I am the valedictorian in a class of about 150 people. I have applied to some pretty competitive schools such as Stanford, and Johns Hopkins but I ended up getting rejections from most of them. The best school that I got in so far is UC Berkeley and that is probably where I’m going in the fall.
I know that UC Berkeley is a really really amazing school especially for math and engineering (which is what I"m going to study in college) and I was really excited when I got in. However, I am raised in an Asian family and ranking is everything. Even though Berkeley is an awesome school, it’s ranked 20th on US NEWS. I know this sounds silly but when my relatives heard that I only got into the top 20 instead of top 10 or top 5 school, they were very disappointed. Even my classmates were disappointed because in the past, our valedictorians had always gotten into ivy leagues or other top 10 colleges (last year’s went to Princeton, the year before was UPenn). I can hear people talking about this in the hallway. “Why did the valedictorian only get into UC Berkeley this year?” “She’s probably just the nerdy type who doesn’t have a life outside of class…duh” I got really uncomfortable whenever I heard this and now I feel like I’m not even that excited to attend Berkeley anymore. And I feel dumb because I seemed to have let people down because I failed to meet their expectations.
I get the feeling. As much as you don’t want other people’s feelings to influence your own, they do. If I were you, I would start doing things to get me excited about Berkeley. Join the Facebook group, attend a sports event if you live close, and buy a ton of college apparel! And remind yourself that once you’re there and you settle in, you’ll love it. Good luck:)
Berkeley, across the globe, is viewed as superior to most of the Ivy league and other top 15 universities. Asians know more about Berkeley than most of the US News ranked national universities.
Honestly, Berkeley is a great school! Congratulations! Don’t listen to what other people say and be excited to finally go to college and be able to experience new things! Plus, I’m pretty sure most people in your grade didn’t even get into Berkeley… so their opinion is invalid.
Berkeley does not suck - the people who will chatter about you when you have done better than they did are the ones who suck.
My D (who is white and valedictorian of her HS class of 340) is BFF with an Asian girl (since pre-school) who was #2 in class. D is going to Stanford, and her BFF is going to Berkley. These girls were .003 in WGPA apart, and D attributes the higher rank to the fact that she took an extra AP class (17) while her friend took an engineering class that was weighted lower (she only had 16 AP’s). Both girls got straight A+'s in every class they took - many of them together, but plenty of different classes (different foreign language, etc). They both volunteered tons, her friend is pursuing STEM so she chose the engineering class, but even though both took an AP independent study, scheduling did not permit her friend to take another AP class.
Her friend’s mom told us she would have been upset at her D not getting val if she hadn’t known my D so long, and knew how hard both kids worked, and if anyone deserved getting val it was my D. Her D ended up winning the lion’s share of our local scholarship awards, which helped them more because my D gets plenty of need based aid at Stanford and their family is full-pay.
Don’t feel bad about not getting lucky at admissions. You have a wonderful future ahead of you.
D and her friend both visited each other during the school year - when I asked her, how was the visit, D reported that the guys at Berkeley were really hot.
Despite the fact that I understand she was trying to unnerve her mom, I am glad that both kids are happy.
