<p>@bsla11, I think you’ll be in. Amongst what I consider to be a very strong application, this link may (or may not in a different way) alleviate your admission concerns. </p>
<p>[UC</a> cashing in with out-of-state tuition | UTSanDiego.com](<a href=“http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2011/jul/07/uc-cashing-in-with-out-of-state-tuition/]UC”>http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2011/jul/07/uc-cashing-in-with-out-of-state-tuition/)</p>
<p>“If you REALLY REALLY want to go to Med School or be an engineer going to grad school and have a social life, go elsewhere. Otherwise, come and enjoy.”</p>
<p>Sorry, OP, if this has already been answered. But why in particular do you say that if one wants to go to Med School or be an engineer going to grad school and have a social life, one should go elsewhere?</p>
<p>1) Grade deflation (ish). Your GPA will accurately reflect the amount of effort you put in the class (relative to other - ahem - schools); sometimes you might also give up sleep to try and ace the class, only to get a B, or worse, too… thus endangering your grad school chances</p>
<p>2) The Pre-med classes and engineering ones are notorious for being insanely difficult to get a good grade in/the professors for those large maths classes and so on are also pretty difficult to understand and get help from</p>
<p>3) after all this, you probably won’t have much of a life/sleep.</p>
<p>So hi, i’m new on here and im just looking around. I would really like to go to UC Berkeley but i believe my chances are slim and this would probably be my “Reach” School. Regardless i would still like to see what you guys think. Thank you for anyone who responds :)</p>
<p>So I’m a OOS, from Miami, FL
HS Junior
GPA: 3.089
Weighted GPA: 4.889
The reason for that is that i am an IB student and literally all of my classes are AP/IB.</p>
<p>SAT scores, 1st time and planning on retaking it
Math - 640
Reading - 680
writing - 520</p>
<p>Taken 4 AP tests and have AP Scholar with Honors
Euro - 3
Eng Lang - 3
Pssych - 4
French Lang. - 4</p>
<p>currently taking (AP)
Eng Lit.
American Hist.
Chem
IB SL Psych</p>
<p>Next year i am taking (idk if this matters but figured i would mention it)
Dual Enrollment Political Science/ Government
IB SL Math
IB SL Chem
IB HL French
IB HL English
IB HL Contemporary History
AP Human Geo.</p>
<p>EC’s:
-Member of the Debate club since Sophomore year and probably VP for senior year
-Member of NHS
-Working in a pilot group for the museum of science in Miami in developing an app for the museum as well as doing research in different areas. (Un-Payed)
-Summer going into Freshmen year (idk if this counts) worked at the University of Miami at a summer camp for 8 weeks (un-Payed)
-Summer going into Junior Year i worked in the Bahamas with the Boy Scout organization as a councilor for 10 weeks (Un-Payed)
-Plan to do the same thing this summer (i.e going into senior year)
-all of Freshmen year was spent in an online school because my family and I were sailing around the Bahamas and therefore was not able to take any AP (took AP World) tests nor participate in any clubs.</p>
<p>My Grades are not especially good and my SAT scores are going to improve to at least mid 1900s, over all i am a solid B student but i hope that with the classes i have/am/will take, my life experiences and Community Service i might have a chance. What do you guys think?</p>
<p>and thanks again for any responses :)</p>
<p>3.089 unweighted GPA is probably at most around a 3.4 weighted GPA for UC purposes, unless your lower grades were mostly or all in 9th grade. That is the bare minimum needed for the UC system for out of state students, according to [this</a> page](<a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/freshman/requirements/index.html]this”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/freshman/requirements/index.html). Berkeley is obviously much more selective than the UC system as a whole. According to [this</a> page](<a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/campuses/berkeley/freshman-profile/index.html]this”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/campuses/berkeley/freshman-profile/index.html), the fall 2011 admissions class had an average of 4.14 GPA, ACT 30, and SAT-R 674/707/692. Admissions selectivity does vary by division, although mainly in the upward direction for some of the most popular engineering majors.</p>
<p>Given that Berkeley likes to see good high school grades, the chances are not particularly good.</p>
<p>“If you REALLY REALLY want to go to Med School or be an engineer going to grad school and have a social life, go elsewhere. Otherwise, come and enjoy.”</p>
<p>This statement cannot be further from the truth. I roomed with two Chem Engineering majors, one has transfered to a different school because he didn’t do so well at Berkeley. The other is currently on probation and I have no idea how he’s still alive. We shared an apartment for an entire semester together and I’ve never had a conversation with him because he was always MIA, studying. He NEVER sleeps for more than four hours a day, and only sleeps in hourly increments during the day between classes, smokes like crazy, doesn’t eat, always sicks, has no life, doesn’t care about anything but studying and he’s still doing average.<br>
The roommate who transfered out went through the same thing, he’s now much much happier and productive at a less competitive school. He thought about giving up Chem E for some useless major just to stay at Berkeley but eventually sucked it up and got the **** out of here and good for him because otherwise he would have probably ended up living in People’s Park with that useless degree. </p>
<p>Now before anyone starts giving me crap about being negative and discouraging, I want to clarify something. Here is the reality. UC Berkeley is #1 public university in the world but it’s not #1 for nothing. The academics here are EXCELLENT but the competition is CUT *<strong><em>ING THROAT, which creates a huge divide between very smart kids and average kids. So what I’m trying to say is unless you’re one of those gifted people that thrives on competition and can handle the engineering/pre-med at UCB, don’t even kid yourself thinking you might get by and everything will be a-okay in the end. But you might still get by with being an average student earning C’s and a few Bs but good luck getting that engineering job or going to grad school or even an internship with grades like that because at the end of the day a C is a C and an A is an A, whether its from UC Berkeley or a “crappy” state school. Employers want competent candidates. I have talked to plenty of people who regretted studying engineering at a competitive school because they went through hell and back trying to find work after graduation. And in this *</em></strong>ty economy… don’t even get me started. My advice is be smart! Don’t get lured in by the “prestige”, the name and the money, consider everything.</p>
