Any chance of getting into UCB?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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<p>I'm actually only 16 this year, and am a Singaporean. I'm most likely taking the A Level syllabus next year (at RI(JC) under the Raffles Programme) or the IB programme (at ACSI, if you've ever heard of this school). I don't have much to boost my apps now, because I haven't taken SATs and stuff like that.</p>

<p>I have been taking nine subjects since 2008, and my GPA since 2007 has been hanging around 3.75 thereabouts. I regularly perform as a member of the school's orchestra, and I'm taking History pull-out classes which is something like your AP classes, just that it doesn't make a difference to my GPA, but is nonetheless recorded in my progress report.</p>

<p>Though I'm supposed to be more inclined towards the humanities, I prefer Chemistry and Physics, and intend to take up electrical engineering in college. I don't have much to talk about, having only participated in local competitions. I also participated in the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals, although the results were definitely not stellar.</p>

<p>I regularly take part in volunteer projects, especially for old folks. In school, I am part of the orchestra but I do not have leadership positions in the orchestra. Next year I'm planning on joining the Japanese cultural club in my school, because I have been studying Japanese for almost 4 years now and I think the Japanese culture is pretty awesome. </p>

<p>UC Berkeley sounded like the college most suitable for me, and I was thinking that I could get some help to gauge whether I'm able to get in, if possible. :) How do they go through international students' applications, since I'm taking the A Level syllabus? How is UCB really like -- are smoking pot and what not rampant over there? Are people there willing to accept diversity? Are the classes actually good? I have been taking in lots of stuff from the UCB website, and it sounds quite brilliant, but really, I just want to know how it's reaaaally like, from a student's POV.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

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<p>Well, it so happens my suitemate in my first year of college at UCB was a Singaporean international student, who studied EECS, and was pretty much an ace student, I think. He seemed quite happy here, though he was always tremendously busy and hard-working. </p>

<p>I think you'll find a good mixture of people here. There are very tame people, and then there are the hippy, pot-smoking kind as well. I tend basically to run into studious, fairly tame (though not completely :)) people, and my general impression is that you should treat Berkeley like a mini colony -- it has a ton of different kinds of people, and you have to form your own sub-colony of people you want to talk to, i.e. you can't expect everyone in such a huge school to know you automatically -- it's probably more like maintaining friends in the real world. </p>

<p>The classes at Berkeley are good quality for the most part [lower division courses aren't great in every discipline, but the higher upp you go, the classes start getting really cool], though I'll say that it's a much better school for the best students and the rather less aspiring students than for the ones in the middle -- because these ones in the middle may for instance try hard majors and find them <em>extremely</em> hard to deal with -- whereas the best students will devour the wealth of opportunities, and the worst ones will party, because there <em>are</em> easy majors here. The professors are world class, though if you look at other threads, it's clear that not all of them are built to be teachers. You have to be outgoing and the kind to look for your own academic opportunity at Berkeley -- there's a reason it's so different from small, more personal education type schools. Maybe check out the "Berkeley vs. Private College" thread, which for whatever reason centered around Harvey Mudd, a small, focused, heavily rigorous science and engineering program. </p>

<p>If you are outgoing, don't mind forming your own subcolony of friends amidst a huge campus, like to look for your own academic opportunities, the opportunities here are truly boundless, and to iterate, Berkeley is home to some of the most amazing faculty in the world; just, not everyone takes advantage of these things, and understandably, given people have different styles.</p>