One application.
Two ways to a degree.

Applications are now closed. The next cycle opens on December 1 for the 2027-2028 academic year.

Overview

This is the application for both BCS scholarship programs: the Bachelor’s Degree Program and the Community College Program.

Applications open December 1 and close March 5, 2027. If you’re a Berkeley public high school senior headed to college, or a current community college student planning to transfer, this page has all the information you need, including which path fits, whether you’re eligible, what you’ll need, and how it works from now until decisions are made.

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The 2026 class of new BCS scholars holds their award certificates

The paths to take

Which path is right for me?

Headed straight to a four-year college or university this fall?

Apply to the Bachelor’s Degree Program.

Headed to Berkeley City College or another community college this fall, with a plan to transfer?

Apply to the Community College Program.

Are you already at a community college and a graduate of a Berkeley public high school?

Apply to the Community College Program as a current community college student.

Undecided?

Choose to be considered for both. You’ll tell us your top choices, and we’ll follow where you go.

Read about the Bachelor’s Degree Program →

Read about the Community College Program →

Eligibility

For the Bachelor’s Degree Program. You’re graduating this year from Berkeley High School, Berkeley Technology Academy, or Berkeley Independent Studies. You’ve confirmed you’ll attend a four-year college or university this fall. Your unweighted cumulative GPA in A-G courses is 2.5 or higher.

For the Community College Program, after high school. You’re graduating this year from Berkeley High School, Berkeley Technology Academy, or Berkeley Independent Studies. You’ll attend Berkeley City College or another local community college this fall, and you plan to transfer to a four-year college or university within two years. Your unweighted cumulative GPA in A-G courses is 2.5 or higher.

For the Community College Program, and enrolled in community college. You’re enrolled at a local community college now and will be next year. You plan to apply as a transfer in one of the next two application cycles. Your cumulative GPA is 2.5 or higher, you’ll have completed at least 12 to 15 transferable units by the end of fall, and you’re enrolled in at least 15 transferable units this spring.

Priority Applicants. Students who are the first in their family to go to college, whose Student Aid Index qualifies them for a Pell Grant, and who come from groups underrepresented in earning bachelor’s degrees. You don’t need all three. We look at your whole picture, including things a form doesn’t show, like siblings in college at the same time or a family that can’t help with costs. A higher SAI doesn’t rule you out.

If you’re not eligible to file the FAFSA, file the CADAA (California Dream Act Application) instead. We accept it in place of the FAFSA, and nothing else about your application changes.

Timeline

Key Dates

December 1, 2026

Applications open.

March 5, 2027

Applications close.

April 24, 2027

Applicants attend a day of interviews with our selection panel. We’ll schedule around AP exams, which is why the application asks for your exam dates.

May 10, 2027

Decisions go out.

Summer

Orientation for new scholars before your first term.

What’s needed

What you’ll need

Gather these documents together before you start. The application saves as you go, but the documents are the slow part.

  • Your full Student Aid Report as a PDF. It comes from your FAFSA or California Dream Act application, and it’s where your Student Aid Index (SAI) lives.
  • Your transcript. For high school applicants, a full transcript that shows your senior fall grades and the courses you’re taking this spring. For current community college applicants, your full community college transcript with fall grades and spring courses. PDF or an image file.
  • If you are a community college applicant, include your Student Education Plan (SEP). That’s the term-by-term plan to transfer that you build with a college counselor. If you don’t have one yet, book an appointment now. PDF or image.
  • Your unweighted cumulative GPA. Not weighted.
  • Your activities. Include a few activities that matter to you. Jobs, family responsibilities, sports, a club, tutoring your cousin, reading, and skateboarding all work. Formal programs like AVID or RISE count, and so do things nobody gave you a certificate for. You’ll write a short essay on the two that mean the most and what you learned from them.
  • Two essays. You’ll write one about something you accomplished, personal or academic, told as a story: what you did, how, and why. One about what you want from college: the subjects you want to learn, the experiences you want to have, and the person you’re trying to become. Draft them in a Google Doc or Word, proofread, then paste them in.
  • Your college list. List up to ten schools in order of preference. If you’ve been accepted or waitlisted somewhere, say so next to the name.
  • One letter of recommendation from a teacher, counselor, coach, or another adult who knows your work and can speak to what you’re capable of. Ask them before you send the request from the application dashboard. If they’ve already written you a college recommendation, they can reuse that.
  • Include your AP exam dates, if any. We schedule our interview day around exam dates.

