@otoribashi Can you tell me what you didn’t like about Berkeley? I thought the curriculum looked great. I wondered about study abroad and how competitive students are with each other. Santa Cruz and Berkeley were my favorite UCs so I’m curious to know what you have learned.
@TL9967 I am relying on AP classes, too, to
meet the 60 semester unit requirement. They are supposed to be fine as long as the course content does not overlap with your CC classes.
Good luck, everyone!
@suenos53 just the vibe from the people there, and a lot of hipsters and that type of thing. it just doesn’t match my sense of humor/personality. also they do a lot self depreciating memes about grades and i just don’t want to be at a school where the only thing ppl care about is a # vs actually learning and being positive optimistic people. everyone just seems content to brag about how stressed/depressed they are which is a big no no to me. nobody seems to be genuinely passionate about their subject, just the grades… also some of the students there are ridiculously entitled and remind me of the “entitled angry impatient customer” type of people.
the campus was ok i suppose but the buildings were pretty old too. it does look nice w/ all the trees, but then it’s literally in the middle of their downtown and there were homeless people on campus just yelling at people and that seems pretty unsafe. also the nearby shops were all very hipster-ish and very “70s era” type of san francisco and personally im more modern, im not into oldies type of nostalgia hipster “oh so vintage” type of stuff.
also the fact that people protest all the time… im a democrat and liberal but good lord they are just yelling into the void. protesting about liberal issues in the most liberal place in the world is such a waste of energy. they’re just preaching to the choir. and they’re so “pure” about their liberalism (aka bernie bros) that i imagine people compete for the pity olympics every day there…
although i do like that people at least think about government and those sorts of issues, cuz there are some schools that just dont speak up at all or don’t seem to care, but the entitled/arrogant attitude they have when all they’re doing is simply preaching to the choir is really annoying.
the surrounding area has a lot of crime and old buildings and stuff like that. lots of poverty. i would like to move up from that, not just stay in the same place for the rest of my life. would much prefer nicer surroundings.
but it does seem to have some good things like the berkeley national laboratory, and they often have a lot of silicon valley employers hold panels and events for students there. they even had one with pixar. so that access to industry is really valuable and you won’t always get that at the other UC’s. and their campus is quite nice when clean, lots of squirrels, trees that match with the buildings, lots of walking (that’s a pro for me). and the students do seem to have a sense of humor even if it’s not my type of humor.
hey everyone. so i wanted to give back to CC because i used it so much last year when I transferred to Berkeley. Little about myself… I attended a 4 year university for one year out of high school and ended up getting a 2.0 GPA. I dropped out, and my parents moved to California where I started attending a CC. At the CC i pretty much started to get my act together. I ended up studying math while taking accounting courses on the side. I wanted to major in econ and I knew taking more quantitative math courses would help in the long run.
Here are my stats:
4year: Engineering, GPA: 2.0
CCC: Math, GPA: 3.92
Clubs at CC: Founder/President - Math Club, Student government, environmental club - treasurer
Internship: I ended up having 3 prior to applying
Admitted: UCI, UC Berkley
Waitlisted: UCSD, UCD
Denied: UCLA
I basically wanted to tell you that even if you had any sort of academic/personal issues in the past, Berkeley really does look at the application holistically and will place heavy emphasis on your personal statement where other schools may not. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to ask away.
@otoribashi Thanks for the description. I haven’t visited Berkeley nor Santa Cruz yet so I appreciate your description of Berkeley. I am hoping if I go there, the CS department will be large enough for me to find some like-minded friends. I like a positive vibe, too, and I’m not terribly into politics (I like Bernie, though). I have heard there is somewhat of a start-up culture at Berkeley that’s not at UCLA and San Diego.
Have you considered Santa Cruz? I like the curriculum (senior project, especially) and proximity to Silicon Valley.
Santa Cruz is going to be A LOT less competitive than Cal. It’s also close to enough to Silicon valley to be active in internships, ect.
