This girl certainly did.

http://www.dailycal.org/2012/04/08/berkeley-high-student-protesters-claim-uc-berkeley-admissions-discriminate-against-minorities/

To be fair, I certainly felt that it was a foregone conclusion that I would get in, though it's always easier to claim that in hindsight :p.

3.85? That ****'s weak.

Back in 1978? Hell yeah I did!!

Oh please... under affirmative action, students with 4.0+ will get rejected...

And to answer your question - nope. No one in my family ever got accepted.

Oh great, making a scene over a rejection letter, and she isn't even denied of her appeal yet.
There are probably tens of thousands of rejected students whose qualifications look better than hers.
If you don't get what you want, hold a protest and blame everyone else.

Someone said her weighted GPA was 4.3. That's more like it, girl!

LethalFang;735746 said:

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Oh great, making a scene over a rejection letter, and she isn't even denied of her appeal yet.
There are probably tens of thousands of rejected students whose qualifications look better than hers.
If you don't get what you want, hold a protest and blame everyone else.

---

+1

No one DESERVES to get into Berkeley.

If she truly feels that way, she should go to a community college and prove it. And seriously, if her racial background was really that big of an issue in her admissions, she should have stated it in her personal statement. Dont use that as an excuse now after being denied.

I expected to get in

3.9 at DVC and during my Sophmore year at DVC I took a class at Cal got an A and also was in the Cal Band

...I would have gone to the supreme court if i didnt get in lol

Hmm probably a pretty common story. The weighted 4.0+ and extracurricular activities group of students is fairly large though, so I don't think anyone should expect to get into Cal unless they're Cal Tech/MIT material.

I didn't expect to get in to anywhere at 17, but I did get into Cal. I do remember some of my high school classmates being upset they didn't make it in and appeal the process, unsuccesfully.

There's a lot left out of the story, but her choice of major could be a huge impact on whether or not she makes it as well. Not sure why she thinks she belongs though.

Adrian The Cal Bear;735758 said:

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+1

No one DESERVES to get into Berkeley.

If she truly feels that way, she should go to a community college and prove it. And seriously, if her racial background was really that big of an issue in her admissions, she should have stated it in her personal statement. Dont use that as an excuse now after being denied.

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It's ironic that conventional wisdom would suggest that her racial background should have helped her and not have acted against her.

I remember a few years ago a Yale student filed a complaint against Princeton claiming that he was discriminated against for being Asian (which, when you consider AA, makes more sense than whatever that girl is claiming).

no, i didn't expect to get in. But i guess someone in admissions figured Cal had enough nerds so they needed to even things up a bit.

the thought that i may have taken someone like her's spot makes me feel all warm and fuzzy too.

Ace4eVer;735765 said:

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Hmm probably a pretty common story. The weighted 4.0+ and extracurricular activities group of students is fairly large though, so I don't think anyone should expect to get into Cal unless they're Cal Tech/MIT material.

I didn't expect to get in to anywhere at 17, but I did get into Cal. I do remember some of my high school classmates being upset they didn't make it in and appeal the process, unsuccesfully.

There's a lot left out of the story, but her choice of major could be a huge impact on whether or not she makes it as well. Not sure why she thinks she belongs though.

---

I've a very good friend who got into Berkeley by successfully appealing his initial rejection. I've heard plenty of stories of successful appeals, so she could've continued trying.
But now that's she's throwing a tantrum, I hope Cal stick with the decision to reject.

My friend got into UCLA by appealing. He changed his major and then petitioned to change it back to what he originally wanted after the first semester

My friends kid applied to Cal, MIT, and SLO. Got into MIT, and not Cal or SLO. Figure that out. I am sure every college is leaning towards out of state money. By the way, his parents are school teachers. That's a decision I would never want to have to make about my children. You want the best, great opportunity, but how the hell do you pay upwards of $58,000 a year to put your kid through school on the salary of two school teachers? And please don't say loans!