How to apply

  1. Pick the program. The first question in the application is which program you’re applying to. The questions that follow will change based on your answer.
  2. Gather your documents. Student Aid Report, transcript, SEP if you’re at community college. Convert them to PDF or image files before you upload.
  3. Ask for your recommendation early. Talk to the person, then send the request from your BCS dashboard, and make sure to give them lots of time.
  4. Draft your essays outside the application, then paste them in.
  5. Submit your application between December 1, 2026, and March 5, 2027.
  6. Decisions. You’ll hear from us by May 10, 2027, if your application will move forward to the next round.
Apply now

For parents and guardians.

Your student is applying for a scholarship that comes with a community to help them succeed: an advisor who stays with them from acceptance and throughout their college experience, a community network, and money every term for the costs financial aid doesn’t cover. It doesn’t replace financial aid. It fills the gap after it.

Where you can help: the FAFSA or Dream Act application needs your tax information, and it needs to be done before the scholarship application can be submitted. Transcript requests may take some time; the earlier they are requested, the faster they will be sent. And the interview day in late April is in person and required, so it helps to have it on the family calendar now.

Application FAQ

Answers to common questions about applying: essays, transcripts, recommendations, required documents, and more.

At the beginning of the application, you are asked to select which program you are applying to. We will ask for certain information depending on which program you select. Make sure to read the options carefully and select the one that applies to you. The options are as follows, please note that different student populations can apply for the same scholarship.

  • The Community College Program – I am currently a senior attending a Berkeley Public High School
  • The Bachelor’s Degree Program – I am currently a senior attending a Berkeley Public High School
  • The Community College Program – I am currently attending Berkeley City College
  • Please consider me for both the Bachelor’s Degree and Community College programs – I am currently a senior attending a Berkeley Public High School

If you are getting questions that don’t make sense to you, you may have selected the wrong program.

SAR stands for Student Aid Report. SAI stands for Student Aid Index. Your Student Aid Report comes from filling out a FAFSA or a Dream Act application. Your Student Aid Index can be found in your Student Aid Report. Your Student Aid Report can be found in either your FAFSA or your Dream Act Application portal. Important note: Please upload your full SAR to our application, not just the first page. We want to see all of your information.

We look at the whole picture when considering applications. We prioritize students who have an SAI that qualifies students to receive a Pell Grant. However, having a higher SAI doesn’t automatically disqualify you from receiving a scholarship. We will still review your application and will consider other factors that may cause financial hardship (e.g. Your parents are paying for multiple students in college, your family has a situation that means paying for college will be difficult, you will not be receiving financial help from your parents, etc.)

The likelihood of you receiving a BCS scholarship depends on our applicant pool in a given year, how many applications we receive, and how many students meet our prioritized criteria.

Yes. We prioritize students who are low-income, underrepresented in higher education, and first-generation to college, but you do not have to meet all three criteria to qualify. We consider a student’s context and circumstances, so even if you do not meet all of the criteria, we will still accept your application.

Please upload a full transcript that includes your senior Fall grades and the courses you are taking in the Spring.

Please upload a full transcript that includes your most recent Fall grades and the courses you are taking in the Spring.

SEP stands for Student Education Plan. You need to meet with an advisor to create a plan for the classes you will take each term until you transfer. Advisors will make sure to include all of the general education requirements and major prerequisites you need to take in order to be eligible to transfer.

We are looking for your Unweighted Cumulative GPA.

