How to Get Into UC Berkeley: A Giant Guide

Welcome to Berkeley—the beating heart of the University of California system.

If Stanford is the shiny fortress of private ambition, Berkeley is its public mirror. Every year, we work with families dreaming of Cal. And for many of them, we have the hard job of delivering some somber news: Berkeley may not be in the cards.

Every fall, roughly 124,000 students apply for a spot in Berkeley’s first-year class. Only 13,700 are admitted. That’s an overall acceptance rate of 11.7% (and only 7.3% for out-of-state students), which puts Berkeley into one of the highest selectivity tiers.

While Berkeley is technically a public university, that “public” doesn’t make it any easier. In fact, the combination of limited seats, high in-state and out-of-state demand, and an overwhelming number of qualified applicants makes it one of the most brutal admissions environments in the country.

The strongest applicants, those who actually make it through Berkeley’s holistic review, understand how to use the UC application to signal the values Berkeley cares about most: intellectual vitality, curiosity, social awareness, and real-world impact.

This guide breaks down what it actually takes to get in. We’ll start with selectivity and admit rates, then look closely at academic expectations, the myth of the “UC GPA,” and our UC strategies that give you a fighting chance.

Our UC Berkeley Strategy

If Stanford’s paradox is that the best essays sound effortless, Berkeley’s is that the best essays work not through ornament or performance but through clarity of mind and action.

Berkeley wants to see how you notice a problem, follow a thread of curiosity, and do something real with it. The entire UC application is designed to surface that pattern.

The students who get into Berkeley tend to write and act the same way: directly, specifically, and with proof behind every claim. Their PIQs read like field reports from a life being lived with purpose. The best Berkeley applications feel balanced: intellectual rigor, personal depth, and social awareness. Each piece of the UC application covers one side of that triangle.

That’s the Berkeley current: intellectual curiosity with a civic charge.

When we work with students on UC applications, we help them construct PIQs that show not just what they did, but what they figured out while doing it. And we help them find balance—academic depth, personal growth, and contribution—so the set reads like a complete picture of someone who thinks and builds in equal measure.

This kind of strategy is honest, grounded, and precise. 

That’s who Berkeley admits, the ones already doing the work. The ones who’ve found clarity not just in thought, but in motion.

And that’s what this guide will help you find.

Is UC Berkeley Hard to Get Into?

Everyone knows that getting into Berkeley is “hard”... but just how hard is it?

Let’s start with the numbers from Berkeley’s 2024–2025 Common Data Set:

• In-State applicants, unsurprisingly, have the highest application numbers and highest admit rate. Roughly 60% of Berkeley’s applicant pool comes from California, and nearly 80% of those who enroll are in-state residents. 
  
  
• Out-of-State applicants face much steeper odds. The OOS admit rate (7.3%) is almost half that of in-state students.
  
  
• International students have way lower admit rates. Less than 4% of them are admitted. A 3.4% admit rate is what you’d expect to see at Stanford!

The discrepancies in admit rates between in-state and OOS or international students surprises a lot of people. But like most public universities, Berkeley is bound by California state priorities, including maintaining access for residents and balancing funding needs with equity goals.

UC Berkeley Acceptance Rate Out-Of-State

For out-of-state applicants, Berkeley is one of the most competitive public schools in the US. 

Out of 29,788 non-California applicants, only 2,186 were admitted, which is a 7.3% acceptance rate. That’s lower than Cornell, Boston University, and NYU.

There are a few reasons for this:

1. State Priorities: Berkeley is funded by California taxpayers, and UC policy explicitly prioritizes California residents, meaning there’s only so much room for nonresidents, which in turn increases competition.
   
   
2. Self-Selection: Out-of-state applicants tend to be academically strong to begin with. They’re also likely applying to schools like MIT, Duke, and the Ivies.

What does this mean for you if you’re applying from outside California? First, set your expectations accordingly. Second, you need a cohesive story that clearly fits Berkeley’s public mission and intellectual culture. If you’re applying from Boston or Seattle, for example, your essays should show why Berkeley specifically makes sense for your goals. That could look like making connections with the Bay Area’s startup ecosystem, the fusion of public service and research on campus, or Berkeley’s long history of social innovation.

How to Apply to the UCs

You’ll apply to UC Berkeley using the UC Application. UC Berkeley doesn’t take the Common App, allow letters of recommendation, or consider test scores. 

That means your UC application has four major considerations:

1. Academic history (courses + GPA)
   
   
2. Activities and awards
   
   
3. Personal Insight Questions (PIQs)
   
   
4. Context — how you used the opportunities available to you
   
   

In this next section, we’ll go through the big-picture strategies we use when working on PIQs with our clients.

