I will admit to knowing little about UC Davis except that it is not as famous as Berkeley. But looking at the SAT score ranges of the two schools confirms my statement that Berkeley has more top-notch students.
UC Berkeley
Test Scores -- 25th / 75th Percentile
SAT Critical Reading: 600 / 730
SAT Math: 630 / 760
SAT Writing: 610 / 740
UC Davis
SAT Critical Reading: 520 / 650
SAT Math: 570 / 680
SAT Writing: 530 / 650
Perhaps it is correct to say that "Davis accepts more merely good or average students than Berkeley accepts." But this is to ignore the
reality of the UC system as a whole. Berkeley doesn't produce "top notch" graduates in
every discipline that the UC system offers a degree in. It doesn't even produce spectacular graduates in every discipline offered at Berkeley.
One thing which your lack of familiarity probably contributes toward is a lack of understanding that admission to the
institution is far from admission to the
program of the student's choice. The elite programs at Davis (a land-grant institution, so like a school such as Washington State or Iowa, ag and engineering programs abound, which tend to draw students from less stellar academic pedigrees than the hard-science disciplines which a campus like Berkeley is known for) are in Vet Med and a few other areas. I
know that to be admitted into the programs that feed Davis' Vet Med school is at least as difficult as admission to Berkeley. Another major, perhaps not so selective. True. But if your aim is to gain admission to Davis as a Vet student, you're well-advised to go to Davis as a pre-vet student.
Program rarity contributes to some odd bedfellows. An Ivy pedigree won't get you into most VetMed schools, and relatively few Pharmacy programs care about it, either. Oh, they care where you did undergrad. But the "elite" there isn't what most people think of when they think "elite college."
And yes, I know this was trolling. I'm not biting, but explaining just in case other parents don't know some of the particulars here. Graduate/professional programs are a different world than Ivy/Law school admissions in terms of what matters. "Prestige" is
highly field-specific. In spite of what Harvard might like to think, they don't turn out the "best" graduates in
every field that they offer a diploma in. It's not a school which is particularly well-respected for it's chemistry graduates, for example.
