📚 University of California, Berkeley: A Complete Guide for International Applicants | 加州大学伯克利分校：国际申请者完整指南
University of California, Berkeley sits on a hillside overlooking the San Francisco Bay, and for more than 150 years it has been one of the defining institutions of American public higher education. This guide explains what Berkeley is, how it is structured, what it is best known for academically, and what international applicants - especially students holding A-Level qualifications - need to understand before they apply.
加州大学伯克利分校坐落于俯瞰旧金山湾的山坡之上，一百五十多年来，它一直是美国公立高等教育最具代表性的机构之一。本文将从学校定位、组织架构、学术强项，以及国际申请者（尤其是持有 A-Level 成绩的学生）在申请前必须了解的信息等角度，做一次系统梳理。
1. At a Glance | 学校概览
Berkeley is a public research university located in the city of Berkeley, California, on the eastern shore of the San Francisco Bay. It is the oldest campus of the University of California system and is consistently ranked among the strongest academic institutions in the world.
伯克利是一所公立研究型大学，位于加州伯克利市、旧金山湾东岸。它是加州大学系统中最古老的校区，也长期稳居全球顶尖学术机构之列。
| Founded / 建校时间 | 1868 |
| Motto / 校训 | Fiat Lux - "Let There Be Light" / 让光明照亮 |
| Type / 类型 | Public research university / 公立研究型大学 |
| System / 所属系统 | University of California (oldest of the campuses) / 加州大学系统（最老校区） |
| Location / 地理位置 | Berkeley, California, United States / 美国加利福尼亚州伯克利市 |
| Enrolment / 学生规模 | Roughly 45,000 students, about 32,000 of them undergraduates / 约 45,000 人，其中本科生约 32,000 人 |
| Nickname / 昵称 | Cal / Cal Bears |
2. Founding and History: 1868 and Fiat Lux | 建校历史与校训
Berkeley was created in 1868, when the State of California merged the private College of California, founded in 1855, with the state's Agricultural, Mining and Mechanical Arts College to form the University of California. The campus opened in Oakland in 1869 and moved to its present Berkeley site in 1873. It is therefore one of the oldest and most prestigious public universities in the United States.
伯克利创建于 1868 年。当时加州政府将 1855 年成立的私立加州学院与该州的农业、矿业与机械艺术学院合并，组建了加州大学。学校 1869 年在奥克兰开课，1873 年迁至如今的伯克利校址。因此，它是美国历史最悠久、声望最高的公立大学之一。
Its motto, Fiat Lux - "Let There Be Light" - expresses the founding idea that a public university exists to spread knowledge, reason and enlightenment across society rather than to serve a narrow elite. For over a century the university has aimed to educate students with innovative thinking, global leadership and a sense of social responsibility, using that education to drive social progress and reform.
学校的校训 Fiat Lux，即"让光明照亮"，表达的是建校初衷：公立大学的存在意义在于让知识、理性与启蒙之光普照整个社会，而非只服务于少数精英。百余年来，伯克利致力于培养具有创新思维、全球领导力与社会责任感的学生，并以此推动社会进步与革新。
3. The UC System and the Public Mission | 加州大学系统与公立使命
Berkeley is one of the ten campuses of the University of California. UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, UC Riverside, UC Merced and UC San Francisco make up the rest of the system, with San Francisco devoted entirely to graduate and professional health sciences. A single UC application allows a student to apply to several campuses at once.
伯克利是加州大学十个校区之一。系统内还包括 UCLA、加州大学圣地亚哥分校、圣塔芭芭拉分校、欧文分校、戴维斯分校、圣克鲁兹分校、河滨分校、默塞德分校以及旧金山分校，其中旧金山分校只设研究生与医学健康类专业。学生用一份 UC 申请表即可同时申请多个校区。
The system's shape comes from California's 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, which gave the top tier of students a place in a research university at a comparatively low in-state price. That public mission still defines Berkeley: tuition for California residents is far lower than the rate charged to non-residents, and the university is expected to produce research and graduates that benefit the wider public, not only those who study there.
这一格局源于加州 1960 年的高等教育总体规划，它让最优秀的一批学生能以相对低廉的本州学费进入研究型大学。这一公立使命至今仍定义着伯克利：加州本地学生的学费远低于非本州学生，而学校也被期待产出能惠及整个社会的研究成果与毕业生，而不只是造福在校学生本身。
4. Colleges and Schools | 学院与学部设置
Berkeley is organised into a set of undergraduate colleges and professional schools. The College of Letters & Science is by far the largest and contains three broad divisions - Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, and Mathematical and Physical Sciences. Social sciences such as economics, political science, sociology and psychology sit inside this division rather than in a separate freestanding faculty.
伯克利由若干本科学院与专业学院组成。其中文理学院规模最大，下设三大部：人文艺术部、社会科学部、数学与物理科学部。经济学、政治学、社会学、心理学等社会科学学科隶属该学院的社会科学部，而非独立设置的社会科学学院。
| College / School 学院 | Typical strengths 主要方向 |
| College of Letters & Science 文理学院 | Economics, political science, sociology, psychology, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, humanities 经济学、政治学、社会学、心理学、数学、物理、化学、生物、人文学科 |
| College of Engineering 工程学院 | EECS, mechanical, civil, environmental, bioengineering, materials 电子工程与计算机科学、机械、土木、环境、生物、材料 |
| College of Chemistry 化学院 | Chemistry, chemical biology, chemical engineering 化学、化学生物学、化学工程 |
| Rausser College of Natural Resources 自然资源学院 | Environmental science, ecology, resource economics, nutrition 环境科学、生态学、资源经济学、营养学 |
| College of Environmental Design 环境设计学院 | Architecture, landscape architecture, city planning 建筑、景观设计、城市规划 |
| College of Computing, Data Science and Society 计算、数据科学与社会学院 | Data science, computer science, statistics 数据科学、计算机科学、统计学 |
| Haas School of Business 哈斯商学院 | Business administration (mainly upper division and graduate) 工商管理（以高年级与研究生为主） |
| Professional schools 专业学院 | Law, public health, public policy, education, information, journalism, optometry 法学、公共卫生、公共政策、教育、信息、新闻、视光学 |
Prospective students should note that at Berkeley you apply to a specific college, and in some cases to a specific major. Choosing the right college is therefore part of the application strategy, not an afterthought.
