<p>Hello everyone, when I got into UC Berkeley one of my first reactions was being worried about the level of competition there. I hear a lot about cases of sabotage and how many people will not share their notes. I am just wondering if I will be able to do well at Cal. My high school GPA is 4.4 W, 4.0 UW, 4.24 UC but the courseload was not that difficult compared to many others who were accepted in my school (3 non-UC approved honors classes in 10th grade, 1 UC-approved honors class and 2 APs in 11th, 4 APs in 12th). SAT I was 2160 (640/750/770), SAT II Math 800, SAT II Physics 780. I know these numbers are not bad, but I am not in the top 10% of my class (somewhere from top 12.5-15% in a class of 350 students), so I'm afraid that Berkeley will be like putting the top 30 students and me in the same class and the bell curve will make sure that some of us fail or get D's. Thank you to everyone who is willing to help me out.</p>
<p>Not true. I’m was not top 10% of my school, but I probably top 20% of Cal (in terms of GPA) right now 
<< but it’s not fair to compare across majors</p>
<p>But I’m just saying, if you go into a chill major, you’ll probably have a great time. If you’re not, you’ll probably struggle a bit and face a little competition. People are not mean on the surface, they will share you their notes if you ask. But they will probably avoid you for the next semester or so.</p>
<p>what is your major?</p>
<p>my major is environmental science</p>
<p>For every 2400 SAT brilliant student (and you will meet them) there are also students who were near the top of their underperforming high school but would be in the bottom quarter of competitive schools elsewhere. There are students who showed tremendous ability to work hard and overcome challenges and disadvantages, and will have to work equally hard to keep up at all (and most do). </p>
<p>Likely anyone here on CC is going to be comfortably in the middle or in the top half of any class they take. It is up to you how you do and that doesn’t mean no social life and 24 hour studying. Even with serious demands, some of our athletes do quite well - Alex Mack was top college student athlete in the US last year, graduated from Cal with a 3.61 [Alex</a> Mack Wins Draddy Trophy as Football’s Top Scholar-Athlete - CAL OFFICIAL ATHLETIC SITE](<a href=“http://www.calbears.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/120908aaa.html]Alex”>http://www.calbears.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/120908aaa.html)</p>
<p>The rate of students dropping out is not noticeably higher than other UCs - nobody is ordained to fail or they wouldn’t be accepted in the first place.</p>
<p>I was like you too when I was an incoming freshman with the whole worrying about people trying to sabotage you. Relax. People are generally not going to sabotage you and most people are actually willing to help you. I’m in engineering though so it might be a different case in other majors but I’m pretty sure most people are nice. </p>
<p>Also, high school stats isn’t a good indicator of how well you’ll do in college. I was #1 in my hs, top 25% SAT score for those admitted to BioE (one of the hardest majors to get into) and right now, I’m pretty sure I’m not even in the top 50% of engineering students. 
There’s someone out there who probably had worse stats than me coming into Cal, but is doing better than me. So I wouldn’t worry too much about how well you think you’re going to do at Cal based on hs stats.</p>