UC Berkeley Gap Year

Hi everyone,

I really want to go to Berkeley, but as an international, my parents are really concerned that US isn’t doing too well with the coronavirus, and would rather have me do my undergraduate study in my home country and then perhaps study as a graduate student in the US when the times are better.

That being said, Berkeley is still one of my top choices and it seems to have so many opportunities, especially for an engineering student! Also, there’s no guarantee I could get into topmost schools in my home country if I do apply.

So while I know it’s really hard to get a gap year approved from Berkeley, if they do approve it, am I allowed to apply to other schools while on the gap year? Does Berkeley explicitly ban such actions? The chances are rather small, but if I do get into top schools from my country, my parents likely will want me to go there.

Any advice/information would be super helpful & greatly appreciated!

You are asking for a deferral from UCB which is rarely granted. If granted, you would be expected to attend the following year by submitting your enrollment deposit. If you want to apply to other schools during this time then take a Gap year not a deferral and reapply to UCB again next year. You basically want the best of both worlds without any risk.

Honestly, it’s hard to say. As of today, visas have been placed on hold and the borders are on strict lockdown (though the orange monkey has talked about opening them back up) and that means that international students are going to have a hard time getting here, let alone attend school.

Corona Virus has me thinking that all the UC schools accepted wayyyy more in State students this year because of Covid. They banking on locals now which makes the acceptance feel cheap because they don’t really care about California students just the money of tuition from OOS and International students. It also makes the challenge of a small admission rate feel … Less significant. But I don’t know how true that is.

In regards to all of that, It’s the same with out of state students.
I heard that Berkeley doesn’t usually do deferring to other semesters but they seem really open to the idea of helping their students during this time… I even heard Covid might be here (in the US) til 2021…and if that’s the case… They might not even have actual classes, so I mean they could just put it on pause right? It’s not like you have to be physically here at the moment because what can they do, ya know? Worth an email?