WHY I CHOSE UCLA OVER UC BERKELEY I My Top Tips For Choosing A College!

hey guys what's up but my name is maily if you're new to my channel please subscribe down below I make a ton of videos about my life as a college student at UCLA and today I'll be talking about how I made my college decision and why I chose UCLA over Berkeley so to give you a little bit information about me I am currently a first year student and I just finished my first corner so I'm all went to a break right now filming this video and yeah I know that a lot of you guys that are seniors in high school are starting to hear back from your different schools so if you're watching this video because we've tried to choose between UCLA and Cal I first want to say congratulations that is so exciting I know that I was definitely really excited when I heard back from both schools I'm such an I think I get accepted to either of the school so yeah making the decision was super hard so that's why I'm here to share my two cents and tell you guys how I made the decision just want to leave a disclaimer this is all my personal opinion so take everything I say with a grain of salt obviously everyone feels differently about their experiences at different schools but yes I'm just gonna give you my opinion and kind of my thought process when I was choosing between UCLA and cow so as a senior in high school when I heard back from all the schools that I applied to honestly I didn't have a dream school like not just like UCLA account but like considering all the colleges I applied to I had a really open mind and I didn't have one school that was dead-set on that I was like oh if I get in I'm for sure gonna go here I kind of just went into the whole College process just thinking like okay I'm just gonna apply to as many schools or like whatever schools I feel like and then once I hear back from them I'm gonna like seriously start considering them you know because I didn't want to get my hopes up and like get really excited about a school just find that I got denied or something so yes one went to ruled around senior year I started to hear back from the schools and eventually I narrowed it down to my top two which were UCLA and count so at that point what I did was I visit those schools and that's my first tip I highly highly highly recommend that if you're gonna do anything you should visit schools it's one thing to read about the schools on paper or on their website that's a whole nother thing if you actually stepped foot on the campus and you're enveloped within the community of other students you could just see how students interact you can see what their day-to-day life looks like what the classes look like what the campus looks like and overall I would say the main thing is you just get a much better vibe of the actual student life the campus life and that's something you can't pick up when you're just looking at a brochure or when you're looking at the school online so I've really needed both schools before I'd applied and then once I heard back from them I went to both schools to visit them again I highly recommend taking the campus tours most schools offer campus tours on you feel and Cal well fit so I made sure I went on those campus tours and make sure you asked questions if you have any questions don't be afraid to ask them trust me I was that girl who thought the very front talking to the tour guide and like asking all my questions everyone probably thought as knowing but hey your girl's gonna do what y'all gotta do to get to know the school so yeah I'm Nolan glad I asked all my questions because the tour guides were very honest and they gave me their full opinion another thing is if you know people who go to the schools I'd recommend talking to them so my cousin went to Cal at the time and I had a few friends at UCLA so I talked to them and asked them all my questions and just like asked them what their experience is and the colleges were like especially if you know the person well they're probably not gonna just give you all the good information Alex for me my friends are willing to tell me the good the bad the ugly what they liked what they didn't like and that was nice because just gives you more information about the school gives you different perspectives and obviously the schools are gonna want to make themselves look good on their brochures and their websites so they're not gonna have like everything Oakland of maybe things that students don't really like so if you could actually talk to student and hear both sides of their experiences you'll definitely get a more unfiltered raw version of their opinion so yes as I say I went to tour both of the schools after I heard back from them particularly I went to Bern day which was UCLA's admitted students event so they have a bunch of different like programs throughout the day they can learn more about their academics and social life different things the school offers they have a bunch of Tours out the day it's a very comprehensive day where you get to just explore UCLA and you get to meet a bunch of other admitted students I really won't be coming Berkeley's admissions day those actually on the same exact day as UCLA's administered stay which I mean I see them they're trying to make us already choose between the two yes so I ended up going to new clas Bern day and I'm so glad I did because ultimately that event was what made me sure that I wanted to go to UCLA I just got such a good feeling exploring the campus and meeting other students I could really see myself at UCLA I got a good sense of what the vibe looks like and I just really really loved it when you go to visit the campuses I really recommend that you also just take some time on your own like aside from the campus tours to walk around the different buildings walk around the campus like look around at the different opportunities I would pass by like posters our advertising different clubs I just kind of get a feel and like vibe of what campus life is like there's so many students just walking by like to and from classes or whatever so you can get a good sense of kind of what the campus culture is like I'd also recommend that you eat at the dining halls not only to get to try the food on campus but you're also surrounded by a ton of students so you can also get a good feel the vibe from that some schools offer tours of their doors so if you have a opportunity I would definitely like go on the dorm tour I went on UCLA's dorm tour and that just gave me an opportunity to see what my future living space would be like and envision myself as a student there like living in the dorms and just give me another piece of what my college experience would look like I would say the second huge thing you'd want to consider in your college is academics so specifically what are you majoring in and is a school that you're looking into like first of all offering that major and second are they strong in that program so for me personally it was kind of weird like I always have my headset on I want to go to like an undergraduate Business School which looking back like it's so weird now that I think about it because not all schools offer undergraduate business schools and if you're confused I'm talking about I'm talking about kind of like a USC and Marshall school business or like University of Washington's foster school business I'd applied to like Santa Clara and alamou and University of San Diego like all for their business programs and I mean once I found out that they didn't offer business schools I realized that a ton of schools still have undergraduate business schools so it wasn't like uncommon or something so once I found that out I was a much more open-minded to just pursuing an economics degree but both UCLA and Cal have different programs for people who are interested in business so UCLA you can go into a specific