juoh

It would look something like this:

Dear __________,

Freshman decisions for fall 2008 will be announced on March 27!

Decisions will be posted online via the student portal, myBerkeleyApplication, at: http://students.berkeley.edu/myberke...erkeleyapp.asp

Please set up your password to myBerkeleyApp now so that you are all set to receive your admissions decision on March 27th.

You will need your 7-digit UC applicant ID number and the email address you provided in the application.

Berkeley cannot provide application ID numbers. However, there are several ways for you to find your Application ID:

1. Your University of California (also known as PATHWAYS) receipt; if you submitted your application via the University of California website, you should have seen a screen displaying this information.
2. On the upper right-hand side of the UC aknowledgement letter you received in the mail
3. Contact the University of California Admissions Processing center (UCAP):
In California: 800-523-2048
Out of California: 925-808-2181
Deaf and Hearing Impaired Callers: TDD 925-521-9280
(All calls should ask for UC Admissions Processing)
Email: ucinfo@ucapplication.net

Also, if you change your email address, or any of the contact information on your application, please update this information online at the UC Application Center website: https://www.ucapplication.net/ucap

Or, you may email Berkeley at: emailupdate@berkeley.edu

Unfortunately, we are unable to change any other application information.

Good luck and go Bears!

--------------------------------------------------------
The Admissions Staff
Office of Undergraduate Admissions
University of California
110 Sproul Hall #5800
Berkeley, CA 94720-5800
http://admissions.berkeley.edu

Please do not reply to this email address; if you have questions, you may call us at 510-642-3175, Monday-Friday, 1-4 (PST).

[notice how the "we're worth the wait" part isn't present]

lextalionis

Thanks for calling me "gregarious"!

This is my account, not my son's. He's too busy living his fun life to post on here.

To repeat, I find the psychology of the admissions process very intriguing. If you would use your brain to analyze things rather than to cast aspersions upon others, you would realize that an institution like Berkeley is well aware of the potential impact on UCLA admits and they decided to do something about it.

Does the Cal e-mail "change the world" in any significant way? Of course not. However, it does try to ensure that those who receive it at least stop and give pause before excitedly sending in a "yes" to UCLA, in particular.

My son's e-mail had the following verbiage which the poster's did not:

"We know you're hearing from other University of California campuses, but before you give them your reply, please wait to hear from UC Berkeley: we're worth the wait!"

For the record, the only other UC campus my S applied to was UCLA. Obviously, Cal did not simply send out a mass e-mail with the same language to everybody.

As for the admissions office "party line," of course they cannot tell anyone yet that they have been accepted. Nothing will be official until March 27.

However, "likely letters" or "likely e-mails" are here to stay and their impact (or lack thereof) will be analyzed by top institutions across the country (most relevant to yield rates).

You can choose to ignore such e-mails if you wish. I can tell you though that UCLA's Engineering "likely letter" motivated us to take a closer look at UCLA's engineering program, in large part because they were the first university to give a "thumbs up" to my S, even though it was entirely "unofficial."

jabbawockeez

i think that lexta is right. i mean, this is the email

Dear _______,

Freshman decisions for fall 2008 will be announced on March 27!

We know you're hearing from other University of California campuses,
but before you give them your reply, please wait to hear from UC
Berkeley: we're worth the wait!

Berkeley decisions will be posted online via the student portal,
myBerkeleyApplication, at:
http://students.berkeley.edu/myberke...erkeleyapp.asp

If you haven't already done so, log in now to create your password so
you'll be all set to find out the admission decision as soon as it's
posted.

You will need your 7-digit UC applicant ID number (provided when you
submitted your University of California application or sent to you after
receipt of your paper form) and the email address you provided in the
application.

Berkeley cannot provide application ID numbers. However, there are
several ways for you to find your Application ID:

1. Your University of California (also known as PATHWAYS) receipt; if
you submitted your application via the University of California website,
you should have seen a screen displaying this information.
2. On the upper right-hand side of the UC aknowledgement letter you
received in the mail
3. Contact the University of California Admissions Processing center
(UCAP):
In California: 800-523-2048
Out of California: 925-808-2181
Deaf and Hearing Impaired Callers: TDD 925-521-9280
(All calls should ask for UC Admissions Processing)
Email: ucinfo@ucapplication.net

Good luck and go Bears!
--------------------------------------------------------
The Admissions Staff
Office of Undergraduate Admissions
University of California
110 Sproul Hall #5800
Berkeley, CA 94720-5800
http://admissions.berkeley.edu


We know you're hearing from other University of California campuses,
but before you give them your reply, please wait to hear from UC
Berkeley: we're worth the wait!
^ ive heard from UCLA, UCSB, UCSD. accepted to all. I think I'm in for Berkeley as well.
and its not overanalyzing at all.

