Berkeley...a reach?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Ethnicity: Asian American, Female </p>

<p>GPA: 3.83 on a 4-pt system</p>

<p>School: Nationally ranked public school (voted in Top 1000 by Businessweek), offers both IB and AP, recognized by multiple ivys</p>

<p>Courses: All International Baccalaureate courses, 2 years ahead in math, taking two languages, will graduate at 17 with many extra credits </p>

<p>Test Scores: Took SAT and ACT in 7th grade and scored around the 85th percentile, will take tests in the upcoming year</p>

<p>Class rank: In the top 10%, most likely in the top 5%</p>

<p>EC's: Key Club class rep, Future Business Leaders Community Service Chair, piano for 9 years, Varsity tennis team for 3 years, NHS officer, over 300 hours community service</p>

<p>Other stuff: Led a Hurricane Katrina project through FBLA that appeared in newspapers and the state-wide news channel, will take project to nationals next year. Have won a silver medal with honors for a piano competition from a widely recognized academy. Uncle is a Berkeley alumni. Have taken a CTY chemistry course at the University of Washington in 9th grade. </p>

<p>Any opinions?</p>

2

<p>anyone out there?</p>

3

<p>Okay, I need you to repost--and here's what we need to know. Tell us your grades just in your 10th and 11th grade subjects. Throw out any classes like PE, health, lab assistant, etc. Add 1 grade to each of the first 8 AP/IB semesters of courses you took (only for the first 8--don't add anything extra for the ones past that). Then recompute this GPA and tell us that (we call it the UC GPA).</p>

<p>Also, estimate your SAT I scores--and your best two SAT II scores.</p>

<p>Tell us what kind of courses you will be taking Senior year--and indicate if you come from a family where neither parent, or only one went to college.</p>

<p>Then tell us if you go to school in California (sounds like you don't)</p>

<p>From this we can give you your chances at UC Berkeley</p>

4

<p>hey..i'm going to graduate at 17 too...my birthday is december 31st....anywayz....you have a good shot</p>

5

<p>Thanks Calcruzer... 4.76 UC GPA
SAT I (old SAT): 1360
Haven't taken SAT II yet
Senior Year:
IB World History
IB English
IB Theory of Knowledge
IB Mandarin
IB Japanese
IB Higher level math (year of math after IB Calculus</p>

<p>Both parents went to college</p>

<p>Do not live in CA</p>

<p>opinions?</p>

6

<p>I think you added extra points from 8 years worth of IBs, not 8 semester (4 years worth)--but even in that case your UC GPA is around 4.3 to 4.4 or so--.</p>

<p>Stats for Berkeley are around 4.17 GPA averages with roughly a 660/690/690 SAT I score and 700/680 SAT II scores. You are at 4.3 to 4.4 GPA with similar SAT I scores--so if you can get two SAT II scores above 700, your stats are right around the averages. Your ECs are good ones. Your senior year courses are the toughest possible.</p>

<p>All this means you have a really excellent shot at Berkeley in my opinion--although they usually require higher stats for out-of-state--</p>

<p>As long as you aren't applying for the engineering school (which is super competitive), I think you'll get in. Here's hoping you are successful.</p>

7

<p>megan15:</p>

<p>UCB: Slight Reach (out of state)</p>

8

<p>For those wondering how to compute a "UC GPA", probably an example would make this clearer.</p>

<p>Let's presume you took 5 AP classes out of 6 academic classes your sophomore year, and 4 AP classes your junior year out of 6 academic classes.</p>

<p>Let's presume you had the following grades:</p>

<p>Sophomore Year
AP US History A A
AP English Literature A B
AP Physics B A
AP Chemistry A A
AP French A A
Math-Trigonometry (not AP) A A</p>

<p>Junior Year
AP World History B B
AP Calculus B A
AP Biology A A
AP Japanese A A
Performing Arts (not AP) A A
English (not AP) A A</p>

<p>In this case you would have 10 As and 2 Bs in your sophomore year, and 9 As and 3 Bs junior year.</p>

<p>Therefore your overall grade point average would be ((19 x 4) + (5 x 3))/24 = 3.7916</p>

<p>However, your UC GPA would be ((19 x 4) + (5 x 3) + 8)/24 = 4.125</p>

<p>You add in 8 extra points (and only 8) for the first 8 semesters of AP classes you took during these two years.</p>

