wait so do you have to send in reqs if they send you a request? I thought they were supposed to be optional but…
It is optional.
Yeah, I also received an email for the recommendation request from Berkeley on the 20th, while my friends didn’t. I have 3.98 UW, 4.40 UC GPA, rigorous academic curriculums, 2230 SAT, 800 physics, 800 math II, 33 ACT, and decent extracurricular activities.
I hope it’s a good sign.
Me too… I got an email today. Woot!
This is what I read this morning:
“Berkeley retreated partly for this fall and probably will invite letters from just 20% or so of this year’s applicants, mainly those whose prospects are between certain acceptance and rejection, according to Papadopoulos, a mechanical engineering professor.”
Source:
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-uc-recommendations-20151004-story.html
Hmm…What does “whose prospects are between certain acceptance and rejection” mean?
I guess it means you’re iffy. maybe but maybe not. the recommendations would tip the scale
I take it to mean:
certain rejection < YOU < certain acceptance
where YOU ~ 14000 (20% of 70K applicants).
Maybe that’s about 1 Sigma of the mean/median (10% left, 10% right), but skewed A LOT to the right? Although, I think that 20% may be very tight spread.
Does that mean UCB is sending requests to students that are already on the brink of certain acceptance? Or are those on the brink of rejection gets a “chance” to push themselves up?
Honestly, it’s not even the end of November. I highly doubt that AOs are even starting to read our applications; is it possible that the first requests are purely random? Like a test run?
@EvenfallsWolf I don’t think that they’re random because I don’t see the point in just sending some people the optional request and others not. Why not just invite everyone? Also the e-mail itself says that they have evaluated your application.
At the same time people with perfect scores have been getting them, so borderline seems unusual, maybe those people have not so strong ECs or they’re applying to impacted majors and it is borderline? Idk.
I got one so I hope it’s good lol.
What did you apply for @johnnyisgod ?
@johnnyisgod But aren’t the only impacted majors within Berkeley in the school of engineering and the school of chemistry? I got a request for letters of recommendation and I applied to the college of arts and sciences
@nishaus I applied for classics
If you don’t report a score on your UC application but you send in the score report would they still consider it in admissions? This would be for one of my subject tests I sent in cuz I didn’t know we could use score choice for the SAT IIs.
@johnnyisgod Hey, I never noticed that they had already evaluated my application! Well, now I know that it most likely isn’t random, I’m praying that I’m not borderline lol
@treehugger505 I don’t think the school you’re applying to matters. Aspiring ChemE major here, applied for School of Chemistry, letter received. EDIT: missed point, please ignore what I just said 
Chemical Engineering and EECS are the most difficult majors to get into. So did everyone who got letters with high stats applied to those two majors?
@Alamalaki Not sure, it seems that a lot of College of Arts and Sciences applicants are receiving emails as well.
As for stats, from what I’ve seen is that students with high test scores are receiving requests more, which isn’t like what the news said. Of course, it’s possible that a lot of people who received requests aren’t posting…
I applied to the College of Natural Resources and I got an email
I think everyone applied for different things mostly
College of Letters and Sciences applicant here who also received the email. I have a 35 ACT (E-35, M-36, R-35, S-35). 4.0 UW GPA, 4.57 W GPA. Lots of EC’s including math tutor, principal chair French Horn in school wind ensemble, Math Team Treasurer, JV Swim captain. Hopefully I’m not a borderline applicant; the real question is: how thoroughly have they actually looked at our apps before sending this email, if at all?