What's up with the dudes in trees? Anyway, could ye chance me?

Colleges & Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>Doubt it will happen, so might as well dull down the pain.</p>

<p>Senior attending semi-competitive HS in South-Central Jersey (sends one Ivies, three-ish to top 40 schools)</p>

<p>Plan to major in Civil Engineering, </p>

<p>ACT: Composite 33 - 34 English, 33 Math, 31 Reading, 34 Science, 32 Writing
SAT II's: Physics 650
Math IIC 690
(Unrealistic because I realized I had to take them a week before the test date, don't think they accurately measure my skills and I mentioned this in Addt'l. Info)</p>

<p>GPA: Right around a 4 weighted, 3.7 unweighted.
Classes: Most rigorous curriculum: All honors and AP classes.
APs: Soph: AP Macroeconomics-4
Junior: AP Spanish Language-(Couldn't take test)
Senior: AP Physics (Well, it's not AP, but its the same coursework/load and I plan to take the test)
AP Calculus AB
AP USH
AP Microeconomics</p>

<p>EC's- National Honor Society
Spanish Honor Society
F.I.R.S.T. Robotics Team, member of founding team as senior
designer/engineer. We won the NJ regionals and won a Rookie
all-star award, after which we went to the world champs in Atlanta.
Morning TV show, I created a lot of attractive, professional grade Flash
Intros which really got everyone talking!
Habitat for Humanity
Perhaps one or two more as the year goes by.</p>

<p>Work experience(significant!)</p>

<p>Worked in a construction company all four years of high school. I started as skilled labor(electrics, plumbing, carpentry) and moved up to more professional jobs. I am now a project manager, sales consultant, in marketing, and I've created a website for our firm. It's a serious job in which I've used a lot of stuff I learned in school. I'm also given full-scale responsibilities, like some sales presentations and crew management, no easy stuff. I can run most machinery, including excavators and large tractors, and tools. I hope colleges look at this as a much more involved employment as opposed to something like working in a supermarket (nothing wrong with that, but my job's way more intensive!)</p>

<p>Special considerations, if any:</p>

<p>Come from a low-income family for where we live, I think. I'll do the EFC thing today with my folks, but I expect it to be at most $2,500. I work very hard to support it. I used to work around 30-35 hours a week before, now due to the housing slump, that has increased to near 35-40 hours, taking away some time I could've used to study, play lax, etc. I heard the Ivies+top schools have a hard time attracting lower income kids, so I'm hoping mentioning this will help me. I worte about it in the extra info section and mentioned a snippet in my essay.</p>

<p>Thanks for your input.</p>

2

<p>bump please</p>

3

<p>Hm, out of state is extremely hard.</p>

<p>Try posting this in "What Are My Chances?"</p>

4

<p>Unlikely since you are OOS. Even in-state it wouldn't be a sure thing.</p>

5

<p>Gotcha. Sucks for Out-of-Staters, huh?</p>

6

<p>Yeah. People really don't appreciate how good we have it in California.</p>

7

<p>Well, I'll be honest, on a rare recent trip I went on to the West, I only liked Fresno and the national parks (Sequoia and Yosemite). I didn't really like SF (except for food) or LA. Must be the whole "visit the west coast, but don't live there" thing that folks say here. I bet it's the same thing for you guys and the East Coast.</p>

8

<p>You liked Fresno? Why!?!</p>

9

<p>Well, it seemed kind of serene and clean. Very green, kind of like the place I live in Jersey. Scratch what I said before about SF, it was aight. Not great but aight. But there's no way you can ask my why I liked the national parks. Those should be the pride of California! Also, Point Lobos State Park was beautiful, although I couldn't see any of the seals I thought I would. It's much better than that 17 mile drive bullcrap in Monterey most people go to.</p>

<p>We passed through Cima in the middle of the Mojave on the way to CA. Wow, there's like two people who live there!</p>

10

<p>3.5 months to go...just wait and see whats up...</p>

11

<p>Yep. Just wait.....</p>

12

<p>You have a shot if you wrote stand-out, compelling essays...you also have a strong ACT score and your ECs show interest in engineering. Civil engineering, I believe, is less impacted than EECS and other engineering disciplines, so that works in your favor. </p>

<p>The two weaknesses are your Math and Physics SAT IIs, and your weighted GPA...for engineering admits, especially OOS, the scores and GPA are a little low, unfortunately. It's good that you explained the SAT IIs.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

13

<p>
[quote]
What's up with the dudes in trees?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Wish I could tell you. They are a bunch of weirdos that aren't even students. Cal is anxiously awaiting the verdict in a lawsuit that'll allow them to proceed with renovations. The judge presiding over the case has until Jan. 9th to make her decision. Hopefully, they'll be outta there soon, but getting 'em down is not going to be pretty...</p>

<p>Cal technically has court approval to remove the tree-sitters, but isn't going to until the entire court case ruling has been issued.</p>