<p>So one of my friends got into brown but not Berkeley. Was it up with that? Brown has a 13.7% acceptance rate and Berkeley has a 21.6% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>Berkeley’s acceptance rate is much lower for out of state applicants, or possibly Brown saw something in your friend that they feel would make him ideal for Brown, and Berkeley did not share the sentiment.</p>
<p>I got into UCB but not UCLA.
It was because I was missing some course requirements.</p>
<p>Acceptance rate is not a perfect indicator of selectivity. Even if it was, it is not the case that if you get into a particular college all colleges even slightly less selective than it will take you.</p>
<p>Admissions is much more complicated than a numbers game. Even at Berkeley, people look at your apps.</p>
<p>Brown and Berkeley are very different campuses, and the qualities you need to be successful at each of them are very different.</p>
<p>Your friend might be the type to succeed at Brown but fail at Berkeley.</p>
<p>There’s just multiple dimensions to this, so numbers alone can’t account for everything. If everything was just “simple,” top universities would be full of soulless over-competitive geeks rather than interesting students with character.</p>
<p>Your friend is just those unique cases. If anything (I’m speculating now), Berkeley might have just skipped over your friend because he/she would probably not have picked Berkeley had he/she been admitted. (Only reason I say this is because I’ve met 3 people who got into Harvard/Yale or both but not Berkeley and another person who got into other Ivies/prestigious schools in general)</p>
<p>We know someone who was rejected at Berkeley, was waitlisted at Harvard, and got in off the waitlist.</p>
<p>It really depends on each individual student, and I don’t want to pull the AA card but it could have be a possibility along with other hooks such as legacy, athletics etc… As a public institution Berkeley relies more heavily on SATs, GPA, more than private schools which have the most arbitrary admissions process. It could be that your friend has something to offer that Berkeley already has an abundance of ex: lacrosse players, violinist, mathlete.</p>
<p>@Batman17
I’ve heard that argument before and I just don’t think it’s feasible. Colleges can’t automatically assume that a student is not going to that university and reject them. They have no way of knowing if that particular student wants to go there or not. Actually, my friend wanted to go to Berkeley because his sister also goes there.</p>
<p>@Collegestress16
Actually, you have a point. My friend is Hispanic and is from a poor Immigrant family so that might be a reason.</p>
<p>Even more strange, my friend got into UCLA as well and not Berkeley and his sister got in Berkeley and not into UCLA. Weird.</p>
<p>I know someone who got into Harvard and Stanford but rejected at UCLA and UCB. He is an URM. Go figure.</p>
<p>Lol, it’s Berkeley…</p>