<p>Hi!
Last year, a significant number of graduating students (to my anyways) from my year got into Berkeley, many on a full ride scholarship.
Many of these students, however, only took a moderate amount of AP courses and didn't have the highest GPAs, moderate extracurriculars, and moderate to high SAT scores (I've heard of a 1550 and a 1950 (out of 2100), and 560 satII maths getting accepted.
Now, a bunch of us considered Berkeley a reach school with die-hard admissions, so these numbers came as a shock to us.
HOWEVER
We are one of the closest high schools to the UCB campus, and a concelor mentioned that LOCATION plays a factor as they want to accept students who are from the area. I've never heard of anything like it!
Is that true?
Will living close to the campus provide any sort of advantage in the admissions process?</p>
<p>I don't think so. Berkeley considers geography, but I don't think that applies on a local level. I'm no adcom, so this is all speculation. Then again, so is what your counselor says.</p>
<p>Location wont matter much at all. And those cases are very rare. If they have say a 1550 sat score then theyve probably got fantastic E.C.s and GPA and Essay and....</p>
<p>Where are you exactly? Berkeley does like to accept underprivileged students with perhaps lower stats. A lot of areas around Berkeley, such as Oakland or Richmond, have a lot of kids who aren't that well off but have worked hard to overcome their circumstances.</p>
<p>Yeah, Berkeley likes to take in those who have overcome socio-economic disadvantages. If you are close to Berkeley, then its likely that those with low SAT scores / No ECs / Whatever come from a disadvantaged background.</p>
<p>I've heard that Cal does take location into consideration -- certainly if you live in the area and have good reason why you need to stay in the area (medical, for example, or financial) it might come into play. They used to have an honors program for local high school students who, if admitted, would take a class or two in their senior year and then be admitted automatically -- they eliminated it a few years ago as "elitist."</p>
<p>I think this is true because last year 7 students at my school got accepted into Berkeley but were rejected at UCLA...</p>