Anyone with a younger sib that's stressed out by older one applying?

[ucbalumnus]

@Nhatrang

She will declare cognitive science after the spring. Will go for PhD or Med school. So it’s extremely important for her to keep high GPA.

Yes, pre-meds will face GPA stress throughout college (unless they decide to stop being pre-med).

However, if the younger kid is not aiming for something hyper-competitive like medical school, then you may want to make sure he knows that not everything is hyper-competitive like medical school.

@Nhatrang

She thinks CS61A should be one of her hardest classes for her considering she never took formal CS course in HS, however she knew python.

In all fairness, the syllabus for UCB CS 61A does give warning that it can be hard for those with less prior experience or previous course work:

https://cs61a.org/articles/about.html

@UCB CS 61A syllabus

There are no formal programming-related prerequisites for CS 61A, but it’s not the right first course for all students. Many CS 61A students have had significant prior programming experience, including prior coursework. Some students take the course without any prior programming experience, but they typically must work substantially harder to master the material, perhaps simply because they have less practice working with programs. If you have limited prior experience and you find it challenging to complete all of the required coursework in the first three weeks, you should seriously consider taking another course first. You’ll likely have a better experience taking 61A later, and you won’t fall behind in any meaningful way by taking one of the alternatives below prior to taking 61A