UC Berkeley Class of 2027 Official Thread

To get a 5.0 weighted-uncapped HS GPA, every academic (a-g category) course must be an honors (including AP or college) course with an A grade earned in it. Honors courses get +1 for grade points if a C or higher was earned. Not all high school designated honors courses are considered honors for UC purposes.

The weighted-capped HS GPA that is found on most UC web sites allows only 8 semesters of honors +1 points to be added. It is unlikely that a weighted-capped HS GPA will be greater than about 4.4.

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Can someone please clarify? If this is the first year students can apply to CS through L&S how is it there is data from last year admits being so low? ( 166 students) Did they pilot it last year? It seems the acceptance was lower than applying through CS through COE. Will students be disadvantaged applying through L&S this round with such low admit rates? Thanks

Did anyone else receive the email from UCLA to apply for the Alumni Scholarship? I got the email yesterday and am wondering what it’s for. From my research online it seems that all applicants get the email. Does anyone else know anything about it?

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I would ask this question in the UCLA discussion thread but not all applicants will receive the invite but many will get the invite.

I will PM information and I will also post on the UCLA Discussion thread.

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Thank you!

3 posts were merged into an existing topic: UCLA Class of 2027 Official Thread

Could you take the discussion about the UCLA scholarship to the UCLA thread? UCLA Class of 2027 Official Thread

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Oh yes sorry. It was only out of curiosity. Yes, I would never put my kids thru this. Even UCB is not worth the pain!

While of course true, there’s more to it: even if you do sacrifice your social life and mental health in order to achieve this kind of GPA, there’s STILL no guarantee of admissions. It could all be for nothing. And, if that happens, if I kid basically kills themselves for 4 years trying to do this and then ends up rejected, I can’t imagine the anguish that would result. Just not worth it at all.

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That’s true. I know plenty of high-GPA friends who were confident with their applicants but eventually got rejected by both UCB and UCLA and other UCs. There’s simply no guarantee on who will get in or not. Some people will get in and some won’t. It’s like a lottery system these days, very unpredictable.

are “chance-me’s” effective at all to know where one stands? i’ve seen some on reddit but for the most part it looks like everyone is super ‘toxic’

With the UCs, I personally don’t think they are. You can look up things like average GPA to know whether or not you are in typical range, but ultimately, it all seems pretty unpredictable to me. I don’t remember if I mentioned on this thread or another, but we have a neighbor whose daughter got rejected from UC Irvine last year, but accepted with a Regents Scholarship to UCLA. Why? Who knows. The UCs are looking for what the UCs are looking for, and we don’t always know what that is. So I think a chance me can at best tell you if you have a realistic shot, but you can get the same info from the UC website and admissions profiles. Just my opinion. Where chance me’s can be perhaps helpful is just in a confidence boost if people confirm that you have a shot. But I agree that sometimes it can also turn toxic and set people up in a competition with an unhealthy dynamic.

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In state - 4.0 UW candidates will far exceed the total number of open seats UCB might have.

I slightly lean towards SAT scores to be counted - yes there is a downside.

I am not sure how the UC calculation might work with a 4.0 from a HS with grade inflation vs 3.8 from a HS with grade deflation?

Also, I heard one parent said that their kid got into most all UCs - I thought (may be wrong) that UC normally discuss among themselves and divide the students appropriately. Maybe I am completely wrong here

Would trust this with my kid. It is useful to read and enjoy. But never trust. There is no math behind this. Maybe some arbitrary science …

I’m personally in the anti-standardized test camp. Some people are brilliant, creative thinkers and terrible test takers. And some families have the resources to pay for expensive prep courses that guarantee various minimum scores, while many families are on their own. And there is as much strategy to these tests as there is assessment of knowledge. And the field of knowledge assessed, while in core areas, is still not fully representative of overall education and learning potential. It’s a lazy way of comparing applicants which favors those who are already privileged in the admissions game. As always, just my personal opinion.

That’s a common rumor, but their official stance is that they do not do this (of course, unofficially such things might happen behind closed doors, who knows).

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Another tangentially-related anecdote. After undergrad, I took the GRE. I did an MA program, then worked for a few years, then decided I wanted to do a PhD program. Unfortunately, my GRE scores had expired by then, and there was NO WAY I was taking that thing again. Pretty much every PhD program I was interested in, however, required the GRE, so I started sending emails to them asking if they would make an exception for me. Only two programs agreed: Ohio State and UCB. And that is how I ended up at UCB. Because they exempted me from re-taking the GRE. Of course, that was long before they instituted their current test-blind policy (although, to be honest, I don’t know if that’s just for undergrad or extends to grad studies).

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Each UC campus has its own separate process. They do not know if the student is admitted, waitlisted, or denied from any other UC campus (I don’t think they even know if the student has applied to other UC campuses).

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From the UC website:

Do campuses make their admissions decisions independently from other UC campuses?
Each UC campus evaluates each application without knowing the status of the same application at another campus. In making admission decisions, campuses do not consider where you’ve applied or your admission status to other campuses. All campuses consider your application simultaneously, yet independently of all other campuses you applied to.

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“I slightly lean towards SAT scores to be counted - yes there is a downside.”

UC’s don’t consider SAT scores. They are test blind.

I know many of students who have gotten into all the UC’s they applied to including UCLA and UCB over the last 3-4 years. So it is possible.

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It’s probably very rare though I’m guessing <1% get into all UCs they apply to.

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