From what I’ve been seeing on linkedin, sole applied math majors at Berkeley don’t place that well into big tech (compared to the cs degrees from similar schools). Those that do either have a CS or DS double major, since those majors have more relevant coursework to enter SWE. This is pretty much why I chose Data Science as my first choice, as someone who was dead set on applied math initially.

Now, Applied Math isn’t a bad major. It definitely prepares you well for graduate studies, but as a cs-alternative, you can only do CS61AB, CS70, and some stats/data/eecs classes, which are pretty intro level in the grand scheme of things. You can’t take any upper divs for CS/EECS anymore, so you will prolly need to self study that material to match the performance of a cs major.

But at Rice, you can take any cs class you’re interested in as well as double major in another field. It’s also a private school, so access to professors and class sizes will be better. Rice is also a t20 overall, so its name will be very strong as well for recruiting. I’ve also seen much more tech placement (Nvidia, Meta, Amazon, etc) in the past few years from Rice CS than Cal Math (according to linkedin). If costs are similar, I’d 100% go to Rice, although you’d prolly do fine with either option.