I just applied to the UCLA and Berkeley tonight, and an hour after submitting my app I realized I made a huge mistake. In my personal insight questions, I specifically wrote “UCLA”, two times in the 4 essays. Stupidly, I didn’t think to change it to just university of California, or “this school” or “institution” and the same personal insight essays are going to be read by Berkeley admission officers. Did I just completely ruin all chances of getting into UCB?
More specifically, these are the two sentences I wrote and am worried about: “I developed a sense of passion for succeeding in school and making Dad proud, two qualities I hope to continue as a student at UCLA.”
and
“My friendly and encouraging approach to collaboration with peers, strong communication and interpersonal skills, and enthusiasm would complement UCLA’s environment of academic and personal excellence.”
They explicitly state on their website not to do this. It definitely won’t help your chances, but all you can do now is hope for the best. Keep in mind though, that UCB is VERY holistic and will not base an admissions decision on any one factor. Good Luck.
@saefiftikhar1 not the best situation, but with UC you never know. Last year I applied to UCSD, and while my application was under review they reached out to me three times, asking questions that were fully covered in my personal statement. I got an impression that they did not even read the statement. I don’t know about Berkley, but I heard there were cases when people got in without an essay (they left that part of application blank), solely based on their GPA and major prep.
Regardless of the outcome, don’t get too upset. Seems like UCLA is your first choice, and it’s an excellent school.
Sorry if what you will hear from me next may sound cruel … but the fact is that these two schools have the most cross-admits and usually UCB is even more concern about its consequences (in order to keep its presumed top standing in the UC system) than UCLA, as the gap between these two has narrowed down to almost nil.
I applied to UCLA and Berkeley, accepted to both. Chose UCLA. Then decided to take a gap year. I had to reapply the next year and wrote in the additional comments that I had accepted UCLA the year before, but wanted to travel, so withdrew. Berkeley accepted me again, even though UCLA was also in the mix.
I’m now at Cal. Don’t sweat it. If they want you, they’ll accept you. As far as they know, you simply don’t figure you’ll get accepted at Cal, do didn’t factor it in to the PI.
