Chance for EECS hopeful, Will Chance back

Lololwut
Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:04:53 +0000

DISCLAIMER-- I’m a total hypocrite. I went through the same phase as you did, constantly worrying about whether I would get in or not.

First-- relax. I’ve seen your threads posted on both the Berkeley and LA subforums… you’re not going to get solace from whatever anyone tells you. A hundred different users could sing praises of how you are an assured admit to eecs, but they are not members of the admissions committee. Nobody here has the full story of your application: your essays, your personal situation, your challenges/successes/obstacles/etc. Personal anecdotes and experiences with the admissions process from previous students can only go so far-- the holistic nature of admissions makes quantifying your likelihood of admittance into a ‘chance’ by anyone a highly subjective and unreliable measure.

Unless you got an invitation to an interview for the Regents scholarship or you got a request for a supplement, you will not know anything about your status as an applicant until the evening of the 29th in March. Take nothing you read on this forum regarding your chances as an applicant without a grain of salt. I mean it.

That said, there are some pieces of information that can sate your desire to know more about being admitted to EECS:

http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/05/16_houtreport.pdf

The Hout report, while dated, is probably the best glimpse into the admissions process at Berkeley you will see online. I have no doubt that the process has changed since 2005, especially with the SAT II tests being made optional this year, but this report provides a general look at what admissions officers look at when reviewing an application.

Fall 2011
[Undergraduate Admissions Committee Report Fall 2011 — UC Berkeley College of Engineering](http://coe.berkeley.edu/faculty/faculty-meetings-college-committees/faculty-meeting-fall-2011/Undergraduate%20Admissions%20Committee%20Report%20Fall%202011.pdf/view)
Spring 2009
[Undergraduate Admissions Committee.doc — UC Berkeley College of Engineering](http://coe.berkeley.edu/faculty/faculty-meetings-college-committees/faculty-meeting-spring-2009/Undergraduate%20Admissions%20Committee.doc/view)

These are the two best links I could find directly related to engineering. The 2011 report does not contain data, but rather has information regarding what the college of engineering is looking within an applicant. The 2009 report contains applicant data (admit rates) up to that date. It would be difficult to extrapolate such data to this year, due to record levels of applicants, but that is the most recent official record of eecs admit percentages as far as I know.

tl;dr People on this board who participate in ‘chances’ likely have little knowledge of the admissions process themselves (being other high school students) and are likely to lead you to poor and unfounded conclusions. Don’t bother with threads like these (or even the whole “What are my chances?” subforum as a whole), and trite as such a maxim may be-- enjoy your senior year!

See you March 29th.