Ace4eVer;735765 said:

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Hmm probably a pretty common story. The weighted 4.0+ and extracurricular activities group of students is fairly large though, so I don't think anyone should expect to get into Cal unless they're Cal Tech/MIT material.

I didn't expect to get in to anywhere at 17, but I did get into Cal. I do remember some of my high school classmates being upset they didn't make it in and appeal the process, unsuccesfully.

There's a lot left out of the story, but her choice of major could be a huge impact on whether or not she makes it as well. Not sure why she thinks she belongs though.

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So the question is---does Cal factor in a "weighted" GPA? I recently heard that it's better for a college candiate to get A's in core classes rather than take AP courses and get B's.

LethalFang;735771 said:

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I've a very good friend who got into Berkeley by successfully appealing his initial rejection. I've heard plenty of stories of successful appeals, so she could've continued trying.
But now that's she's throwing a tantrum, I hope Cal stick with the decision to reject.

---

Oops, I didn't mean to make it sound like appeals never worked. I just didn't know what was involved.

BTW I agree with you and hope Cal sticks to its guns here. I detest the idea that people think they are special and that they deserve special treatment. She went through the process like the others and didn't make it. Go ahead and appeal, but don't turn it into a race thing when her race probably actually helped her. To be honest, I thought the article was going to be about a white or Asian student protesting.

CalBy7;735776 said:

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My friends kid applied to Cal, MIT, and SLO. Got into MIT, and not Cal or SLO. Figure that out. I am sure every college is leaning towards out of state money. By the way, his parents are school teachers. That's a decision I would never want to have to make about my children. You want the best, great opportunity, but how the hell do you pay upwards of $58,000 a year to put your kid through school on the salary of two school teachers? And please don't say loans!

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Haha I was wondering if someone would be able to find a contradiction to my pedestaling of CalTech/MIT. Quite frankly, that shocks me, especially the SLO rejection. Maybe you left out the part of the story where there's a building named after his grandfater at MIT?

I knew one person who got into either school from high school, but it was fairly obvious those people were special and could have gone anywhere, and got into everywhere they applied.

run2win;735781 said:

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So the question is---does Cal factor in a "weighted" GPA? I recently heard that it's better for a college candiate to get A's in core classes rather than take AP courses and get B's.

---

AFAIK all the UCs look at your weighted state GPA (does not include freshman year).

I'm pretty sure they'd rather see B's in AP courses than A's in regular courses. I had a 3.5 unweighted GPA but a 4.4 weighted state GPA :eek:.

run2win;735781 said:

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So the question is---does Cal factor in a "weighted" GPA? I recently heard that it's better for a college candiate to get A's in core classes rather than take AP courses and get B's.

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No, I'm pretty sure that it looks better if the candidate attempts the most rigorous curriculum available at the school they're attending prior to Cal.

Part of the problem is that grades at one school may be easier than grades at another school, AP included.

That's what is so frustrating nowadays: There is definitely a randomness factor to the admissions process. This was always true, of course, but now that Cal is sooooooo selective, it seems more acute.

It's disappointing for me, when I imagine the chances my kids have -- down the road -- of getting in to Cal, even with "very, very good" grades and test scores. They will have to be "outstanding" (far better than I was in high school) to secure a spot.

That's life, I guess: The price I will have paid for my diploma looking more and more prestigious with each passing decade.

Ace4eVer;735787 said:

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Haha I was wondering if someone would be able to find a contradiction to my pedestaling of CalTech/MIT. Quite frankly, that shocks me, especially the SLO rejection. Maybe you left out the part of the story where there's a building named after his grandfater at MIT?

I knew one person who got into either school from high school, but it was fairly obvious those people were special and could have gone anywhere, and got into everywhere they applied.

---

I had a couple friends that had UC application fee waivers, so they checked off the box next to every single school on their application. Both got into Cal, UCLA, UCSD, etc. but got rejected from UCR, UCM, and UCSC. Seems like if you're a no-brainer for a much higher ranked school, the lower ranked schools won't bother wasting you an admissions spot.

