Interview Request from UC Berkeley?? What does it mean????

Hey guys!

A bunch of my international student friends got an email from UC Berkeley asking them for an interview through a Chinese third-party organization. Some people are saying that the people who got this email are the ones who passed the first screening, but UC Berkeley’s official response was that it was sent out randomly.

My question is, what do you guys think about this? I didn’t get an email and I’m an international student (I guess you can only do the interview if you got an email about it).

This person seems to think something’s fishy about this, too…maybe it has to do with UCB’s recent budget cuts??

http://calfocus.com/archives/15048

Anyways…thoughts?

Possibly an effort to minimize fraudulent applicants from China.