<p>I just did the online webinar thing for Cal, and it showed:</p>
<p>48,634 applications total
12,943 acceptances total (fall + spring)
10,498 fall acceptances</p>
<p>3.86 average UW GPA
4.33 average W GPA</p>
<p>2033 average SAT composite</p>
<p>Which means:</p>
<p>21.59% acceptance rate for fall
26.61% acceptance rate for fall and spring</p>
<p>where u get these data from?</p>
<p>My point is, while all the other elite schools’ admit rates have significantly dropped, Cal’s admit rates rose. and to think it happened on the year that it has received the highest number of applicants. this is not doing a great service to Cal students and future students as everyone knows that Cal is already overcrowded. These Cal adcom people are so mean. I’m not sure if they were really thinking. …</p>
<p>[04.07.2009</a> - Almost 13,000 high school students offered admission to UC Berkeley](<a href=“http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/04/07_admissions.shtml]04.07.2009”>04.07.2009 - Almost 13,000 high school students offered admission to UC Berkeley)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Getting into any of the UC has never been really that difficult. Even for the most difficult years, admission rates still hover around 21%. That’s a little more than 1 in 5 people who get accepted.</p>
<p>What people should be proud of is graduating from the UC’s with high GPA’s. Why? Because they did it in a resource-lacking and competitive atmosphere, all without the hand holding that privates do for their students.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I totally agree. BUT, as a world-class academic institution, it should make EXTRA effort to provide the best possible way it can for its undergrad students. If Berkeley would have something like 15% acceptance rate, it would have been better off for the university, current students and in-coming students.</p>
<p>How can you have 21% for Fall and 30% for both Fall and Spring?
What is the ratio Spring:Fall?
When I applied last year, I don’t think there is an option to apply for Spring entrance.</p>
<p>Amdahl’s Law suggests this scenario is close to impossible. (And I can’t believe I know what Amdahl’s Law is) The reporter seems to be confused or stupid or both.</p>
<p>48,634 applications total
12,943 acceptances total (fall + spring)
10,498 fall acceptances
2,445 spring acceptances</p>
<p>2445/12943 *(.7) + 10498/12943 *(10498/48634) = 30% </p>
<p>So spring acceptance rate must be 70% to yield overall 30% acceptance rate. This is so silly. UC Berkeley accepts 1 out of 1.4 applicants now?</p>
<p>The confusion stems from:
<p>Honestly, I find this post rather sad. First of all, yes, numbers do matter…but they do not encompasses an individual (unless you are in Soviet Russia or something). SAT scores are not true indicators, I know individuals who started tutoring for SAT since 5th grades…might be a reason for a slightly higher score. GPA does matter, but the variances is so high among different schools. The whole college admissions really goes down to nowhere, more or less on person that reviews your application. So in short, among the qualified students, the rest is a lot of luck (perference of your application reader). </p>
<p>Personally, I failed at SAT. That doesn’t mean I am worse off than others, it simply means I am worse on at one specific exam. The overall applications is what truly matters. Essays, EC, courseloads are the indicators that provides a general overview of the student (willingness to work, etc). And GPA, test scores, competitions, SAT provides indicators for future academic success…although as I have stated, these numbers may be misleading and should be taken with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>In short, if you get admited. Then be happy. Don’t go off ranting about why the process if unfair. If you were rejected, then see where else you can thrive. After all, college is about how YOU will exceed in the environment. Ultimately, it goes down to what YOU do…less so on what school you went to (not saying school isn’t important, but LESS important)</p>
<p>We still beat UCLA!</p>
<p>“A record number of students - 48,640 in all - applied to UC Berkeley for admission to the fall 2009 freshman class. Among those applicants, 10,503 were offered admission, resulting in an admission rate of 21.6 percent for fall 2009.”
[04.07.2009</a> - Almost 13,000 high school students offered admission to UC Berkeley](<a href=“http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/04/07_admissions.shtml]04.07.2009”>04.07.2009 - Almost 13,000 high school students offered admission to UC Berkeley)</p>
<p>“The university was able to admit 21.7 percent of all those who applied, compared with 22.8 percent last year.”