Big C_Cal;735803 said:

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No, I'm pretty sure that it looks better if the candidate attempts the most rigorous curriculum available at the school they're attending prior to Cal.

Part of the problem is that grades at one school may be easier than grades at another school, AP included.

That's what is so frustrating nowadays: There is definitely a randomness factor to the admissions process. This was always true, of course, but now that Cal is sooooooo selective, it seems more acute.

It's disappointing for me, when I imagine the chances my kids have -- down the road -- of getting in to Cal, even with "very, very good" grades and test scores. They will have to be "outstanding" (far better than I was in high school) to secure a spot.

That's life, I guess: The price I will have paid for my diploma looking more and more prestigious with each passing decade.

---

From what I noticed, most of my classmates either had a high GPA or high SAT score. Not many students I knew had both, though the ones that did all had Regent scholarships, which leads me to think that if you do have both (i.e. at least a 4.3 weighted and 2300) and some semblance of extracurricular activities, you should be golden.

When you see dwindling acceptance rates, you also have to consider that there are a ton of unqualified applicants that just spam applications out (since all the UC's use one application). I've seen very few people who I felt should have gotten into Cal but did not.

run2win;735781 said:

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So the question is---does Cal factor in a "weighted" GPA? I recently heard that it's better for a college candiate to get A's in core classes rather than take AP courses and get B's.

---

When I was in school, (in the late 90's, early 00's) UC used some kind of formula for admissions. half the classes were admitted on the formula alone (SAT+GPA), the other half on a more 'holistic' evaluation - which I believe was an admission officer assigning a point values to various factors and adding that back to the formula... total public school approach. efficient but possibly to game it a little. With the budget crisis, I can't see that UC would now employ MORE staff to review the tons of apps so I'm guessing it's similar today. previous cutoffs were pretty well known, so it wasn't that hard for someone to have a good idea of their chances.

I remember UC did count weighted GPA, but with a cap at 4.0. So for most people, it didn't make a difference whether one took AP's and got a B or regular classes and got an A. In fact, there were so many people capped at a 4.0, the GPA was pretty much worthless in separating good from great. Maybe that's fair since GPA is completely fabricated and a poor comparison between high schools (and as we all know colleges). Again UC is a public school, and they only calculate GPA's using certain classes... no exceptions. So people spouting off random GPA's of people who got in or didn't get in means even less without more info.

Perhaps admissions officers can compare a student who got some B's in AP classes at a good schools to one where one got all A's at a school with a poor class offering (ie no AP's) and determine that the A student did their best given the opportunity, while the B student in AP's didn't.

But isn't this girl white? How is she being discriminated against? Seems that affirmative action is hurting her.

At my (urban) high school, we had to compete to get into AP classes.

The best 25 would get into AP history, or AP English language, etc..

I was wondering if it was like that at most high schools.

I applied as EECS and was very confident I would get in. I was valedictorian of my school which should speak to my grades. I took every single AP class possible.

I applied to Cal and UCLA which had the strongest engineering programs of the UC schools. UCLA was fallback. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, though, and only knew it would be something engineering-related.

Other schools I applied to:

* MIT: This was my dream school. My brother went here and I bought into the whole nerd culture. I would've loved to go to school here but ended up falling in love with Cal. It's interesting to think about how different a person I would've been had I done computer science there. Rejected.

* Stanford: Another dream school. Not gonna lie *ducks tomatoes*. But, to be honest, I didn't know anything about the culture. This had more to do with the push by my parents. Other positive points: Still in Cali but far away enough from home. Rejected.

* Harvard, Princeton, Yale: Much like 'furd, applied more to the name than the program. Knowing what I know now, I'm glad I didn't go to any of these schools. Harvard, as a campus/culture, would've been cool but given what I studied I'm glad I ended up at Cal. Rejected by all.

