*****UC Berkeley 2021 Applicants Thread*****

@umyagetttingIT which cntry u r

Which engineering ??

If youre accepted as a bio major to letters and sciences, how hard is it to switch to a comp sci major in letters science (since its more competitve at ucb)?

@alex232890 Definitely Brown. It’s cheaper and they will give you more FA if you need it at a later date. Plus you won’t face the nightmare of trying to get into classes you want.

@parisgeller From what I’ve heard, you can just declare a cs major once you have the prerequisites since you’re already in l&s.

Hi, I was admitted but have to decline my offer of admission. Does anyone know how to do that on the Cal Central page? I just see the option to accept the offer, not decline. Thank you!!

@beegbeeegboi don’t go to Washington State…just go to Junior college and then transfer to Cal…its better to wait and get admitted to a great school than to go to a OK school.

Accepted into College of L&S as an Astrophysics major!!!
1230 SAT (590 Math 640 R&W)
28 ACT (30-M 29- S 30-STEM)
3.96 GPA UW 4.4 GPA W ACA 10-12 GPA 4.7
Rank 1/440
Community College courses: 7 total (took astronomy and calc 2 over the summer)
EC: JPL Annual Invention club team (12th: all-female, team captain and lead engineer), Mad Scientist Club ( 10-12th: officer), Robotics (11th-12th, on both female and male team: Co-executive builder, lead mechanical designer), Academic decathlon (11th-12th, VP then Prez), Mock Trial (12th), Tutor (9th-12th: Geometry/ Algebra 2/ Pre-calc/ Calc AB/ Calc bc), etc.
Volunteering: 50+ hrs, all relatively STEM oriented and hispanic culture related
APs: will be 10 total once I graduate AP World (3), AP Human Geo (5), AP Art His (3), AP Chem (2), AP Calc AB (3), AP Lang (5), AP US (4), AP Macro (planned, expecting a 5), AP Physics 2 (Planned, expecting a 4), AP US Government (planned, expecting a 2)
Background: Chicana, First generation, 1 out of 5 kids, from an underrepresented region of So Cal
Essays: Phenomenal. If I were to put them into a 10 pt scale, all of mine would be 15/10, they are most certainly why I got accepted into both UCB and UCLA

I got into UCLA first which kinda scared me (not to be ungrateful or anything, as a first generation american i didn’t take it lightly, I was ecstatic) because usually if you get into one, you don’t get into the other and I set Berkeley at a higher level than UCLA because I mean…it’s my dream school. Plus, only one or two people at my school get into either of them (only 2 people got into UCLA in my graduating class which are me and my close friend who’s going to Yale, and only I got into UC Berkeley). So essentially, I cried for 30 minutes and freaked out a kid in the street from yelling straight after reading my acceptance letter. I was so self-conscious because of my subpar test scores, but I guess they really enjoyed reading about how nerdy I am about puzzles. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

@BunnyBlue Hey, my son has officially committed to Berkeley. Did your son decide where to go? Thanks for info you had provided to me.

Hi @eric2017abc , I am so happy for your son. Congratulations on Berkeley EECS!!

My son was waitlisted for Berkeley (CS L&S), and he will not be signing up for the waitlist. He never really thought about Berkeley that much because he was aiming for UCSD. So his choices are Cal Poly, UC Irvine (CHP), UCSC (Regents), UCSB (Regents), UC Davis (Regents), UCSD (Undeclared), and UCLA. I still can’t get over that UCSD didn’t give him CS. His essays made it clear that CS is the whole focus of his life. Anyway, he has narrowed it down to UC Davis and UCLA. We’re going to visit both again so he can figure out which would be the best fit.

Thanks @BunnyBlue. Your son has amazing accomplishment. I don’t know anyone has that many Regents. I felt college decision may not always be reasonable but personally I think UCLA CS is great. Sometimes going to the unplanned route may be the best thing. Good luck and I am sure your son will do well wherever he goes.

Got in EECS major and a Regents scholar.

@eric2017abc Thanks! I like what you said about the unplanned route sometimes working out best.

@BunnyBlue He’s already ruled out UCSB with Regents?

@Ynotgo It was tough to narrow down the choices, so the fact that it was inconvenient transportation-wise moved it down the list.

I was almost set on confirming (SIR) at UCLA, but now I have fin. aid offer, unexpectedly favorable, from UCB! I think UCB is the only one (of the 4 UC’s applied to) that’s still giving these middle-class scholarships (Its about 10K, though its a sliding-scale type of formula, so everyones’ number may differ.)

(For those unfamiliar, middle class definition at UC had been parents’ income under 156 K/yr. I think, though don’t know if they’ve adjusted this a bit downward, seeing as the other UCs didn’t offer yet this year. – though Gumbymom had said she thought likely the funding for it had perhaps disappeared wrt UCSD and UCLA … though that was a week or so ago, before these UCB fin. aid offers appeared.)

I had prev. favored UCLA for slightly less cut-throat environment (than UCB) for a pre-med. But now I’m undecided given this signif. cost difference.

@HowToDecide2917 that’s interesting. My son is on the flip side of that. Ucla really generous and ucb kind of tight fisted with lots of loans and work study. 8k difference between the two schools before loans are applied. You are right about that CA middle class scholarship it is not listed on either FA package.
Does distance from home weigh in on your decision? Maybe ease and cost of going home may close the gap. Also ucla medical program is top notch.

@letsshare that’s really interesting! I live close to UCLA (maybe 7 miles away from ucla) but cost of flying to Berkeley is only around $70 (or a $30 on Megabus, with Megabus being much cheaper than Greyhound) but that’s an interesting idea, that location could make a dif. in fin. aid (?) Idk I doubt its the distance from home, seeing as it doesn’t cost that much to get to berkeley from LA. But UCB is offering 12K gift/grant as well as work-study, and UCLA not even offering work-study (just a discount on campus health insurance, but i already have health ins. through family).

I’d like to be in your situation, with flip-side fin. aid offer from ucla!!

@howToDecide2017 @letsshare Isn’t it funny two schools who admitted the same two kids can treat them very differently? Guess it depends upon how each school wants to build its Class of 2021 and how they want to incent kids to attend. I’d go with the cheaper decision, when cheaper is 12K+ - that’s A LOT of plane/bus tickets. Yes, UCLA great for pre-med, but there are A LOT of pre-meds at Cal.

@ :)) ditto since he is STEM. Would’ve been nice if ucb showed more love. Maybe we should call them and ask to switch our FA haha. Something to consider is how happy you will be at either campuses and overall experience. Do you think you would have any luck in asking if they could provide more FA since Berkeley did? Worst case scenario you end up with what you already have.