Yes. Good thing Berkeley is the only UC on semesters, as are the other schools he’s seriously considering. I’m not sure a public school as large as UCB will be a good fit given his EF issues, and we were talking about him taking a gap year to take a breather and mature-up a bit before tackling college. UCB does not allow for gap years, unfortunately.
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I will second the importance of evaluating how a school handles AP/DE. Some schools won’t take dual enrollment credits at all, looking at you USC. We also found Cal to be extremely generous in this area. They took 79 credits from my son’s DE and APs, which covered all of his breadth, university requirements, prerequisites, etc… he’s a first year, but a senior on paper. He’s weighing his options to possibly double majors as he doesn’t want to finish his bachelor’s degree in 2.5 years.
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We have planned our visit to Berkeley, but my daughter is still leaning toward GW (a safety for her) until we visit Cal. She just loved the vibe of GW, and one of her two majors is better at GW. Berkeley is also an urban campus, so I really hope she gets the same vibe. It would be much easier for me to avoid explaining why she rejected Cal!
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Thanks so much for your response. It was a perfect sunny day in Berkeley although not many students bc spring break. We started at top in parking lot next to football stadium using self-guided map from admissions website. You can zigzag downhill. The kid loved campus and didn’t notive the lack of ocean. We Didn’t get a feel either way for intensity/competitiveness. Tmrw to San Diego schools. Hope your journey is going well. It’s sure nice to have time together on these trips.
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This! My daughter’s final 2 choices are Cal or SLO. It’s a big decision and NOT an obvious one.
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Many do this especially when they find out how many AP Classes do not get course credits at UC as compared to a CSU campus.
Also the $8k a year COA difference is significant for many families who receive zero aid.
Not sure which UC you are talking about, but you are in the Berkeley thread. Berkeley is fairly generous with AP credit, and when my son compared to Cal Poly in the same major, Berkeley was more generous.
Students should check for themselves at the schools where they are admitted rather than going by generalizations.
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You are right. Berkeley is much more generous with AP as compared to UCLA in assigning course credit.
Berkeley is also more generous than UC Davis would have been for my son in the same major. It’s important to check each school for your own major requirements since it can vary a lot by major how the credit is applied.
Also note, don’t make assumptions about this from a school’s selectivity … Berkeley is also more generous than Oregon State for my son’s major and the specific APs that he took. Check each school 
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AP/IB credits are less useful for L&S majors- they can be used to satisfy entry level history, quantitative reasoning and writing requirements but not the 7-course breadth requirement. They’ll be included as general units which could allow your student to take a lighter load and still hit the required number of unit to graduate, or possibly to graduate early.
Also note that even if your entering student is quickly classified as a junior or even senior, it doesn’t help them with earlier enrollment selection times b/c Cal only considers the number of terms on campus.
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Yes the usefulness varies by college and major. My son is in COE and almost every one of his APs counted for something he could use towards his major and college requirements. (The only one he couldn’t use was Physics E&M.) He came in with half his breadth done, and about one year of his major requirements completed.
I noticed this and wondered why you had done a self guided tour. Was the new admit tour not at a convenient time for you, or maybe you preferred the self guided option?
For all new admits & waitlisted students:
“New admit” tours run from the visitor center every day of the week until mid-May. If the new admit tour time isn’t good for you, I believe that new admits / waitlists can also join general campus tours even if the tour is fully booked already; at this time of the year, there are two general campus tours per day. And you and your family can ride to the top of the campanile for free, too. Show your email or portal with your status.
From Admitted & Waitlisted Student Tours:
Please visit your Admit Hub in your MAP@Berkeley portal for all the information you need about these tours. Alternatively, you may call us at the Visitor Center (510-642-5215) during our open hours.
Edited to add: If you call the visitor center, and they don’t pick up the phone right away, try calling back. They are eager to take your call, but I hear through the grapevine that they are getting a lot of calls today 
Cal L & S accepted dual enrollment to cover all of my son’s 7 course breadth, writing, quantitative reasoning, history, everything.
It makes sense for L&S to accept dual enrollment for breath requirements because those are actual college courses.
At our high school, they’re actually not. The private school I teach at has an arrangement with a private university. The instructor has to have a graduate degree and we have to be able to find a course in their catalog that the class is commensurate with. It’s a process and a lot of paperwork, observations, etc… to get approved, but once done the students can pay a $200 fee for the dual credit class and it shows up on their college transcript. My son had 63 units of dual credit Cal accepted, plus his AP tests. He received his associates degree in high school and never took an outside class.
I would appreciate any advice, thoughts…etc.
My daughter talked about UC San Diego being the “dream” school. She got in. Now she got accepted to UC Berkeley and she is over the moon. I am being weird, I believe my daughter would do fantastic at UCSD, but I am questioning how well she would do at UC Berkeley. She got accepted into the College of Chemistry for Chemical Biology.
My daughter is a very good “student”, she has good discipline and work ethic. She is not a brilliant problem solver, she stuggles and perseveres.
I am stressed that UC Berkeley may be “too” hard.
Any thoughts?
I think that the ability to persevere through the struggle is what makes for a successful student at Cal or anywhere. I don’t think it’s unusual for new students question themselves a bit because they are used to being the star among their peers (or at least seeming to pick up on course material more easily than others). If they stick with it and use all available resources inside and outside of class, the vast majority of admitted students will succeed.
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Any here familiar with course availability, class size, competitiveness vs collaboration in the College of Environmental Design?
Both are excellent choices. I don’t know too much about Chemistry at UCSD. It’s a tough major at Berkeley, there is a lot of work, but I get the impression it is that way for everyone, that the key is putting in the work. Perseverance is important. Some kids don’t like the quarter system much, they find the workload of Berkeley’s semester system easier to manage.
The vibe at each is very different so she may want to consider that, too.
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We live in Berkeley, and I have a daughter who is a student at UCSD (first year). She got off the waitlist for Cal last summer but ultimately decided to stick with UCSD because the Cal campus is literally a stone’s throw away from our home and her high school. She just knew that she personally would grow more by attending a school that forced her to live in a new place.
I doubt that UC Berkeley is significantly “harder” compared to UCSD, and it sounds like your daughter has honed the skills she will need to do hard things in either place. My thinking is that it really should come down to a choice about the location/campus/housing, etc. At UCSD that should take into consideration which residential college she was admitted to and how well those Gen Ed requirements map to her interests.
It’s too bad that Cal Day and Triton Day are the same day, but I would think that visits to both campuses, if possible, would really help her make a decision. Can’t go wrong – Congrats on two fantastic options!
Edited to add: Good point above made about comparing the quarter system to the semester system. My son who is at UCLA on the quarter system is sort of neutral about it and I think might actually prefer a semester schedule. My daughter who is at UCSD absolutely LOVES the quarter system. It’s working really well for her. Talk to lots of people about their experiences at both. One nice thing about quarters is that it maps perfectly to breaks (i.e. you finish before the winter holiday break and you finish before the spring break – so when you are “off” you really feel relaxed).
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