Out of high school, I wasn't even sure what I wanted to do. Even though I was in the EECS program, I entertained going Mech E. I took a few classes in that direction and decided it wasn't for me. It wasn't until I took some undergraduate computer science classes did I really find my passion.

All in all, I think I was very fortunate how it turned out. I hadn't visited the campus beforehand so I knew nothing of the culture or the bay area. I didn't realize Berkeley Engineering was that strong until afterwards.

My parents are immigrants so they never did the whole college tour or research for me. Most of the guidance I received was from my older brother who had done his own research and was in college when I applied.

I now work in Silicon Valley and so the Berkeley program was a great way to get into that. Perhaps the only similar and "stronger" route would've been to be a CS major at 'furd. As much as I hate them, they have a strong program and do a very good job doing things like encouraging entrepreneurship. Also, their alumni network is strong and just having that school on your resume opens more doors.

Btw, the girl who didn't get in: I heard before that Cal/UC schools limit how many people they take from any one school. I'm not sure if that's true but there have to have been a lot of kids from Berkeley High who got into Cal.

I knew people who got into Cal but not to UCLA. Go figure: The UC admission system is a mystery.

ColoradoBear1;735814 said:

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When I was in school, (in the late 90's, early 00's) UC used some kind of formula for admissions. half the classes were admitted on the formula alone (SAT+GPA), the other half on a more 'holistic' evaluation - which I believe was an admission officer assigning a point values to various factors and adding that back to the formula... total public school approach. efficient but possibly to game it a little. With the budget crisis, I can't see that UC would now employ MORE staff to review the tons of apps so I'm guessing it's similar today.

I remember they did count weighted GPA, but with a cap at 4.0. So for most people, it didn't make a difference whether one took AP's and got a B or regular classes and got an A. In fact, there were so many people capped at a 4.0, the GPA was pretty much worthless in separating good from great. Maybe that's fair since GPA is completely fabricated and a poor comparison between high schools (and as we all know colleges).

Perhaps admissions officers can compare a student who got some B's in AP classes at a good schools to one where one got all A's at a school with a poor class offering (ie no AP's) and determine that the A student did their best given the opportunity, while the B student in AP's didn't.

But isn't this girl white? How is she being discriminated against? Seems that affirmative action is hurting her.

---

She's actually Latina, which makes it all the more ironic. If she had been white her case might have had a little bit more legitimacy.

In any case, when I applied in the 2000s, all the UCs except for Cal used a formulaic metric (openly published on their respective websites too). It went something like weighted GPA x 1000 (maxed at 4000), sat1 score + 3 sat2 scores (another 4000), 500 if you're low income, 1000 for leadership positions, 500 for parents in the military, etc. and ended up totaling up to about 16000.

okaydo;735817 said:

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At my (urban) high school, we had to compete to get into AP classes.

The best 25 would get into AP history, or AP English language, etc..

I was wondering if it was like that at most high schools.

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At the high school I went to, we didn't even have enough students that were interested in some of the AP classes for the school to offer it. I had to drive to another school in my district that did offer those classes.

Contrast that to the high school my younger brother went to (one of the public Bay Area feeder schools for Cal), there were more students taking the AP classes than non-AP classes. I wouldn't be surprised if some students had a hard time trying to get into a regular class than an AP class.

petalumabear;735742 said:

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Back in 1978? Hell yeah I did!!

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In those days if your high school GPA was over 3.5, they didn't even consider your SAT score. I just assumed I'd get in-no safety school or anything.

pingpong2;735800 said:

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AFAIK all the UCs look at your weighted state GPA (does not include freshman year).

I'm pretty sure they'd rather see B's in AP courses than A's in regular courses. I had a 3.5 unweighted GPA but a 4.4 weighted state GPA :eek:.

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AP weighted courses are a big crock of ****.

SchadenBear;735845 said:

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AP weighted courses are a big crock of ****.

