Hi all,
I was accepted to Cal as a History Major and I was wondering if any past Cal transfers could describe their transition from CC to UCB. I know EECS majors have a tougher time transitioning, but what about L&S people like myself? I was able to get a 3.98 at my CC and I’m a little worried about the academic transition.
Any insight would be great!
Cal obviously thinks your academic record shows you can handle the workload.
@vonlost It isn’t the workload I’m worried about, it is the grading. I would like to go to grad school eventually and the possibility of grade deflation seems somewhat daunting.
The class with the lowest percentage of As is Biology 1A, at 22%. If you’re talking about grade deflation as having a 98% average and getting a B, I doubt if there are any classes like that.
I am going to say, and all the advisors recommend it, go slow first semester. Take 12 units. Mainly to acclimate. There are a lot of papers and they are all at the same time. Learn the lay of the land. Leaving out STEM it’s not that bad. You can probably maintain a similar GPA as the CCC. Just stay on top of it.
https://old.berkeleytime.com/grades/ can give you grade distribution information.
Thank you posting this good sir!
I got in UCLA/UCB as a History Major with 4.0 GPA. Right now I’m leaning toward UCB bacause it has a semester system. But I’m still worried about how difficult the schools are.
if you look at the site that was given in post #5, assuming you know which classes you intend to take (need to research some), that should give you a rough idea of how easy or difficult a class is. Any classes where the average is some sort of A will probably be easy. B+ are not too bad, but still difficult. B are the hard classes, and B- are really difficult and hard classes. There are no classes that average below B-.
History 7A is B+
History 4A is B+
as examples.
@giveitem I also got into UCB as a History major with a 4.0. I met with the history major advisor last year (Leah, her info is on the site: https://history.berkeley.edu/undergraduate/advising) and she gave me a handout that has some advice on how to get started and a check list of the major requirements (it’s available on their site). Among the tips is to take 13 units your first semester so you have time to get used to the course difficulty, and to only take two history classes your first semester. There’s also a 1 unit class (Hist 198BC for history majors https://history.berkeley.edu/courses/berkeley-connect) to help get you started. I think it may be a good idea meet with or call their history department advisors and discuss your concerns. Either school is great, it’s just where you think you’ll do best.
I have a question on that 13 unit recommendation for the first semester at UCB.
How can students squeeze in all 60 units into four semesters after they only take
13 units in the first semester?
13+16+16+15
And if you’re transferring more than 60, you have less than 60 remaining.
Plus you have the next 3 summers including this one.
16 or 15 means the students need to take 5 or more classes per semester?
My son had 5 units from his AP test and took one summer class each year(5+3),
so he never took more than four classes in fall and spring semesters at his CC
except for one semester when he had a lab in addition to his four classes.
He should have 67 units or so to transfer. UCB has been his dream school,
but he is not sure if he can handle the workload as so many people around
him told him CC transfer could only earn Bs and Cs as UCB is lot more
difficult.
A lot of them said he should choose an “easier” college if he wants to
go to a graduate school. I do not think there is any easy college in UC
system, though.
I would say that about 50-60% of the total number of classes offered at Berkeley are 4 units. 15-20% are 3 units and maybe 5-10% are 5 units. The 5 unit ones are primarily language classes from what I can tell. I would bet that the large majority of one’s classes will be 4 units each, so an ordinary load is 4 classes a semester, which is 15-16 units.
Thank you for the information!
Thanks to sites like Berkeleytime and by going through any published syllabi, it’s fairly easy to figure out what classes are really heavy load and what isn’t. I think with a fair amount of planning in advance, loads shouldn’t be too bad. I don’t think my kid is anywhere near as stressed this at Berkeley year as he was last year having to take 6 APs amongst other things. (But then again I’m not there at the dorm so this is just a slightly educated guess).
One other thing, before you register, do check what time the finals are at for a given class, which is also given on Berkeleytime. You don’t want to be in a situation where you are taking 3 finals on the same day. (or 4 finals if you really plan poorly). 2 is probably acceptable.
@hoppy1 with 67 units, your kid could probably do 13 + 13 + 13 + 13 (generally 3 classes + a 1-unit DeCal) and possibly still graduate on time. Maybe take a class or two in the summers. I suspect though that he’ll find that 4 classes won’t be too bad as long as you mix in easier classes with harder classes.
Thank you so much again for your help!
My middle son is freshman at Cal Poly SLO,
and he has been taking 4 classes per quarter
beginning with the first quarter.
He somehow has been managing to get good grades.
He gets up at 5:30am to work out for 2 hours,
too.
He is definitely deciplined, but my oldest is
totally different.
I am just a worried mom, I know…
Would there be a site with similar grade distribution info for UCLA?
I’m trying to decide between UCB and UCLA depending on my visits there and how difficult classes are for my major at each school!
Some years ago, there was a publicly available web site called UC StatFinder. Among the things that it showed were average GPAs of transfer students at UCs, relative to their prior college GPA.
From what I remember, the top range of prior college GPA (3.8-4.0) transfers to UCs tended to average 3.4-3.7 at UCs, with some variation by campus. At lower ranges, the difference got smaller, so that those with prior college GPAs around 3.0 tended to average around 3.0 at UCs (obviously mostly at the least selective campuses, not UCB or UCLA where they would not be admitted).
Obviously, individual students will vary in how well they do relative to their prior college GPAs (which are probably in the 3.8-4.0 range for most transfers admitted to UCB these days). But if the trends from when UC StatFinder was up still hold today, it is not likely to be typical for a transfer student at UCB to fall to a 2.5 or so GPA (“Bs and Cs”).