<p>I'm an African American male from SoCal living in a single-parent, low income household. I will be a senior in the fall.</p>
<p>I plan on majoring in business (finance preferably; possibly economics).</p>
<p>Stats:
- Cumulative GPA: 3.44 (RL issues freshman and sophomore year; I'll elaborate on my applications. Everyone says I have "a story to tell." Junior year GPA: 3.64) Senior year GPA will hopefully be a 3.8-4.2. School doesn't rank percentage-wise.
- ACT: 30
- 4 honors courses and 1 AP course - all math classes; taking Honors Precalculus and AP Statistics for senior year. I've taken Public Speaking and Spanish III at my local Community College and earned A's in both; taking Introduction to Business this summer.
- I've been a professional actor with an agent since I was 5 1/2 months old. Since then I've established a pretty long resume and been in numerous TV shows, commercials, billboards, print ads, etc. I have an agent and am currently on the IMDB website.
- Starting a non-profit organization for lung cancer patients who don't receive the right treatment due to not having medical insurance (in memory of my favorite aunt).
- I'm in NHS and CSF.
- I've been part of a Church youth group since I was about 3 that goes out to witness to the homeless and people in poverty-stricken communities.
- I've been in a ton of church plays and musicals.
- Will have great essays and recommendations.
- If it helps to create any sort of diversity, I will major in something business-related and minor in Acting.</p>
<p>So what do you think?</p>
<p>You will get in, probably.
Berkeley offers Business Administration (Global concentration), Econ, Evironmental Econ and Policy, Political Econ of Industrial Societies, Operations Research and Management, etc.</p>
<p>Do you think I’ll get in even though Berkeley doesn’t do affirmative action?</p>
<p>I would think that the main challenge is trying to get into Haas if you are accepted and want to do business because the average GPA in the business pre-reqs is a 3.7+ and let me tell you the classes here are much harder than in HS. UCB is not allowed to do affirmative action, but according to their records they do in a subtle way. Meaning if you do get accepted it might likely be because you are low income, ECs and have accomplished a lot because you are an actor. Being African American is just a an extra cherry at the top of the sundae, wont get you accepted alone, but does help.</p>
<p>Alright.
I’m trying to divide my list of colleges that I’m applying to into safeties, matches, and reaches.
Would Berkeley be a reach or a match? (assuming a reach, but not 100% sure)</p>
<p>And how is Berkeley with financial aid?</p>
<p>Any other opinions? =/</p>
<p>go for the privates…</p>
<p>This is going to sound terrible, but affirmative action exists. </p>
<p>Berkeley’s new policy is attempting to essentially whittle down the asians and allow more URMs in. </p>
<p>See: [Deseret</a> News | Effort to diversify universities a form of racial discrimination](<a href=“http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705312459/Effort-to-diversify-universities-a-form-of-racial-discrimination.html]Deseret”>http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705312459/Effort-to-diversify-universities-a-form-of-racial-discrimination.html)</p>
<p>Besides, even as an URM, your app is strong enough as an instate student anyways. </p>
<p>Don’t neglect your essays and app info too. The UCs rely on those HEAVILY.</p>
<p>In theory, Berkeley doesn’t do affirmative action, but whatever that means can be open to interpretation…
In practice…</p>
<p>From
[Should</a> Colleges Have Quotas for Asian Americans? (washingtonpost.com)](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26499-2004Oct12.html]Should”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26499-2004Oct12.html)</p>
<p>"But there is one part of his argument, a reference to a sad era in American history, that is hard to ignore. Many selective colleges before World War II had quotas on Jews. They turned down many brilliant applicants in favor of non-Jewish prep school students with lesser records. They didn’t call this striving for diversity, but it was a perverse form of affirmative action, and it left a bitter taste for decades. </p>
<p>Chin calculates that with those quotas gone, about a third of Harvard undergraduates are Jews, who make up about 3 percent of the U.S. population. About 17 percent of Harvard undergraduates are Asians, who make up about 4 percent of the population. Since the percentage of Asian Americans at schools of comparable quality that do not practice affirmative action are much higher – 40 percent at Berkeley, 50 percent at selective New York high schools such as Stuyvesant – Chin says the Asian American percentage at Harvard and other Ivies would go up significantly if the rules were changed."</p>
<p>I think American elite colleges gave the jews a break because of what happened to them during the Holocaust and because they are ambitious gold-diggers. But as of today they should pay more attention to Asians because China alone bears the majority of America’s debt. The private colleges not funded by the government obviously do not have a clue.</p>
<p>Interesting article.</p>