***Official 2013 UC Berkeley Appeals Thread***

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>In continuation of steinberg's Appeals Thread from last year, I thought I would make one for us rejectees to talk and help each other out.</p>

<p>I was denied from UC Berkeley with a 1980 SAT, 32 ACT, 4.3 weighted GPA and many extra-curriculars and sports. I applied as a bioengineer and was really surprised to see friends with lower grades and marks than me be admitted. I'm basing my appeal on an SAT score that was submitted but never received in December as well as some medical issues I had in the fall.</p>

<p>From what I've gathered, appeals will be exclusively online this year and so likely much more competitive. Appeals will be received but not reviewed until the 15th and decisions could be posted as late as May 1st. Applicants from last year had a 3% chance of being admitted.</p>

<p>Good luck everyone!</p>

2

<p>These were my stats:</p>

<p>Objective:[ul]
[<em>]SAT I: 2130 (700CR/760M/670W)
[</em>]SAT II: Math Level 2 (800), Physics (800), Chinese (800)
[<em>]Weighted GPA (out of 4.5): 4.1
[</em>] UC GPA: 3.09 (UW) 4.09-ish (W) (These are a bit blurry as I’ve never gotten the hang of calculating them properly. Our school also has major grade deflation)
[<em>]Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 18/270
[</em>]AP (self studied): Psychology (5), Computer Science (4), Chinese (5)
[<em>]IB: IB Diploma: English (HL), Computer Science (HL), Physics (HL), Psychology (SL), Math (SL), Chinese (SL)
[</em>]Senior Year Course Load: Most difficult course load offered by our school. The above classes plus Theory of Knowledge
[li]I also took two 4 unit summer courses at UC Berkeley during the summer of 2012: Political Science 2 (received a B) and Cognitive Science 1 (received an A)</p>[/li]
<p>[/ul]Subjective:[ul]
[<em>]Extracurriculars: 6 years of competitive air pistol and rapid fire pistol of junior team in Shanghai (2 years as team captain), MUN, Debate (Group leader), School magazine (Science and Technology department leader)
[</em>]Job/Work Experience: Had a job for one summer as assistant manager for a child daycare system
[<em>]Volunteer/Community service: Personnel manager and salesperson of a charity fundraiser where we sold sunglasses to fund surgeries for the senior citizen population. We raised enough money to fund 100 surgeries.
[</em>]Essays: I’d say pretty strong. For the first essay, I wrote about how moving to China changed my world and how seeing the differences in cultures inspired me to learn about the world around me and to gain new perspectives. My second essay was about overcoming gender biases which exist in China, particularly in the pistolling community, and how becoming team captain had given me the confidence to pursue what I love and not let social norms restrict who I am.</p>

<p>[/ul]Other[ul]
[<em>] State (if domestic applicant): Hawaii
[</em>] Country (if international applicant): Domestic applicant applying from China
[<em>] School Type: Public
[</em>] Ethnicity: East Asian
[<em>] Gender: Female
[</em>] Income Bracket: $40000 My parents retired early and I’m able to pay for college, so I didn’t apply for financial aid. I’m not sure if this low income bracket will still hurt me.
[<em>] Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): First generation college student
[</em>] Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/rejected:</p>

<p>Accepted: UC Riverside (With Regents), UC Merced (With Regents), UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Los Angeles, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor</p>

<p>Waitlisted: Cornell</p>

<p>Rejected: Stanford, MIT, GATech (Rejected probably because my essays for this school was terrible)[/ul]</p>

<p>I think I got rejected due to my low UC GPA. My grounds for appeal is that there was a switchover in curriculum and grade policy that caused massive grade deflation and also a much lower UC GPA for this year’s applicants than previous year’s applicants, which may have caused my grades to be taken out of context. I’m using my AP and SAT II scores and 7th semester (which were much better than before) grades to demonstrate that the grade deflation exists and that I’m not deproving.</p>

3

<p>Can someone tell me whether or not our UC GPAs are compared to previous applicants’ for OOS and international schools?</p>

4

<p>Fluffin, how would your AP and SAT II scores prove that your school has grade deflation?</p>

