Chances of a Junior with mediocre/poor ECs getting in to UC Berkeley?

UW GPA: 3.93, W: 4.13 (this is using the UC system, my actual weighted GPA is 4.21. I took as many AP courses as worked with my schedule (3) and sophomore-junior year I always took the hardest classes possible, be it AP or Honors)

ACT: 33 Composite, 11 Writing (trying to bump it up to a 35)

ECs:
-200+ hours of volunteer work at a food bank starting June 2019
-part of a peer mentoring program at my school for middle/elementary school students where I personally mentored 2 students over the course of the year until the pandemic stopped school
-helped organize a food drive with the aforementioned food bank at my school
-tutored a middle school student in math once a week
-awarded an NSLI-Y scholarship for the virtual program this summer (normal program cancelled due to coronavirus, but they provided an alternative and I still won it)
-participated in an online tutoring platform getting 250+ hours since January 2020
-Created and published a mobile app

Awards:
-Presidential Service Award
-NSLI-Y (is that an award? I don’t know)
-NHS (duh)
-AP Scholar

I am an international Indian junior currently living in the US. Your stats are pretty good for UCs. Not sure if you already knew, but the UC system currently disabled the standardized testing requirement for the class of 2025 applicants due to COVID-19. I am not telling you this so you can be lax and refrain from improving your ACT. Your ACT score is pretty competitive for UCB, but do know that if you weren’t able to improve your score and are worried about sending it, you will not be penalized if you do not send it(although it is worth a try). Normally, students admitted to such highly competitive schools have shown a significant commitment to their activities, done something which required an extreme level of dedication and time, and received accolades at the national or international level. However, this isn’t always the case. I see you to be someone with good potential and significant commitment (that’s a lot of service hours you have) after viewing the applicant profile that you provided. Now, I want you to think about how you can utilize your time during the quarantines which have prevented you from pursuing your interests to gather new interests or integrate your school activities into your daily schedule in a new way. You cannot go out and tutor students or serve at your food bank. But, is there something you can do at home to still indirectly perform these activities or contribute? I know this is very vague, but you need to creatively incorporate your interests into your daily life at home. Colleges know that the quarantines have prevented many students from pursuing their ECs, but I bet it will be very important for them to see students who are still managing to creatively pursue their activities outside of the school environment without the resources available to them.
I wish you the best of luck next year and please do go and provide feedback on a “Chance me” thread I recently posted! :slight_smile:

If I were you, I would start some kind of online program to help kids learn how to code during this time. This would definitely strengthen your application and give it a larger hook if you are applying as a comp sci major. Please chance me on my thread

I actually can continue the service at my food bank- they need my help since they are 1. an essential service and 2. most of their volunteers are, frankly, old, so they have to stay home.

My main goal right now is to continue with the tutoring platform as-is- I was recently promoted to a leadership position within it. While the tutoring platform is for any subject, I have only tutored students in either programming or math, something I will make sure to emphasize in my application.

I appreciate the advice. Honestly, I do not believe that I am qualified to do a Chance Me for you- your stats are better than mine (except for your ACT, dunno about your writing score since you didn’t post it but the UCs require it). All I can say is that you seem like a good applicant, but I’m a high school junior, so how can I say for sure?

UCB will look at your overall grades for 9-11th grade a-g course requirements along with your Unweighted UC GPA, Capped weighted UC GPA and Fully Weighted UC GPA.

If intended major is CS, are you applying for EECS or CS in the College of Letters and Sciences which can impact your chances?

Since UC’s are going test optional, GPA, EC’s and your personal insight essays are going to carry more weight.

Some UCB statistical data below and you do look like a competitive applicant, but UCB a Reach school regardless of your qualifications.

2019 Freshman admit rates for UC GPA of 3.80-4.19 capped weighted and not major specific:
UCB: 12%

2019 UC capped weighted GPA averages along with 25th-75th percentile range:
UCB: 4.23 (4.15-4.30)

25th - 75th percentiles for ACT composite + language arts
UCB: 28-35

Best of luck and form your college list from the bottom up so make sure you have a least 1-2 safety schools on your list.