Ugh. Stronger applicants from the same HS?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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<p>One of my top choices is UCB. However, there are a bunch of Ivy-hopefuls in my school who are using UCB as a "backup." They have far better stats than me. I'm wondering, will the fact that there are stronger applicants from my HS hurt me? Who are applicants compared to anyway and how are they compared? I really really hope applicants from the same HS aren't compared like:</p>

<p>Adcom1: Hmm... X has a 4.1 and 2250 SAT. I think we should accept him.
Adcom2: Wait, Y has a 5.0 and 2400. He's an Intel finalist too. Let's accept him and reject X.
Adcom3: I say we accept Z and reject X and Y. Z has a 6.0 and 2600 and he cured cancer.</p>

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<p>I’d accept Z over X as well.</p>

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<p>Your best bet is to make it clear to the AdCom that it’s really your top (2nd?) choice–did you go to info sessions, visit campus? Have you been in touch with your area rep?</p>

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<p>There have been cases of schools rejecting overqualified applicants. There was a girl in my high school who had published a paper, won awards at ISEF, gotten a bunch of international olympiad medals, was involved with 10000 clubs/societies/organizations, etc. She got accepted everywhere she applied except the UCs. (She’s now at Harvard.)</p>

<p>Like mothek says, your best bet is to show your commitment – personalize your essays to show how much you want to attend Berkeley.</p>

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<p>^She didn’t get rejected because she was “overqualified,” she got rejected because UC Berkeley has a highly selective admissions process and thus difficult decisions have to be made. Sorry if I sound like an admissions committee robot, but it’s true. This so-called “Tufts syndrome” is a myth that makes people feel better about being rejected by schools-that-are-not-Harvard (not to say she shouldn’t have gotten in to Cal or whichever UCs she applied to, but chalk it up to luck, not to being “too good”).</p>

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<p>Lol people are definitely rejected for being overqualified . . . . </p>

<p>Berkeley cannot afford to reject such a strong student if it did not benefit from it. High yield rates make schools look good.</p>

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<p>Trust me, Berkeley does not reject students for having high SAT scores.</p>

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<p>Did meakame mention high SAT scores?</p>

<p>No . . . . she mentioned an acquaintance who won ISEF awards, gotten INTERNATIONAL olympiad medals (handed out to a few dozen students in a handful of fields), and was involved in many student organizations.</p>

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<p>All right well then maybe she had a terrible SAT score (just a joke, as I’m sure meakame would tell us she had a very high score).</p>

<p>Anyways, I was just using meakame’s example as a jumping off point. I’m not just talking about her case specifically.</p>

<p>Colleges don’t look at applicants and predict what other universities’ adcoms are going to do. Some Ivy Leagues have single-digit acceptance rates. No one is a shoo-in at top tier universities like the Ivies and Cal, and predicting whether or not a particular student will get into so-called “better” schools is impossible. It just wouldn’t be worth it for Cal to play games like that in trying to increase their yield. Also, the draw of a public school can always influence students deciding between Cal and similarly ranked private institutions, and being the #4 university in the world on top of that can set the deal for many.</p>

<p>I stand by what I said - you can’t be overqualified for the #4 university in the world.</p>

<p>But whatever, didn’t mean to completely derail this thread. Carry on, everyone!</p>

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<p>Judging from your reading comprehension abilities, I’m certain that your SAT reading score was not very good. </p>

<p>My point wasn’t that she had a terrible SAT score. I’m sure that she had a very high score, ON TOP OF MANY OTHER FACTORS THAT MAKE HER A VERY STRONG STUDENT. Berkeley OBVIOUSLY does not look at a student’s SAT score and decide “LOL too high, do not want”. </p>

<p>A student with a high SAT score MAY be rejected for certain reasons (low GPA, no ECs, being a delinquent). So YES, it is ENTIRELY possible for a student with a high SAT score to be rejected by Berkeley, but a STRONG well rounded student would be rejected by Berkeley only for yield rate engineering reasons. </p>

<p>It is KNOWN that universities not at the absolute top level implement yield rate engineering to maintain a high yield. The most OBVIOUS example of that is early decision. Why does Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT not have early decision? Clearly because no student would be considered overqualified at those schools and the absolute best students routinely go there. The absolute best students in the world do NOT usually have Berkeley in mind as a first pick. This is clear from cross admisisons data. Students who are accepted both by Berkeley and by top Ivies OVERWHELMINGLY chose the Ivy.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/09/17weekinreview/20060917_LEONHARDT_CHART.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/09/17weekinreview/20060917_LEONHARDT_CHART.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The draw of a public school does very very little in attracting top students except perhaps for students belonging to a slim socioeconomic status not eligible for generous financial aid from Ivies but not able to spend 50k a year for education. </p>

