Santa Clara University, SF State, University of SF, or UC Berekely?

Question

I am interested in all of the following schools..
I am pretty confident in getting into
SCU, SFSU, and USF but I am queesy about UCB...

I am doing pretty good in school but I do not know if I should just keep studying or go to SF STAte where they will accept me even if i get straight Cs for the rest of junior year.

for senior year I want to take
AP history
AP calc
AP literature and comp
AP language and comp
Chinese 7/8
and health ed

but thats only for UCB, should I take those and kill myself or just take 4 classes being
AP lit and comp
AP calc
AP history
Health ed?

what should i do, i do not want to leave home , and if i go to SCU It will be hard to live at home.. because its far away..

Answer 1

Why don't you want to leave home? It helps you learn independence and to fend for yourself. Otherwise, you may end up depending on your parents your whole life. They gotta retire and die sometime.

Still, I'm not a big fan of private schools for undergrad unless you get lots of financial aid from them or they have some program that's much better than any state school. The farther you go under the Stanford and USC level, the less I see any reason to go to a private.

For Berkeley, your senior year doesn't count that much. You'll be applying before your 1st semester grades come out. Unless you need that year of language to be eligible, you can skip it. Honestly, those 4 classes should be fine for Berkeley in terms of not looking like you're slacking off.

My advice, if you don't get into Berkeley, is to go to Davis instead. It's not that far away. 1 hour and a half to 2 hours if you live in the Sunset area. There's a HUGE difference in prestige btw Berkeley and the schools you listed. You're really doing yourself a disservice by ignoring other schools outside of SF (academically and non-academically).

Answer 2

save the GPA up there (or more beneficial) score a minimum of 1900 (more beneficial the more beneficial useful) or so on the SAT and the CSUs should not be too not straightforward. u.s. isn't as selective as different UCs, yet its likely more beneficial useful to score in the 2000s or more beneficial. reaching or passing those marks might want to carry you a more beneficial useful chance for those faculties.