3.9+ in EECS + Haas Double Major

sakky
Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:13:59 +0000

Not only does Boalt do this, but many grad programs at Berkeley seems to have this tendency to not admit its own undergrads. The ChemE department, for example, explicitly states on its own website that it will not admit its own undergrads:



Reminds me of one girl I know who graduated with a BS in ChemE from Berkeley. She couldn’t get back into the PhD program because of the anti-incest rule you cited. So she applied to and got into the Berkeley BioE PhD program, and she ended up working in the same exact lab and under the same exact professor (who had joint appointments in both ChemE and BioE) as she did as an undergrad. So while she ended up with what was technically a BioE PhD, it was basically a ChemE PhD in everything but name. Her office/lab was in Tang (the ChemE building). Her advisors were all from ChemE. Her peer group consisted of basically all ChemE students. So what’s the difference?

If you’re just going to allow people to circumvent your anti-incest rule in that manner, you might as well just lift the rule entirely.