@Orangered123 I hear horror stories about the 61 series at Berkeley. I don’t think 61A is TOO bad, and taking it over the summer will likely make the grading less harsh, but eh. Don’t do it unless you’ve already been accepted. You’re applying this fall, correct?
@crseven I don’t know. It looks like Laney has all of the required courses, and many of the recommended ones. Finishing all of the recommended courses (in addition to the required courses) would boost your chances. For that reason, it’s probably best to take classes at different colleges.
DVC and De Anza both have all of the required classes and a couple of the recommended courses. I can’t find any CC that offers courses comparable to the electrical engineering recommended courses, but there might be one out there.
Note: At Laney, you will be in the Peralta system; sometimes it will be necessary for you to go to other colleges in the system (i.e. BCC, Merritt, CoA) to get the classes you need. Sometimes. DVC offers the same amount of courses as Laney, but I hear that classes can be hard to get (not sure, you will want to do your own research, this is just what I’ve heard). De Anza has only one of the CS classes you should take, but they are otherwise a very good school.
Try the search function on the Berkeley Fall 2015 forum.
I disagree with you on this one @goldencub.
It will vary on instructor, but a friend took it last summer and his experience was that the grading was pretty lenient with a lot of visiting students bringing the average down relativ to Fall/Spring.
@Orangered123, I suggest looking over the [course content](https://61a-su15-website.github.io/) and going from there?
@SDGoldenBear Fair enough. I know that summer grading is generally more lenient for Berkeley. The class has an average of a B, which is higher than I thought.
Every single class at berkeley appears to have an average of B or better if you spend any time on schedulebuilder. Even STEM. I noticed that last summer. :D/
@lindyk8 hm. Do you think that UCB’s grade deflation is sort of a facade, then? Is it just deflated in comparison to Ivies?
I’ve really wondered about that @goldencub. Granted, I haven’t looked through every class on schedulebuilder, but I just kept noticing humanities classes were always an average grade of: B, B+, or A-.
So, out of curiosity, I looked at some STEM and saw the same thing - well, not any As, but B or B- was the standard. So either schedulebuilder is really off or the grading is not as difficult as it seems.
I also have noticed a fair amount of the extreme griping about grade deflation in STEM usually revolves around students who were used to getting As, now getting Bs. In fact, the curve in some STEMS is set so the average is in the B range, supposedly.
Back in the day when I was there I never thought it was as hard as ppl made it out to be, but I was an English major. But I have heard others say the same thing. I still think the hardest part is getting in. (STEM may be different.)
Hey @goldencub – quick question. At the Transfer center can they look at your UC app and see if you’ve listed your Awards/ECs in the best way, etc… or are they mainly looking at essays?
@jonuni94 I think they help with any questions you have. I’m sure if you brought your application in with questions, they would help. Personal statements are just one of the things they do - I went in there and essentially asked every question that I could think of.
@goldencub Awesome, will get a list of questions going!
Hey guys, I’m visiting Cal this weekend for Cal Hacks. As a potential EECS Transfer for Fall 2016, is there anything I can do this weekend at Cal that could be potentially helpful to my admission? Talk to professors / students / etc??? Thanks!
@blsUCtransfer Probably not, honestly.
Looking back at your stats/EC’s, you are very competitive. Just keep it up, and enjoy yourself.
Thanks man, I’ll try to enjoy it with a Calc 3 test coming up two days after the event 
@goldencub
@blsUCtransfer Study in the libraries on campus!
So I’ve decided to attend Ohlone CC in SPRING 2016. and then transfer to UCB EECS or UCLA CS & E. I’m an international student.
I chose Ohlone because it has all the requirements UCB and UCLA requires along with one of the strongly recommended courses. At least that’s what ASSIST says. Also, I found that Ohlone students are accepted into Berkeley around 30% last year http://universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/admissions-source-school so that’s almost how other CCCs admit rates are.
I’m not sure if Ohlone is great or if classes are hard to schedule, or any of that stuff. If anyone has gotten into Berkeley EECS or UCLA CS & E by transferring from Ohlone, please comment and let me know!
And if anyone think I’m taking the wrong step, please let me know. I had my mind on DeAnza but it didn’t have one of the strongly recommended courses and I just thought Ohlone was better. But, again, if I’m wrong, please let me know.
Also, any tips would be great!
Hey @crseven ,I almost attended Santa Monica College just for the sake of it having a higher acceptance rate than my CCC but decided against it since UCB said it makes no difference. As long as you take the prereqs and as many strongly recommended as possible, you’ll be golden. Also make sure to have engineering extracurriculars to make yourself competitive.
For CS major, I read at the website there are some courses that could make me a strong applicant. I will finish data structure at uiuc with c++, computer architecture with verilog, and I already learn java at my freshman year. For cs major at uiuc, our first language is java not python. Are those courses really helpful?
So I have been reading on past threads of students who got accepted and many of them claim that they got full rides to cal. Does anyone know how you apply for this? Or do they just give it to people they really want to go to cal?
The only way to get close to a full ride (and usually you still need to cover $8,000 or so with loans or work study) is through financial aid. You might get $1,000-2,000 from a scholarship, but they’re hard to come by.
Apparently freshman applicants have better access to full ride scholarships. There are some, though (jack clart kent or something is a great scholarship for transfers, but I’m sure I got the name of it wrong).