UC Berkeley

[Anonymous]

Trying to convince DD not to spend time and energy on the UC Berkeley application. She's a fantastic kid with a 4.3, strong leadership, paid job, community service, etc. But there is no way she's going to stand out and get into Berkeley. But her counselor keeps telling her "you never know". The application is separate from common app and there are 4 supplementals. Just feels like a waste of time. Sorry - no real question, just venting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trying to convince DD not to spend time and energy on the UC Berkeley application. She's a fantastic kid with a 4.3, strong leadership, paid job, community service, etc. But there is no way she's going to stand out and get into Berkeley. But her counselor keeps telling her "you never know". The application is separate from common app and there are 4 supplementals. Just feels like a waste of time. Sorry - no real question, just venting.

Berkeley's OOS acceptance rate is about 3-4% for the past several years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trying to convince DD not to spend time and energy on the UC Berkeley application. She's a fantastic kid with a 4.3, strong leadership, paid job, community service, etc. But there is no way she's going to stand out and get into Berkeley. But her counselor keeps telling her "you never know". The application is separate from common app and there are 4 supplementals. Just feels like a waste of time. Sorry - no real question, just venting.

But isn’t it the same application for several UC schools? Can’t she apply to 4-5 just be checking a box?

[Anonymous]

OP, same situation here but for UCLA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, same situation here but for UCLA.

they are all the same, single application its just about adding UC colleges to the form.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, same situation here but for UCLA.

they are all the same, single application its just about adding UC colleges to the form.

Right, my kid will probably check both boxes. It's just another 80 bucks. And will probably add UCSD while he's at it.

Point is that it's a waste of money. Kid is not getting into UCLA and isn't going to ultimately choose UCSD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trying to convince DD not to spend time and energy on the UC Berkeley application. She's a fantastic kid with a 4.3, strong leadership, paid job, community service, etc. But there is no way she's going to stand out and get into Berkeley. But her counselor keeps telling her "you never know". The application is separate from common app and there are 4 supplementals. Just feels like a waste of time. Sorry - no real question, just venting.

Berkeley's OOS acceptance rate is about 3-4% for the past several years.

All you can tell her is this^, and leave it at that.

My DC with a 4.92 wgpa, 4.0 unwgpa from a magnet program was rejected at UCLA and Cal. TBF, DC's major is CS, which is probably the most competitive major.

[Anonymous]

Kid did it. Shrunk common app essay to essay 8 by eliminating 250 words. The rest were pretty similar to ones he’d done.
The activities were the real pain though.
Our school in Texas gets at least one in to ucla every year so why not try.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trying to convince DD not to spend time and energy on the UC Berkeley application. She's a fantastic kid with a 4.3, strong leadership, paid job, community service, etc. But there is no way she's going to stand out and get into Berkeley. But her counselor keeps telling her "you never know". The application is separate from common app and there are 4 supplementals. Just feels like a waste of time. Sorry - no real question, just venting.

Berkeley's OOS acceptance rate is about 3-4% for the past several years.

All you can tell her is this^, and leave it at that.

My DC with a 4.92 wgpa, 4.0 unwgpa from a magnet program was rejected at UCLA and Cal. TBF, DC's major is CS, which is probably the most competitive major.

- For the class that just enrolled at UC Berkeley this Fall, the out of state acceptance rate was 7.3% (2,184 admitted out of 29,755 out of state applicants)

- For the class that just enrolled at UCLA this Fall, the out of state acceptance rate was 9.3% (2,949 admitted out of 31,841 out of state applicants)

source: UC Student Data website...
https://www.ucop.edu/institutional-research-academic-planning/content-analysis/ug-admissions/ug-data.html

Yes, it's a tough admit for out of state kids, but frankly, it's a tough admit for anyone with an 9% overall acceptance rate at UCLA and 11% overall acceptance rate at Berkeley. If the desired major is Computer Science, well, that's going to be brutal regardless of where an applicant is from.

[Anonymous]

PP. Collegevine gives my kid a higher chance of getting into Stanford than UCLA, perhaps due to test scores. UCLA has the lowest predicted chances in my kid's Collegevine list.

[Anonymous]

I know three OOS KIDS are currently at Berkeley who didn’t get into other similarly ranked or even lower ranked schools. You never know!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know three OOS KIDS are currently at Berkeley who didn’t get into other similarly ranked or even lower ranked schools. You never know!

Which schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trying to convince DD not to spend time and energy on the UC Berkeley application. She's a fantastic kid with a 4.3, strong leadership, paid job, community service, etc. But there is no way she's going to stand out and get into Berkeley. But her counselor keeps telling her "you never know". The application is separate from common app and there are 4 supplementals. Just feels like a waste of time. Sorry - no real question, just venting.

She sounds way too basic to get into UC Berkeley. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trying to convince DD not to spend time and energy on the UC Berkeley application. She's a fantastic kid with a 4.3, strong leadership, paid job, community service, etc. But there is no way she's going to stand out and get into Berkeley. But her counselor keeps telling her "you never know". The application is separate from common app and there are 4 supplementals. Just feels like a waste of time. Sorry - no real question, just venting.

My kid is at Cal and frankly your kid sounds great. The school likes a lot of community involvement so make sure that stands out in her essays. I think she has a great chance and good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trying to convince DD not to spend time and energy on the UC Berkeley application. She's a fantastic kid with a 4.3, strong leadership, paid job, community service, etc. But there is no way she's going to stand out and get into Berkeley. But her counselor keeps telling her "you never know". The application is separate from common app and there are 4 supplementals. Just feels like a waste of time. Sorry - no real question, just venting.

What exactly do you mean by "strong leadership"? I'm not being snarky at all just curious. It might be just what Berkeley is looking for.