<p>For example, <em>2%</em> of students admitted to both Berkeley and Harvard chose Harvard. So yes, it is clear that for undergrad admissions, Berkeley CANNOT compete with Harvard in drawing top students.</p>

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<p>nice ad hominem…</p>

<p>I thought Berkeley had a public mandate. Would be weird if someone was overqualified for a public institution.</p>

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<p>Yeah seriously…not sure why you’re (@caiacs) being so aggressive toward me…you’re acting like I somehow attacked you or something…my apologies if that’s how you feel. :\ But come on, SAT insults? What is this, 11th grade? :P</p>

<p>But anyways, I’m not arguing that people choose Berkeley over top Ivies (i.e. HYP)…but regardless I’m done here, this is far too off-topic.</p>

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<p>I have to agree with caiacs. The people I know who were rejected by Berkeley and accepted by Harvard/Stanford/Ivy Leagues were “overqualified.” No, this wasn’t just one random case. There were four people. We don’t know what adcoms do, but we can take statistics and analyze the data to make a compelling argument for certain cases. </p>

<p>Anyway, these friends, in addition to a few other high-achievers (but not overqualified) tried a little experiment with college applications. They each wrote ~50-100 word essays (so that admissions would purely be based on GPA+SAT/ACT+EC, as the subjective part was controlled) that were pretty darn similar. Guess what, out of the five accepted by Stanford/Harvard/Ivy Leagues, four were rejected. Out of the seven who were high-achievers, none were rejected. </p>

<p>Interpret this data however you wish, but I found it pretty interesting =]. Based on this small experiment, I think Cal has a supremum,in terms of applicant pool, consisting of these overqualified candidates. This may imply that Tufts Syndrome exists (to some extent). However, the fact that not all five of these overachievers were rejected suggests that either the adcoms took in one random person or that the adcoms believed that this one student might matriculate at Cal.</p>

<p>In reality, this person was offered Regents and he wasn’t as strong in terms of extracurriculars as the other four. This strongly supports the idea of rejection of over-qualified applicants.</p>

<p>Anyway,

</p>

<p>Well, there ARE likely letters…</p>

<p>[?Likely</a> letters? part of Yale?s admit strategy | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2007/apr/26/likely-letters-part-of-yales-admit-strategy/]?Likely”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2007/apr/26/likely-letters-part-of-yales-admit-strategy/)</p>

<p>The important part…</p>

<p>“Admissions officers hope to identify those regular-decision applicants who are virtually certain of acceptance and to put Yale on their radars as soon as possible, especially as they may also have received early offers from other colleges.”</p>

<p>-ends tangent</p>

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<p>I don’t think it will hurt you too much (if at all) unless you are average (borderline acceptance) and those stronger applicants all apply to Berkeley.</p>

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<p>We’re international, so maybe that’s why :slight_smile: and this was before they decided to increase the number of international students to get more money.</p>

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<p>I don’t want people to tell me that I’m wrong while spewing nonsense and not providing any evidence. </p>

<p>Sorry if I come across as being rude. I didn’t mean to insult anyone. It was a playful jab.</p>

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<p>It was all the random caps, bro. But you clearly still haven’t gotten the message. Now my posts are nonsense, apparently. Cool.</p>

<p>But to reply to the OP, adcoms definitely look at and may compare applications from the same high school, but I say why worry about something beyond your control. Work hard on that app and make yourself stand out - give the adcoms a reason to not care about others in your school!</p>

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<p>Well I don’t want to argue with someone who contradicts himself:</p>

<p>“Also, the draw of a public school can always influence students deciding between Cal and similarly ranked private institutions, and being the #4 university in the world on top of that can set the deal for many”</p>

<p>and . . . </p>

<p>“I’m not arguing that people choose Berkeley over top Ivies”</p>

<p>And this statement is just straight up false ~ “Colleges don’t look at applicants and predict what other universities’ adcoms are going to do. Some Ivy Leagues have single-digit acceptance rates. No one is a shoo-in at top tier universities like the Ivies and Cal, and predicting whether or not a particular student will get into so-called “better” schools is impossible. It just wouldn’t be worth it for Cal to play games like that in trying to increase their yield.”</p>