[UCLA</a> admits 12,098 freshman students for fall 2009 / UCLA Newsroom](<a href=“http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-admits-12-098-freshmen-students-87095.aspx]UCLA”>Newsroom | UCLA)</p>
<p>In terms of UCLA, their admissions is much worse than Cal this year. There were some extremely unqualified people going to UCLA (from my school)</p>
<p>[UC</a> sticking to lower enrollment goals](<a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/08/BACP16UOU9.DTL&hw=applications+soar&sn=001&sc=1000]UC”>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/08/BACP16UOU9.DTL&hw=applications+soar&sn=001&sc=1000)</p>
<p>“UCLA had the toughest acceptance rate of the UC campuses, according to Wilbur’s data, that showed 21.4 percent of freshman applicants were granted admission for the fall term.”</p>
<p>“Cal spokeswoman Janet Gilmore said offers were made to almost 13,000 freshman applicants out of a record pool of 48,640 applicants for the fall term - an acceptance rate of 21.6 percent. An additional 2,445 students were offered admission to the spring term - for a combined acceptance rate of 26.6 percent for the 2009-10 school year.”</p>
<p>UCLA>Cal this year. (I got into both…really don’t know which one I’m going to.) A lot more people at my school seemed to get into Cal than UCLA (counting only fall term).</p>
<p>If you consider that Cal accepts students to a spring term, UCLA is always more selective than Cal. UCB has too much hype. I am not a Cal hater; a lot of my friends from high school (class of '08 and '09) will be there next year. I myself might be there. Though I also really loved UCLA when I was at their HSSEAS open house…</p>
<p>i just wanna say, there has to be a higher admit rate for UCs than the privates because UCs in general will admit more people than the ivys and other privates. the UC freshman classes are huge compare to the tiny 2 or 3 thousands from those privates. so i wont be surprised if the UC admit rate is higher considering the fact that UCs are public.</p>
<p>Couldn’t the alumni do something about this misery?
If this was a private school, I’m sure the alumni would already have done something…
this is a clear act of greediness on the part of Berkeley adcom/admin. It’s crystal clear that they weren’t thinking about the current and incoming students’ welfare.
This is such a greedy act. Write Cal and let them know how disappointed you are.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You answered your own question. This is not a private school; it’s a huge, overpopulated, and will soon be a severely underfunded public school in the near future. The alumni network is small, as it is with all public schools. Furthermore, the alumni can’t really do anything in terms of admissions. The admissions process lies mostly in the hands of the state of California and the UC Regents. The alumni can complain all they want, but in the end, they’re just there to donate money.</p>
<p>However woeful this is, you should keep in mind that what happens in Berkeley is most likely the same tale that is happening to all public schools though, especially the UC’s.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>LOL</p>
<p>Who would you write this to? And even if the right person reads this, what can he/she do about it?</p>
<p>I’m not a big fan of the SAT either, as I think one’s grades in high school are a much better indication of how well they are likely to do in college. If an applicant with an underprivileged background gets a 1600 on the SAT, it shouldn’t mean that they should be automatically rejected. However, it really makes no sense if we accept this applicant while rejecting someone else who scores 2000+ (all other factors being equal except for socioeconomic status). You can’t say that just because the first applicant comes from a dysfunctional family or had a hard childhood, that they would have scored better had they been given more opportunities. When it comes down to it, a score is a score. It makes no sense whatsoever to favor someone who scores 400 points lower (which, for the SAT, is definitely not a trivial margin) based on some kind of “projection” that they would have done much better had they had more educational resources.</p>
<p>There’s always this implied stereotype that students from underprivileged backgrounds work harder to get into a college than students from well-to-do families or who are more “naturally smart”. In my experience, there’s absolutely no ounce of truth in this statement. Kids who are born with head-start in life, whether it’s socioeconomic status or better genes, are the ones who usually work the hardest, and also end up being the ones most likely to succeed. My peers in high school who had the highest GPA’s or SAT scores also usually happened to be the leaders in extracurricular activities, such as sports, music, and clubs. I don’t know too many people who had excellent extracurriculars but bad grades and test scores. These two sets of criteria are in no way mutually exclusive, and in fact I would say there’s a strong positive correlation between them.</p>