major called the business economics major which is basically an economics major with a little bit more focus and like business kind of tactics so you study at the Anderson School of Business and you take more like business oriented classes and then Cal has their Haas program and that's their undergraduate business program it's pretty common knowledge that Haas is very very very competitive and I'm really hard to get into you have to apply into the program and it's yeah it's really hard to get into I was talking to my cousin about it and he was telling me like yeah a lot of people don't get into the program and even if you do you are preparing for it for your entire first year and when I was thinking about what I wanted out of my college experience like I had worked super super hard in high school and I was always on top of my academics in high school so honestly I wanted more of a chill college experience and I want to be able to have a good balance of demyx and social life and club and overall does not have to put so much stress on myself to just perform the best academically and also if you think about it everyone at berkeley and everyone at UCLA is so smart so if it's competitive within a group of a bunch of smart people that just makes it so much more competitive and so I knew I didn't want to stress out my entire first year just trying to get into the Haas School of Business but the chance of not being able to even like be in the program and don't get me wrong you still have to apply into the business economics major at UCLA but I would say that it's not as competitive as Haas there isn't like a limited amount of people that they take it's just you have to get above a certain GPA and yes the requirements are still pretty tough but yeah I would say that it's easier to major as a business economics major at UCLA than to get into the hospital business at Berkeley obviously I'm not a hundred percent sure because I am a student UCLA I don't go to Berkeley I didn't in pilot program but yes for the most part that's what I hear from like pretty much everyone that asked oh and also if you're wondering I am a pre-business economics major currently at UCLA so that's the field that I'm anticipating on majoring in I'm on track right now with my GPA to be in that program so everything's worked out so yes overall my point is just consider what majors you might be interested in what things you want academically and see what the school has to offer and what different programs are stronger at the same time I don't think that you should base your entire college decision off of your major just because a lot of people do end up changing their majors so if you go to a school solely just for one specific area of study and you end up changing your mind or like you end up realizing that you're not that passionate about the subject you so want people to find other passions or find another area of study that you're interested in and if you just wanted school solely for one major it can be hard when you realize that that might not be the best fit for you later on so that is something I definitely considered and that kind of transitions me towards point number three which is considered the campus life the social life different extracurriculars and what kind of clubs they offer so I asked around I asked what clubs my friends were involved in during my tour I asked my tour guide what kind of things that they were in vaulted or like what their friends were in vaulted because college isn't just gonna be four years of studying like yes you're there for education bellies for me I'm hoping to actually like enjoy my college experience and not just be studying all the time so yes you say I had a ton of different programs I was interested in so did Berkeley but overall I have to say when I was on my campus tours I just got a different sense of the student atmospheres so at UCLA I don't really know how to put this and I don't want this to come up the wrong way I don't know I just feel like at UCLA everyone is just super excited to be there and there's so much more than just academics whereas Berkeley I don't know if it was because it was raining the day I was there but a lot of people just seemed a lot more like reserved really like always like on the study kind of grind another huge thing to consider it's the location and honestly I'd say that this was probably one of the biggest parts of my decision LA and San Francisco they are very different if you didn't know I'm from Seattle and when I went to visit San Francisco it just reminded me a walk like home and actually I li applied to schools in California I didn't apply to any in-state schools like in Washington because I knew I wanted to go to a sunny state I wanted to go to that California weather for college and when I was in San Francisco and I've been to San Francisco before it's a beautiful city but it just reminds me too much of Seattle it's a lot gloomier than LA I mean obviously not as a rainy and dark as Seattle but la is definitely more sunny than San Francisco and that was just more of what I was looking for not only the weather about to stay the overall vibe of the city la is the central hub for entertainment that's where like celebrities live which not saying that that's like why I went to UCLA I mean LA literally has everything I'm willing to like shopping and going to the beach and just generally that la lifestyle is something that really suits me and it doesn't suit everyone I'm gonna be totally honest a lot of my friends did not apply to schools in LA because they knew that that was a type of city they could not really vibe with but for me that is exactly right up my alley so I just felt like I connected a lot more with LA than San Francisco and it's also important to consider the general area where your colleges in both Cal and UCLA had great surrounding areas UCLA is located in Westwood so you're literally walking distance from all these like different shops there's like grocery stores there's clothing stores tons of restaurants just like within a mile away that you can just a walk off campus and be immediately in Westwood and same goes for Cal there's a ton of different stores restaurants nearby so both of them are like in a really accessible areas and it's easy to get like ubers and lyft's and different rides if you don't bring your car so yes as I was saying earlier brew day was ultimately steal the deal for me I just felt like UCLA was the place for me I just felt this like connection when I was there like actually on campus and exploring the different opportunities I would have honestly it's so cliche to say but I felt right at home when I was at UCLA so yeah that's how I made my college decision I hope this video helps you guys out and for all of you guys who are making all decisions right now this is such an exciting time and again congratulations because the fact that you're even making this decision is so exciting so now I'm really excited for all of you guys and I know you guys are all gonna go to really great places that is it for today's video if you liked it don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe down below for more and I'll see you guys next time bye [Music]

Channel: lifeofmeili

Views: 10,335

Rating: 4.8095236 out of 5

Keywords: ucla, cal, berkeley, choosing college, college decision, college reaction, how to choose college, day in life, ucla vs cal, ucla vs berkeley, uc school, why i chose ucla, ucla student, berkeley student, week in life, sorority, greek life, ucla review, berkeley review, stanford, usc, ivy league, college, college advice, how to apply college, college application, college essay, uc application, common application, college essay advice, day in life ucla, day in life berkeley

Id: pkY9Rs9JOCY

Length: 13min 50sec (830 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 30 2020