@JPclassof2021 I think the only way it would hurt is if you talked about it without expressing how you have or will overcome those challenges and are able to be a valuable addition to uc Berkeley.
When I click on the appeal form link, it gives me a “403 Forbidden” error. Anyone else seeing this? Could it be because technically the CoE doesn’t consider appeals?
Did you submit an appeal before the deadline? If you didn’t, it’s probably showing you that error because they’re not accepting appeals any more, deadline was May 1st.
If you did submit before the deadline, I’m not sure – When I click on the form it goes to the text of the appeal I submitted.
@amoghden Same here. I submitted mine of 04/07 and I can see what I sent in.
@amoghden My appeal deadline is May 15th because I’m a transfer student. Just checked and I now see this:
"Our records indicate that you are not authorized to access this form.
The form is available only to applicants whose admission was denied* and is due by the following deadlines:
Freshman Deadline: May 1, 2017 at 11:59 pm Pacific Time.
Transfer Deadline: May 15, 2017 at 11:59 pm Pacific Time.
*College of Engineering and College of Chemistry do not accept appeals for Transfer students.
If you believe you are receiving this message in error, please visit http://admissions.berkeley.edu/ContactUs for assistance."
Guess I’m out of luck then. CoE doesn’t really accept appeals.
The first wave of waitlist acceptances was released… could this provide any hint about the the timeline for appeal decisions?
@californiapoly Appeals decisions will probably be released after waitlist offers are either accepted or rejected because waitlisted students have higher priority than appeals.
Do we only get consider after all the waitlist students?
@voltthorn Since every year appeal decisions tend to be released between mid May and early June, one can infer that appeal decisions are correlated with waitlist decisions. If you were a Berkeley admissions officer, I am sure you would think it would be fair to consider students who were offered a spot on the waitlist over students who were rejected.
@Bakasworld That makes sense. Well, hopefully they’ll read through all the appeals once they’re done with waitlists and there will be a few spots left.
@voltthorn Unfortunately for us appealing students, Berkeley appeals have a very low probability of success. I think in 2014 Berkeley only accepted 25 students out 800-900 students. In addition to, Berkeley accepts a considerable amount of waitlisted students. Perhaps the protests and media turmoil Berkeley has experienced this year may lead to a low yield rate for this year, but I seriously doubt that will happen.
what did you guys write about?
I wrote about really personal stuff. 
Basically, I gave a lot of context about my education.
do u mind me asking about what? nobody knows who you really are here @LDRAW
@hiyahiya123 I wrote about how I think of random ideas in the most unconventional situations, like listening to Childish Gambino or Chance the Rapper and suddenly begin contemplating why the English language has so many words even though they all convey the same message to humans. Is it to express different emotions, emotional intensities, or nothing at all? I also talked about how I am still doing track, I am on the track team this semester, and I am taking three new community college classes for the spring semester that I did not report on my UC application because I was unable to apply for my current classes before the UC deadline.
I do not know if I have a basis for appeal, but I just wanted to let the Berkeley admissions officers know exactly what type of person and student I am so I can feel at ease knowing that I said everything that I wanted to tell them.
I talked about my grade 12 term 1 grades, why I’m good enough to be at Berkeley, and also requested a major and school change because I applied for the wrong major. I had no idea berkeley just had a CS course, and thought the only course was EECS. Then I talked about tons of new research I’ve done and some apps I’m making and stuff.
In my appeal I wrote about how I don’t actually live in the same city as my school. Instead, I live a couple of towns over and I’ve been waking up really early since freshman year to go to school, and basically the reason why I chose to not go to a high school near my house is because the schools near my house are not safe and they’re not that great. Also, because I live so far away (well idk 30 min isn’t SUPER far but yea) from my school, I’ve been highly limited to after school activities in HS due to transportation issues.
Basically, I was trying to shine a light on how committed I’ve been to receiving a good education, and despite my life circumstances (these are explained in my four essays) I was still able to give back to my school and community etc.
I also wrote a brief paragraph about why I want to go to berkeley and why I belong there, and I included new academic information.
i provided more context to my high school experience (i suffered from depression and anxiety for 5 years because of ongoing sexual assault within my family, which affected my grades and ec’s, which i couldn’t discuss in my app because it was reviewed by my family)
i also talked about recent accomplishments, like founding the first jewish club at my school, receiving an academic excellence award, learning hebrew, getting a part-time job, being promoted at another job
i also tried to make it sentimental by mentioning that my mom went there and that she got me through my mental health struggles by her example
good luck to you all <3