https://www.econ.berkeley.edu/undergrad/prospective/freshmen says Math 1A-1B or 16A-16B. Note that AP calculus score of 3 or higher fulfills Math 1A or 16A, while a 5 on BC fulfills the math requirement. There is also a statistics requirement.
If he wants to go on to PhD study in economics, much more additional math and statistics is recommended, along with choosing the more quantitative intermediate economics and econometrics courses, as listed at https://www.econ.berkeley.edu/undergrad/current/preparing-for-grad-school
@Walter924 @ucbalumnus thanks for that info! doesn’t sound too bad! is it difficult to get Econ for major? have read in multiple places that it is very competitive major and a popular one so not all kids who want it can get in…but then admissions person we spoke to said as long as you do decent in all the pre-reqs you should be fine. Anyone know if that’s really true?! Also what about Haas as he may want to do that, or possibly minor in business if that’s possible?
A 3.0 GPA in the prerequisites will give admission to the economics major.
https://www.econ.berkeley.edu/undergrad/prospective/freshmen
https://www.econ.berkeley.edu/undergrad/prospective
You can look up grade distributions for the various courses here:
https://www.berkeleytime.com/grades/
The business major has more competitive admission:
https://haas.berkeley.edu/undergrad/admissions/
50% of L&S CS majors make the cut with the 3.3 GPA for the first 3 major CS classes, so I’m guessing a significantly higher percentage will make the 3.0 cut for Econ. Around 30% of internal Berkeley students who apply for Haas get in.
@wolverinealum Professor Plum is correct, Haas has about 30% admission from within Berkeley. It’s not based on GPA, although that’s supposedly 50% of the qualifications. It’s a lot of joining business clubs, but even business club people get denied.
GMP and the tech entrepreneurship majors you get admitted to as a freshman.
There’s an accounting minor over 2 summers, high in networking, where you become eligible to be a CPA if you take the CPA test.
UCBalumnus is right. 3.0 and you’re in the Econ major.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/21427510/#Comment_21427510 lists percentage of students in economics major prerequisites earning B or higher grades.
THANKS @ProfessorPlum168 @ucbalumnus @Walter924 appreciate all that great info!! I don’t think S is interested in CPA option but good to know! It seems like a 3.0 should not be super challenging to get…but then again, it sounds like everything is pretty intense and competitive there. S is definitely a hard worker so hopefully it will work out for him! @Walter924 are there any profs that you’ve either really loved or definitely disliked? any tips for classes to take/avoid would be super helpful!
@wolverinalum
Moretti was cool. Econ 1. Foremost labor economist.
The Romers in Econ 2 advised Obama. On committee who decide if we’re in a recession. Super cool. Great teachers.
Hawkins in Financial Econ is supposed to be an amazing teacher.
Olney in 101B is supposed to be inspiring and good. She gave out postage stamps to promote voting in the midterm elections.
Della Vigna is also supposed to be good (not teaching this semester unfortunately for me)
Econ is run by a lot of good teachers who wrote the books and are doing the research.
Just in general, whenever I’m listening to podcasts there’s another Berkeley professor getting interviewed. Planet Money referenced Moretti twice in the last year but I don’t think they got an interview with him. He has lunch with 8 students like 3/4 times per semester. Econ Association organizes professor luncheons a few times a semester too. I went to one with Eichengreen who does historical research. It was interesting and there was Sliver pizza.
UGBA professors vary a lot but Omar was great. Funny, he was in the industry and used to be a minister of something in Mexico I think. Weirdly, the most expensive class I’ve taken 200$ in textbooks and materials. There’s a market simulation where your group tries to beat out the other people in your section at running a company which was at least interesting, but worth 10% of your grade.
Just as a bit of side trivia, Econ 1 and UGBA 10 lectures are taught in the sacred lecture hall known as Wheeler 150, which is the auditorium reserved for the largest classes that the school offers (Ie all the required lower division CS classes have their lecture home here). So the hall fits around 800 yet there some classes that have lectures which goes past 1600. How is this possible? Luckily in this day and age, there is webcasting which allows you to view the class from your dorm room or library or local coffee shop.
@Walter924 THANK YOU!!! That is both super helpful to know about all of those great profs, and also gets me really excited for my S to be there (hopefully!!!) and getting exposed to such amazing people/minds! And fellow students like you who are clearly excited about learning! 
Really appreciate you taking time to share your thoughts!! I think you should consider publising a book or blog or something about your first two years at UCB with all the tips and advice you’ve been sharing here!! 
