<p>I am currently a high school junior from out of state and wonder what my chances are of getting into berkeley. </p>
<p>GPA: 5.083 (counting up to first semester of jr. year)</p>
<p>Rank: 11th out of 525 in a competitive public high school</p>
<p>Sat I: Math-720 Verbal-750 Writing-780</p>
<p>Sat II: World History 800 (taking physics, U.S. History, and Math ii in two months)</p>
<p>APs: 10th Grade- World History (received a 5) 11th Grade- English Lang, Music Theory, Physics B, U.S. History 12th Grade (scheduled)- Calculus BC, English Lit, Physics C, Statistics</p>
<p>Extras:
-played trumpet for 6 years, ranked first in the state for jazz
-played piano for 8 years
-member of Knowledge Bowl Team
-done several model un conferences (if those count)
-made perfect score on national latin exam (levels I and II)
-some community service, but nothing special</p>
<p>I would say your chances are pretty good. I'm not sure what your GPA means since our school does that differently, but considering that the rest of your scores are high, I'm assuming that's a good GPA.</p>
<p>Actually Polite, you're incorrect. GPA does matter (it's one of the most important factors), while class ranking is not even considered. Furthermore, points are awarded for ECs, and as demonstrated in an earlier thread, people with "subpar statistics" can still make it in with some sort of hook. Essays are worth more than scores.</p>
<p>ok i really dont understand how class rank is important. Ok, you can be 1/400 kids with a 4.0 in a very low key school or you can be 15/400 in a school with an API of 900 and be penalized for that. It's actually harder to succeed in a school like the one I go to because of all the competition, I just dont understand how i can be penalized for having smarter kids around me in the classroom just cuz i have a lower class rank.</p>
<p>Well, by the same token, a school with low competition usually has "socio-economical" disadvantages. I go to a school like this. It's so poor, the students have to supply the teachers with paper for pete's sake. But back to the point, the people who go to competitive schools usually have more advantages and a better environment. The students in "lower" schools usually have to endure more adversity than other "better" schools. For example, my school has a huge alcohol/drugs/gang-related incidents problem. Last year, in... December, some guy go shot up in a drive-by at a party, one bullet connected with his head and he died before the ambulance got there. Pressure in poorer schools does influence the academic development of students. So please don't talk about it being unfair that you're surrounded by smart people; this behavior is called griping, you should just work harder.</p>
<p>I heard somewhere Stanford is letting people who go to schools like mine with low incomes go free-ride...</p>
<p>Oh, and essays are important because they are the only human element presented by an applicant in this massive pile of statistics that they've received. I don't think the colleges want robots; they want people. Unless you're Berkeley. xD</p>
<p>Sir...decent chances. Just make sure when you apply that your essays reflect a non-academic interest and make them seem interesting. Emphasize your love for music for example.</p>
<p>your essay is one of the least important parts of your app to cal
i would say it goes
1. tests
2. gpa
3. course-load
4. anything else (probably won't get this far, maybe 5 % of people ever do; the other 95 get cut or accepted before this point)
i'm going by what i've seen in admission and regent's/chancellor's scholar trends, not by what cal says. this also holds true for UCLA, IMO</p>
<p>i agree with antagonis that you should just apply to a different school
cornell, harvey mudd, MIT, carnegie mellon all have fantastic engineering programs and will be much more receptive to an out-of-stater
at least apply to those also?
if you want to go to cal for something besides engineering, you have even more other options, which i would consider strongly before getting your heart set
that's not to say that you're absolutely not getting in, i just wouldn't call it a match, if you know what i mean</p>
<p>Well I stick by what Cal says. It's consistent with the decision they gave me, the decisions they've given my friends, and the trends that I've seen in the state as a whole. What I see and what you see are not indicators of Cal's admissions process anyway, sorry.</p>
<p>you're telling me that, of your friends, essays are what got you in? for some reason i highly doubt that.</p>
<p>oh wait</p>
<p>some reason: 60,000 people applied to UCLA this year
anybody want to do the math on how long it would take to read 60,000 long essays, the two short ones being thrown out completely?</p>
<p>yes, you might say 'well you don't have to read the essays of the 10 thousand some-odd students with below a 3.3 and sub 1800 SATs that apply'
except that you would have to, if you believed what cal said, since essays are more important than test scores</p>
<p>trust me on this one
cal does it by the digits
by. the. digits.</p>
<p>You seem to be an in-stater? I believe the out-of-state admissions game is different from in-state. My friend with very high numbers (like me) but a lower class ranking didn't make it but he applied to engineering wheras I applied undeclared. In general Berkeley seems to definitely do it by the numbers for out of state students.</p>
<p>Hey cool you're in Knowledge Bowl. I'm the president of the Knowledge Bowl club at my school. I've never heard of someone else on CC who actually competes.</p>
<p>taishaku are you stereotyping that schools with smarter people dont necessarily have alcohol/drug problems themselves? dont just assume that since the school i go to is smart, it means that its a perfect place. and please don't talk about my attitude. i have worked my ass off and i have a 4.13 gpa, which isnt good enough to get me ELC. now, by working my ass off and not getting the class rank credit is what im talking about as unfair. high pressure environments create lots of stress themselves. in my community i am pressured to succeed not only in school, but excel in sports. theres a lot of pressure here as well as where you are talking about.</p>
<p>i think a hugely important point is the engineering factor</p>
<p>if you want to have an extra-hard time applying to cal, apply engineering
which isn't to say you should lie, but if you're stuck between engineering and a humanities major, and you want to be a little more sure of admission, i would apply humanities (you'll up your chances for scholarships too)</p>
<p>pvodenski, I'll trust you when you work in the admissions office. Until then, continue putting your "trust me on this one" and your "by. the. numbers." with "This is what I think and here is why, even without any hard evidence showing that they don't read essays." UCLA also didn't have 60k, but about 50k apply, as far as I've read, and Cal has about 5k or 7k less, each year over the past few.</p>