UC Berkeley Class of 2027 Official Thread

Am I good if the alternate major is from a separate college?

Yes, if you select another College besides Engineering, you will be considered for the alternate major. There are just no guarantees with a competitive school like UCB.

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thank you for your help throughout!

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It sounds like Berkeley has upped the percentage of LOR they are requesting.

Not received!

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I was curious about that, too. Although I try not to read anything into a letter request, it does make me wonder what could trigger this request so early in the process, when it is hard to imagine that someone would have already read the application.

I was looking at this report from May 2022 which has some information about Augmented Review at the various UC campuses: https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/committees/boars/boars-cr-report-may-2022.pdf

Here is a quote from the report about the AR process from last year:

The Augmented Review (AR) process at Berkeley follows Regents Policy 2110 with no more than 15% of freshman applicants reviewed under the policy. Within this process, selected applicants are given the opportunity to submit up to two letters of recommendation to be considered during the reading process. Students invited to submit a letter of recommendation may come from the following populations: first-generation college students, students qualifying for an application fee waiver, and students participating in early academic outreach programs. Those invited to submit a recommendation may submit up to two letters of recommendation. Submission is voluntary and not required for full consideration of the application for admission; if a student chooses not to submit a letter of recommendation(s), it does not affect their opportunity for admission. In the fall 2021 cycle, Berkeley gave 16,783 applicants, or 12.42% of the pool, the opportunity to submit a letter of recommendations.

In my own S23’s case, I wondered about the mention of “early academic outreach programs” in the above quote. Maybe a LOR request could be triggered by participation in UC Berkeley ATDP (my S23 did this) or similar programs.

I also noticed that @soccer70 mentioned in another thread having taken at least one class through UCB Summer Session, while my S23 is taking classes at UCB through concurrent enrollment. Maybe they were both already on UCB’s radar somehow.

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some other kids from my high school also got request for LOR and they hadn’t taken any UC Berkeley course. it seems a lot of people are being asked to provide LOR.

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No LOR request.

It’s a mystery! But I think it can’t be LOTS of people, because according to the above report, Regents Policy 2110 only allows them to request LOR from a maximum of 15% of freshman applicants. Maybe your high school participates in whatever they mean by “early academic outreach programs”?

No LOR request yet, maybe because I’m an international applicant from Canada?

Yeah the EAOP was only an option for US nationals. I wonder if any international applicant has received LOR request.

Does anyone know why LSCS admitted headcount has been decreasing which are shown in this picture ?

When UCB decided to change the L&S CS admission policy for Fall 2023 here are some of the reasons why and these reasons are responsible for the declining admitted headcount.

unsustainable growth of the major, stress around the process of declaring and the lack of diversity within the department, according to John Canny, professor and chair of the computer science division.

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thank you for this info! I didn’t know about the 15% rule.

Do AOs at berkeley review our application in december or wait till january?

UCB will start reviewing applications upon submission but usually closer to the Nov 30th deadline. With over 128,000 applications last year, they need to start as soon as possible. That is why applicants are already getting LOR requests.

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Right makes sense!

Could you share the picture or the source of information about the L&S CS admission headcount?
Thanks.

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whoa. @Gumbymom is that a page we can access?

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