Expert: Sarah Sanchez Date: 8/23/2001 Subject: Berkeley Information
Question Ms. Sanchez
I appreciate you taking your time to answer a few questions. A foreword, I am a sophomore, who has a minor visual impairment, receiving a 4.0 GPA my second semester of my freshman year, and a 3.42 the first semester of my freshman year (Due to getting acquainted with my new district and school.). I have high expectations of myself, and I plan to go to University of California, Berkeley, but there are several factors that will hold me back. First off, is it true that you need a 4.0 or higher all 4 years of your high school career, and receive a 1600 on your SAT? I understand that grades are not everything, I am involved in my school's Community Service organization, I provided more than 85 hours of service last year. I also may be involved in my school's Robotics team, sponsored by US First. I plan to take 2 extra classes, both of those in which will cover computer programming, during my free time I also am using Higher Score preparation for the SAT\PSAT and ACT. Does University of California, Berkeley consult the ACT score, does it have any effect on the admission? I plan to take the AP Computer Science AB examination my junior or senior year. I also plan to go into AP English my Junior year. all right, I know that the financial qualifications to go to University of California, Berkeley are extremely high, and I do not come from a wealthy family, our income is roughly 60 - 70 thousand. Is there financial aide available, and if so what should I do. I understand that this is a long time away, but my school's guidance advisor recommended me to start searching for scholarship information and financial aide. I mentioned I had a visual disability, and I do, does University of California, Berkeley have a program specially for visually impaired students, one similar to the one UC Berkeley offers? My optimologist recommended that I look into that aspect. I appreciate your help, and thank you for taking your valuable time and assisting me. If I have not been clear please let me know so I can clarify any information.
Best regards,
Mr. Joseph Thomas
Sequoia Union High School District
Based In Redwood City California
Answer Joseph,
First of all thank you for your detailed question, and I think you have a very good chance of getting into Berkeley if you keep working hard. Let me answer your questions in the order that you asked them, and hopefully I will be able to help:
1)Do you need a 4.0 or higher all four years of high school, and a 1600 on your SATs?
-NO! The don't even look at your freshman year grades, except that they are factored into your overall GPA, but the only actual class reported grades they look at are sophmore and junior, and then after your accepted they look at senior, just to make sure you kept up your grades. I did have a 4.0 unweighted GPA, and I took a lot of AP classes and honors classes so weighted it was roughly a 4.7, but that does not mean that everyone does. I just suggest you continue with your plan on taking AP classes, and make sure to take honors classes, and more APs if you think that you can handle it! :-) Now about the SATs, I had a 1380, and I got in so don't worry. They don't have to be perfect, and you don't have to get a 1380 either. They only admit a certain percentage based solely on grades and test scores, the rest are admitted on their extracurricular activities and their personal statement.
2)You talked about all you are doing, and that is great, just make sure that you take as many AP classes as you think you can handle to still get the good grades! And taking the prep courses for the SAT and the ACT is a very good idea.
3)Does Berkeley use the ACT scores?
-Yes as of right now you can either chose to use your SAT 2 scores or your ACT scores. I didn't do as well as I would have liked on my SAT 2 so I used my ACT.
4)Financial aid?
-I don't know what you consider to be high prices for Berkeley, but the only thing that is really expensive is if you live out of state and of course the housing! You are a California resident so you don't have to pay out of state tuition, and right now the in state tuition is roughly $2,000 a semester, which is really good for the type of education that Berkeley provides! The housing is a little more expensive, but people make do, their are a lot of job opportunities on campus, but it sounds like your family should be able to help out. The way to apply for financial aid, is when you are applying for schools you will need to fill out something called the FAFSA, I am not sure what it stands for, but your school will have one. One it you enter in all your financial information and the schools you are applying to. They then send information about how much money you need to the schools you have selected, and then the ones that accept you send you an offer letter, with grants, loans, and work-study, and you decide what to accept. Also important is to apply for a lot of scholarships. There are a lot of them listed on the web, and your schools career counselor should have a bunch available too. Those are really helpful, and a lot of people don't think about it, and you would be surprised how many scholarships aren't given out, because no one applied!
5) Program for visually impaired students?
-You asked me if the University of California, Berkeley had a program similar to UC Berkeley, considering these are the same school I assume that must have been a typo! :-) But I can't compare two schools anyways, but I can tell you about Berkeley. I know that they have a lot of accomadations for both hearing impaired and visually impaired students. They offering note taking services for students who are visually impaired, so that you can just go to class and listen, and don't have to worry about seeing what is on the board, and such. I suggest that you look at the Berkeley website, www.berkeley.edu, and enter in visual impairment under the search engine to see what they have!
I really hope that this helped you, and I have to say that you seem really prepared for a sophmore in high school. It is really good to be goal oriented, I knew from the 8th grade that I wanted to be validictorian of my high school class, and I didn't let anything stand in my way. So keep in mind how bad you want to go to Berkeley, and I am sure that you will do it! But also keep in mind to relax and enjoy high school, and don't get to stressed out, because there is plenty to stress out about later! Again, I hope this was helpful, and please don't hesitate to write back with anymore questions, or if I wasn't clear on anything! Good luck!
Sarah Sanchez