<p>Also, you add this in only if you got a C or better in the class--otherwise, you get no extra boost to the GPA for the class taken.</p>

<p>Also, note that while this list of classes and grades may look pretty tough, it's just a shade tougher course-wise (and exactly the grades) that someone going to UCLA would have taken (and students at UC Berkeley would have one more A and one less B on average)</p>

9

<p>You kidding me, flopsy?</p>

<p>This girl has all IB, and an ok SAT. I'd say it is a match. I visited UC Berkeley the other day, and I asked about the UC GPA during an admissions presentation by some woman. She claimed that this "UC GPA" does not exist. I seriously hope she is not an admissions officer. </p>

<p>Anyways, for the OP, I like asian girls, and I wish our school had more Japanese courses. If you want Berkeley, there is a report you should read. Called the Hout Report. Google it up. It was published in 2005 and gives a comprehensive indepth view of Berkeley admissions. Getting someone with stats knowledge will help for some of the charts and stuff, but there is lot of stuff there that normal people without statistical experience can understand. It also seems to me that Berkeley fully weights their GPAs for admissions even though the website does not mention it. Since many of the sample GPAs were like beastly 4.7s which is almost impossible with the UC GPA unless you take like 3 classes with 2 of them being honors. </p>

<p>My opinion is extracurriculars and essays are a bit important, but if your GPA and SATs are strong enough, Berkeley will accept you regardless of having extracurriculars or not.</p>

10

<p>Megan15,</p>

<p>There are a lot of question marks in evaluating your chances for UC Berkeley. Based on available information, I agree with Flopsy that you are likely a Slight REACH for UCB, partly because you are outside of the state of CA. It’s difficult to speculate without more information.</p>

<p>*Your OOS status is a major consideration for the UC system because they give preference to in-state students. (Admissions selectivity for out of state applicants is about 21% acceptance rate.) OOS students also pay tuition and fees of about $25K, making approximate Cost of Attendance about $40K (vs. $23K for CA residents).</p>

<ul>
<li><p>SAT Tests: It appears that you have not taken any of the required standardized tests. You will want to register and take these during October and November, preferably, and no later than December. Your old SAT test score will not be valid. You must take the new SAT Reasoning Test (Critical Reading, Math and Writing). You will also need to take the SAT Subject Tests in two different subject areas. You cannot take the SAT Reasoning Test and your SAT Subject Tests on the same test date.</p></li>
<li><p>UC GPA and IB courses: The University of California system has a Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS) that is responsible for evaluating courses acceptable to UC. Within California, most high schools are known and courses have already been evaluated according to UC’s “A-G Requirements”. Outside of CA, courses may not have consistent titles, and therefore some IB courses may not be given credit. Otherwise, courses that correspond to the “A-G Requirements” are included in the calculation of the UC GPA – essentially courses taken during your sophomore and junior years of high school, with additional weighting given for AP/Honors classes (up to a max. of 8 semesters worth of AP/Honors level courses). Unfortunately, some IB classes that are considered “honors” level by IBO may NOT always be given additional weighting if BOARS has not approved the classes to be worthy of the added weight. Note that not all “honors” courses are alike, and therefore not all “honors” courses are granted additional weighting for GPA purposes. It can vary from school to school.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>Hope this helps. You’ve got a realistic chance at UCB, but it’s never a sure thing, given their selectivity. Good luck!</p>

<p>Reference: <a href="http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergraduate.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergraduate.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

11

<p>Interesting that a person from UC Berkeley would claim that UC Berkeley doesn't use a "UC GPA" in computing admissions considering that it is on the UC system's website (note the caping of the honors courses at 8 semester hours part-way down this site):</p>

<p><a href="http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/paths_to_adm/freshman/scholarship_reqs.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/paths_to_adm/freshman/scholarship_reqs.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I do believe that Berkeley--while conforming to the UC system's requirements to use this "UC GPA" also considers a number of other factors including additional honors/AP/IB courses, coming from an underrepresented area of the state, no parents having previously gone to college, and special achievements in certain fields. If you check the factsheets for the various UC colleges--the other campuses in the UC system claim to do this--so while the UC Berkeley site is unclear, I'd be amazed if they didn't do this also. Maybe this is what this person was referring to--and why they didn't think that a "UC GPA" was used.</p>