How to Write the UC PIQs

The UC essays are short, direct, and designed to help readers understand who you are beyond your transcript. You’ll choose four out of eight prompts, each with a maximum of 350 words. Berkeley takes these responses seriously. They are the single most important narrative part of your UC application.

What Berkeley Looks For in the PIQs

UC Berkeley uses a comprehensive review process that values context, initiative, and academic depth. In your essays, admissions readers are looking for evidence of:

• Curiosity: genuine interest in learning or exploring ideas
  
  
• Initiative: effort you took to start or improve something
  
  
• Impact: results or changes that came from your actions
  
  
• Reflection: what you learned from your experiences
  
  

Your PIQs will also be pretty different from your personal statement in terms of style and tone. 

Writing Style

While your personal statement should be creative and tell a vulnerable story, UC readers prefer essays that are straightforward and specific. 

A few guidelines here:

• Start directly: in general, your hook should help you jump quickly into your response to the prompt.
  
  
• Use plain language: avoid metaphors, dramatic hooks, a lot of dialogue, flowery prose, etc.
  
  
• Give concrete details: these can include what you did, why it mattered, and what you learned.
  
  
• End with reflection or by looking forward: each essay with a short reflection on how the experience shaped you or on how you plan to move forward.

If a reader looks at your PIQ and it reads like anyone could have written it, you’re not done writing. Your essays should be specific to who you are and what you’ve done—so much so that no one but you could have written them.

When to Use Each Prompt

Some students find that picking which PIQs to respond to is the hardest part. Each PIQ serves a different purpose. You’ll be asked to respond to four of the eight options, so your goal is to pick four that let you show different dimensions of your experience.

Prompt 1: Leadership
Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time.

Use this if you’ve led a team or built something (a team, project, or community effort, etc.). Focus on what you did and what leadership meant to you. Write about your strengths, but avoid being self-congratulatory. 

Prompt 2: Creativity
Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.

This one is best for students who are genuinely creative (music, art, writing, creative uses of technology etc.). Avoid being hacky with this prompt (e.g., “I’m most creative when I doodle after a test”). You want to show admissions officers how you genuinely use creativity in your life.

Prompt 3: Greatest talent or skill
What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?

Use this if you have a specific ability and have had measurable impact or big recognition or award. Ideally it will be something you’ve practiced deeply over time. Avoid silly answers like “my greatest talent is tying my shoes.” Good for sustained commitments like music, coding, writing, debating, athletics, etc.

Prompt 4: Educational opportunity or barrier
Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

Notice that this prompt has two options: either a significant opportunity OR an educational barrier. If you’ve had a cool internship, research experience, extra class, or other educational opportunity, you can write about it with this prompt. On the flip side, if you’ve managed a learning disability, language barrier, school change or other situation that affected your education, this prompt might be for you, too.

Prompt 5: Most significant challenge
Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?

Different from #4, this prompt is for life circumstances outside of school. If the story adds real context to your academic record or personal development, you might answer this one. If this story doesn’t fit into one of your PIQs, you could think about putting that context in the additional information section.

Prompt 6: Favorite academic subject
Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.

Everyone should consider answering prompt #6. You are applying to go to school, after all. Use this prompt to show “academic fit” with your main academic interest. You’ll probably end up elaborating on one of your academic-related ECs or even on something you’ve done in the classroom that has inspired you to pursue the academic path you’ve chosen.

Prompt 7: Contribution to community
What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?

This one’s a good option for service work, mentoring, or impact that’s local and specific. Focus on concrete results rather than vague “helping others” language. Remember that UC PIQs prioritize action, so lay out the real steps you’ve taken to help your community.

Prompt 8: What makes you a strong candidate
Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?

This is the flexible option. Use it if you have a story that doesn’t fit anywhere else, like a project, experience, or perspective that defines your application. Some students revise their personal statement to use with this prompt. Take a look at the UC values and see if anything resonates. 

How to Choose Your UC PIQs

One of the biggest mistakes applicants make is thinking of each PIQ as a standalone essay. UC readers don’t read them that way. They read all four together and in tandem with your UC activities section. 

Your goal is to pick four prompts that make sense together as a cohesive narrative.

You want your answers to show range across three areas: intellectual curiosity, personal character or qualities, and real-world impact.

So here are our rules for choosing your UC essay prompts:

Rule 1. Cover different dimensions of yourself

Each PIQ should reveal something distinct. 

If all four essays focus on academic projects, your application will read as narrow. If all four are about leadership, your narrative may seem inflated or repetitive.