fluffyo1

this is funny

seniormom99

you mean to tell me that many have got the email but with different wordage;

some with "We know you're hearing from other University of California campuses,
but before you give them your reply, please wait to hear from UC
Berkeley: we're worth the wait!" and some without those words?

h2x_jump

This thread is going to keep me entertained until the 27th.

hopefullybright

^ Same here. I can just imagine a bunch of Berkeley's admissions officers scrolling through these pages and screaming,"No, that's not what they mean!" It was a nice move though by UCLA to put out their decisions early. March Madness definitely made them more strategic.

hwama22

guys think about this, when we say that "everyone get this email", i don't think it is true, because of course most people viewing this page got the email, otherwise we won't really come here to see what other people are saying. people who didn't get this probably wont bother to search for this thread.

just a thought haha=]
hope that's a good sign .

learnmestuff

HAHAA lex, wow THANK GOD you aren't my parent.

I've ditched the bee analogy, you're officially a helicopter parent with iron blades attached. Congratulations on the promotion.

Analyze? I've been admitted to UCLA-honors and Stanford University. I don't think I need you to tell me how to "analyze"

http://students.berkeley.edu/admissi...al.asp?id=3677
Now, let's think about this, you and I. Excluding your vital "Go Bears!" sentence at the bottom of the letter, this link says EXACTLY the same thing as the one they sent to ALL applicants. You're supposed knowledge over the Berkeley admissions office on what its intention is certainly is amusing, though entirely false. I have a friend with a 3.3 GPA and 1690 SAT who received the same exact letter! She's been rejected from UCSB and UC Riverside. You really think she's a "likely" candidate for Berkeley? By the way, she was also rejected from UCLA. That being said, why would Berkeley send her an email trying to "grab her attention" from UCLA if SHE WAS NEVER ADMITTED TO UCLA?!

I admire your enthusiasm, but you're trying to build up something that doesn't exist. It's somewhat cruel of you to get everyones' hopes up. We're just kids afterall, stop pretending a great reward that will not even exist for 80% of applicants is there, when its not.

seniormom: check out the link I posted. It's on the front of the admissions page, open TO ANYONE who clicks the "undergraduate admissions link".


about the "not everyone receives it" thing, let me tell you this: Do you honestly think they can send 44,000 emails at one time w/o the computer overloading? I received my letter about 10 days after many of my friends. They send them in blocks, otherwise the computer would freeze.

Please, just go hunt Easter eggs or something, you guys spend WAY too much time over-analyzing (which yes, it is).

h2x_jump

learnmestuff: Just so you know, that letter is different. Also, sending out 44,000 emails would not be hard for a single computer to do at all. It would more be an issue with the various ISPs.

My input, this letter means nothing. We should start a thread on the 27th for the soul purpose of posting your admission status and whether or not you got this email.

gimmieaclu

Please, give it a rest. There's no way you can prove that this is a "likely letter", so I would not be celebrating just yet. All this is, is speculation.

Do you really think Berkeley is afraid that it's going to lose some of its prospective students to other schools because people are tired of waiting? I don't think so. UCB knows better than that.

JiffsMom

It's not the exact same thing. The wording is different. The letter on your link states...

We know you may be hearing from various colleges about admissions decisions and that you might be anxious to hear from us, so here is an update on the status of our process:

We will provide you with an admission decision next Thursday, March 27 (April 30 for transfers).

...Thank you for your patience: We're worth the wait!

The email states...

Freshman decisions for fall 2008 will be announced on March 27!

We know you're hearing from other University of California campuses, but before you give them your reply, please wait to hear from UC Berkeley: we're worth the wait!

They're different. The email specifically asks applicants to not respond to the UC's they've been admitted to until they've heard from Berkeley.

We'll all just have to wait and see... Time will tell...

juoh

seniormom99, yes, there are apparently various emails which I find very interesting. And I agree with you that it would be very cruel if the Berkeley Admissions committee sent this email giving false hope and then getting rejected. And yes, it may be bulk, but Berkeley is a large school and they will accept many students, and reject many more students.

forgottenhawk

Hey, for those who received the email, did the bottom of your email have some code-like thing at the bottom? Beneath the whole "do not reply" message. Mine has something like this:

OUA-#------------APPS_FR_WAIT

-'s are numbers.

This could all very well be overanalysis. I hope it's not. But maybe the thing I just mentioned could be another clue? The whole "wait" part doesn't sound very promising.

juoh

Oh well, I give up on this whole overanalyzing of these dumb email. Let's just wait and see what happens on Thursday...