<p>I was rejected from UC Berkeley EECS with a 4.4 cumulative GPA and a 2380 on my SAT. Did varsity basketball, instrumental music, and speech and debate. No disciplinary issues.</p>
<p>Let this be some indication for all you future college applicants on how you should really spend your high school years. </p>
<p>But did you have fun?</p>
<p>I was rejected by UCB, UCLA, UCSD, and Cal Poly SLO. I was waitlisted by UCD and UCI. My fully weighted GPA is 4.29. My SAT score is 2300.</p>
<p>And not getting into Berkeley (or Harvard or Stanford or…) isn’t the end of the world. And many times what Fate hands you is better than what you had in mind in the first place.</p>
<p>Good thing there is community college? Why don’t you stop feeling sorry for yourself and step up to the plate and MAKE IT HAPPEN. They probably picked up your underlying attitude about academics and life in your personal statements. If what you said is true, your personal statements are the reason you didn’t get in @skysenberg. </p>
<p>Honestly, so many talented people apply that it becomes a crapshoot. It could have been your personal statement that did you in (probably), or maybe you didn’t have very much leadership or officer positions like a president role. Every person I met at Berkeley has either been a president or captain of some extracurricular activity. Yeah, some of them had pretty low SATs (below 2000), but they had leadership and etc. </p>
<p>I knew a couple who did not get into Berkeley, but they wrote a letter and UC Berkeley accepted them. If you get rejected, and you really wanted to go to Berkeley, you should at least try to write a letter to see if they will accept you. You will never know. If you say no without trying it, then you’d never know. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to write it. </p>
<p>And not getting into Berkeley is not the end of the world. If you didn’t get in, then move on. Once you go to college, your high school grades don’t matter. Once you graduate from college and get a job, whatever school you went to doesn’t matter. It’s a clean slate. And you could always do a lot better at another college, and then apply to go to grad school at Berkeley…</p>
<p>Buddy, I don’t mean to be blunt, but quite frankly, there will ALWAYS be people with BIGGER BETTER numbers than yours. You can’t be accepted to Berkeley based on numbers. In this world, PHD’s work at Starbucks, and some college dropouts are billionaires. One day, it will have to dawn on you that, your ability to change the world is what places like Berkeley are looking for, not numbers.</p>
<p>You know, just because the desired outcome wasn’t achieved after hard work doesn’t mean your previous 4 years in high school was a waste. I’m in another engineering department and just graduated going through both undergrad and Master’s program in Berkeley. I cannot recall how many times I had to experience when I would put so much effort into an exam and still do a mediocre job including during my last semester in Berkeley even as a grad student. </p>
<p>I had no problem getting at least B+'s which is considered not too bad by Berkeley standards, but I was getting quite anxious when my peers around me were getting internship/job offers and I was getting nothing for a very long time.
I was pretty much forced to take summer school for 3 summers including between my undergrad and grad because no one wanted to hire me. I went through several mock interviews and attended seminars on professional networking and did everything I could’ve done, but no luck. I could be saying the same thing as you that this is some indication for all you current college applicants on how you should really spend your college years. Even though I love Berkeley dearly, there were times that I imagined I could’ve attended another school and get better grades for the same effort and perhaps my job prospect would’ve been better.</p>
<p>Fast forward to present and I ended up getting only one and my most wanted job offer after being patient with myself for almost 5 years. (mostly calming my parents down who thought my life is a failure) Even though it wasn’t roses and nice things, I would repeat everything I had to go through just so I can be around the school for more, which I am missing already.
Perseverance pays off, really. Don’t think it’s over. You have what you have.</p>
<p>Elite college admissions is a crapshot, another reason that kids apply to so many colleges. Who knows what the real reason was for a rejection? An error? An assumption that with scores like this you would not go to UCB and would pick Stanford or CalTech (or didn’t show enough interest to convince them UCB was choice #1) so from UCB’s perspective it would help their college rankings if they rejected kids like this whose scores are so high they would not go there anyway? Who knows? And it is totally irrelevant. With a 2380 SAT and stellar grades - you have a (nearly guaranteed) exciting future if you continue working. There was a professor I met who got rejected by one of his safety schools and went to MIT - he got his revenge after he got his PhD by going back to his safety school as a professor.</p>
<p>@Mangiafuoco Presumably with stats like that - once you got away from the crazy CA public colleges you got some good offers right … </p>
<p>@2018RiceParent
Unfortunately for me, I applied mostly to public colleges.</p>
<p>You know the college admissions process is weird and in some ways… a crapshoot.</p>
<p>On Berkeley’s FB page for newly admitted students, I saw a post by a few students who were proud of themselves for keeping a 3.0 GPA. Yes, they just barely managed to meet the requirement of a 3.0, let alone aiming for a 4.0. </p>
<p>So in some ways, I feel sorry for those who are just awesome on paper, but for some inexplicable reason get rejected. But don’t despair, just remember that God has other plans for you. :)</p>
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<p>Good sentiment. And would be silly to despair over (in retrospect
suboptimal) college choices or bad luck in admissions. Many
happily transfer in to other colleges after getting a few prereqs out
of the way at “suboptimal University” (or wherever they actually got in).
For those who can’t transfer to where they want or graduate
from “suboptimal U” which they hate (a sibling did this) -
you can always have a great experience
at some graduate school to look forward to (especially if in
the sciences or engineering where many are cheap/free).</p>
<p>I definitely feel for you skysenberg since you worked so hard,but the truth is that God had other plans for you,but applicants for 2015, do NOT be discouraged 
Because admissions are just like this. Admission officers look for some kind of trait in each student and honestly, admissions are definitely holistic Some of you might have great test scores who might now fear applying to Cal because if this experience shared,but still do apply since sometimes destiny does exist and for those who fear that their test scores are to low to apply to UC Berkeley, also, apply because admissions is definitely becoming holistic at most schools :)</p>