<p>I am a freshman applicant and Berkeley is my top choice university.</p>
<p>I am an indian who comes from a fairly mediocre high school but have done a lot of extra-curriculars and other things to gain an awesome resume and transcript. I really just want to be around smart people in college for a change. I have read some posts about Berkeley not really having the best students, but I have read other posts that they do. Since this is my top choice, I want to ask how current Berkeley students feel about the people and the Berkeley environment. Does the amount of stuck-up kids reduce, and intelligent people go up a lot? Any insights would be really helpful.</p>
<p>To be honest, there’s a good amount of dumb kids, a large majority of mediocre kids, and a solid small minority of smart kids that can compete with any college student in the world.</p>
<p>You will no doubt find lots of smart kids, but these smart kids tend to be the most arrogant. Actually, in my opinion, the majority of students act arrogant compared to other schools I’ve been to, but I think it has to do with being a CAL STUDENT.</p>
<p>I think the way you view the kids at Cal also depends on the high school you go to. I went to a pretty competitive high school, but not quite on the level of Saratoga/Mission/Lynbrook, and I can say that Cal kids remind me of the top 30-50% of the people found in AP classes at my high school.</p>
<p>It’s just a mixed bag. A lot of people are in their own heads and will talk to you about nothing but organic chemistry because that’s all they know and they want to feel good about themselves. Other people you’ll wonder about how they ever even got into a competitive school (or even college in the first place).</p>
<p>IMO, if you go to Cal, you will quickly realize that being an amazing student becomes less and less how well you do in your classes. However, if you want to be surrounded by geniuses, you will be.</p>
<p>Yeah, my high school was pretty competitive. I’m sure anyone in the top third or so had a solid chance of getting in Berkeley so I wasn’t too particularly impressed.</p>
<p>I’ve found that kids at Cal vary more than I’d expected, but it’s actually a good thing. The people I’d initially describe as “dumb” were really smart kids that just weren’t intelligent in the obvious ways. Alternatively, and I think you’ll find this throughout life, there were a few people that were pretty obviously hard working and great students but that lived their lives the way that the actually dumb kids back in high school did. So you are not going to walk into a place full of whole-wheat, gung-ho, 100% gonna-change-the-world positive attitude types that seemed more abundant at smaller schools like my Sister’s (stanford). Some kids do come accross as very stuck-up, into their “hipster/intellectual” selves, and I always find myself stepping back and thinking, hey, they got into Berkeley somehow. Your perception of a “good” student will definitely change, and that is why berkeley isn’t really a university, it’s more like a city where most of the residents happen to attend school. I’m trying to say that there really is no cohesion to the Cal student body, and you would be hard pressed to define a typical cal student. The supernerds, superhippies, and punks certainly exist, but each person has a way of defying your idea of a college kid and it’s great.</p>
<p>I think it’s like everywhere else. There are smart people, mediocre ppl, and ppl you wonder how they got into Cal. But on the most part, many are hard working students, and you will see many people smarter than you. Also, you really can’t tell who’s smart and who’s not.</p>
<p>100% agree with this. Honestly, I wasn’t that impressed by the intelligence of most of the students here, they aren’t smarter than people in my high school who ended up going to UCI/UCSB/UCD etc. The only real difference is that they care about school much more and are more willing to study all the **** time. These are most of the mediocre students.</p>
<p>And then there’s the not so smart students, probably happens at every public school. But there’s also the people I’ve been really impressed with who can compete with top students from anywhere, but just chose to come here or got unlucky with admissions.</p>
<p>Oh another quick comment . . . most of the “ultra liberal” Bay Area kids are like . . whiney and misinformed as balls . . I mean in the sense of like . . “the system is rotten to the cooore maaannnnnnn” </p>
<p>Unfortunately there are quite a few of these. Unfortunately this strain of Bay Area culture ALSO tends to be the type that uh . . . thinks their form of trashy pop culture is superior to all other forms of trashy pop culture (ie . . random indie band >> random mainstream band even though it’s the same sappy drum guitar love ballad crap)</p>
<p>Here’s something my teacher who went to Cal for undergrad and grad school said:
Cal undergraduate school is a sifter to used to find future Cal grad students and Nobel Prize winners.
Seems like a pretty accurate description of the students - mostly hard-working but a few gems</p>
<p>As an upperclassman, I’d argue that the top 15-20% of L&S students, and a vast majority of those that survive engineering here are really bright and can compete everywhere.</p>
<p>I feel to do well at Cal, you need to both have natural ability and be willing to work hard. Save some of the easy/basic lower div requirements, once you reach tougher classes natural genius and previous schooling can only take you so far. </p>
<p>There is, unfortunately, a large bulk of students (mid 40-50%) that consistently end up with B+ - C+ grades. Most science/eng classes are curved to 20/25% As, 40% Bs, 25% Cs etc etc. It sucks for those students that work hard and only end up with Bs, but its gotta happen for curves to work out.</p>
<p>OP - if you want to be with smart students, presuming you get in, join a research lab. The grad students + the undergrads that make it into good labs tend to be the brightest, and end up at the best professional and graduate schools.</p>