I go to a community college and am gunning for Berkeley as a transfer student majoring in economics (Fall 2015). Everything was going pretty well until I took a crap econ professor during Winter 2015 for my microecon requirement and got a B in it.
Before then, I had a 4.0 (this was my GPA when I turned in my app, now have a 3.95), a ton of extracurriculars, ton of awards garnered during and before college, URM, unique background even for a URM, and so on. I’m not going to go into too much detail, but let’s just assume for the sake of discussion I am, in all other respects, the model student.
Now, I know the B is just one stain on my app, but it’s a B for one of only two of my major prerequisites, so it’s a pretty big stain. I got word from UCI that I got conditionally accepted. One of the conditions I have to meet, however, is a B in microecon, which got me thinking: I’m fairly confident that I’ll get into Berkeley with my stats as of when I turned in the app (Fall 2014), but what if their conditional contract asks for an A?
First, how likely do you guys think this is to happen?
Second, if it does, do you think an effort to repeal will be successful?
Whatever info you guys have on this will help. Thanks guys.
Well first off, they haven’t even seen the grade, right? You didn’t have it end of January when you updated TAU? If you get in, they will not care after the fact and will not kick you out because you got a B. Even if they see it beforehand, they won’t care. 100% don’t worry about it.
No conditional will ask for an A.
Lindyk8, I appreciate your reply.
No, they haven’t seen the grade, and they won’t see it until they review my final grades for Winter-Spring 2015, which I’m sure they will. I got the grade late February at the end of my winter intercession, long after I updated TAU.
I figured a rescission after the fact was somewhat unlikely. You really think they wouldn’t care even if they saw it beforehand, though? What makes you think so? I thought Berkeley econ was supposed to be considerably more competitive than most majors at most other UCs.
By the way, I’m pretty new to CC, and you seem like you’re pretty experienced. Any tips on getting the most out of it?
@taedomarx Just leave as is. You didn’t get the grade until way after TAU so they would just expect to see your grades when you send in your official transcripts. They aren’t going to care, or go to all that trouble to kick out a 4.0 because of one B, even in econ.
People were getting Cs right and left last year after admittance, even in major requisites, and no one got kicked out. I mean no one. Even in some tough majors.
The best way to get the most out of this site is just engage and come on. You will learn a lot after acceptance about ways to navigate around the campus, etc.
If you are planning on going on to PhD study in economics, consider taking additional math beyond the minimum requirement for transfer admission. I.e. take multivariable calculus (Math 53 at Berkeley, see http://www.assist.org for equivalent course at your CC) and/or linear algebra and differential equations (Math 54 at Berkeley). Multivariable calculus is a prerequisite to Berkeley Economics 101A (the more math-intensive option of the intermediate microeconomics courses).
Incoming transfer students to Berkeley should read this: https://www.econ.berkeley.edu/undergrad/prospective/transfer-students
You’ll be fine, it’s only a B and it really won’t hurt your chances that much. Plus it’s a holistic process and grades are only a part of it. I applied last year as a psychology major, and I had As in all of my classes except for calculus, which I got a C in (first semester at CC, didn’t look at ratemyprofessor and ended up with a horrible teacher). While calculus isn’t one of the requirements for psych, it’s still pretty bad getting a C and it significantly dropped my GPA. But I was accepted to all 6 UCs that I applied to, and I am attending Berkeley right now. So don’t let one B worry you too much, chances are if you were going to get in with an A in microecon, you will probably still get in with a B.
That’s a nice story @yukaris! 