<p>A hispanic student who got just 1250 in SAT I, 3.71 unweighted GPA, nothing outstanding in extracurricular activities but very good personal statement was accepted by UC Berkeley. The student also got four-year scholarship and does not need to pay for college.
We study hard every day and have much higher SAT and GPA; however, many of us cannot get in.</p>
<p>affirmative action? stop whining. It was probably very difficult for him/her to even maintain those grades. The student's situation is most likely totally different from yours, and he/she made that clear in the personal statement</p>
<p>I agree with georgeyang89. It heightens my argument that the admission process at Berkeley, and all UC's, do read your personal statements very carefully. If not, there is no way he/she could have gotten in. </p>
<p>Don't complain, you have no idea what this other student's situation is and don't have the right to infer that you deserve it more.</p>
<p>yea (agrees with smallz and george)</p>
<p>although i'm totally against affirmative action...this is maybe a case of just recognizing a student's obvious struggle</p>
<p>I thought California banned affirmative action awhile ago, but I guess not. Berkeley was the one UC I didn't get into when I applied in high school. What frusterated me, was that a girl who used to copy my BC Calc homework, got a lower SAT score than me, and told our calc teacher she had a death in the family so she could miss the final and ask people what was on it, got in over me simply because she said that she was Hispanic on her app...hooray for affirmative action :-/</p>
<p>Look, there are like 50 African Americans that go to Berkeley each year. Hispanics are similarly low. We have a bajillion Asians and Caucasians--affirmative action is mostly gone. You can never get rid of it completely, and whoopee, you found an example (maybe), that doesn't mean it's widespread or severe or anything.</p>
<p>Affirmative action is no longer in use in public schools in CA. It was ruled unconstitutional by the state supreme court in the case University of California v Bakke in the early '90s, I believe. Look it up, this person did not get in because of their race. The scholarship may be a different story.</p>
<p>ok i've met with a few admissions officers in the UC system (at the best uc lol hint hint) and let me tell you this: they may say affirmative action doesn't exist...</p>
<p>but i HIGHLY HIGHLY doubt they dont let their subconscious play a role...they want the poor, they those at a disadvantage...if they know your 'of color' then they kind of assume you've struggled. it def has to play a role. i am convinced it does lol</p>
<p>3.71 unweighted gpa. you call that low?</p>
<p>3.71 is pretty low, according to today's standards. Competitive would be 3.8 and above.</p>
<p>Actually, the student said his personal statement was good. Maybe, it was good but not amazing. Still, his weighted GPA is very low too. Even though his personal statement was good, how can it be equal to more than 500 points in SAT I?</p>
<p>You said his unweighted GPA was 3.71, but what was his weighted GPA? It could have possibly been very high like 4.25 because he took a lot of challenging courses or something. And no offense to anybody here, but in a way this kinda brings my hopes up of getting into a good UC because I'm also Hispanic and I have very similar stats like this student. Yet again, I'm well aware there's no affirmative action in California anymore. Oh and did you mean 1250 out of 1600, or 1250 out of 2400?</p>
<p>I don't know whether I have the right to show so much about his personal things here. i hope I have it. If I don't have it, I apologize. He does not take many AP and honor classes. Therefore, his weighted GPA cannot not be high. His SAT I score is 1250/2400.</p>
<p>Omg really? I mean no offense, but there really shouldn't be any excuse for getting such a low SAT score regardless of one's situation. Really no offense to that person, but damn. I guess he must've had damn good "special circumstances" to have those stats. Sorry, no offense.</p>
<p>WOOOOOOW </p>
<p>oh oh maybe hes disabled (i'm serious)</p>
<p>he has to have a learning disability or something</p>
<p>lol sfboy when i read what you said, i didn't know what the score was so i thought you were being a jerk..then i read the score and yea i agree </p>
<p>like you said, no offense</p>
<p>Oh **** I totally forgot he might have a learning disability, now I really guilty. But, at least he into Cal</p>
<p>yeah i know, thats good</p>
<p>Well, my Hispanic friend had a 3.5 GPA 1500 SATs, NO EC, failed adv. alg</p>
<p>GOT INTO CAL.</p>
<p>He wasn't mental, had no illnesses or learning disabilities... he drank, partied, did drugs; while a hell of a lot of Asian kids studied theira sses off, worked their asses off for 4 years to get rejected.</p>
<p>Talk about reverse racism... welcome to the new age of America.
And BTW, Asians were discrmiinated against JSUT AS MUCH AS Blacks and Hispanics. AA should apply to us as well, after all, it's trying to negate the negative affects of past racism right?</p>
<p>Blame the system...</p>
<p>UCs dont have affirmative action.</p>
<p>Stop whining, and notice that they do leverage the personal statement! There has been people from my school with around 3.5 getting in (actually lowest was some kid with 1050 SAT and 2.8...), and recognize they still recruit for athletics which is worse than affirmative action.</p>