Admissions Decision Question

Colleges & Universities University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>My S applied to UCB and was rejected, which I found puzzling for several reasons. He was admitted to Stanford and waitlisted at MIT and Yale. He is also a CA resident with a 2200 SAT and four 780-790 SAT II scores in Bio M, Math 2, Chem & Physics.</p>

<p>A couple of months before the decisions came out, Cal sent a letter saying that his application was strong and they decided to share it with all of the UCs, since he had only checked UCB on his app.</p>

<p>When decisions came out, he was turned down. Could it be because he chose undeclared engineering? Stanford was his first choice so it’s all good, but all of us were kind of surprised by the rejection.</p>

<p>His grades were great too. He is a US citizen but does A levels at a UK boarding school and is predicted five A*s (chem, maths, further maths, physics and biology).</p>

<p>Interested to hear others thoughts. Maybe the A-G requirement was an issue, although he asked about it when he put the app in and they said it wouldn’t be an issue. Who knows?</p>

2

<p>If they actually sent him a specific email saying that his application was really strong, that’s very weird that he ended up being rejected. They might have made an honest mistake in the decision…</p>

3

<p>i know quite a lot of people who applied to Stanford, UCB, and one other top schools, and were rejected from all schools except UCB.</p>

<p>but the opposite is quite rare.</p>

<p>consider yourself lucky? haha
Stanford is a way better school. </p>

<p>i’ll trade ya my UCB acceptance for your S’ Stanford Acceptance? :P</p>

4

<p>More of a fit problem? Maybe Berkeley saw that he would get into another great school and would not attend Berkeley anyway, so they decided to reject him. They might have also thought that he was not a good match for Berkeley even though his application is considered very strong.</p>

5

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<p>Haha I would do too :P… Stanford was my dream school. Your son is very fortunate to have gotten selected there. :)</p>

6

<p>I was in a very similar situation that ended differently. I’m California with a 2220 SAT, 780-800 on 3 SAT 2s (Math 2, Physics, Chemistry), accepted at Berkeley, and waitlisted and almost everywhere else. </p>

<p>I also chose undeclared engineering so I don’t think it was that. It might have been the requirements, but I’m not sure.</p>

7

<p>College admissions committees are made up of regular people, and you can’t expect people to behave consistently. The reason for this might be as banal as the guy looking at your son’s application had a stomach ache.</p>

<p>Stuff like this happens all the time. Don’t get hung up on it.</p>

8

<p>Engineering is competitive by major (at all UC campuses) and engineering-undeclared is typically the most competitive (the last set of publicly available stats, from maybe 2-3 years ago, indicated something around a 10% acceptance rate).</p>