I know its unfair but what do I do?

Colleges & Universities University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>Hey guys, thanks for helping.</p>

<p>So here’s a long story short. I’m from a school and it doesn’t do GPA’s or class rankings, supposedly. But, based on recent information, I will amend the previous statement to “it doesn’t do it for most of its student body.” Our valedictorian, however, has somehow managed to get a GPA and a class rank of 1. Now he is not an official valedictorian but is considered by most to be the smartest in our school. As a result, his transcript is different from us mortals as well. Him and I are both applying to Berkley. But I’m concerned, a lot. What happens when the Berk adcoms see both of our transcripts and then obviously also recognizes that both of ours are different. Not different in the grades but different in the format. For example his contains stuff like the GPA and class rank and mine doesn’t. Will they automatically bar the both of us because school transcripts, as in the content that goes in it and not the grade variation, are supposed to be uniform right? </p>

<p>One more thing. I’m a US citizen but the valedictorian is not. So does that mean that I’m in a different pool and the adcoms can’t compare both of our transcripts. Or is it school or region wise, and if this is the case, they can compare?</p>

<p>To me and the rest of the student body this is really unfair. Just because he has outperformed us he gets statistics such as the GPA (which is a perfect 4.0 UW) and class rank (1) while we don’t simply because the school thinks he has a better chance to get into universities and thus uphold the school’s name. But I can’t do anything and rationality dictates that I simply move on. </p>

<p>I would appreciate answers to my questions. You guys are great. Thanks in advance.</p>

2

<p>The application process with the University of California and Berkeley more specifically does NOT give them access to your transcript until after they have decided to offer you a space, you have then accepted, and you are coming. Unless the transcript shows you have lied about grades or classes you took, it is just confirmation, a step in the paperwork.</p>

<p>You fill out the single system-wide application for UC schools by listing classes you have completed in grades 9 through 11, but only the classes that match the UC categories a through g. Those are categories like English, Mathematics, etc. Classes like PE, religion, etc are not in those categories and are not entered at all. You will enter the grade you were given in each class, put into an A-F scale, but with no + or -, just the pure letter. If your school did not assign grades at all, there is a method to deal with that, just as there is a way to handle applicants who were home-schooled and have no official school grades at all. </p>

<p>The UC system will calculate a GPA based on the 10th and 11th grade classes only, with weighting that is capped to a max of 8 semesters of honors/AP classes. In addition, all the grades are visible to the admissions committee and they will look at various kinds of GPAs and trends. </p>

<p>Cal admits holistically. Most other campuses are more formulaic, with a strict calculation that generates a single numeric score and admission determined absolutely by whether that score is above or below the cutoff they determine. Details of the formula are shown on the web site for some of the UC campuses - the factors the campuses look at and how it weights the various factors into a single result. For example, look at UC San Diego’s explanation for their campus [Application</a> Review Process - Freshmen](<a href=“http://www.ucsd.edu/prospective-students/freshmen/eval-process.html]Application”>http://www.ucsd.edu/prospective-students/freshmen/eval-process.html)</p>

<p>Cal instead does holistic review of each application - it is more subjective and varied, more like Ivy League admissions. Cal and UCLA are the two that are fully holistic. Although strong academic performance, in grades and std tests, are important, the results that are listed here each year when decisions come out show that admissions are far more than rankings or gpa based. Students are accepted here while many with higher gpa and rankings in their school are rejected. We had a student with a 2400 SAT get rejected, to show you how dramatic it can be, and although the admissions reports show that average SAT and GPA are fairly high for admissions, we see people with MUCH lower stats offered spots too. </p>

<p>One final point. Cal does not have the ranking as assigned by your school. The UC GPA is a different number than the GPA a school might calculate. Berkeley will calculate a kind of ranking of the applicants this year from your school, but that is from the UC GPA.</p>

<p>Imagine two students at your school. One got A- in every class they ever took. The other got A in every class but for a single one where they got B+. According to the UC GPA method, the first student is ranked higher with a 4.0 UW, because - and + are ignored. The second student comes in slightly below 4.0 UW and is therefore behind in the ranking. I invented this example to illustrate why, for UCs and Cal in particular, you shouldn’t worry about absolute rank or the high school GPA. Your GPA should be strong to have the best chances, your std test scores should be strong, and you should have evidence that you took a rigorous courseload, challenged yourself and took reasonable advantage of the opportunities available at your school. The last part means that if your school offers only 1 AP class, then having 0 or 1 is not an issue, but if your school offers a dozen or more types of AP classes and many honors classes but you took 0 or 1, then it makes you appear to be less motivated. Cal is admitting students to the top campus of the UC system with amazing faculty and facilities, plus a student body with many very bright and motivated students. They would like to pick people who will be able to get something out of taking a class with the professor who just won the Nobel prize for physics, as well as the others are the cutting edge of their fields, not someone who just wants to sail through. </p>

<p>Being holistic, Berkeley will also look at factors that make you unique, interesting, and therefore having you in the incoming class will make it more diverse and fascinating to the other students. That is why we also see admissions decisions that accept students who are way down on the rankings in their high school.</p>

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<p>@rider- I really appreciate your reply. Excellent and very helpful post that quelled my worries as well.</p>

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<p>You think it’s unfair that he gets an advantage just because he “outperformed you and is rank 1 in the class[?]” Seems perfectly fair to me.</p>

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<p>There is no unfair advantage; the system will filter it out.</p>