A good mix might look like:

• One essay focused on academic curiosity (e.g., #6)
  
  
• One showing initiative or leadership (e.g., #1 or #7)
  
  
• One showing resilience or reflection (e.g., #4 or #5)
  
  
• One that shows teamwork or community collaboration (e.g., #7)

That combination gives you both intellectual and personal depth.

Rule 2. Avoid redundancy

If multiple essays emphasize the same activity, interest, or theme, you’re not maximizing your application space. Being redundant is a missed opportunity to stand out.

If you must write about the same topic twice (for example, your most important extracurricular that has a lot of impact and has taken a lot of your time), you need to write about it from two completely different angles.

Rule 3. Choose strategically based on what’s missing elsewhere

Think of your PIQs as the flexible half of your UC application. Your transcript and activities are pretty set in stone by this point. But you have full control over what goes into your PIQ essays. Use this to your advantage by looking at your application holistically and choosing topics that help you address or compensate for any weaknesses.

If your GPA is strong but your activities are limited, focus on the initiative and intellectual depth you’ve shown inside the classroom or at home. If your résumé is strong but your grades are slightly lower, focus on growth, context, and your leadership outside the classroom. If your interests are scattered in your transcript and activities, use the essays to clarify your academic direction.

To sum up:

When read as a set, your essays should make sense together. They should reinforce your main academic and personal strengths without repeating information from your activities list.

Good PIQs read like a concise, factual explanation of what drives you and how you’ve made the most of the opportunities available to you. That’s what Berkeley readers are looking for.

UC Activities Section

Everyone worries about the essays, but the activities section is where Berkeley gets the first real sense of how you’ve spent your time and whether that time adds up to something meaningful.

You get 20 spaces in total to write about your activities and honors/awards. Description lengths are usually around 350 characters (that’s 200 characters more than the Common App!).

What Berkeley Actually Looks For

When readers skim your activities list (and yes, they aren’t always reading every single word), they’re looking for a few things:

1. Consistency: Did you stay committed to things that mattered to you over several years?
   
   
2. Growth: Did your role or impact expand over time?
   
   
3. Magnitude & Impact: What positive impact have you had on the world around you? How big was that impact?
   
   
4. Alignment: Do your activities match the values of their institution?

Write your activities descriptions with these questions in mind.

How to Write Strong Descriptions

Each entry gives you about 350 characters for the description. This length can depend on which category the activity falls into, so make sure you create your UC application account and see what the specific requirements are. Some categories also ask you to write an additional description of the organization or criteria for the activity.

For your activities descriptions, good entries answer three questions:

1. What did you do?
   
   
2. Why did it matter?
   
   
3. What changed because of it?
   
   

Here’s how that looks in practice:

Weak:

“President of environmental club. Organized meetings and events.”

Better:

“Environmental Club President. Devised and implemented composting program across campus, diverting 1,000+lbs of waste annually. Organized 50 volunteers to install compost bins across the school. Partnered with 3 local community gardens to donate the compost. ”

The weak description barely gives any information or context about the activity. It’s vague and generic. But the second description is better because it is clear about the writer’s involvement, it gives specific details about what actions they took within the club, and it uses numbers to illustrate a clear impact they had on their community.

How to Order and Organize Your UC Activities

In general, you want to list your most important commitments first. “Most important” could mean different things: the activity that occupies the most of your time, the one that you have the greatest accomplishments in, the one that is most interesting related to your academic interests, etc. Figuring out which activities go first is part of your application strategy.

UC Activities Section Mistakes

There are a few simple mistakes students tend to make when filling out the UC activities:

• Listing too much. Especially when all the information isn’t relevant. It can be easy to get caught up in the details of your descriptions instead of focusing on the highlights that show the greatest impact.
  
  
• Repeating what’s in your essays. You need to balance the details you give in your activities section with what you write in your PIQ essays. You can think of your activities section as the “data” of the activity and your essays as the “story” behind the activity. There can definitely be overlap, but an essay about one of your ECs should not just be a copy-and-paste of your activities description.
  
  
• Forgetting context or fun extracurriculars. You don’t have to fill out all 20 of the activities slots, but sometimes students have a hard time thinking of what to include. Jobs, family responsibilities, and caregiving do count as activities and are probably worth including, especially if they take up a lot of your time. Even independent activities you do for fun (watercoloring, making documentaries, becoming an amateur cheesemonger) can also really help your application stand out.
  
  
  

UC Berkeley Computer Science Acceptance Rate

Another question we get a lot is about the competitiveness of Berkeley's CS options. Because although the admit rate for the entire school is around 11%, competitive majors like CS can face increased competition.

Berkeley’s College of Engineering houses 13 different types of engineering, including Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (EECS). Within EECS, you can major in EECS, CS, or ECE. 

