<p>I am an out of state resident who because of all the independent scholarships that I have won combined with a small % of money that my parents and I have saved will not need any financial aid or scholarships from college for my freshman year.</p>
<p>My stats are pretty typical for a Berkeley applicant and similar to others’ who have posted under the thread of official chances.</p>
<p>Does this set me apart from other applicants? Also does being a female engineering major do anything to help?</p>
<p>Thanks for your input.</p>
<p>Berkeley admissions readers are said to like applicants who overcome adverse conditions like poverty, and UCs generally meet need for in-state students. If anything, that may favor those from lower income families when comparing those with similar academic credentials.</p>
<p>If your outside scholarships are only for freshman year, then be very careful. For out-of-state students, the need-based financial aid from UCs will be about $22,000 short of meeting need. $22,000 is the amount of the out-of-state additional tuition (and gaining California residency is difficult for undergraduates considered dependent on their parents for financial aid purposes, unless the parents move to California).</p>
<p>Selectivity for engineering applicants does vary by major.</p>
<p>What does the selectivity look like for bioengineering?</p>
<p>There has not been any recent published information (and the now-gone StatFinder did not go to that level of detail beyond “engineering”), but at the time the Hout Report was written in 2005, bioengineering was the most selective of the majors in the College of Engineering. Of course, the relative popularity of majors relative to their capacities may have changed since then.</p>
<p><a href=“http://academic-senate.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/committees/aepe/hout_report_0.pdf[/url]”>http://academic-senate.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/committees/aepe/hout_report_0.pdf</a> (see the table 8 on page 28 (page 32 of the PDF)).</p>