Fingers and toes crossed!
@ElenaParent OOS students can take the California Proficiency exam if they can show eligibility under method A which proves they are 16. Since your son is only 15, he may not take the exam.
@chicalmom I got in on March 29th, regular admission!
@ARuvalcaba CONGRATS!!!
@ElenaParent
So there’s a 14 year old freshman, but I don’t know him, but it proves it’s possible.
I’d go with contacting the admissions counselors because that seems like a pretty good reason to call, but be super nice because there’s a chance you’ll probably start off talking with my old roommate.
Second, there’s a test in California that counts as a GED. This one https://www.chspe.net/. The CHSPE counts as a GED in the state of California, which gets confusing with multiple choice questions on some other forms not specific to California but it should do. Also, he already took the California High School Exit Exam CAHSEE right?
@ElenaParent Yep, I should’ve read the whole thing before replying. So now I feel bad, and you’re probably not going to be happy with me because you seem a bit stressed, so I’m going to go on Facebook and see if I can get in contact with the 14 year old freshman that currently goes to Berkeley to see what he did.
Really though, I don’t think Berkeley will care about this GED thing (isn’t there a GED test you can take?) because they really love saying that they have 14 year olds that go to their school during orientation.
Sorry.
@Walter924 We are very close to solving the situation, actually. My son’s HS allowed him to take the missing courses on line (basically do the 12th grade in 2 to 3 weeks). This is what he is doing now (together with final projects for the 11th grade… Well, at least his University courses are finished, finals were two weeks ago).
As far as Berkeley not being fussy about presence or absence of diploma - I think you are wrong. Berkeley is a huge Sate school, and they have to run their business according to some rules. They do indeed need a diploma. When we visited Berkeley, all people in the Department of his major were very nice, we got some courses counted for equivalency, he is ready now to declare major once all the forms “click though the system” - etc. He was looking for professors who do research in the areas he likes, and can do research with undegrads, etc. But the minute anyone hears about the diploma issue - they immediately say “oh… This will complicate things greatly…” This is scary to hear from an official who just looked at his credentials and understands now that out of 13 required courses in his major (for graduation with the bachelor) the boy basically has 6 or 7 (depending what they will decide to count) - done.
Also, if you were to read the whole thing, you’d have read that we did talk to admissions. If we were to end up without diploma or GED - we’d have to fill out the scary form, which sounds like the admission can be yanked away, and this issue is to be dealt with only after initial orientation.
I keep wondering, why everyone assumes that we are from California???..
I found something interesting today, I was filling out some medical form and it said that my kid’s acceptance date was March 18 and not March 29. I guess that means that for regular acceptances, they knew a good 11 days beforehand? Man they could have saved my kid from a LOT of stress had they announced on the 18th instead of the 29th.
@ProfessorPlum168 For UCB and UCLA they have their lists before the date of release. The intermission time is prep work and data analysis
Does anyone know when the registration for the spring semester happens at Berkeley? Also, does anyone know how long does it take for the credits from the AP tests to show up on the Academic Record? Berkeley has a table where is shown how to translate AP credits to Berkeley credits, and, by my account my kid has to get 46 semester units. What courses to go for during spring may be influenced by whether Berkeley follows their published way of counting all those units…
When will transcripts finish processing?
^ my school has sent my transcript over 2 weeks ago
For future reference, my kid’s school sent out the transcript via snail mail on a Friday and it was received and in CalCentral by the following Tuesday.
Does anyone have a data point of how fast they are processing Home School record sent by snail mail? Ours was sent on June 30th, still didn’t show up in the CalCentral…
@ElenaParent My S record from public school: CalCentral received transcript on Jul 1 and still processing.
@california32146 Thanks. I am fishing here for the info on Home School transcripts. Public school’s transcripts are easy: there is a system existing. The Home school’s transcript is a piece of paper parents write and send via snail mail…
@ucbalumnus May I tap into your knowledge again? How valuable / needed is to fill out the multi-year plan on Cal Central? The reason I am asking is because I was not able to find the info on what classes will be offered during what semesters. With my son trying to graduate in two years, and various Residency and Senior requirements, - planning is crucial. We went through all requirements and he knows what he has to take (seems that 14 courses will cover all requirements), but making sure he takes the right courses during the right year is important, or he can miss some requirements (if he, say, takes some lower division seven-breadth during his second year, which is supposed to be his senior year, he may miss his Senior Requirement whch calls for a certain number of upper division units during Senior year). So I thought that the 4-year planner on CalCentral might help. We went there and tried to enter a class for Spring 2019, the class that was never offered in the Spring, and hence may not be offered in Spring 2019 with a large probability. CalCentral takes it, without warning us that there is a snowball change in hell that the student will get this class in that particular semester. So the question is, how do you plan when you do not know what classes will go when, or may be the question is how to use CalCentral to see this information if it is available (I know about checking in history: what classes were offered when, in the past).
@ElenaParent The Four Year Plan acts as a spreadsheet to remind people to plan for the future so it doesn’t have many special features.
Planning is very important especially the faster that you’re trying to graduate.
Don’t forget the 120 units (including AP and transfer) required to graduate.
And for smaller classes, upper division classes, and breadth classes be sure to check that spring/fall thing.
Summers can be used too if you mess up or forget any classes.
As far as I know, planning is a lot of work and research but maybe ucbalumnus or someone else knows more shortcuts.
@Walter924 Thank you! Yes, we checked every requirement and are pretty sure that with all the credit he is coming with, he needs just those 14 courses. (He has 46 or 48 units, depending how you count them, from AP; and 29 from community college and a non-degree program in another university, and 15 of these units are upper division.) With 75 units before he starts his freshman year, the main concern is hitting the 7-breadth, “reading and composition,” and “american cultures.” The Golden Bear Advising is not of much help, unfortunately, because they have 200 students each to advise, and they are not bent on working with the outlier cases like that. Their main concern is for the first students not to get enrolled into upper division classes, and my son doesn’t have any choice but to enroll into upper division! His home (major) department encourages that, even encourages him to take honor version of upper division. I am sure they will guide him well, regarding his major.
Do you know when all the AP units and transfer units are going to show up in his Cal Central? Do you know if all of these are going to be automatically counted in a proper way, say distinction between lower division and upper division, distinction between L&S (Letters and Science) and not L&S units? Or will he need to file some petitions and go argue with people (stuff he doesn’t do very well).
The evaluation for CC units should show up soon if it hasn’t shown up already. Once my kid sent in his transcript from his CCC (circa end of May) it took a few weeks, but his 41 units are in CalCentral and he shows up with sophomore standing now.
The AP credits evaluation probably doesn’t happen until mid-fall from what I heard. However, with registration coming up really soon, I wonder how AP fulfilling prerequisites works? This question applies for transfer students as well. For example assuming my kid takes ELEG 16A, that requires Math 1A and Math 1B. He’s eligible to skip both classes since he got a 5 on AP Calc BC. I wonder if the registration system is stringent on prerequisites, or if it lets you choose any class you want?