<p>Of course, there are a few who are good, and I mean really good, at one thing, such as an instrument, but happen to have poor academic abilities. For example, this one guy in my high school was really good at piano - he won several regional and state competitions, and almost even got into Juilliard, but he failed Algebra II/Trig two years in a row. And he failed the class twice not because he didn’t know the material; he simply just didn’t do any of the homework, but passed all the tests. I would probably admit a guy like this even if he got a 1400 on the SAT. But in this case, he really shouldn’t be applying to Berkeley in the first place; he should be applying to conservatories.</p>
<p>LA Times says that the admit rate was 29.9</p>
<p>wow. You guys should be happy that more students got admitted. Its better than Stanford admissions where almost everyone gets rejected, even when you are thoroughly deserving.</p>
<p>Just regarding the way Berkeley admits kids: it’s never going to be perfect, nor will it be fair.</p>
<p>SAT’s are blatantly biased. GPA is as standard an indicator of capabilities as can be, and even then, there’s a lot of ******** that’s in it.</p>
<p>Ultimately, I’m happy that Berkeley accepts some who may have this “subpar” scores, so long as it is shown that these people are from lower socio-economic spheres and have worked hard in their life, whether it be supporting their family or working in various youth groups and what not.</p>
<p>My two cents…</p>
<p>First off, regarding “selectivity,” specifically the SAT scores reported by US News and other ranking organizations for accepted Cal students - the SAT scores are not super-scored (summation of the best scores for each section, regardless of which sitting) like they are for the elite private schools. Albeit, it is the UC system that chooses not to superscore the SAT scores and therefore doesn’t report them. This therefore, makes the average SAT’s for accepted students appear to be lower than they really are compared to other universities. I don’t know for sure how much of a difference it would make, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the average SAT scores, if superscored, up 100+ from what’s currently reported. </p>
<p>Secondly, Berkeley doesn’t utilize waitlists like many of the elite privates. Waitlists are an easy way for a university to, on the surface, appear to have smaller acceptance rate and produce a bigger yield. If enough of the regular acceptees decide to attend the university, the university is able to maintain a high yield number and low acceptance rate. But that university has a “back-up” in case not enough regular acceptees enroll… they can start picking people off their waitlists to fill in the “empty spots.” This doesn’t eat into their acceptance % (as far as I know). So they basically have a free-pass or back-door that plays to their benefit and plays up the college rankings nonsense. Berkeley on the other hand accepts a higher percentage than it otherwise might because it utilizes no waitlist. Basically, it accepts the same amount of folks that could comprise a “regular acceptee” list and a “waitlisted” list. The logic being that amongst those accepted some will choose other universities, but enough people will enroll for their next year’s freshman class. Because there are lot of fluff or buffer acceptees, this leads to a higher reported acceptance rate and smaller yield numbers.</p>
<p>Thirdly, the ~21% acceptance rate that is normally reported is the fall acceptance rate. There is a fair amount of acceptees that are Spring admits that aren’t factored into that 21% number. That’s one of the reasons why people keep feeling like Berkeley accepts so many students, despite the reported 21% acceptance rate. Spring admissions contribute to the perception that Berkeley isn’t as selective as one might think it should be (as well as transfer student acceptance percentages from community colleges). </p>
<p>My opinon is that Berkeley should be more selective (accept less students), but not limit the definition of selectivity to just SAT scores or GPA. I am a proponent of superscoring the SAT scores and the use of a waitlist. Cal should also accept more out-of-state students to add a bit more geographical diversity as well. </p>
<p>Anyway, just taking a small step towards more selectivity could reap a lot of benefits for the university.</p>