12

<p>Calcruzer,</p>

<p>The UC system follows a "Comprehensive Review" approach toward freshmen admissions; however, each campus has a slightly different execution of the process itself. Deliberation and weighting of admissions factors vary from one campus to the next. In the case of UCLA, they seemingly place as much importance on SAT Subject Tests as with the SAT I. Each campus abides by established UC system-wide admissions standards (e.g., "A-G Requirements"), but each campus has seemingly adopted specific and sometimes unique principles that guide them in their brand of a "comprehensive review". </p>

<p>Trying to better understand the "process" peculiar to each campus is a mind-numbing endeavor that I wouldn't recommend to any student applicant. How far to you drill down? To the psyche of each and every "reader" at Berkeley? In the end, the applicant has to face the reality that not everything is controllable. And not all things controllable are worthy of pursuit.</p>

13

<p>Yeah, that stupid woman only talked about "comprehensive review" and that they look at applicants as a whole. I seriously hope that woman is not an admissions officer... because she obviously has not checked how the UCs calculated weighted GPA. The UC Berkeley Freshman Admissions Flyer specifically mentions using the UC GPA to determine freshman admision</p>

<p>I was planning on hanging around Berkeley for a while to check it out (it is a 90 minute drive to Berkeley afterall), but that "admissions guidance session" left a bad taste in my mouth. Just went up the Campanile (the big tower) and left. </p>

<p>It is true that UC Berkeley is quite difficult for out of state applicants, but I feel that the OP is still at least a match for UC Berkeley. I would not consider my school an UC Berkeley feeder, but around 15-25% of our senior class is usually admitted each year. Most just have a few APs and an overall weighted of around 4.2 or 4.3. SATs generally range from 2000+. I know for a fact that most of these have plain extracurriculars ( jv track, badminton training team, volunteering at the library, working at dad's company, working at jamba juice) at best. Even considering the fact that you are out of state. Those IBs help a lot and with anything 2100+, I think you are golden. Be sure to write a good essay and don't get cocky, but I think you are like 90% in. Berkeley food is overpriced.</p>

14

<p>OOS is 7% chance of getting in (3% OOS in US, 4% international), so it's basically a crapshoot; Berkeley is EXTREMELY unpredictable.</p>

15

<p>
[quote]
OOS is 7% chance of 


getting in&lt;a href="3%%20OOS%20in%20US,%204%%20international"&gt;/highlight&lt;/a&gt;, so it's basically a crapshoot; Berkeley is EXTREMELY unpredictable.

[/quote]
&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This is incorrect.  I don't have data for the incoming freshmen class at Berkeley, but if you go to UC Berkeley's Viewbook, you'll see the following information for Fall 2005 Freshman Admissions Data:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Non-Resident (out of state) Students:  4456 Applicants / 957 Admitted / 21.5% / (267 actually Enrolled)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;International Students:  1843 Applicants / 227 Admitted / 12% / (106 actually Enrolled)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Strykur, you are right, though, that getting accepted into UCB is unpredictable.  They have routinely rejected perfect 4.0 students, for instance.  That's why I don't consider it to be a MATCH school for anybody.  &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Reference UCB site:  &lt;a href="http://students.berkeley.edu/files/Admissions/Viewbook%2006.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://students.berkeley.edu/files/Admissions/Viewbook%2006.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
16

<p>To the OP, do not listen to them. </p>

<p>Berkeley does not routinely reject 4.0s or 2400s. That is like saying that community colleges make your write a comprehensive biography to apply.
Berkeley out of state is harder, but not so much harder that it becomes top Ivy League difficulty. It is around Cornell's difficulty for OOS. Just a high GPA (4.5+) and 2200 should do the trick for out of state applicants.</p>

17

<p>The OOS percentages I posted are out of the total number of applicants, including in-state, out-of-state US and international combined, which was ~41,000 this last time around I believe.</p>

18

<ul>
<li><p>Strykur, I see where you're coming from... however, since the criteria for admission is slightly different between in-state and out-of-state, I also see why UC chooses to present the data as it does (see the referenced website).</p></li>
<li><p>sai2004: Nobody has to listen to me... but I'm getting my information from the source. Have you talked to the admissions people at Berkeley? You can choose to ignore facts, but that means your perception is not well-formed. Meagan15 asked me via private message for my opinion. I gave it to her with honesty and unbiased judgment. I think she stands a good chance, but it can easily go either way. Besides, as I pointed out in my earlier post, she provides incomplete information to provide a more accurate evaluation. When she provides SAT scores, I can reassess.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>
[quote]
Just a high GPA (4.5+) and 2200 should do the trick for out of state applicants.

