Am I screwed for Berkeley?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Berkeley is definitely my first choice so i want to know if it’s even worth applying.

Things working against me:

-OOS (Florida)
-3.5ish unweighted GPA (4.07 UC GPA)
-3.29 UW GPA sophomore year (Have explanation due to sickness and family issues but it isn’t “my mom had cancer” type of stuff. Have 3.86 UW Junior year though)

Things working for me:

  • First Generation (One parent, no college)
  • 34 ACT/11 Essay
  • Not applying to EECS
  • School average SAT/ACT is below national average
  • Upward Trend
  • Good ECs that are probably slightly above average than the regular berkeley admit and are on par with some HYPSM admits (stalked some of the Berkeley forums)

Uncertain:

-Essays (Don’t know how good they’ll be but i haven’t had a privileged life so i hope that’ll work in my favor)
-Recs: 2 great (one of the best students i’ve ever had type of recs) 1 goodish from a counselor or something.
-Hispanic

If you’re feeling extra generous then a chance to Stanford, Vandy, Rochester, UCLA, and UPenn would be awesome as these are all my super reaches.

2

Your single parent must have a helluva great paying job w/o a college degree, if said parent can afford the OOS tuition at Berkeley.

3

She did start her own business that I helped with throughout highschool as i learned more about IT work and dealing with clients. We’re not rich but i’m the only one of her kids that’s going to college and she’s already offered to help me out as much as she can. I don’t live in a bad neighborhood anymore though and business has been getting better these past couple of years (mom has made a bit more than 100k a year these past 2 years) so hopefully everything will keep improving.

4

U need to be focusing on schools that you can afford, i.e. where u are eligible for FA or merit aid. As a Florida resident w/ a middle class income, the CA public universities (~55k/year) are a very poor financial option.

5

I get your point and the money is definitely something i’m gonna have to consider. All i really wanted to know though is if i had a chance at even getting in that wasn’t fairly close to 0.

6

Most likely yes. Why do you aim so high for such low GPA in high school? All of your schools are reaches. Very high reaches even with first generation URM.

7

@Alundari How can your UC GPA be that high? Your UW GPA for 10-11 cannot add up to that.

8

@basedchem It’s actually 3.58 for 10-11 with 7 UC approved honors classes (3 soph, 4 junior)

@DrGoogle “These are my super reaches” I have other schools but i just wanted to know if there was any shot at the upper tier.

9

I think you are wasting your application fee.

10

@Alundari Impossible. You are OOS. Your honors courses don’t count, only APs. Also, your capped standard UC GPA limits the number of APs in sophomore year to two courses. But they admit several people with lower stats than you every year. If you have the app fee money to blow, go for that outside chance.

11

UCs will admit students with low standardized test scores but not low GPA. Very rarely, I think it’s less than 10% even in this category.

12

@basedchem Didn’t know about the sophomore AP rule. Here’s basically what rogerhub says: “At most, 8 semesters of UC Honors Courses can be counted. No more than 4 can be counted from 10th grade”. I took 3 APs in 10th grade and 4 in 11th.

13

Plain and simple, I would not waste time or money sending an application there. Have you even looked at the OOS cost-of-attendance for a UC school? It’s up in the $50,000 PER YEAR range! There’s NO way you’ll be able to cover that.

14

@Alundari when the UC says “eight semesters” they mean 4 AP classes that span 2 semesters. Hence, 8 “extra points”. Learn how the GPA is calculated.

15

@basedchem you’re right for the UC Capped GPA but berkeley looks at uncapped so he does a have a 4.07 UC GPA however berkeley’s average hovers around a 4.6 to 4.7 weighted GPA with a 3.9 unweighted, and they are very gpa oriented not as much as other UC’s but unless you have something THAT REALLY MAKES YOU STAND OUT you have a low chance

16

Find some matching schools. Berkeley is out of your reach, both academically and financially.

17

Many students who get into Berkeley and not prepared for the rigor in academics, and that’s what Berkeley is famous for and flunk out. Getting into Berkeley is not an honor. Graduate from from Berkeley is. So choose your school carefully.

18

Although I probably have very little knowledge on this topic (I’m a student myself), I have done a lot of research, and I’d say you do have chance to get into Berkeley. Your ACT scores and EC’s are very good and important, so that is very much in your favor. Because your GPA scores leave you at a disadvantage, I’d recommend working really hard to make an outstanding essay (preferably also highlighting why your scores dropped, although you could probably write that in the additional section as well) and trying to get your grades up.

I personally believe that the financial issue of this is a completely unrelated topic. I think you have a chance at Berkeley (although you may want to work to raise those chances) and you must know better than any of us whether you can afford it or not. Best of luck!