EECS acceptance rate is around 5%, similar to Stanford and MIT. Of course, it is still easier to admit to berkeley EECS because people applying to UCs and have completed UC essays can easily select EECS at berkeley, while they’d have to complete essays for Stanford and fill out another app for MIT.
In general, HYPSM will be very low chance (like other unhooked applicants).
But I believe with my academic qualifications and ECs, Berkeley is reachable, but not necessarily for hypercompetitive EECS. My competitive bay area public usually has the top 5-10% admitted to berkeley.
Would it be not smart to apply for EECS as it could kill chances of going to Berkeley (L&S for CS)?
It’s smart to apply to the major you want at any school! The schools that admit by major tend to make it very difficult to do internal transfers to those majors later.
IMO, the “name” of the school is much less important than getting into a program that you actually want.
UCB has plans to change the CS admission process for the College of L&S with direct admission so that option may also be very competitive. I agree with @momofboiler1 that you should apply to the major you want to pursue regardless. UCB should be considered a Reach school for all Freshman applicants so make sure that you apply widely with at least 2 safety and several target schools on your list.
Chances are L&S CS will be direct admit at some point in the future. No one knows if that will happen beginning this upcoming cycle or later on. Also, I think you are naive to think Berkeley will be easier than MIT/Stanford. EECS is going to be hard for everyone, even for someone like you. You are likely to make it or not on the strength of your PIQs and your calculated UC uncapped GPA. Not sure how you came up with the 4.57 but you should use GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub and determine your UC GPA.
I also think specific to EECS, its a disadvantage that you haven’t taken multi-variable calculus and are doing AP Physics only in the senior year. I think at some level, an AP course that you have taken and done well is more important than a bunch of senior year AP classes you are planning to take since you only need to maintain a 3.0 in the senior year.
Lastly, across all COE majors the admit rate was 7.6%. That was in 2021 and I presume 2022 was even lower. EECS is likely sub 4% admit rate.
Sorry if my information wasn’t clear. I am doing multivariable senior year, I have completed AP Physics 1 and 2 thus year, will be doing both AP Physics C’s next year.
The 4.57 is my school weighted, my UC GPA is 4.68, since freshman year with unweighted courses are gone.
I don’t think I’m wrong to say that EECS is easier than MIT/Stanford. I never said it was a lot easier, only slightly.
MIT has its own application portal + essays, so its applicants are extremely self selective and there is still a 4-5% acceptance rate.
Stanford has its own supplemental essays, and its applicants are pretty self selecting because of its elite status.
For berkeley, anybody applying to other UCs can easily click UCB EECS and apply without completing essays. This, combined with the fact that it has more of a duty so serve californians like me, doesn’t consider LORs, doesn’t consider race (probably still consider a little) means that UCB EECS is easier to get into than Stanford/MIT.
UCB does consider LOR’s from a small group of Freshman applicants. They will invite selected applicants to submit LOR’s after the UC application submission.
Not sure what you mean “apply without completing essays” in reference to other UC’s. The PIQ’s are not campus specific so all the same essays will be submitted to all the UC’s listed on the application. Regardless, UCB can be an easier admit than MIT or Stanford, but it is still far from guaranteed for EECS.
Applying to EECS is the correct choice than applying into L&S if CS is what you want to do. And Berkeley is probably easier than MIT and Stanford – you are correct about that, simply because it is a poor value for money for out of state students vs MIT and Stanford.
If L&S CS becomes direct admit by major, the EECS difficulty could go up. For now, the EECS admit rates are inflated because people often choose the relatively “easy” path of LS → CS. If that becomes a direct admit path, that MAY create additional pressure on the EECS admit pipeline.
I am not sure what the L&S would look like if it also becomes direct admit. Then, why have two paths at all with minor course distribution differences? They may as well just increase the EECS intake, shut down L&S CS intake, and call it a day.
I know a ton of average-excellent bay area applicants who throw in an app to Stanford just because they are from the area and/or and feel like they need to apply on the off chance they win the lottery. Would that make Stanford easier to get in? In any case, its not worth to parse the relative difficulty of EECS vs. Stanford etc because its not an actionable distinction.
Good question. COE has set caps on EECS and they are not going to merge EECS and CS into one major. The case for L&S direct admit is primarily driven by the need to limit CS enrollment (the GPA cut-offs haven’t worked and have instead simply created a stressful environment). The CS pool has in turn become very homogeneous (huge advantage to folks with competitive math backgrounds) relative to EECS (much more diverse pool due to holistic review). There was a town hall recently where they laid all the reasons why L&S CS needs to become direct admit and how EECS cannot be expanded.
Very interesting info. I can see how they can cut down numbers using L&S direct admits. But it is harder to see how they will ultimately limit numbers coming from the “discoverers” if a GPA cutoff is no longer used. I guess they could limit those numbers by requiring certain grade percentiles within specific CS courses.
it will probably be similar to the current Haas pathway. Holistic admissions based on GPA, essays, ECs etc. And the admit rate could vary regardless of GPA depending on available “discoverer” slots.
If you make L&S effectively closed, I wouldn’t be surprised if over time the demand shifts to L&S from EECS as is the case in many other schools – e.g., UIUC CS vs UIUC ECE etc…
Frankly, COE should bring CS in and have 3 majors - CE, CS, EE - similar to what UIUC has done with Grainger. I am not a huge fan generally of the L&S CS model.
