This link;
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/transfers-major
Says that UCB EECS’s Admit GPA Range is 3.88-4.00
If a California community college student has that GPA, completed IGETC, and took all lower div. major courses for the major, what kind of chance does she have? 90%, 50%, 8%?
I am reading that SAT or high school GPA doesn’t matter much. If so, what else do you need?
As a transfer, SAT and high school grades are irrelevant.
I don’t think there’s any kind of percent chance that could be assigned. If an applicant is within the GPA range, they’ll be competitive and that puts their name in the conversation … along with several hundred other applicants. From there, it’ll really depend on ECs, essays, and everything else under their holistic approach.
Some of these students are doing and have done incredible, incredible things, have incredible stories conveyed through their essays, etc. This is what sets them apart, not the GPA. To me, the GPA is just a starting point before they moved deeper into the application where applicants can truly show who they are as a person and as a student.
That’s discouraging. I thought GPA was only a starting point for freshmen admission, but carries a lot more weight for transfers.
I mean, whatever happened to advises like;
[Your primary focus should be your GPA, and completing all prerequisites for your major or other requirements…EC isn’t necessary as long as you are academically strong]
It gives your answer on the top left part of the page
Since you mentioned IGETC, keep in mind that some colleges and/or majors do not accept IGETC (they tell you on the xfer page at each UC campus which ones).
Thanks for pointing it out. My understanding was that the admit rate (i.e. 8%) was for all students and not for those who with GPA between 25th to 75th percentile. I am hoping to get a reasonable estimation of admit rate for those with GPA 25th to 75th percentile (i.e. 3.88+) with all prereq & recommended courses completed.
Because, if you have 3.9 GPA and finished all courses and still have only 8% admit chances, and SAT & highschool GPA are not relevant, then I would like to know what distinguishes the 8%.
And thank you about the IGETC. My impression is that it is relatively easy to meet other GenED requirements with just a few extra courses max, if you have already met IGETC. Am I correct?
UCB in impacted majors receive many, many applications, often for relatively few transfer spots. Many of those applicants are going to be 3.8-4.0 GPA. Just factoring in that range, there are still probably far more applicants than there are spots … and that isn’t even considering Berkeley’s holistic view of students (i.e. who you are, your life story, etc), what an applicant’s achievements are outside of school, their extra curricular activities, etc.
GPA is one dimensional, which is why Berkeley looks beyond it.
I agree that the primary focus should be GPA and completing pre-reqs … but pre-reqs are a requirement for the application to even be looked at and the GPA needs to be in some range to remain competitive … and then they factory in everything else.
What distinguishes the 8% are the extra curricular activities. The essays. The person who maybe has a 3.7 but was given one of the most prestigious awards in X field for college students. The person with a 3.8 whose essay shows that they overcame serious hardships that maybe most couldn’t. Someone who received serious recognition from a respected platform or an award from one of the biggest events or contest in a related industry. The person who created some non-profit or business that was helping X amount of people in the community. etc etc etc.
There are many situations where someone with a lower GPA will get in over someone with a higher or even perfect GPA, al because of Berkeley’s holistic admissions approach. I got into Berkeley’s most competitive major and I’d say probably 80% of the students in the major have a better GPA than I did and many that got rejected did as well.
Thianks @briank82 & @mikemac
I think I have a good idea now. I don’t like the answers. But I would rather be reasoned than delusional.
Acceptance to Berkeley should not be perceived as given for essentially any applicant; however, it is certainly not as merciless as many let on. YLS Law School admissions are not even as unreliable as many let on. Regardless of the university in question, 90% of the admits will fall into the statistical ranges that are released to the public. ECs do factor into the equation for top schools, but it is not statistically possible for every admit to have interned at the White House or won a national award. Statistically, it is not even possible for half of the admits of any major program to meet that expectation.
Highly qualified applicants are not rejected from programs around the world because they failed to qualify for the Rhodes scholarship. Highly qualified applicants are rejected because they were either unsuccessful or too arrogant to market themselves. Applicants who care about the admissions process will never leave major areas of the applicants blank because they did not feel that it was necessary. I have not found a single peer who did not have any valid extracurriculars, but I have seen many applications where they choose to leave the EC section blank. If an application appears to have been completed in five minutes, then the admissions officers will take note.
It does not matter what you’ve done in life. It does not matter what you’ve accomplished. It all comes down to the physical application and how you market yourself. The narrative that many share about 4.0 students being rejected from top universities for failing to cure cancer is factually inaccurate. Their application simply did not speak to the admissions officer. A part of that is out of our control, but a part of it absolutely is. Aside from that, there is always a factor of chance and luck in success. You cannot always count on acceptance based on the numbers, but you can at least use those statistics to understand that the reason why you might be rejected would not be because you were lacking the average criteria.