last year they promised no later than the 24th I believe. For whatever reason, that date is pushed back to the 30th this year
Maybe they too received a ton more apps than last year and will be working on them up until the last minute.
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Here are the Berkeley freshman application totals over the past 3 years:
2020: 88,064
2021: 112,835
2022: 128,230
That works out to a compound annual growth rate in applications over the past 3 admissions cycles of 20.7%.
If that application growth rate trend continues in 2023, UC Berkeley would be reviewing just over 145,000 freshman applicants this year. I believe the UC Office of the President will release application counts sometime in February, but yeah, I’m sure they did receive a ton more apps this year vs. prior year.
And they may be able to offer fewer spots for admission this year based on the housing situation (disaster was averted last year, but maybe still a factor this year in deciding how many students they can realistically accommodate housing-wise should the situation go south).
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UC’s do not discuss. I have a graduate from UCSD and he got into 4 of the 5 he applied to. I have a junior at UCLA and he got waitlisted at UCSB and UCSD (got in within a week off the waitlist) but got into UCLA and Cal right away. I now have a senior in HS who is applying. I made sure he applied to wider net of schools knowing that there are no sure things. The schools are trying to put together a class so they are taking into account interests, etc…Once you are over a 4.0, it is becomes random and probably has more to do with who is reading the applications and if they connected with the students essay.
And just an FYI, my son who is at UCLA wrote about a topic that is normally considered taboo for a college essay, my husband and I discouraged him from that topic. Obviously he knew better than us and wrote about something passionate to him and it must have shown.
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That’s my son’s 2nd choice, too. 1st Chem Engineering.
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I have a question that perhaps isn’t really UCB specific, although I am most interested in the response as it might relate to UCB…Do admissions officers ever Google? Like, if you list an EC with a certain organization that perhaps the AO doesn’t happen to be familiar with, do they ever Google to find out more about it? Or do they restrict themselves to only the information provided by the applicant?
If they are suspicious they prob do google some things. Another top public school said in a webinar this year they called up an organization to verify the accuracy of an EC that a student put in their applicant. They found out the student lied in the application- they made their role much larger than it really was. Just never know. That’s why it’s so imp to be honest. Some schools will ask the GC to verify some of the ECs.
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I’m sure they do. It’s just human nature and I hope they do especially if the EC claims are very meaningful for the overall application.
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I was actually HOPING they would lol. They give so little space in the EC section to explain things that it would be great if they sought out greater context. However, with the number of applications they receive, I wasn’t certain if it would be at all feasible for them to do so. And I’m sure they don’t in every case, but was curious if it was a thing at all.
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Maybe they would only do the due diligence for the ones they are seriously considering of accepting. And it may have to be an EC that are suspicious about or raises concern.
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The UC’s do do random requests for verification of EC’s. I believe they are system generated who gets them but yes the do send out requests. If requests are not answered application is pulled.
I can’t remember if they are sent before notifications or to individuals admitted.
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The official verification process is described in the counselor bulletin here: UC Counselors and Advisers Bulletin - November 2022
UC selects a random sampling of applicants who are required to verify information in their application. The selection and notification take place in late December. Applicants are notified by postal mail, email and text message that they have been selected for verification along with instructions on how to meet the requirements. Applicants are asked to provide original documentation to verify one item from the following sections on the UC application: academic history, honors and awards, extracurricular activities, volunteer work and community service, special program participation, employment or information contained in the personal insight responses.
The instructions sent to the selected applicants detail how to complete the process as well as a list of appropriate documentation. Appropriate documentation could include official transcripts, a letter from a teacher, counselor or coach on letterhead, or a copy of a certificate or award. Letters from a counselor, teacher or a coach can be emailed to the UC Application Center directly from the counselor, teacher or coach.
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Not even in the sense of verification, though - just in the sense of better understanding what the EC is, if it is with a niche organization that not everyone would be familiar with, or something like that. Not necessarily checking up on the applicant’s honesty - although could be that, too - but trying to better understand the context of what the applicant is involved with.
I think I’m mainly coming from the side of non-school related ECs. I mean, all AOs will know NHS or what a school band does or something like that. But if the ECs are with community or regional organizations - which may be well known locally, but not widely beyond the community or focus area - would they ever seek more information to try to better understand the work of that organization.
Gotcha!
Yes my daughter has something like that on her application. I believe she listed the website in the description for it.
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Ah, that’s a good idea. We probably should have at least provided a website. My daughter has good ECs, but she had trouble describing them with word limit. She used the PIQs to flesh some of them out, but otherwise, I think some might seem a bit obscure if the AO doesn’t happen to be familiar with them (although they are all easily google-able).
I am not sure admissions will look at any external websites. Just imagine tens of 1000s of applications and how do they even verify the authenticity/reliability of a website. It will just be way too much effort for admissions teams to be looking at external websites and possibly get viruses on their computers. Just saying. If they do do so, it will be unfair to all other candidates who had to stick with the word restrictions in common app.
I think they might do to a few as a random spot check, or focus on only a subset that land in the Yes/May be pile after initial read. There is likely some process that makes sense for the UCs but in this day and age it would be malpractice not to look into ECs.
So basically in that case Common App word limit has no bearing and one can just provide website links with thousand of words? How will they decline one application which had bunch of website links, before identifying only the subset they read? What if their VPN doesn’t allow a website to come up? What if security warnings come up because they are going to an external website from their university LAN. $80 app fee is a worthwhile investment for a hacker to insert software onto the host computer. Just not going to happen in my opinion. Even if they go to the website how do they validate that this candidate volunteered in a specific role? Volunteering at a local food pantry doesn’t show the volunteer list on food pantry website. Just way too many issues for anyone to be doing that.
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