Hey guys,
So I am very interested in Berkeley’s business program. However, their website states that they require 1 year or 2 semesters of the SAME fine/performing art. I have one semester of graphic design and one semester of jewelry 
Is this sufficient? I know a guy who guy accepted into Berkeley 2 years ago who did not have 1 year of an art (he didn’t even know about this limitation and went ahead and applied). What do you guys think?
I think if you are asking the question you know it is going to be questioned. Have people been accepted? Sure. Have people been excluded? Probably.
Why risk it. You have another semester to take another graphic design class.
Here is the UC Application center reply for another poster in regards to this issue:
The Visual and Performing Arts requirement states that a student must take a year long or two semester long courses in one of the four accepted disciplines of Music, Theatre, Dance or Visual Art. If the student opts to take two semester long courses they must fall within the same discipline. For example, a student can take a semester of Painting and a semester of Ceramics to fulfill the requirement. If they take a semester of Painting and a semester of Orchestra they will not fulfill the requirement as the courses do not fall into the same discipline.
If your school does not offer two semester long courses that fall into the same discipline there are alternate ways to fulfill the requirement. The website included below will detail the other ways to fulfill this requirement.
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/requirements/a-g-requirements/index.html
If you find that you are unable to fulfill the requirement with any of the above options you can explain the reason why in the additional comments section. Please be aware that failure to fulfill all requirement will have a negative impact on your application.
If you have any other questions please feel free to contact us again.
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I would like to note that as an applicant to any college, it is also your responsibility to make sure you meet the school requirements. You should not depend upon others including your counselor.
Another response from UCLA admissions:
While the University of California have a set pattern of academic courses that are required for admission, we understand that these subject requirements may be difficult for some applicants to meet due to differences in school curriculum.
All applications for admission are reviewed within the context of courses available to them; if a particular required subject is not available, we will consider the application without it. We would not deny an applicant due to any one single criteria, therefore if the applicant is otherwise a strong competitive applicant but they are missing the VPA course (1 semester or the entire year) we can still admit that student.
There is no single academic path that we expect all students to follow, but the strongest applicants take the most rigorous high school curriculum available to them.
Will you be rejected automatically, no. Will be you be less competitive without meeting the requirement possibly. Better safe than sorry so I would take another semester of the VPA requirement.
Unless I’m reading something incorrectly, according to @Gumbymom’s post you should be fine. The requirement is that you do two semesters in the same discipline, either music, theater, dance, or visual arts. Since graphic design and jewelry making fall under the same discipline (visual arts) you have fulfilled the requirement.
If both are Vsual Arts, so you’re good. Do check that Jewelry counts.
Jewelry counts.
https://hs-articulation.ucop.edu/agcourselist
Thanks for checking. Then @asianfu is all set.
Thank you so much guys! That’s a relief
@asianfu - where did you read about these requirements? Is it required for HAAS? I’m a freshman at Cal intending to apply to the Business program and I’ve never seen that Visual Art classes are prerequisites for applying
The “f” in the a-g sequence is having at least one year of Visual and Perdorming Arts.
https://www.ucop.edu/agguide/a-g-requirements/f-visual-performing-arts/index.html
@collegefind1234: The VPA requirement is for in-coming Freshman not for students already accepted and attending UCB.
@Gumbymom Thank you ? That’s great to know. Btw - I didn’t have a full year of VPA at HS and it didn’t preclude me from getting in to Cal
@collegefind1234, on a previous post from last year, you indicated that you had listed your A-G classes on your CAL Poly application, so you must have listed a class(es) on both your UC and CSU apps.
@“aunt bea” Yes, but I only had one semester of Art classes and not the whole year
Just as another reference @collegefind1234, @asianfu and @“aunt bea”
From UC Admissions:
All applications for admission are reviewed within the context of courses available to them; if a particular required subject is not available, we will consider the application without it. We would not deny an applicant due to any one single criteria, therefore if the applicant is otherwise a strong competitive applicant but they are missing the VPA course (1 semester or the entire year) we can still admit that student.
There is no single academic path that we expect all students to follow, but the strongest applicants take the most rigorous high school curriculum available to them.