<p>he said that he used to be close friends with the dean and he said if I wanted to apply to UC Berkeley, he'll invite him over for dinner and ask him about it. i don't know if that would help though. what do you think?</p>
<p>Probably not. Public schools, especially the UCs, do not take legacy or power connections into play, unless you're the child of the chancellor or a regent or something. The UCs don't read rec letters either, so there's no chance of the connection being made from that angle.</p>
<p>DX_Psycho, go for it. Put in a good word for me too.</p>
<p>Tell your dad to make a 20 million dollar donation for a new building too and you'd be a sure bet.</p>
<p>Just another note...if you're going to be relying solely on things like connections to get into top schools like Berkeley, maybe you want to reconsider what you're trying to get out of a college education.</p>
<p>Are you telling him not to do the things that keep rich, untalented people sending repeated generations of forbes, winthrops, etc from attending the Ivy League colleges?</p>
<p>He shouldn't because it won't work, the Berkeley name isn't good enough to get you as far as most ivies will, and its morally questionable. But I can't say that I blame him for trying to use the same strategy the priveleged of the nation have done for centuries.</p>
<p>Deans are dime-a-dozen on the Berkeley campus. Now maybe if your father knew a Vice Provost or the Chancellor.</p>
<p>But seriously, I won't say that that kind of thing could never happen at Berkeley but I think you would have to be a very high-status applicant (athlete, royalty, child of a president, that kind of thing) for your application to get "tagged" for special review.</p>
<p>Maybe if he knew him in the biblical sense.</p>
<p>haha beprepn!</p>
<p>that made me laugh :)</p>
<p>well i'm not planning to go to berkeley anyways. i'm going to either UCD or UCSB for zoology.</p>
<p>Well I know a former provost at UCSD who still has major connections. It does help, not in admissions, but in the case that you are appealed (from what I've seen).</p>
<p>i'm guessing it'd be of mroe use if you were applying to graduate school</p>
<p>Well, that was just my point of view. I don't believe in simply getting great results from being inherently privileged, despite how often it happens all across the world. Like you said, they end up being lazy, untalented people who really don't deserve the college name that gets attached to them. There was a guy in my high school graduating class who never took an AP class in his life, had a sub-par GPA, and the only real extracurricular he had was Varsity basketball. He was nowhere near good enough to get recruited to any schools, but he is now at Stanford. Why? Both his parents are professors there. You have no idea how incredibly angry I was when I heard this. I worked my butt off in high school, devoted tons of time to community service and trying to extend myself, and I didn't get results. I'm just saying I don't think they deserve it.</p>
<p>i don't think anyone is saying it's fair because it's obviously not. all we're saying is that it happens and there's not much we can do about it.</p>
<p>i say... go for it! it sucks for the rest of us, but hey, life isn't fair.</p>
<p>one of my best friends mom helpped me get in, actually she got me in</p>
<p>get you in.....bed???</p>
<p>Just kidding</p>