I’ve heard a lot of negative rumors about grade deflation, intense academic competition, and how hard it is to get a high GPA at UC Berkeley? Could anyone who is more knowledgable speak to how true or false these rumors are?
I was accepted and am considering attending, but as I want to attend law school I’m afraid of a potentially low GPA from Berkeley.
You can look up grade distributions at these web sites:
https://calviz.berkeley.edu/t/OPAP/views/GradesbyCourse/GradesDB?:isGuestRedirectFromVizportal=y&:embed=y
https://www.berkeleytime.com/grades
Older thread on grade distributions (grade distributions may be different now):
Other colleges for comparison:
https://www.berkeleytime.com/catalog/
Is prettier. I have a good GPA.
25-30% of a class gets As. And then like another 40-50% get Bs.
A- is 3.7. B+ is 3.3.
Which is good if you got a B+, bad if you got an A-.
The key to doing well at Berkeley is doing what you’re good at.
Step 1: Are you generally top 20%ish of your high school? (Maybe I should have gone top 15%).
Y. Great move to step 2.
N. You might have some issues.
Step 2: Are you generally good at
A. Writing: English, PoliSci, History, Theater, most humanities
B. Memorizing: Biology, PoliSci, History, (Econ)
C. Math: Math, Physics, (Econ), Engineering
D. Physics: Physics, Engineering
If you don’t actually like math, there are a lot of majors to avoid because you won’t do well in them.
If you don’t actually like writing, there’s a whole other set of classes to avoid.
The only classes that I got basically a C in were Peace and Conflict Studies and Theater in American Cultures, because even though I read the whole textbook, I can’t write essays, much less on demand essays. The only classes where I got a B+ were Chemistry and Physics. I’m a Bio/Econ major.
By the way, you’re probably not a Bio major, but there’s 3 different intro physics classes, one for physics majors, one for engineering majors, and one for bio majors. Same with math and chemistry. So generally, you’re curved against similar people.