<p>Currently a junior at a public school in California.
[ul]
[<em>] applying undeclared to L&S
[li] SAT I: 2200 (retaking)[/li][li] SAT IIs: Math II, Spanish, Chem, Bio all pending[/li][li] Courseload: 1/1 honors, 7/10 APs possible at my school, 3 community college courses[/li][li] ** AP exams:** haven't taken any yet :([/li][li] GPA (UW/W): 4.0/4.36[/li][</em>] Varsity Basketball (Winter) [4 yrs, ~19 hrs/wk], Club Basketball (Spring) [4 yrs, ~12 hrs/week]
[<em>] Varsity Track (Spring) [11, 12], Varsity XC (Winter) [12], was never on JV for either
[</em>] Church Leadership Group [4 yrs, fundraising, ~10 service hours]
[<em>] NHS, CSF, couple service clubs [4 yrs, ~40 service hours]
[li] 9, 10 summers spent traveling with family[/li][</em>] this summer I'm going to try to get my volunteer hours up
[li] first generation student[/ul]</p>[/li]
<p>so yeah, i'm not an extraordinary student who's won state competitions or interned for a big company but i'm extremely committed to what i do. i realize my lack of volunteer hours will be detrimental. any advice?</p>
<p>Your courses, grades, and test scores all look very good for L&S. Berkeley considers work, volunteer work, and first generation. Of course, you want to write a good essay.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, they don’t have StatFinder any more.</p>
<p>I know the essay counts for a lot but is volunteer work/community service REALLY important? or is it just considered?</p>
<p>and what’s statfinder?</p>
<p>Volunteer work is considered, but I would say that it’s not extremely important, especially when compared to your stats and essay.</p>
<p>I got in with 0 awards and ~2.5 hours of community service (some silly club I joined back in freshman year). Go figure. </p>
<p>As long as you have high GPA and high SATs, you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>My essays were absolute crap. They were copied from my badly written MIT application and therefore only about 750 words after being modified. Essays for UCs are not as important as stats. I hold to the belief that as long as you don’t write an essay about your secret drug dealing life, the only time its going to hurt you to write a bad essay is if you’re on the edge. Really I think you already know that you’re fine 
I got into berkeley and I have far fewer volunteer hours than you and I’m sure your clubs and teams earned you awards just as my clubs earned me awards. Get an internship this summer in a field you’re interested in or take a course at Berkeley if you can afford it. It’ll help you.</p>
<p>thanks for the responses! I thought essay was as important as stats though haha. what year did you guys apply?</p>