How hard is UCB to get into?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
41

<p>Dude...look at what Berkeley gives out on their website....it's not as hard as Harvard...I'm sorry..you're wrong!!!!! </p>

<p>"They accept and deny smart people for a reason: because they know what it takes to be the best, and not everyone has it."</p>

<p>They accept people in-state with 1700s and 3.8s that have nothing going for them...sorry, but that's not the best of the best...they are a public school and they are not as hard to get into as the top Ivy League schools. That is a fact..and they reject perfect scores...big whoop!! stanford denied 65& of their people with 2400 and 4.0s...that's not that big of a deal..one test score doesn't determine whether you fit the school or not. </p>

<p>FACT: BERKELEY IS NOT HARDER TO GET INTO THE HARVARD OOS!</p>

42

<p>alright we can all sit around and interpret these stats a million ways, but all I know is that I'm an OOS student going to Cal and it cannot be compared with HYPSMblahwhatevertheacronymnis as far as admission goes. 'nough said.</p>

43

<p>whatever. "FACT: BERKELEY IS NOT HARDER TO GET INTO THAN HARVARD OOS!" I looked through the posts, and no one ever claimed it was harder, only comparable. But something tells me it's difficult when people getting into Stanford and Harvard are getting rejected from Berkeley OOS. And, FYI, Harvard accepts people with 1700s to add to their "diversity" all the time too, so don't act like it's only a Berkeley thing. I know because my cousin was one of them. I think the 36 top-ranked departments speak for themselves. If Berkeley does that with less brain power than HYPS, than it should A) make one question the true quality of students at those other schools B) speak volumes about Berkeley's professors C) prove that Berkeley's students aren't as stupid as you obviously think they are.
Also, you said for yourself that "one test score doesn't determine whether you fit the school or not. " I totally agree, but why put such a huge emphasis on Berkeley accepting people with 1700s if you believe this to be true? If they had nothing to offer, they would not have been accepted, guaranteed. Lasly, when did you get into Berkeley? I'm assuming you did, since you seem to know so much about how easy it is to get into.</p>

44

<p>"OOS at Berkeley is like a 20% acceptance rate....at Harvard it's like 9.....you really think that's similar..stop giving people false hope!"</p>

<p>Er, I would think that someone with 1,600+ posts on CC would know by now that acceptance rate != selectivity. Berkeley OOS is very self-selective. Why? Because people know that Berkeley OOS is very difficult, and they know that if they were to get in, it'd be very expensive (~42,000/year), and they won't get very much, if any, financial aid. So why apply?</p>

<p>On top of that, think of it like this: Berkeley's purpose is to serve the people of California. How big is California? Well over 35 million people. It has enough in-state students to accept, so it's difficult for them to want to accept out-of-state students. They still do, though. But they know their mission is to accept in-staters, so they definitely limit out-of-staters. By doing that, they end up rejecting people who are really, really awesome. Why? Because they don't have an unlimited number of beds! They have to serve California. They are the University of California, after all.</p>

<p>Of course, you don't commonly hear of someone getting into Harvard but not Berkeley OOS, but that is in part because there isn't too much overlap between the two (students aren't likely to be applying to both -- they're on opposite sides of the country). But believe me, Berkeley OOS is very much like top-20 privates, and is sometimes very much like Stanford. Usually, though, a person who gets into Stanford will get into Berkeley OOS. But many do get rejected.</p>

<p>"They accept people in-state with 1700s and 3.8s that have nothing going for them"</p>

<p>Wow, you actually think this happens often? No, it doesn't. A person with a 3.8 is considered to have a 'weak' GPA. And also, people with 'low' SAT scores often get in because of their essays (which are insanely important), or their extracurriculars and honors/awards.</p>

<p>Also, I think it's rather asinine and elitist to say that Berkeley is just another state school like Oregon State. (Yes, I saw your thread.)</p>

<p>"FACT: BERKELEY IS NOT HARDER TO GET INTO THE HARVARD OOS!"</p>

<p>You can't seem to accept others' ideas, can you? Or at least politely disagree and move on. Come on, Sheed30, for being a senior member, you should have a bit more maturity than that (especially resorting to all caps like that).</p>

<p>By the way, what the hell do you mean "Berkeley ... Harvard OOS"? Do you mean to say "Berkeley OOS ... Harvard"? (As an added note, nobody said it was harder. A person who gets into Harvard would, theoretically, get into Berkeley OOS -- but I wouldn't be surprised if he/she didn't.)</p>

45

<p>Alright, sorry about ranting on. Maybe it's just that people from Oregon get accepted to Berkeley all the time. 9 people from my school last year got accepted with 6 or 7 of them having lesser stats than i have and mine aren't that strong. I just don't thing you underst</p>

46

<p>I think a quick glance at the 2007 accepted thread will show how "easy" it is for kids to get in to Cal with a 3.8 gpa. Most of the kids I know had at least 4.2 (UC GPA) or higher-and those were in-state. I hope those of you who say kids can get in with a 3.8 gpa are right, it will bode well for my son. I hope all who want in, get in. If the person who posted how easy it is to get in knows what the 3.8 kids are doing to get accepted, please share. I'd love to know.</p>

