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UC Berkeley is one of the schools in the University of California school system and often known as the “best” UC school. Tens of thousands of excellent students apply each year to become students at UC Berkeley, but only the selected few will get in. If you are interested in applying to UC Berkeley, you’ll need to know the requirements in the UC Berkeley application and methods Berkeley uses to select students.
UC Berkeley’s minimum application requirements
Students just need to meet the following basic requirements in order to be eligible to apply to UC Berkeley:
- Meeting UC’s A-G Subject Requirement
- Having at least a 3.0 GPA in 10-11th grade (non-residents need to have at least a 3.4 GPA)
- Fill out a UC Application
In the following post, we shared the 14 requirements for applying to all UC schools:
UC Berkeley’s selection process
In addition to the requirements above, UC Berkeley will evaluate students on the following factors:
- Your weighted or unweighted UC GPA, calculated using only the UC-approved courses in 10th and 11th grade
- Your course selection in 12th grade
- Your change of grades in the first 3 years in high school
- The number of AP, IB, honors, or transferrable college courses that you have completed
- Your achievements in those AP, IB, honors, or transferrable college courses compared to other students from your high school who also applied to UC Berkeley
- Your SAT, AP, or IB test scores
If you are applying for fall admissions, you must complete the above requirements before December. UC Berkeley doesn’t require SAT2 test scores, but if you are applying to Berkeley’s College of Engineering or College of Chemistry, UC Berkeley recommends that you take Math Level 2 and science (Biology E/M, Chemistry, or Physics) SAT2’s.
One thing to note about SAT2 scores is that, if you submitted your SAT2 scores to 1 UC campus, your SAT2 scores will be shared among all 9 UC campuses.
UC Berkeley’s holistic admissions (holistic review) process
UC Berkeley looks at not just academic factors but also non-academic factors. This means that Berkeley cares about not just what you get on your grades and test scores but also who you are as a whole. Factors that Berkeley will consider include but are not limited to:
- Your entire high school academic profile, including the number of courses you have taken, the rigor of those courses, and the grades you get in those courses
- Your personal qualities, including your character, motivation, leadership ability, insight, tenacity, initiative, originality, intellectual independence, responsibility, maturity, and demonstrated concern for others and for the community are considered.
- Your ability to contribute your knowledge or culture to a diverse campus, including how you can use your background and experience to communicate with or benefit your classmates, professors, or the campus as a whole.
- Your achievements in academic enrichment activities or programs, measured by the time and depth of your commitment, the progress you made in the activity, and the intellectual rigor of the program.
- Your evidence of achievement, such as maintaining a level of achievement in an academic, intellectual, or creative field, having an accomplishment in an extracurricular activity such as sports or arts, leadership in school or clubs, or employment or volunteering service that demonstrates certain ability.
- Race, ethnicity, gender, and religion are not used in the evaluation process.
