How To Get Into UC Berkeley

_{Written 9-1-19}

a.k.a. How To Get Rejected From MIT, CalTech, and Stanford.

This is actually going to be a half-joking but totally true retelling of how I got into UC Berkeley.

1. Go to Troy High School.
2. Only have one extracurricular: Science Olympiad. Literally put all of your free time into this extracurricular.
3. Put off college apps until the last minute, a.k.a. Thanksgiving break, but only because you were working on SciOly.
4. Spend 4 hours on the UC app, literally.
5. Spend 1 hour proofreading, but not changing anything.
6. Submit and wait for acceptance letters. Go back to working on SciOly in the meantime.
   1. Make sure you apply for EECS.
7. Get accepted early with a Regents interview.
8. Fail the interview, from my point of view.
9. Still get Regents. Profit.
10. Watch all your friends get into Ivy Leagues and private schools, but realizing UC Berkeley, #1 Public University, is better than all of them.

Real talk: UC Berkeley was my safety, but it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me. For real this is an incredible school. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. The people, the culture, just everything, it’s all amazing. In all honesty, I did spend over a week on each of my private school apps but didn’t get in. Sometimes life just has a funny way of placing you where you’re meant to be. Just follow your passion and keep doing what you love to do and everything will work out.

Click here for a pdf of my UC essays.