<p>Grad school admissions is way different than undergraduate. Professors make admissions decision for graduate school. Being a professor is an incredibly hard job and to be successful they have to be ruthless with their time. They want to invest that limited time into those students who they think will be able to write the best ground breaking research papers which they co-author. Professors have careers at stake in this process unlike undergraduate admissions committees. They also have to constantly replenish their supply of graduate students because the good ones tend to graduate :-)</p>
<p>I don’t agree with your strategy. I think that impressing a professor by doing good undergraduate research at Berkeley and getting A’s in the subjects most relevant to your research is the way to get into graduate school.</p>