<p>I think they consider your GPA in context with the classes and extra-curricular programs you were taking. So I doubt they compare OOS and international student GPAs side by side.</p>

5

<p>@wrongnotes
He’s probably going to show that his ap and sat II scores are up to par, or even better than previous years applicants from his school, who had higher GPA’s than him because of grade deflation - or something like that.</p>

<p>OT: I’m not too familiar with appealing and what not but I was rejected from UCLA and got into Berkeley and my stats were pretty similar to fluffin, other than GPA. I think you guys definitely have a chance. Good luck!</p>

6

<p>@wrongnotes exactly what UrAverageAzn said. The strength of standardized test scores are that they’re standardized and allow you to be compared to different students regardless of grade deflation or inflation. My school has really tough Chinese, Math, Physics and Psychology programs, so on my grade reports, I look like I’m terrible at these subjects, when in reality, our school just has grade deflation. Getting high scores on these standardized tests suggests that I am actually academically on par with students who go to school in places that do not have grade deflation.</p>

<p>What I meant about my question with UC GPA is how does Berkeley contextualize GPA in order to make up for possible grade deflation at a school? The reason I ask is because our school had a change in score policy which lead to a much lower UC GPA in this year’s applicants from my school than previous years, and we had a MUCH lower admittance rate this year despite similar statistics, so I’m trying to figure out what’s going on.</p>

7

<p>This place is so quiet, it’s actually giving me hope that there will be less people appealing this year :p</p>

<p>My status just switched to:
Your appeal for admission has been received and is under review. Please check this site regularly for a reply. We will do our best to post a decision by Wednesday, May 01, 2013.</p>

<p>I’m not sure if this means that any newer changes won’t be seen.</p>

8

<p>I appealed, and I made it. There’s always hope.</p>

<p>I am a transfer student, but I live in a Unit dorm with a lot of Freshman, so I will share what I know about Berkeley freshman admits. Berkeley likes quirky people, at least in Freshman applicants. Yes, scores do count a lot. I live on a floor with 25 people. At least 25% of these people were valedictorian in their class. At least 65% of these people were top ten. </p>

<p>However, Berkeley definitely enjoys “odd” people. I hope that when you wrote your appeals, you put in your weirdest, funniest, and most interesting story about yourself, because at the end of the day, that’s what Berkeley likes. </p>

<p>Feel free to PM me for questions.</p>

9

<p>What exactly should I try to include in my letter of appeal?</p>

10

<p>I definitely think that highlighting your school’s grade deflation is a really huge thing. I went to a math and science high school and my scores trended up, but I was an average B student in my first two years and finally as a junior I dropped physics (thank goodness) and started getting A-s. The thing is, my school had a >95% rate of 5s on our math/science APs. So me getting crap grades for most of my coursework wasn’t that I was a bad student, just that it really was hard to get an A.</p>

<p>I definitely think that Berkeley does quite a lot of contextualizing (otherwise how could I have gotten in with my B-average) so certainly if your school’s seen abrupt grade deflation, you should mention it, well I guess you have already. And your school’s college counselor should also take care to mention it.</p>

11

<p>Is the appeal sent online like UCLA’s or through the mail?</p>

12

<p>Online on myberkeleyapplication.</p>

13

<p>Where are the instructions to appeal to UC Berkeley? </p>

<p>I can’t seem to find the page. Help?</p>

14

<p>I read online that you have to submit it?</p>

15

<p>*submit it in writing</p>

16

<p>Never mind i found it and yes its online. They must have recently updated that page because it used to say to mail it in.</p>

17

<p>Can you link me to the appeal page?</p>

18

<p>I was really hoping i’d get in with the supplement but i got rejected! Lol. Do you guys think its a grounds for appeal if you talk about why you SAT score sucked? lol and your school not having resources?</p>

19

<p>@ beamers
You need to log in to your my berkeley application account and go to the FAQs page and there it will give you the link to appeal online. If you are not logged in and go to the FAQs page it will say to mail it in.</p>

20

<p>@maxmillion I’m in the FAQ, can’t find the appeal info…sorry if I’m being dumb. Help?</p>