I am interested in Cal, and if I don’t get into UCLA and somehow get into Cal I will go there-- but I agree that the area is kinda eh and the political scene is extreme. I’m an 28 yo queer transfer student and don’t wanna have some 18 yo straight out of their mom’s house lecturing me on gender politics or whatever–
That being said “Berkeley” looks good on a resume. So-- just see which one you get into first.
@berkeleydude123 Omg why did UCD and UCSD reject you!?! I thought they looked at grade trends. Your CC GPA was great. Wow. Congrats though!!!
@suenos53 a lot of venture capital funding takes place at berkeley
Anyone on this list hope to do study abroad? I don’t know if CS transfer students at Berkeley can do this.
I’ve seen quite a few cases where someone gets into UC Berkeley, but not UCLA which is kinda strange. Do you know why that is? Is it that the processes/criteria are different or is it basically just random chance?
People get into UCB and get rejected by UCLA all the time. Personally I applied for the financial actuarial math major, but was missing one of the computer science pre-reqs. But this happens a lot based on the major you are applying to. For example, getting into the business econ major at UCLA is more competitive than getting into econ at UCB. The business-econ major is tailored more towards people who want to go into the business industry. These same people probably apply to Haas, which as you know is VERY competitive. Another example would be applying to computer science at UCB vs UCLA. UCLA has a great program, but Berkeley has one of the best in the world (competing with Stanford and MIT). So to answer your question, it can depend on the major, it might be random, but keep in mind UCLA is just as competitive as UCB and is not far behind in rankings as a university.
^same. That’s one of my biggest worries as a transfer. I want to do “a lot” but doing a major that requires a lot of time and classes means that I’ll be inside studying a lot of the time. Staying only two years at whatever university I go to causes us to lose out on half the “time” spent. I reaaaaaaaly want to study abroad.
Not CS but SAME @Orangered123
I mean I’m tempted to try to stay 3 years to double major and make the most of my “college experience.” Everytime I do think like that though my brain reminds itself about the opportunity cost of staying another year. I’m conflicted a lot about that.
I’ve thought about doing the same thing so I can study abroad. Where do you want to go?
@berkeleydude123 Im a gender studies major with a really low gpa 
Do you know if the major is impacted there ? I think my extracircular activities are good as well as my personal statement. Please let me know
If any of you have any questions about what Berkeley’s like, feel free to message me! I transferred to Cal last semester as a philosophy major.
@goldencub Are protests like this weekends going to be normal at Cal from now on? The heated political climate combined with extremists who rise to any sort of bait makes for bad combination. I wonder how significantly the Milo protests and the small ones that happened after it, along with the upcoming Ann Coulter talk and the almost protests that will happen all will have on Berkeley’s reputation. Both academic and general. The sexual assault revelations that have been coming out for the past few years and huge budget crisis the campus is in don’t inspire a lot of confidence in Cal’s general future in rankings or general prestige. It’s nowhere near enough to keep me from going if accepted, but it doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence about the university I might attend.
Any indication that this might change? Has the new chancellor said/indicated that things will be better/change in the future?
@suenos53 I’m really undecided here. It’s a tossup between Europe or Asia. If I go to Asia I’d probably study in China and if I go to Europe I’m leaning toward Britain or Spain. If I went to anywhere in Europe I’d be traveling all over the continent and if I went to China I’d be traveling all over the country and if possible visit South Korea and Japan.
How about yourself?
@Orangered123 I would like to go to Japan (especially Tokyo) and either Switzerland or France. I don’t know how feasible this would be for a EECS major. Spain is cool, too, but I speak French better than Spanish. I heard about the UC study abroad website (good for all UCs) and am looking up programs.
@sPib9Kiv9anD0aWd lol it’s not weird at all. it’s really common that you get into one but not the other. a lot of people will get into both but it’s even more common that if one accepts you, the other will reject you.
side note:
imma need everyone to realize the admissions process is unique to each school despite the information they give us. they have REAL PEOPLE!!! looking at our apps. it’s not a cookie cutter thing. one person might like you, another won’t. a school isn’t obligated to accept you because of your grades.