and cons to each school and that's why you can't say what UC is really "the best." Will a physics major at Berkeley trump every other UC? Maybe. But the catch is will you be really able to get over 3.5 at Berkeley? If you don't like an overly competitive environment or a big campus, then the top UCs are out of your list and the best school for
you would be a smaller campus, like UCR.
I know that ranks matter and if you look at a list like
this you'll see that UCLA and Cal send the largest number of white applicants to med school. But does that really mean anything? Not really. That list is almost expected because UCB and UCLA have the most students. Some approximate numbers (2005): UCLA-35700, UCB-33600, UCD-29000, UCSD-27000, UCI-25000, UCR-16700, UCSC-15000. A school like UCSC has less than half the students of UCLA or Berkeley. Obviously a small school like that is not going to have as many med school acceptances or research money, which is one of the crieteria for US News ranking. This is why it just doesn't make sense to look at the AMCAS list or even US News rankings alone to decide what is and what is not a good UC. Personally, my favorite UC is UCSC. I know that some people talk condescendingly about places like UCD and mentioning those cows, but I believe the environment at these places is the best for peaceful studying and maturation. I don't think I have seen a campus as breathtakingly beautiful as UCSC. The people are very friendly as well. Now that's an ideal environment for someone who wants complete peace and concentration on learning. As such, for a lot of students it is the "best" UC.