<p>Engineering and pre-med majors are not the only competitive majors. Everything here is competitive. I remember talking to one of the business majors about how cut throat Hass School of Business is, he was complaining about a “bad” grade. I asked him what his grade was, he said I got a 90% which was average on that exam because many got 100s. Econ major here is insane as well, and you have to first earn a B in econ 100A or 101A [weeder courses] to even declare. Even humanities classes can be very cut throat. This school will humble you very fast and in some cases break you down. </p>
<p>So yeah, this is the very truth and I’m sorry if it comes off discouraging but this is the reality of UC Berkeley. If you know yourself and you know that you don’t do well in the competition and gets super emo about getting anything less than an A then go to a different school and do really well there and get that job you’ve been dreaming about.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Average grades now at Berkeley are higher than 3.0, so a student earning mostly C grades with a few B grades is significantly below average.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t remember Economics 101A being all that hard to get an A grade in, and this was long ago when there was less grade inflation than there is now.</p>
<p>Is computer science at the college of letters and science an impacted major?</p>
<p>how exactly hard are the computer science (not engineering) classes?</p>
<p>It is not currently a capped major, according to [Office</a> of Undergraduate Advising: List of Majors](<a href=“http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/major/majorlist.html]Office”>http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/major/majorlist.html) .</p>
<p>I noticed Psychology is a capped major, but didn’t have the impression that it was that popular at Cal. Is it actually hard to declare as a Psychology major, even if I meet all the requirements?</p>
<p>i heard it’s difficult to change your major? what if the major i was admitted as as well as the major i’m seeking to change to isn’t a capped major (i don’t believe it’s ever really caped.) id like to go from anthropology to sociology, at least for now, and I understand that as a potential incoming freshman i have plenty of time and all, but is it possible to just change relatively uncapped majors within the same college?</p>
<p>it is easy to change major. In fact, as you are entering the College of Letters and Sciences (L&S), you are not listed with a major. Everyone enters L&S as an undeclared student. It is up to you to decide which major to declare and to satisfy the requirements. </p>
<p>As long as you meet the requirements, if the major is uncapped then it is a mere formality to apply, you will be placed in the major right away.</p>
<p>Here is the process [Declaring</a> the Major | UC Berkeley Sociology Department](<a href=“http://sociology.berkeley.edu/declaring-major]Declaring”>Declaring the Major | UC Berkeley Sociology Department)</p>
<p>Pretty easy, you need to do three pre-req courses and you can declare while taking in the last of them. Otherwise, you just need to stay above as 2.0 GPA. </p>
<p>[Major</a> Requirements | UC Berkeley Sociology Department](<a href=“http://sociology.berkeley.edu/major-requirements]Major”>Major Requirements | UC Berkeley Sociology Department)</p>
<p>The only difficult changes are from other majors into engineering, generally both change of college to CoE and you enter a major with such long chains of required courses that pretty much require specific courses to be taken each semester. If you hadn’t taken all the required courses each semester, you may be in a position where you could not complete the degree in four years, one of the requirements of CoE. Still, people do successfully change even in this most difficult direction.</p>
<p>Can someone please comment on the grade deflation in regards to humanities majors? I’m thinking of majoring in interdisciplinary studies/international relations/polisci and I’m just wondering how difficult it will be to maintain a competitive GPA for a top grad school.
Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>x.sunny:
i heard polisci was a capped major.</p>
<p>Nope - [Office</a> of Undergraduate Advising: List of Majors](<a href=“http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/major/majorlist.html]Office”>http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/major/majorlist.html)</p>
<p>Berkeley sounds like such a difficult place…</p>
<p>Excellent post. Even though much of your content is particular to Cal, I would say it is very relevant for going to any university. Stay open-minded, explore, choose for yourself, leave your home life home. Well said! thank you for sharing</p>
<p>@mariagoestocal</p>
<p>Would you say that it’s the same way for social science kids (specifically polisci) who want to go onto law school? Is it better then for me to just go to a smaller, less prestigious but somewhat easier undergrad as opposed to Cal?</p>
<p>@ Moose, Only some social science/humanities classes are curved so you should be fine if you work hard enough, but it will still be challenging. Truthfully though, if I was planning on going to law school I would definitely choose Cal for undergrad because lets face it, the name will weigh heavily in your applications to a law schools but you have to pull good grades because law schools care A LOT about GPA so it might be easier at another school. Nonetheless however, I would never pass up an opportunity to study politics at one of the most politically involved and active universities in the world.</p>
<p>How hard/difficult or easy are nutrisci10 and psych1 for a frosh? thanks!</p>