I’ve accepted the offer to join Freshman Edge through my Cal Central notifications, but I haven’t gotten a follow up email or anything to sign up for courses. It doesn’t have me enrolled in any semester yet. What do I do?
It’s not grade deflation. It’s actually called “grade suppression” & is very real at UC Berkeley.
Grade suppression is when they issue a predetermined amount of A’s regardless if more students earned an A.
For example, if a student earned 96% in the course & another student earned 97%, most would think both will get an A. However, the 96%-student will get a B on their transcript because UC Berkeley decided to issue A’s to only 35% of the class even though 80% of the class earned an A.
I went to Cal Day & they told us that many PreMed majors at UC Berkeley are notorious for having to re-take classes at nearby colleges to get their A’s so they can get into medical school because of grade suppression.
Do you see this on the acceptance letter: “Please follow the instructions on the MAP@Berkeley home page to formally accept your offer and to take the next step toward becoming a Golden Bear.”? After that you will receive more instructions (probably with a big mail envelope) to pay deposit, housing, health insurance, and other things,… before you can register for classes. This probably will not happen until May 1 or later.
Ok, here is a sequential list of important things you should be doing between now and when school starts:
March 29-April 30 - SIR to Berkeley ($300 deposit). Congrats! You have committed.
April - make sure you have your cool berkeley.edu email address, and access to the CalCentral portal. Get your BConnected info.
April - Admitted student tours, attend one if you want to
April 13 - Cal Day. Lots of information. Make sure you do a dorm tour.
April - for L&S students, determine your pathway (most choose Traditional)
April - statement of Legal Residence turn in
April - turn in Parent Information form, which talks about Golden Bear Orientation, bill payments, and moving in, amongst other things.
April - turn in your Housing application - $30 application fee. Determine whether to have pre-defined roommates, or have the university assign one (or more). Deadline is end of April, don’t miss the deadline.
April - turn in your TB Clearance requirement form
May - turn in your evidence of health insurance, or opt to by SHIP health insurance
May - turn in your immunization records
May - during your AP tests, have the results sent to UC-Berkeley. This will send everything, past, present and future AP scores
May (middle of) - accept your housing contract, hopefully you got your first choice! $300 deposit.
May-June - request final transcript from your HS. This needs to be sent by the HS, or you can put the transcript in a school-sealed envelope and turn it in.
May-July - go to classes.berkeley.edu and start figuring out your classes.
June - turn in an acceptable mug shot for your Cal 1 Card
June - Golden Bear Advising online course start and completion
June (end of) - make darn sure your HS transcript is in the possession of UC-Berkeley. You don’t want to take a chance on recission.
July - make sure all your AP scores are in before July 15.
July - make sure all SAT Subject Exams, SAT scores, ACT scores, ACT writing exams are in.
July (3rd-4th week) - register for your classes.
July - start figuring out what to bring to your dorm and what to buy
August - for some CS and EE classes, registration for discussion and lab sections take place just before school starts. Make sure you have a computer or phone handy with a solid online connection. Prime times go away within minutes.
August (mid) - move in, Golden Bear Orientation (5 days of fun)
August (end) - start of school
grade deflation probably doesn’t occur that much. What you’ll find more is this scenario: tests where 50% to 60% gets you an A. Those are the tough classes to worry about.
Berkeley actually has very good mental health and counseling services. Of course, you have to seek it out, they don’t come to you. Also, there are so many activities and clubs available that you can join, that’s a good way to network and meet new friends.
I can speak about the CS classes, there is so much tutoring, homework parties, midterms and finals reviews, and office hours available for all the classes, and that’s just the university-sponsored events. Students form their study groups as well. It’s pretty hard not to do well as long as you seek these out.
This was posted on another thread. It shows the distribution of grades in different classes at Berkeley. https://www.berkeleytime.com/grades/
I need a roommate who loves sarcastic jokes and memes 
Waitlisted!
15 ACT
GPA: 3.93
SAT II: None!
APs: 0 AP Exams!
Senior year course load: AP Gov, AP CS, Honors Physics, Honors LA, and Honors Pre-calc
@ProfessorPlum168 thanks for your elaborate plan! Super helpful for everyone (even though I wasn’t the one who requested it).
You mentioned June is the last month to submit mug shot for Cal 1 photo but my portal says it is due in a week 4/6? I’m panicking because I do not own a photo like that and do not have time this week to take it in a professional place.
Also, does the photo stick with you all 4 years? Or just freshmen year?
@musiciangoaler my kid did his on June 1 so not sure why they wanted it so early. You don’t need anything professional, a selfie will do.
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@ProfessorPlum168 son accepted LS. He applied Computer Science. We understand that all students enter LS undeclared. Do you know if he’s at risk of not getting Computer Science though? How hard is it to meet the requirements and then do they cap it thereby potentially making it even harder than the prerequisites if more kids than planned apply into that major? And when do they officially apply and get admitted? Soph Year? Thanks for your insight - just trying to understand so as to compare his other options. Thank you.
@Jaderoses about 50% get thru with the 3.3 GPA. The weeder will be the CS61A class, the first class. If he can get thru that class with a B+ or higher, he probably will be ok. Around 40-45% or so get a B+ or higher in that class, but do remember that a ton of people from other majors take that class too, including EECS folks, of whom a few might not be necessarily as concerned about getting a high grade, so that skews the grade percentages.
Most students declare once eligible, in their second year. Quite a few though do decide to take CS61A first semester and then take both CS61B and CS70 second semester just to get things out of the way earlier. There are no other caps beyond the 3.3 GPA. Do note that if you get a 3.23 GPA (B+, B+, B for example) you can appeal - not sure how often appeals work.
I would say that it’s not that difficult to get the 3.3 but definitely not easy either, as CS61A is hard and CS70, the third class is hard as well. CS61B is not that bad especially for students who have significant programming background already.
@musiciangoaler the pic is for the 4 years but I’m pretty sure that you can change pics if you really needed to. It’s the pic that will be used for CalCentral and also on your Cal 1 card.
@NonTradtional Where is the “message box” when I’m trying to PM someone. Sorry, slow here. I don’t see it after I click on the user’s name.
@Jaderoses if you’re using a phone I don’t think there’s a way to PM someone. Or at least I’ve never figured out a way. Only via computer.
Did everyone get an email this morning about Alumni Scholarship Program? I’m wondering if it’s an invitation type thing or if all admitted students got the email 
@Jaderoses I was off on some earlier information - historically, 57% of people in CS61A get B+ or higher (36% get some sort of A), 67% in CS61B (46% get some sort of A), and 50% in CS70 (33% get some sort of A). CS 70 is probably the true indicator of grades, since pretty much only CS and EECS people are going to be taking the class. The curving in CS 70 is ridiculous - my kid just got his midterm back, a 49% got you an A-, a 40% got you a B+. But it’s also a ridiculously tough class, especially the first half of the class.
@GonnaBEmpthyNest My son got the alumni email as well. It didn’t look like a special invite in my opinion…I’m assuming it was sent to all.
Our son was admitted early as Regents’ finalist. However, he did not get the scholarship. I guess there’s no benefit to just being a finalist? Anything?