<p>Among who, precisely, has this happened?</p>
<p>^^ Obviously there was discourtesy involved. </p>
<p>But it’s very possible he was right, and that he did deserve it more. I would laugh if this were a total BS applicant, but he isn’t. </p>
<p>The issue I take with those who spent mindless threads chiding this poster is a) they justified with ridiculous glorification of the admissions at times, and b) they lose the fact that there could be a legitimate intellectual point about the nature of admissions at Berkeley worth considering in the midst of emotional advising to a high school senior who will probably look back and realize his responses were discourteous anyway. And he did apologize.</p>
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<p>I am willing to hear actual intelligent complaints for my own benefit, since I care about knowing where the school is headed. </p>
<p>However, Berkeley has not gone to hell. It is a world class university which admits many great students, but makes some egregious mistakes which are worth considering.</p>
<ul>
<li>College admissions
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<li>Fairness
Pick one.</li>
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<p>We can try to understand admissions to the best of our abilities and ask admissions committees for transparency or urge them to value one criterion over another, but the process is largely a black box with a good deal of arbitrariness, especially when the number of spots is few as is the case for EECS (and BioE and Undeclared) in CoE. Life goes on, and really it’s unfortunate that there’s such a frenzy over university admissions. It’s sad that high school students often see college admissions as the end goal because they’re all placing a great deal of their happiness into something over which they only have so much control. Even the gambler with pocket aces isn’t guaranteed a win.</p>
<p>What can I say? The admissions process has, is, and will always be somewhat arbitrary, and in some cases entirely jacked up.
Guess all that’s left to do is appeal.</p>
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<p>This is true of any very selective process. Nevertheless, I’m sure we both know this hardly means every selective process is as logical or well-conducted as the next. </p>
<p>I agree one of the important messages to continue to circulate is that a bright student will do well wherever if he works at it, and not to tie hope completely to admission. And certainly, there will be arbitrariness to some degree. However, the fact of the matter is I am sufficiently surprised at this outcome. And every decision we perceive as “arbitrary” was made for a reason by the admissions office, and it’s in my eyes at least worth considering why it happened. Actually, sometimes upon reflection the student himself may realize there was a glaring weakness to the application. But honestly, I always felt the Berkeley process was somewhat transparent, and I always fear it will lose that, or has lost it.</p>
<p>I would like to know who exactly is on these admissions committees. Are they just a bunch of hippies who admit anyone with any type of hardship story??</p>
<p>What I believe is going on is that excellent applicants are being rejected/waitlisted so Berkeley can improve its yield, because those students will most likely not attend. At the same time, worse applicants are being accepted, the admissions committee believing that those students will most likely attend. What they don’t see is that some of these kids would rather go to UCLA or a lesser school because they don’t like Berkeley’s environment or whatever and would struggle with the academics anyway, making it easier to deny. This also hurts Berkeley’s reputation because people hear of these less-than-stellar applicants getting in who really aren’t that intelligent (or didn’t actually have any hardship). The spring admit system works to the same effect. Berkeley increases its acceptance rate, but most of those spring admits are turned away by the fact that they are spring admits, unless they REALLY want to go here.
So, for Berkeley to really serve “the public” and attain a better reputation, it should accept the best academic applicants, be more numbers-based (than it is now), but also acknowledge context and reflect that in admissions decisions. Those applicants that are not quite at the top level, but at the same time are not like the bad applicants that are being accepted, are the ones who are getting hurt most because they would actually want to come here. This would improve yield and take back admissions’ academic emphasis.
I just think that Berkeley is not benefiting those students who have high GPAs, also high test scores and excellent extracurriculars. I’ve seen near-perfect applicants get rejected/waitlisted, and very OK applicants get in. The point of a public university is to give those who worked hard a chance at an excellent education, not to increase yield or accept anyone with a minor disability. Everything should be given attention, but it must be weighted accurately.</p>
<p>Almost every college anywhere in the US is practicing social engineering. Giving breaks to those with less opportunity. Helping those who had disadvantages. Mixing economic, social and other classes to produce a diverse campus. mixing types of people, passions, backgrounds, geographic regions, size of city/town, . . . .</p>
<p>The reality is that they all do this, which means the people admitted are not strictly the most academically qualified. AA is just one of many dimensions of social engineering, and while the UCs are enjoined from AA by race/ethnicity, they are permitted and do practice just about every other type of social engineering.</p>
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<p>My sentiments exactly.</p>
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<p>I agree. When I was applying, I perceived it as a relatively transparent process, and believe that is one of the biggest virtues of the public university status. I in fact advocate transparency for most schools. Rejecting a very qualified applicant had better have a really good reason. And no, there aren’t a billion qualified applicants, I am a student here and can say that for sure. Any drop in transparency and extra practice of social engineering is disgusting.</p>
<p>I got in, I don’t have a sob-story and I haven’t faced any real hardship at all.</p>
<p>Mathboy98 is the most rational and logical person in this thread. Everyone else is highly biased.</p>
<p>There is something abnormal about this case.
His grades and SAT scores are very good but not stellar, which will definitely put him in a disadvantage as far as HYPSM and Caltech go.
Not getting mostly 5’s in the AP classes could be negative.
But his math/science EC’s should have more than made up for his grades/SAT/AP transgressions. AIME qualifier puts him at the top 5% of all HS math geeks. It may not be the USAMO qualifier MIT is looking for, but it’s a very significant achievement nonetheless.
I have a feeling that whoever scored his application either overlooked or was turned off by his voluminous math/science activities.
