Thank you , I appreciate your time ! <| sep |> I ' m a freshmen . I know people from as far off as Indiana and Virginia , and as close as Berkeley proper . You won ' t be able to go home , unless you want to pay out of ass for the plane . You won ' t be able to have visitors from back home , because they won ' t pay . UMich is a great school , and if you love it ' s campus , go there . Every school is different , and any school you choose you will love that is the nature of college . If you apply you really should apply to Cal and don ' t get in , you have UMICH as a back up . Apply to go , and then you have until May 1 to figure out what you truly want . You can have months of confusion , gridlock and certainty , only to change your mind the next day and still be on track to attend any place . But you won ' t have that option if you don ' t apply . Berkeley is great . The classes are hard . The people are friendly . The campus smells and has a little homeless problem . And if you want to match the rigor and prestige of Cal , you ' d have to go to an upper tier Ivy or StanfordCaltechMIT . Apply now . Stretch . Wait and see . I apples to many stretch schools , and only got into Berkeley . I don ' t regret applying , and I would have wondered what if had I not applied .