[/quote]
Meagan15 will NOT be able to accomplish this... given that she's already given her GPA as 3.83 -- a UC GPA of 4.5, in her case, is not feasible given UC's cap at 4 AP/Honors courses. A 2200 on the SAT would NOT do the trick, even with a 4.3 UC GPA, but it would put her in a competitive space at close to 70th percentile.</p>

19

<p>I'm talking fully weighted 4.5 gpa not UC weighted. Read the Hout Report. It gives a bit of insight into the admissions process. The woman (giving an admissions presentation in a classroom) I talked to at Berkeley was allegedly an admissions officer, but I think she wasn't since she said she never heard of the UC GPA.</p>

<p>Why do so many people talk about comprehensive review? Most of the decisions in 2005 were based on GPA + SAT alone.</p>

20

<p>sai2004,</p>

<p>
[quote]
I'm talking fully weighted 4.5 gpa not UC weighted.

[/quote]

Your previous post mentioned "Berkeley out of state" and addressed the OP. If you're talking about "fully weighted 4.5 gpa not UC weighted", it's not relevant to the context of the OP and UC Berkeley. The OP is interested in knowing "Berkeley... a reach?" Also, any discussion of UC and admissions MUST only consider THEIR criteria which is the so-called UC GPA. </p>

<p>Regarding the Hout Report, yes I've read it -- a number of times since it came out over a year ago. Do you know the impetus for it? If you delve into the events leading up to Michael Houk devising his study/report, you will see that it was a direct response to the previous Chair of the UC Board of Regents, who claimed that UC's "comprehensive review" process was an evasive tactic to not abide by Prop 209's ban on affirmative action. Then UC Board of Regents Chair John Moores complained that UC Berkeley's process in specific benefitted low-scoring students (whose SAT I score -- the older SAT test -- was under 1000), thus victimizing high-achieving students. And yes, these were the many students with 4.0 GPA's and many students with SAT scores ranging near the very top 1600 score. (I know that you find this difficult to believe, so don't take my word for it -- do the research, rather than just deny its occurrence.) Houk went through an elaborate application of data/statistical modeling techniques to support a hypothesis that the "comprehensive review" process was fair and impartial, especially with regard to specific ethnicities (i.e., Asian Americans, who composed a significant percentage of those left out of the party). Immediately, many called the study brilliant, and some criticized it thoroughly. The truth was somewhere in the middle, I'm sure. Subsequent to this, we have a new SAT Reasoning Test, the former SAT I. The UC BOARS (Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools) have continued to tweak the "comprehensive review" process. Thus in short order, Houk's report, while being intensely interesting, is not entirely relevant to the changing parameters. I agree that the insights are still there, but no more than what is available from the UC Admissions people. The fact remains that UC admissions criteria and the various "comprehensive review" vary signficantly from campus to campus. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Why do so many people talk about comprehensive review? Most of the decisions in 2005 were based on GPA + SAT alone.

[/quote]

People have talked about "comprehensive review" and continue to talk about it ad nauseum because it is relevant to UC's admissions evaluation process. While it is true, and I've repeated this often, that the academic numbers (GPA and SAT scores) are the key factors, "most of the decisions" does not sit well with those who have not been admitted despite excellent academic measures. These are typically the students (and respective parents) who have been denied admission into Berkeley and UCLA. (You'll note that nobody complains about the "comprehensive review" process at UC Merced or Riverside.) As long as there are students with the 4.0 GPA's sitting on the outside looking in at the group of students with lesser academic numbers, there will be "talk" at UCB, UCLA and UCSD, the most competitive campuses. </p>

<p>Incidentally, I don't take a position on the debate about "comprehensive review". I see both sides of the argument, and each side's points can be demonstrated to be valid.</p>