Application questions

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>I am a senior who is having some hard time filling out the UC application. </p>

<p>My greatest concern is my gpa. I have gotten a pretty low GPA(3.4) in my sophmore year, and because of that my weighted UC GPA is 3.96 (below average). </p>

<p>I didn’t get a low GPA in sophmore entirely because of my bad academic attitude; there were some adjustments in my schedule during the middle of my sophmore year, which earned me a C and a B in government and french, and since I transferred from a school that only gives one grade person year, my C and B is now counted twice in my current high school, which has a semester-based system. My college counselor suggested me to mention that on my personal statement, but I don’t think I should, since I got more important things to write about and besides, blaming school for bad grades is just a lame thing to do. </p>

<p>Anyways, I have taken 16 semesters of AP/CL courses along with 8 UC certified honor courses, and have gotten As/5s on all of them. This year I am taking 14 more semesters of academic AP/CL courses, and very likely to get As in all of them, except maybe AP Eng lit. </p>

<p>I am wondering if an improvement of .5 from in the junior year is significant enough to excuse or at least mollify my poor performance in the 10th grade. </p>

<p>I would be very happy to see some replys from current or former berkeley students who have shared the same situation with me.</p>

2

<p>Oh, are there people who have taken G/T, short for Gifted and Talented courses and are applying or have applied to any UCs. </p>

<p>How do UCs weigh G/T classes?</p>

3

<p>UC's weigh only courses that are specified (with a star) on their list. The site is a link on the page where you enter your courses and grades on UC pathways. Only up to 8 extra points may be rewarded for ap/honors that they designate (with a max of 4 -i think- points for 10th grade allowed)</p>

<p>Have you typed in the name of your school on the site to see which courses are weighted?</p>

4

<p>on the last page of the application, the personal statement section, there is an ADDITIONAL box where you can explain things</p>

5

<p>I think the .5 increase is good, and they will notice. Having a strong senior schedule is a plus. </p>

<p>One data point: my son had something like a 3.6 in 10th grade, and increased his GPA for an overall 3.9+ weighted, and was accepted to CAL. </p>

<p>Note that by the statistics approximately 9% of the students who apply with GPA in the 3.7 to 3.99 range are accepted. This percentage pretty much holds year to year.</p>

6

<p>thank you everyone</p>