47

<p>Regarding the person who said people with "1700s who have nothing going for them" frequently get into Berkeley, it's true. Just look on the Berkeley Facebook forum: out of the 2440 members who are incoming freshman, perhaps 100 or so have written about their poor GPAs/AP/SAT scores, some actually succumbing and <em>thanking</em> affirmative action for their acceptances.</p>

48

<p>^^ now compare that to the # of people who have better stats -- much larger percentage. And look at the ECs/essays for the people who have supposedly "low" stats.</p>

<p>bessie: some with about a 3.8 get in. The average unweighted GPA this past year was a 3.9, and 94% had a 3.75 or higher.</p>

<p><a href="http://cds.berkeley.edu/pdfs/PDF%20wBOOKMARKS%2006-07.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://cds.berkeley.edu/pdfs/PDF%20wBOOKMARKS%2006-07.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

49

<p>
[quote]
Just look on the Berkeley Facebook forum: out of the 2440 members who are incoming freshman, perhaps 100 or so have written about their poor GPAs/AP/SAT scores, some actually succumbing and <em>thanking</em> affirmative action for their acceptances.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I thought the UC schools dont practice AA?</p>

50

<p>they don't and i finally get the whole thingy....sorry about ranting on, KyleDavid explained it all to me, i wasn't looking at in the other point of view.</p>

51

<p>The people with 1700's from my school getting in is probably because our school is nonperforming and is in a bad neighborhood. However, I don't know why they should make that many exceptions even when their EC's are pretty much average, no honors, etc. So Berkeley isn't that hard if you go to an underpinning high school.</p>

52

<p>That isn't true. My school is not very competitive, but year after year several people who graduate very high in their class are admitted to UCLA but not Berkeley. I think some people on here won't understand how competitive it is until they get denied though. That's usually the great humbling tool.</p>

53

<p><a href="http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions/freshmen.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions/freshmen.asp&lt;/a>
Old numbers but give somewhat of an idea.
I am pretty sure that the weighted gpa is purely weighted. Not UC gpa.</p>

54

<p>^^ the UCs don't do "weighted" GPA; that's why it's called "UC GPA."</p>

<p>And those stats are old; see the new CDS (the average UW GPA is now a 3.9).</p>

55

<p>You guys also have to take into account the whole ELC program the UC's have. With that program, a lot of people from my school were able to get accepted with a <1800 SAT's just because they qualified for the ELC program at my school. ELC stands for eligibility in the local context which gives preference to students that succeed within their local area and do not necessarily have the stats that are typical of the whole state. Personally, I think ELC is affirmative action under another name.</p>

56

<p>Kids from my school qualify for ELC and weren't admitted. It depends on more than just that qualification. They may have had extrenuating family circumstances, etc. Good essays do the magic a lot of times.</p>

57

<p>In response to loslobos:</p>

<p>UCs don't practice AA, they instead focus on financial situation, AA's alternative. Berkeley's chancellor said it himself, Berkeley accepts more impoverished students than any other university in the world, by wide marks. This in turn, frankly, brings in high numbers of academically poor students; and despite evidence to the contrary, the former is far, far more likely to occur.</p>

58

<p>"You guys also have to take into account the whole ELC program the UC's have."</p>

<p>The ELC admit rate at Berkeley was 58% this past year, so not even that makes admission so easy.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/selecting/camp_profiles/camp_profiles_ucb.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/selecting/camp_profiles/camp_profiles_ucb.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>"UCs don't practice AA, they instead focus on financial situation, AA's alternative."</p>

<p>No, they don't focus on financial situation, though that's a consideration. They focus on adversity, which goes along with the holistic process of evaluating students in context and seeing how much adversity they've had to overcome. This has a bit to do with financial situation, but there are many other factors.</p>

<p>"This in turn, frankly, brings in high numbers of academically poor students"</p>

<p>What? Do show me how there are "high numbers" of academically poor students. It's saddening that people see a few examples and then judge an entire group based on that. Believe me, those "academically poor" students are very few in number, especially in comparison to the total number of undergrads (~23k). You can rest assured that almost every single one of them had a high GPA, a rigorous courseload, and top 10% status, even if they didn't have a stellar SAT score.</p>

59

<p>Actually, it's the opposite. Socioeconomic status is of primary focus in place of AA, while adversity branches from that foundation. Look at any article about UC admissions, and socioeconomic conditions are primarily discussed in contrast to AA--now called "socioeconomic affirmative action". This is especially true when it comes to Berkeley.</p>

<p>By academically poor, I'm not referring to poor students' high school statistics, which regardless of how high, mean little considering the academic worth of poorer schools. Face it, these schools make it easier to score high marks, and the disparity is shown once a typical poor student's record is contrasted with his or her SAT/ACT scores. And the few poor CC students who can claim to the contrary are the exception, not the rule.</p>

60

<p>This is what I know:
the average accepted SAT1 for Cal this year is 2007 ( it was on some newspaper)
The average accepted UC GPA is 4.17 (also on the same newspaper, i don't know where the other person get the 4.3 from)
With a 2200+ and 4.3+ and decent essays and no cheating/suspension etc, you are basically guarantee in for in-state even if you are applying to Engineering(according to counselor and basically every single seniors i talked to). I know a couple people with less than 2000 and not great GPAs get into EECS, this year a guy with 1900s 2 Cs got in.
OOS I have no clue though.</p>

<p>For in-state, Cal plays some favorites with Bay Area high schools. Maybe because they are close.</p>