申请者需要注意：在伯克利，你申请的是某个具体学院，部分情况下还要直接申请具体专业。因此选对学院本身就是申请策略的一部分，而不是事后才考虑的事。
5. Academic Strengths and Rankings | 学术优势与排名
Berkeley enjoys an outstanding international reputation in both teaching and research. Across the major global ranking tables it is normally placed within the world's top handful of public universities and within the global top twenty overall, although exact positions move from year to year because the methodologies differ.
伯克利在教学与科研两方面都享有极高的国际声誉。在各大全球排名中，它通常位于全球公立大学的最前列，并稳居世界前二十左右；不过由于各榜单评估方法不同，具体名次每年会有浮动。
Its strongest and most widely recognised areas include computer science, engineering, economics, the social sciences and the natural sciences. Electrical engineering and computer sciences, statistics, mathematics, physics, chemistry, materials science, economics, political science, sociology and English are all routinely described as among the best in the world. Economics in particular has an unusually deep bench: many of the field's most cited theories and textbooks were written by Berkeley faculty.
它最强、也最广为人知的方向包括计算机科学、工程学、经济学、社会科学与自然科学。电子工程与计算机科学、统计学、数学、物理、化学、材料科学、经济学、政治学、社会学与英语文学，都被公认为世界顶级水准。其中经济学尤为突出：该领域大量被引用最多的理论与教科书都出自伯克利教师之手。
For applicants, the practical implication is that competition concentrates sharply in a small number of programmes. Computer science and EECS are classified as high-demand majors, and admission into them is decided at the point of application - transferring into them later is severely restricted.
对申请者而言，实际含义是：竞争高度集中在少数专业上。计算机科学与 EECS 被列为高需求专业，录取在申请阶段就已确定，之后再想转入这些专业会受到严格限制。
6. Research Power and Facilities | 科研实力与设施
Berkeley is a global hub for research and innovation, with substantial research resources and advanced laboratory facilities that attract leading scientists and researchers from around the world. Its affiliated Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, founded in 1931 by Ernest Lawrence, gave the world the cyclotron and was where many of the transuranium elements were first created.
伯克利是全球一流的研究与创新枢纽，拥有雄厚的科研资源与先进的实验设施，吸引着来自世界各地的顶尖科学家与研究人员。其附属的劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室由欧内斯特·劳伦斯于 1931 年创立，回旋加速器即诞生于此，许多超铀元素也在这里首次被合成。
The university is associated with more than one hundred Nobel laureates as alumni, faculty or researchers, along with winners of the Fields Medal, the Turing Award and other major honours. Work carried out on campus and in its laboratories - from gene editing to climate science, from particle physics to artificial intelligence - has had a profound and lasting impact on human society.
伯克利与一百多位诺贝尔奖得主相关联，他们或为校友，或为教师、研究人员；此外还有菲尔兹奖、图灵奖等重大奖项得主。在校园及其实验室中完成的工作——从基因编辑到气候科学，从粒子物理到人工智能——对人类社会产生了深远而持久的影响。
Undergraduates are not locked out of this. Programmes such as the Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program, SURF and SPUR allow first- and second-year students to join a working laboratory, which is one of the strongest arguments for choosing Berkeley over a purely teaching-focused institution.
本科生并非被排除在科研之外。本科生科研学徒计划（URAP）、SURF、SPUR 等项目允许大一、大二学生加入正在运转的实验室，这也是选择伯克利而非纯教学型院校的最有力理由之一。
7. Diversity, Inclusion and Campus Culture | 多元包容与校园文化
Beyond academic excellence, Berkeley is known for an open, pluralistic and inclusive culture. The university actively promotes diversity and inclusion and encourages students from different cultural backgrounds and academic fields to learn from and exchange ideas with one another. This atmosphere makes Berkeley a lively and creative community rather than a homogeneous one.
除了学术上的卓越，伯克利还以开放多元、包容共存的文化闻名。学校积极倡导多样与包容，鼓励不同文化背景和学术领域的学生相互学习与交流。这种氛围使伯克利成为一个富有活力与创意的社区，而非同质化的群体。
That culture has deep historical roots. Sproul Plaza was the setting for the Free Speech Movement of 1964, and the university created the first Department of Ethnic Studies in the United States in 1969. Today students come from more than a hundred countries, and there are over a thousand registered student organisations, from competitive robotics teams to a cappella groups and cultural associations.
这种文化有深厚的历史根基。1964 年的言论自由运动就发生在斯普劳尔广场，而伯克利在 1969 年建立了美国第一个族裔研究系。如今学生来自一百多个国家，注册学生社团超过一千个，从竞技机器人队到无伴奏合唱团、再到各类文化协会，应有尽有。
For international students, the practical effect is that it is relatively easy to find a community, but also that the social scene is not handed to you. Berkeley rewards students who take the initiative to join something in their first term.
对国际学生而言，实际效果是：找到属于自己的社群相对容易，但社交圈不会自动送上门。伯克利更眷顾那些在第一学期就主动加入某个组织或活动的学生。
