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<p>RML,
One of my HS classmates got into Berkeley and it was a little over 10 years ago too; he’s very good at math and I think he might have made the Olympiad team for Hong Kong (not sure since I left HK two years earlier). However, he had no EC other than math competition and his English was mediore. He had less than 8As in HKCEE (anyone with 8A or above would have been named in my school). In the past, students that got into Ivies usually had 8/9/10 As. Getting into Harvard/Stanford was pretty rare even with 10As and even though my school was one of the best in HK.<br>
I also knew this other guy when I lived in the Bay Area. He didn’t do so well in Hong Kong A-level and came here for a community college. He transferred to Berkeley. Also, Berkeley’s TOFEL requirement has always been 550-575. All of these things seem to indicate to me that Berkeley admission is not as hard as you were thinking.</p>