<p>Hi, I'm a 3.96 UC GPA, 1950 SAT, 600 and 620 SAT II Filipino applicant that just received a Questionnaire about my "special talent". </p>
<p>I've been practicing Olympic Style Sparring Taekwondo for 13 years now and I've won a lot of local, national, and international medals here in the United States and back in the Philippines. I've also trained with Stanford, UC Davis, and the UC Berkeley coach, and other national athletes. I am planning to have my master write my letter of recommendation. </p>
<p>Do you guys seriously think I have a chance? Or does Berkeley just send this to a lot of its applicants? I've never even dreamed of going into Berkeley because of my grades and scores. But maybe my Taekwondo career might cut it? What do you guys think?</p>
<p>when did you get your supplement? and also your talent is really cool/different so i personally think you have a great chance of getting in (alot of kids at my school have gotten in with alot less)</p>
<p>I just received it today. I’m so shocked and happy because I never thought Berkeley would notice nor care.</p>
<p>YAYYYYYY!!! :)</p>
<p>really? what time today? did it show on your myBerkeleyaccount? </p>
<p>*make sure you pay attention to when its due because some people are recieving supplements the day before the deadline</p>
<p>good luck btw :)!</p>
<p>Thanks!! I got it at 2 p.m. today</p>
<p>overall only a few percentage of the applicants get a supplemental questionnaire, and that includes many who mentioned disabilities or who are in the small pile in the middle between ‘no’ and ‘yes’. The talent set of questions goes to a truly small sliver of all applicants and I think as long as the talent matches what they read, most will be offered a spot.</p>
<p>Damnn. im @#!!$ing lucky.</p>
<p>flipinpride,</p>
<p>What Rider says is exaggerated. Supplemental questionnaires are useful when you’re a borderline case, but not everyone offered a supplemental questionnaire is automatically accepted. Do not read into it too much.</p>
<p>Now, your GPA is fine for Cal, although I don’t know the degree of course difficulty & AP’s. SAT is on the low side, could be a problem. The fact that you’re Phillipino makes no difference really since there’s no more affirmative action. Tae Kwon Do can be a good thing, however. Having medals is always a good thing because it shows you’re driven and disciplined when you need to be, that gives adcom the impression that you’ll use that drive for school too. The best part, of course, is that Cal is an excellent Tae Kwon Do school, having won the black belt division of the National Collegiate Taekwondo Association for the past 20 years (1990-present). Iow, we get good TKD applicants, and its noticed. However, TKD is not an NCAA sport so there are no scholarships or reserved spaces. At the end of the day, its simply a good extra curricular.</p>
<p>I would say you have a shot. I hope it works out well for you. Let us know how it went.</p>
<p>^I thought Rider got it right on. He only said the ones with the ‘Talent’ pool would most likely offered spots in the last sentence. Berkeley sends the questionnaire to all applicants who mentioned disabilities in the application, even if one is in the top 1% or 90%. The last group is for those borderline applicants from bad schools, have to overcome obstacles etc.</p>
<p>Please take the questionnaire seriously no matter which group you belong to, this is a chance to let the adcom to get to know you better.</p>
<p>Although only around 25% got accepted in 2005 according to the Hout Report; keep in mind that a lot of people don’t bother to answer or answer too briefly or in a manner not helping their cases, so the overall rate should be much higher than 25% I believe.</p>
<p>the anecdotal evidence from CC members in past years put the success rate higher than 25% and the talent set seemed to have a very high accept rate. not scientific but search out the old results threads for each years decision release time.</p>
<p>I really don’t know what to think. </p>
<p>So would about 40% of those AR belong to disabilities? and 40% of the AR be borderline? And 20% to talents? So in the end, wouldn’t the talent category be more ‘rare’ and therefore have a higher admit rate?</p>
<p>Also, as I was browsing through some past threads about the augmented review, I read a post that stated that the AR itself is for you to give adcoms a reason to admit you to Cal other than grades. This is to balance the scale between geniuses and athletes/ talented people in their university. Is my understanding of the concept of AR correct?</p>
<p>Lastly,BerkeleyMcK, where did you obtain the information that you stated about the Cal Taekwondo team? UCSD and UCD have won the PacWest Taekwondo Collegiate League for the past three years.</p>
<p>Anyways, my teacher just wrote me a great letter of recommendation today mentioning my assistant teaching, awards and personality so I think it should help me a ton.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your help!</p>