Because Berkeley EECS is so in demand and the majors draw from both sides of computing, its admission odds are significantly lower than the campus average. But Berkeley does not publish specific admissions data for Computer Science or EECS.

In short: for a student intent on Computer Science at Berkeley, you are competing not just with the broader Berkeley admit pool but with one of the most selective sub-programs. Your application must stand out in both academic depth (particularly in math, programming, engineering thinking) and in genuine demonstration of interest in the field.

Berkeley MET Acceptance Rate

Many of our students are interested specifically in Berkeley MET. The Management, Entrepreneurship & Technology (MET) program is one of the most competitive undergraduate options at UC Berkeley. It’s a dual degree program between the College of Engineering and the Haas School of Business and is designed for students who want to study both engineering and business at a high level.

You apply once, as a first-year applicant, to the College of Engineering and select a specific major (like EECS, IEOR, or Bioengineering). (Although there are limited options for applying if you’re already a student at Cal.) When you check the MET box, you’re considered separately for MET admission, and if you aren’t admitted, you’re still considered for your chosen engineering major.

How Competitive It Is MET?

Official numbers on MET’s acceptance rate aren’t published each year. But MET is among the hardest undergraduate programs in the country to get into. It’s roughly comparable to or even more selective than Stanford or Harvard. They keep enrollment small, at about 50 students, to maintain the close-knit feel of the program. Since MET receives thousands of applications every year, it’s very highly competitive.

How Admissions Works

• You apply through the UC Berkeley College of Engineering and indicate interest in MET.
  
  
• You’ll complete a supplemental application with a written essay and video response, typically due in December.
  
  
• If you’re not admitted to MET, you’re still automatically considered for your primary engineering major.

Now, what helps you actually get in?

How to Get Into Berkeley MET

What MET Looks For

MET’s mission is this: We accelerate visionary leaders. Through a comprehensive education in business and engineering, we empower students to transform and reshape the world in sustainable and scalable ways.

This mission guides their admissions decisions. When you apply, you should show how your own experiences and interests align with this mission. You also need to explain why MET’s combined program in business and engineering makes the most sense for you.

Successful MET applicants look less like “students who like both fields” and more like students who need training in both fields to achieve their goals, especially as those goals relate to MET’s mission.

Berkeley MET Essay

When you apply to MET, you have to complete an MET supplement in addition to the UC application. This supplement includes an essay and a video.

The supplement may change from year to year, so always check MET’s admissions page for the most up-to-date information. But typically you have two prompts options. Choose one and write an essay under 350 words.

Prompts

The prompts typically include…

• Prompt A: Share with us the world you come from (for example, your family, school, community, city, or town). What unique experiences from your world motivated you to apply to this business and engineering dual degree program?
  
  
• Prompt B: Describe an experience that required you to combine an engineering mindset with a business perspective. How did adapting to setbacks in this experience shape your leadership and resilience?

Berkeley MET admissions officers don’t have a preference between prompts, so choose the one that balances out your application the best. The written essay is evaluated on content, critical thinking, organization, and how directly you answer the prompt. 

Berkeley MET Video Essay

In addition to the written essay, Berkeley MET applicants must submit a video response as part of the supplemental application.

Unfortunately, you don’t get to know the video prompt ahead of time!

You’ll receive the video prompt by email shortly after submitting your UC application. It’s not something you can pre-record and upload on your own; you’ll log into a secure portal and record your response directly through the system.

MET says to think of the video as “a brief interview where we hope to see your best self, and we welcome responses that are authentic and spontaneous over those that are perfectly polished.” 

How to Prepare for the Video Essay

• Practice (out loud!), but don’t read from a script. You should practice speaking about yourself out loud. When it comes time to do your video, have a few talking points in mind, but MET reviewers don’t want to see you reading from a script.
  
  
• Prepare a few key examples. Just like you would before an interview, it’s a good idea to prepare a few examples of times you showed leadership, community involvement, etc. Keep in mind the stories you used in your essays and try to find ways to either talk about them more deeply or find other examples you can use instead.
  
  
• Breathe and be yourself. These kinds of videos can be scary, but remember that there’s a human on the other side watching your video. They want to get to know you and learn about why you’re a good fit for the MET program. Take deep breaths to calm your nerves and remember that there are no right or wrong answers.

See all of MET’s video tips here.

Final Thoughts

Berkeley is one of the toughest schools in the country to get into, but also one of the most rewarding. Strong applicants show curiosity, initiative, and a record of doing meaningful work. The UC application gives you room to prove that using examples from your life. Focus on what you’ve built, contributed, and learned. And if you want expert help crafting that kind of application, get in touch with our team.