How does undergraduate selectivity differ between UC Berkeley and Cornell?

Neither UC Berkeley nor Cornell is universally “more selective” for every applicant; Berkeley’s difficulty is especially shaped by California residency and demand for particular majors, while Cornell’s varies substantially by its undergraduate college and application round.

Berkeley is a public university with a responsibility to serve California residents, so residency is central to a fair comparison. At Berkeley, intense demand for certain academic areas can make admission feel markedly different from one intended field to another, even though the university evaluates applicants in a broad, contextual process.

Cornell draws from a more national and international private-university applicant pool and admits students through distinct undergraduate colleges with different academic emphases. An applicant to Cornell’s engineering college is not being evaluated in precisely the same context as an applicant to one of its liberal arts, business, agriculture, or design-related colleges.

The schools also use different testing approaches: Berkeley does not use SAT or ACT scores in admission, whereas Cornell’s testing policy should be checked for the specific application year. That means a strong test score may play a different role, or no role at all, in the two processes.

The most useful comparison is therefore not Berkeley versus Cornell in the abstract. Compare Berkeley for your residency status and intended academic area against the particular Cornell undergraduate college and application plan you would choose. For many applicants, both belong in the highly selective category, but the source of the competition is not the same.