Ashwin, one advice on the appeal:
You need to give them some additional bs info that is not on the original application so they can change their mind without admitting making a mistake. Good luck.</p>
<p>I don’t know much more than anybody here, probably a lot less than most of you, but I have been lurking here for over a year and doing as much research as I could to help my D with her apps. The OP’s stats are very good, but not great. 1490/1600; 3.85 UW. Solid, but not really HYPS solid, especially when viewed in connection with ECs and leadership which are ordinary or below. That’s how I see it. If his essays weren’t really strong and completely absent any sense of entitlement or braggadocio, I’m not that shocked. He was probably borderline and fell on the wrong side of the line. All the high stats kids in my D’s school got in. Not saying that sample is big enuf to draw concrete conclusions from. But, sorry–it sounds like he really wanted to go there and is hurt.</p>
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<p>No, honestly plenty of people get into HYPS with that SAT score. Further, qualification for the AIME is a very good thing, and this is coming from a mathematician who doesn’t even care for math competitions much (and never took part in them). I do think this individual probably should have been admitted. I don’t think ECs or soft factors should really play into admission into EECS at Berkeley, aside from things explicitly indicating potential for engineering. And potential for success in a rigorous curriculum, he has shown. SATs and such are good sanity checks, but success on them is far from a good measure of ability to handle sophisticated problem solving necessary for success in EECS. Speed testing on basics is truly very different from analyzing problems requiring depth of conceptual understanding.</p>
<p>However, I must credit you with bringing up a good point, which is that perhaps having even higher inflated numbers would have helped him. I do know people who did not get into Berkeley who were talented at mathematics/science, but did not have the highest GPAs around. Berkeley is a public school, and has admitted on the basis of numerical data rather transparently at least in the past. </p>
<p>I think if this was the reason he was rejected, it’s at least a little better than if it was on the basis of soft factors or extraneous ECs. However, even this reason pales in terms of absolute validity (and is a consolation only in that it would say Berkeley has not lost transparency necessarily), because there were maths/science achievements that I think are very solid, and obviously made Caltech happy enough to waitlist him. Remember, even a waitlist at Caltech is no joke, and at times the waitlisted could be just as strong as some of those admitted.</p>
<p>i wouldn’t want to go to a school that ONLY looks at numbers</p>
<p>I didn’t spend so much time studying, cheerleading, running track, joining clubs (theres a long list), and doing community service to have all of that overlooked for a test i took for 4 hours of my life. If a school would rather take a student who stays home and studies all day over someone like me who balances having a life, doing well in school, and participating in many extracurriculars, I would not want to attend that school.</p>
<p>Really, you’re just amazing. I don’t know how else to say it. You’re just absolutely f**cking amazing.</p>
<p>I’m going to talk to my counselor, see if he can write me a short recommendation note along with my appeal letter.
I’ll probably go directly to room 103 and talk to an admissions officer and hand them my notes. </p>
<p>Thank you, once more. And thanks for those who understand where I come from.</p>
<p>Why thank you Ashwin – I hope you meet with success. You’ve obviously got talent, and I hope you will continue to enjoy mathematics, science and engineering wherever you go. Feel free to keep me posted…</p>
<p>Hopefully we all can now quit the tension and be at peace :D</p>
<p>Ashwin, I do agree with you. </p>
<p>I guess I’m one of the people with worse scores that you’re talking about, since you’ve seen mine and I managed to get in despite them. I can’t pretend to know how this works. I’d give you the spot if I could.</p>
<p>But one thing you should definitely do, since you are appealing, is go through your original application and look for anything that no longer sounds like you. You have all the numbers and activities to be competitive, and that means that means that if they let you in, it’ll be for you the person. What can you get at Berkeley that you don’t see at any other school? </p>
<p>Please, please do not tell them they’re being unfair. You were rejected for an ambiguous reason - it could be something completely beyond your control, but they at least thought they knew what they were doing. Here you have to prove them wrong. If another showing of your numbers doesn’t do it, your character is all you’ve got.</p>
<p>Seriously, good luck. You do deserve what berkeley can do for you. But I really hope you’ll convince yourself you don’t need the school to be successful, or happy, whichever you decide to focus on.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why everyone is hating on Ashwin. I find that a huge issue with Berkeley admissions is the huge bias towards class rank rather than something substantial (ie AP tests). I’ve encountered plenty of people in Cal that went to a **** HS, got valedictorian, but wouldn’t have been in the top 50 @ my high school. They end up consistently getting below the mean, and many are eventually discouraged and stop trying hard at school. Another thing is the ease that JC students can transfer to Cal. I’m not saying that JC kids are stupid, but the huge gap of difficulty between those classes and comparable ones at Berkeley means that many transfers end up tanking their 4.0 first semester and never recover.</p>
<p>California’s public school system includes dozens of UCs, CSUs, and JCs. Not everyone is meant for Berkeley.</p>
<p>Californication, no one said anything about ONLY looking at numbers. You can do all the extracurriculars you want, but are they meaningful??? College is mainly for academics, why should anyone care how you balance your stuff? Did you actually get involved deeply in any of your many clubs? Did you influence something or were they just shallow involvements? I did 2 sports, worked, was valedictorian, got a pretty good SAT/ACT score, did well on my AP tests, was involved in a few clubs but only 1 heavily, did a bit of volunteering, and had a decent social life. Balancing is really not that difficult and just because you can do a lot of things well does NOT mean you can do a few things really well. Admissions should take into consideration BOTH tests & GPA AND extracurriculars, but in an academic institution obviously place emphasis on the academics (which leaves room for amazing athletes, people who truly are at a disadvantage, etc.).
As for the community college stuff, I think it is a bit too easy to get in as a transfer. And I don’t understand why Berkeley takes on a lot of these people… as was said, there are plenty of other colleges out there for people to go. Out of all state schools, Berkeley should be reserved for the few most qualified.</p>