Chances... UC Berkeley

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I live in Texas, and my dream school is UC Berkeley, and i don't think its that out of reach. I want to major in business, so I'll definently be applying to the business school there (I think ranked 3rd behind UPenn and Harvard). I go to one of the top 100 schools in the USA (ranked 40 +- 5, changes each year) and our school is an IB academy, so it's definently a magnet school. At our school, people ranked around 25% are in top 10% in other schools in the same district.</p>

<p>Resume:</p>

<p>White Male
GPA: our school doesn't rank or calculate weighed GPA
General Grades: A's in all classes except English (mid-high B)
Class Rank is roughly around top 9%
SAT: 2140 (780 Math, 700 Writing, 660 Reading)
SAT Retake: 2250 (Honest Projection) (800 Math, 750 Writing, 700 Reading)</p>

<p>SAT II:Taking them in June. Honest score projects:
Chem: 800
US History: 800
Math Level 2: 800</p>

<p>APs:
Sophomore:
World History: 5
Computer Science A: 5</p>

<p>Junior: (Honest Projections)
Computer Science AB: 5
US Government: 5
Calculus BC: 5
Spanish Language: 4
Chemistry: 5
US History: 5
English Language: 4</p>

<p>Senior:APs don't matter because we'll be accepted by the time we take them</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
Model United Nations: (Freshmen - Senior) Won several awards for the club. President of the club junior year. some lower office senior year.
Student Council (Sophomore - Senior). guaranteed to be a committee chair senior year.
National Honor Society (Senior only)
National Spanish Honor Society (Junior and Senior)
Mu Alpha Theta (Junior and Senior)
Interfaith (Junior and Senior)
DECA (Senior Only)
Freshmen Football (Freshmen only)
JV Cross Country (Sophomore and Senior)
JV Track (Sophomore and Senior)</p>

<p>Classes taken at community college over the summer (all of them 4.0):
Accounting, Psychology, Macro Economics, Speech</p>

<p>Went on Study Abroad Program to Spain for 2.5 weeks last summer. took Spanish classes there and was surrounded by the language obviously.</p>

<p>Got accepted to Welch Summer Scholar Program (40 people in state of Texas in chemistry department). get to work with post doctorate students and work with EXPENSIVE research equipment. write a roughly 25 page research paper at the end covering what I will have learned.</p>

<p>Work Experience: worked as a computer programmer and assistant to my dad (on official payroll). got to learn basics of running a business and how to work with a huge program (roughly 2 million lines of code). If you can't tell, my dad has his own software company.</p>

<p>So do you guys think I have a chance considering that I'm out of state?</p>

2

<p>Berkeley (OOS): match</p>

<p>(Remember to spell "definitely" definitely. =] )</p>

3

<p>even without your "honest projections" for the SAT I, i would say match. :)</p>

4

<p>You look pretty qualified...there's just some discrepancies.</p>

<p>I noticed that you listed lots of extra curricular activities, but as a member, how important were you? Were you just a regular member or were you a team captain?</p>

<p>Your sports (Football, track, cross country)- did you receive lots of awards, did you attend the games/meets? Also, Berkeley tends to focus on persistence- they like kids that follow through on their activities for all four years.</p>

<p>Your clubs- of what importance are they? For example, what did you do as a member of NHS? What awards did you receive for MUN- best delegate? Gavel? Same concept about 4-years</p>

<p>How do your grades/AP/SATs compare with the other kids in your school? Are you better? Or are you just like everyone else?</p>

<p>You have a WAY lot of APs and extracurriculars- a lot more than I've ever seen. Berkeley's going to see that you have all these activities, sports, clubs, AP's, and they're going to wonder how you managed everything. If they think it's fishy that you're able to handle all of this, they'll call your school and ask the advisers to verify that you're in all those clubs.</p>

<p>You seem really qualified, but don't get your hopes to high. Lots of kids at my school got accepted with a forth of what you're doing and really impressive essay.</p>

5

<p>Yep, you are definitely in..this is a match for you.</p>

6

<p>Berkeley = 70%</p>

7

<p>^^ 70% would be close to a safety. OOSers for Berkeley don't have such a luxury (indeed, nobody in Cali really has that either).</p>

8

<p>as far as my involvement goes in all those clubs, I'm not captain or anything unless i specified. But, at my school, to be an official member of Student Council requires 50 service hours per year, 20 for NHS, 8 for NSHS, and 12 more for mu alpha theta. so i do lots of community service for all those clubs, and i should be doing some more, especially this coming summer. i just kinda figured that was implied when i mentioned honor societies. i don't really care if they call my school to see that i was involved, cuz it'll be confirmed. i guess its kinda gay if they look for persicenty cuz i had to drop cross country and track junior year because of my schedule. as you can see from my AP's, i don't exactly have time to run 2 hours each morning and 2 hours each afternoon. the awards for MUN have been outstanding delegate twice, and i should get to be a char at tihs coming year's upcoming Central Texas MUN. and for all the teams i've been on, i did go to the vast majority of games and meets. i never really placed because im not a super fast runner, but i just do the sports cuz i think love running. o yea, i forgot to mention, i helped start up rubiks cube club at my school (yes, i can solve a rubiks cube. i average around 35 seconds per solve. best time is 25. world record is 10.48 if you're curious)</p>

9

<p>Just make sure you show persistence. It's very important because it shows that your dedicated, regardless of your circumstance. </p>

<p>And if/when they call to confirm, they'll ask if you were a member and what did you do to make a significant contribution. If the adviser says you're just another member-uh oh. </p>

<p>Make sure your activities mean something and aren't just fillers. Activities don't mean anything if they don't accomplish anything.</p>

<p>UC's call about 15% of the applicants they pick out.</p>

<p>Other than that, you seem pretty qualified.</p>

10

<p>Why would you pay out-of-state tuition for Berkeley? Classes there are huge! Housing is a big problem. Go to Stanford if you want California. And for Computer Science, MIT and Carnegie-Mellon are both better than Berkeley, IMO. My husband went to Rice and to Berkeley for EE. He said there's no comparison. Rice was so much better.</p>

11

<p>"Why would you pay out-of-state tuition for Berkeley?"</p>

<p>My guess would be because it's a good school, worth the OOS tuition to the OP.</p>

<p>"Classes there are huge!"</p>

<p>Some of the lower division courses have more students, but the class sizes at Berkeley are largely overblown. While Berkeley has more students than most privates, it has more professors and grad student instructors, who lower the class sizes. 60% classes at Berkeley have fewer than 20 students; only 15% have over 50. These ratios are very similar to MIT (67% under 20; 11% over 50) and other top privates.</p>

<p>"Housing is a big problem."</p>

<p>In what way? Dorm housing is guaranteed for two years (and people generally get dorm housing if they want it); and there are plenty of other housing options (apartments, co-ops, etc.).</p>

<p>"And for Computer Science, MIT and Carnegie-Mellon are both better than Berkeley, IMO."</p>

<p>You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who agrees with you on this one. Berkeley, Stanford, CMU, and MIT are all neck-and-neck in CS. Berkeley's extremely distinguished in the area:</p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Berkeley#Contributions_to_computer_science%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Berkeley#Contributions_to_computer_science&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

12

<p>ARE YOU SERIOUS? HELL YA... try out for ivy league though...</p>

13

<p>UCB is definitely a match.</p>