<p>i think economics must be an impacted major at UCB, because so many applicants on this website are economics majors. also, did you graduate from a california high school and are your parents from california. another factor is where you are currently living, if you are in southern california and far from the UCB campus, that is a factor as well. </p>
<p>anyway, just about every post i read on here is coming from an economics major so i can guess that it is extremely competitive. UCLA is a superb school, as are the other UC schools you were accepted to. i would choose UCLA if i were you. good luck dude.</p>
<p>Nothing you can do other than submit an appeal containing new and compelling information. ****ty things happen, pretty sure nothing any of us say will make you feel better.</p>
<p>your missing stats prereq didn’t hurt you, you’re suppose not to take it anyway til you get to Berk. I’m an econ major as well. And looking at other econ majors’ posts, seems that it was pretty competitive this year for the program.</p>
<p>Just for the future reference of new kids wanting to transfer…</p>
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<p>… my buddy Eric quoted above and I had identical GPA’s for the same major and I got accepted. That alone should give you loads of info. Philosophy isn’t impacted anywhere (At UCLA over half the applicant get in), so we can’t blame a rejction on that. There must be several other reasons why qualified applicants get rejected. Keep it in mind, Berkeley’s admissions are hyper-hollistic. I wish I knew what made us seem different.</p>
<p>I can’t really say what (if anything) he did wrong, but I can say what I did right: the personal statement (PS). I’ll stress this on this board over and over again, if you’re having 3-4 people proofreading your PS and it’s taking you months of work to get it done, you’re doing it wrong. </p>
<p>It should not be overwhelming you, the questions are simple and straightforward, so answer them in the same fashion. It shouldn’t be a list of accomplishments, but some people forget that it also shouldn’t be a life story. They want you to focus on one thing. So don’t talk about being poor and being a minority and the death of a loved one and learning from bad grades all at once. Stick to one thing, you’ll be able to say plenty about it. For example, our PS asked us to talk about an important life event or quality or [I forget the rest] and for some reason most people felt they had to write about a life event.</p>
<p>Yes, your personal statement does mean a lot. However, I believe mine was truly really good, and I did have multiple professors/friends help me read it over.</p>
<p>However, I do believe that Berkeley looks for personality in your statement whether that be being a certain minority, being poor, etc. I had community involvement, work experience, 4.0, etc. etc. In hindsight, I believe that campus participation is definitely something that Berkeley looks for, as that was the one thing that I felt could have strengthened the weight of my application.</p>
<p>GSG900, it depends on a lot of things so you’re right. I just focused on one, other people will notice more. I think there’s an unavoidable level of subjectivity at hand in admissions that we don’t really like to talk about. I had no campus participation at all either.</p>