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If you had to work harder for the same grade and colleges didn't look favorably on those courses, how many students do you honestly think will take those in lieu of easier grade-boosting classes?

freshfunk;735830 said:

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Btw, the girl who didn't get in: I heard before that Cal/UC schools limit how many people they take from any one school. I'm not sure if that's true but there have to have been a lot of kids from Berkeley High who got into Cal.

I knew people who got into Cal but not to UCLA. Go figure: The UC admission system is a mystery.

---

My high school class (public school) had about 20 people accepted to Berkeley (and all went).

I do find it funny that she believes she deserves it. With the amount of competition going into college, the admission process shouldn't be about selecting who deserves (as anyone can claim they put in 100%, 110%, 1000% or whatever number is popular nowadays). Rather, the selection process should be about who UC Berkeley needs or believes in.

If the Cal admission doesn't believe in you, Im sure whining about it wont turn any heads.

pingpong2;735833 said:

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She's actually Latina, which makes it all the more ironic. If she had been white her case might have had a little bit more legitimacy.

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It would be more interesting to compare her socio-economic status.

pingpong2;735849 said:

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If you had to work harder for the same grade and colleges didn't look favorably on those courses, how many students do you honestly think will take those in lieu of easier grade-boosting classes?

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I always thought taking the AP test gave you the bump, rather than the same thirty students (tracked from the ninth grade) that got the AP 5. or 4.

It seems like grade inflation for a select few. How else do you get above a 4.0? Am I mistaken?

freshfunk;735830 said:

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Btw, the girl who didn't get in: I heard before that Cal/UC schools limit how many people they take from any one school. I'm not sure if that's true but there have to have been a lot of kids from Berkeley High who got into Cal.

I knew people who got into Cal but not to UCLA. Go figure: The UC admission system is a mystery.

---

They don't limit the number from one school per se, but they do have a set aside for the top students from each and every California public school, which means that if you go to a school that has a lot of applicants for Cal you are probably going to end up competing in the state wide (and out of state) pool, which is more difficult.

My oldest daughter is African American, had a 3.8 gpa unweighted (4.2 gpa weighted), 2150 SAT (National Merit and Nation Achievement scholar), lots of extracurriculars--she won the Fremont Science Fair, her sculptures took second place at the Alameda County Fair, she was hired by the Stanford Education Department as a public speaker (with a letter of recommendation from the professor), she attended Columbia University Summer program and had the top score in her class with glowing letters of recommendation from two professors.... and she did not get into Cal, the only school she ever really wanted to attend since she was little, even on appeal.

A big part of it was probably class rank as her high school (Mission San Jose in Fremont) sends more kids to Cal than any other high school.

She got into UCSD on appeal where she was one of only 40 African Americans in her entering class.

Interestingly, she was offered full rides unsolicited from TAMU, Alabama (they can't find African Americans in Texas and Alabama that qualify for TAMU and Alabama?) and Utah and a sizable offer from Tufts, but it came too late for us to visit the campus and convince her it is a great school (none of her friends had heard of it, so it doesn't count).

Under the current admission system, your kids best chances of getting into Cal are by sending them to a large public school that is underachieving overall, but still offers a full contingent of AP classes that top students pretty much are all able to get into and support each other.

Either that, or apply from out of state and pay the higher tuition.

calumnus;735866 said:

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A big part of it was probably class rank as her high school (Mission San Jose in Fremont) sends more kids to Cal than any other high school.

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I know what you mean, it definitely doesn't help that MSJ usually has about 30 valedictorians (read: 30 students with 4.0s unweighted) and at least 50 students attending Berkeley every year (God knows how many students are accepted and choose to go elsewhere).

Interestingly, my brother went to the same school, had a 3.7 unweighted, 2390 SAT, and the only ECs he had were Quizbowl and Model UN. He did get into Berkeley, but ultimately decided to bail out of the state to go to an Ivy, which kind of sucks since my parents and I had all gone to Cal. Sometimes admissions can be more mysterious than life itself.