How much emphasis do UCs, in particular UCLA and Berkeley, place on grades & test scores?
Well those are the main criteria for acceptance, so for the most part, they are the most important factors… However if you’re really interested in how much value they put on what you can look up their Common Data sets and scroll down to the part where it lists factors like grades, test scores, essays, etc and says how important they are to that school.
Look at Section C7 on each common dataset:
http://www.aim.ucla.edu/profiles/cds.aspx
http://opa.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/uc_berkeley_cds_2014-15_april.pdf
Lots.
This year 87% of admissions had a UC GPA of 3.8 or better.