In the Activities and Employment section, you are first asked to list meaningful activities that you took part in while in high school or community college. Please include activities in which you spend time – they do not have to be in a formal club or setting. If you skateboard or spend a lot of time reading, helping out your family, or a counselor at school, that counts. Let us know if you are in AVID, RISE, Bridge, Y Scholars, or another support program. If you are in the CCC every day after school for tutoring or to study, please tell us. Also, do you have responsibilities at home or in a family business? Do you participate in clubs, sports, or groups in school and out of school? You do not have to list a lot of activities, we want to know about the ones that are most significant to you. The most important part of this section is the essay question which asks you to list the two most meaningful activities, why each one is important to you, and what you learned from each one.

The personal essays are an opportunity to tell us something about yourself outside of your grades and activities. We want to get a better sense of who you are, what you care about, and what interests you.

Question 1: “Please describe a personal or academic achievement and the steps you took (are taking) to accomplish it. Please include details on what you learned from the experience (750 words or less).”

There are two parts to this question. First, we want to hear about your achievement and the steps you took to accomplish it. We want you to briefly tell the story of what you accomplished and spend more time describing your actions (e.g. What efforts did you put into this achievement? Why? Did you have to learn new skills, seek help from someone, or collaborate with others? What kept you motivated?).

The second part of the question asks about what you learned. We want to hear your reflections about the experience. How did you grow? What did you learn about yourself? We are looking for a thoughtful reflection that tells us more about you, your values, and your personality.

We don’t want to just know about something that happened to you, we want to know how you’ve grown from your experiences, what you’ve gained from them, and how that’s influenced your worldview and your goals in life.

Question 2: “What do you hope to learn in college and gain from the experience (350 words or less)?”

In this question, we want to hear about what you’re excited to do in college. What do you want to study? What activities do you want to get involved in? What are new things you want to try? Overall, what do you hope to get out of college? How do you want to grow as a person?

Important Tip: We recommend that you write your essays in a word processor (Word, Google Docs, etc) before copying them into the application. This way you can ensure your work will be saved, you can work on it over time, and it’s easier to proofread and edit. Please review your submission to make sure that you have answered the question and checked for grammar and spelling.

We know that students may receive decisions from colleges until late spring and that students don’t need to make their decisions until May 1st. Please list your top ten colleges you would like to attend in order of preference. If you have been accepted or waitlisted at a school, you may write that next to the name of the school (e.g. UC Berkeley – waitlisted, UC Santa Cruz, UC Riverside, San Diego State – accepted).

We encourage students to type the Personal Essays and Activity Essays into Word or a Google Doc. Please proofread your essays and then copy and paste them into the application. This will prevent lost work.

There are several documents we ask you to upload to the application. For each kind of document, the application specifies what type of file you need to upload. You may be having trouble uploading if you are trying to upload a different kind of file than what the application will accept. See below the types of files we are requesting:

  • Student Aid Report. Please upload a PDF file. You can click the “Print” button and when the dialogue box appears, you can change the print destination to “Save as PDF”, then download the file to your desktop.
  • Transcript. You may upload either a PDF file or an image file. Just make sure that you upload your entire transcript including fall grades and Spring courses in progress. If the transcript is 2 pages, you may need to scan it if you want to upload an image.
  • Student Education Plan. For students already enrolled in community college. You may upload either a PDF file or an image file. This document needs to be completed by an advisor and it maps out the classes you need to take term by term up to the date of expected transfer.

This is strictly for scheduling purposes. We will be hosting interviews in the spring and will use this to make sure we do not conflict with AP testing.

We only require one letter of recommendation from a teacher, counselor, coach, or another adult who is familiar with your academics and can speak to your potential. (This person cannot be a relative or a friend).

Through the “Request” section of the application dashboard, you can enter the email address of the person who will be writing the recommendation. You should talk to the person before sending the request. If the person you are going to ask has already written a college recommendation for you, they can upload that same letter through the instructions they will receive from us.

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