<p>When applying as an undergrad, you don't apply to Haas right away. When do you actually apply for the Haas school? I have heard junior year in college, but I am unsure if this is true. Also, how hard is it to get in? What do they judge you on? Is it also test scores, GPA, and ECs? It seems risky that there is a chance you could be admitted to Berkeley, but not make it to Haas. Is it very difficult to get in (if you declared your intention to apply when applying for Berkeley as a freshman)?</p>
<p>the applications are currently out, check it out and see for yourself, that’s what i did my freshman year and planned accordingly (I’m a sophomore now [class '13] and my application is due by the end of November 2010 for admission to the fall '11 batch)</p>
<p>tl;dr 50% gpa (heavily weighted on prereqs, not so much the breadth–so the admissions people have told me…)
15% Resume (ECs/Work/CommServ/Awards&Honors)
35% essays (2 500 word essays, prompts to be determined)</p>
<p>It’s pretty easy, I’d say. Get around a 3.7 GPA, write what they hint at you to write in the essay, and do some ECs and you’re cool. I’d say 95% of my friends who I considered qualified got in and around 40% of people I thought weren’t very qualified got in… :S</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses. StarryNights–that is a good anecdote to know. I just wanted to find out if getting into Haas you had to have some 40 dollar an hour job and maintain a perfect GPA, etc. etc.</p>
<p>You don’t have to be perfect, just active. Get a 3.6-3.7, do ECs (1-2 at school, 1-2 internship/PT job), and use those ECs to help build your case in the essays. The people who don’t get into Haas are those who didn’t really care in the first place or those who weren’t active and just went to classes with small involvement in ECs.</p>
<p>By stay focused, is that like doing EVERYTHING that there is? Should someone look to get a job during school or look to be placed in a business related job already? </p>
<p>Also, is it harder to get into Haas if you didn’t choose the Undeclared-prebusiness thing?</p>
<p>answers in order of respective question marks:</p>
<p>no.</p>
<p>i guess, i mean, you’re interested in business aren’t you? why would you look for a job in something <em>not</em> business? but i mean i guess any experience is good experience if you can spin it that way…</p>
<p>no.</p>
<p>the best advice i got for haas admissions was “prove you have a goal in life and how you’re working toward it” so not necessarily being president of every club under the sun or having a million odd jobs under your belt. it’s about how your key activities revolve around your goal. is your goal to be an financial adviser? try to get experience working with people, interacting with people to help help/convince them of something, maybe join a finance club. then on the essays cry about this life goal and how much you love ur goal and how haas will just be another step to make your dreams come true and that you’ll pay em back handsomely when the time comes. IDK, im not a frickin guru on this *****. :l</p>
<p>Yeah, I thought it was super hard to get into Haas at first too but somehow I feel like I know more people that got into Haas than rejected this year. I’d say that if you have a good gpa (3.7+) and some extracurriculars then you have a really good chance. It’s just weird that sometimes they reject people who seemed qualified. But generally people with good GPA and ECs will get in.</p>
<p>I see. Yeah, how good are the “business clubs” at Cal? Of course, if I am interested in business, then I would look for a related job, but it isn’t so easy to find one, is it?</p>
<p>I’m just hypothesizing. I’m not completely sure of what I might do, but this might be one way to go. </p>
<p>About the major you check off when applying, is it fine to just go undeclared? There was apparently a major where you declare your intention to apply to Haas. Does that affect chances?</p>
<p>I didn’t join any of the business clubs (was quite worried about it actually). But I did have a high GPA and a summer internship at Merrill Lynch. A friend of mine also got in without being a member of any business clubs. Instead, she was really passionate about dancing and wrote about it in her essays.</p>
<p>There are a variety of experiences I think that can still make anyone a competitive applicant.</p>
<p>I wasn’t in any business clubs either (wasn’t really interested). Though I was productive with my summer by getting licenses and a job in insurance in LA. Meeting a lot of people in that industry was the closest i’ve ever come to being in a business club to be honest, lol.</p>
<p>@ iloveny, hook it up with tips or something for the merrill lynch (secretly read: BofA) summer internship!!! that sounds like you’d meet a lot of interesting people :P</p>
<p>So you guys seem to say that getting into Haas is pretty “easy”? Other’s say it is quite difficult. </p>
<p>Also, some people say that once you are in, it is easier. But, I saw on other threads that
Haas has a policy of 5% As, 10% A-, and the rest Bs and Cs. That seems worse than EECS, which supposedly has the worst curves.</p>
<p>Don’t listen to that… a few years ago they changed it so that they’re “supposed” to have that policy. But 99% of professors don’t care about that, they’re big shots and they basically get to do what the want (berkeley won’t fire them), which is grade the same way that they’ve always been grading</p>
<p>In business, GPA is especially important to getting jobs, as we have to compete with HYPSM kids… Haas does have a reputation of grade inflation within Berkeley (only after you get in, not the prerequisites), so I think that policy was only to make it seem fair.</p>
<p>Also, you never hear actual Haas students complain about the grading at all, so I imagine it’s really not a problem</p>
<p>I’m not sure where Handlebars get his or her source from or whether if he or she is an actual Haas student…but I’ll tell you how I feel plus my peers that are in the program. </p>
<p>Getting in is relative to a person’s ability so it’s difficult to quantify how hard or easy… as long as you are within the median gpa (look it up on the website) and did well on the prereqs you should be fine. of course, the essay and ecs are very important too. I say you have a ~25% chance of getting in, if you include the people that end up not applying for whatever reason. </p>
<p>personally, for me, I feel that the prereqs are WAYYY easier than most of the business core, now that I have taken a few courses. </p>
<p>Some Haas profs. don’t follow the new curve but most of not all have changed their grading system so that it bears some semblance to the haas curve that you mentioned. </p>
<p>A primary reason for the new curve was to differentiated students in haas who applies to the same jobs etc when recruiting season comes…</p>
<p>So, in all, I would say getting in would probably be easier than actually doing well in the program since it’s so competitive. </p>
<p>and for the grade inflation rumor, it’s true in the past (80s-90s) (to some extent) but I say it definitely doesn’t exist now</p>
<p>We don’t complain about the grading because we’re not whiners lol</p>
<p>It seems like it would put Haas kids at a disadvantage compared to people from other schools. So, if I was interested in eventually getting into a grad school, should I try to avoid Haas? Do the vast majority of people who leave Haas leave with 2.5-3.0 GPAs with limited hope of a grad school?</p>
<p>No, getting As are definitely harder but getting B’s isn’t too bad. A lot of people that I know tend to take GPA booster classes (outside of Haas) and have a very methodical way of protecting their GPA but I try to avoid this. </p>
<p>But, I think the question lies in what you want to do, especially since business is a wide field. Don’t do it for prestige either; make sure it’s something you want to do as cliche as it may sound.</p>