It would help so many kids and parents!
@ProfessorPlum168 I love the trivia! 800 students in a single lecture hall sounds HUGE…the largest class I had at UMich was 450 for Econ 101. But very interesting that they offer a webcast…do they use the clickers for classes that large with webcast? How do they determine who goes to class and who does webcast? I feel like a lot of students would prefer the webcast if they could do it from the comfort of their dorm bed!
@wolverinalum The super big CS classes prefer that students watch the webcast and not come to class because fire hazard and all, so they don’t use iclickers. iClickers don’t work if you’re not in the room. People prefer webcast unless it’s a convenient class to go to or uses iclicker to check attendance.
UGBA doesn’t use iclickers, because they’re nice, but the 8 am class isn’t webcast and they threaten to put in-class only material on the test but I don’t think they’ve actually done that yet. All test material has been on the lecture slides up to this point, so you could skip.
Econ 1 has clickers for the 8am TTh class. Econ 2 is 2-3:30 TTh but I don’t know if they have clickers.
If they have clickers, attendance is part of your grade, so it’s a calculated risk to show up or not. Still, not everyone shows up, especially for 8ams. It’s only slightly more than if they don’t require clickers by 20-40%
iClickers I currently think of as an ego thing. They don’t like when people don’t show up to class, so they use iclickers for their sake more than to promote learning for ours. For example, Bio 1A and 1B professors weren’t amazing teachers, it was 8 am, it was webcast, and all the necessary information was on the slides, but they used iclickers to get people to show up. On the other hand, Pete Marsden taught Chem 3A, was a great teacher, 8am class, webcast, and you could sort of tell he really wanted to use iclicker, but resisted the impulse because he was a nice guy and sort of knew it’d be mostly for his sake. Pomerantz in Physics 8B is a happy older guy, although pretty confusing as a teacher, webcasts his class (not very helpful webcast though), does not use iclickers and 50 people come out of the couple hundred in his class. He’s perfectly fine with that, and brings in cookies a few times for the people who come for random science holidays. We could learn better in other ways.
For the most part, the discussion sections and for STEM classes, the labs, are where attendance is taken and is more or less mandatory. My kid and I had dinner late last night (Berkeley Social Club, nice place for Korean fusion food) and talked about this very topic. He has 4 classes this semester. The 2 CS ones in Wheeler 150, he rarely goes to the lectures. His CogSci 1 class, he goes to all of them because Prof Paul Li is an outstanding lecturer and it’s an interesting topic to him. His Data Science Ethics class with Prof Carson he goes to all of them mainly because the class does use iClicker, but she is also a good lecturer.
Last semester he actually went to all the lectures for the CS flagship class CS61A because Prof DeNero is that good, even though the classes were all webcasted. The first 4 meetings of the class were held at Zellerbach Hall, which is the concert and performance hall that fits 2500. This Fall class is the biggest one with over 1500 enrolled. Not sure how many end up in the class though lol. He also had a Greek Civilization Philosophy class which was taught by Prof Mario Telo who apparently is also an outstanding lecturer also. My kid thought it was a history type of class and got surprised with all the deep discussions, reading and papers that had to be done, but at least the exams were pretty straightforward.
@lakergirl6232 IMHO: go for the UCSB College of Creative Studies. UCB = famous. UCSB one-off program with small class sizes and awesome professors = priceless.
@Walter924 @ProfessorPlum168 ALL great info/tips!! If my S ends up going there, I will for sure have him reach out to you @Walter924 
Thanks so much!!
Is it common to waive the deposit (while accepting the offer of admission)?
What is the percentage of freshmen getting under 3.0 GPA in general and in economics major?
My son submitted his SIR and deposit tonight, and wanted to work on housing apps this weekend. When or how does he set up a calnet account? When he tries the student ID in his profile, It says there is not enough info about him in the system. Irvine had told us it takes two days. Is that true for Berkeley also?
if you just tried to set it up, it’s possible it might take the weekend since I believe that approvals for Calnet IDs are manual.
I am trying to plan out my schedule for the rest of the year. Is the Cal Parents weekend (October 18–20, 2019) worth going? Should we go? (other than the fact that we want to be there for the kiddo). What percentage of parents going? If you are a current Cal parent and you went/didn’t go, please share your thoughts. Thanks!
@nhatrang i didn’t go last year because I was on a business trip. However it might make more sense for you in your situation to go since there’s a lot of alumni anniversary stuff, plus parent stuff that happens that weekend.