Hey guys. I applied for Berkeley’s extremely competitive MET program, a combined engineering and business administration program that promises 2 degrees in 4 years and only accepts 50 per year. MET receives about 6-7k applicants per year, then selects about 300 for a video interview indicating that you have been moved on to the next phase, then selects 50-60 people who actually are admitted to MET. So, I was fortunate enough to get the interview which was invite-only and a positive indicator, however, I heard that MET decisions came out today. Is it totally over for me? Am I rejected from Berkeley? Should I stress and panic?
My understanding is if you did not get an acceptance to MET yesterday February 9, then you will be considered for the Engineering track instead and will hear in March.
If anyone has information contrary to this, please post for clarification.
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@worriedmomucb Thank you so much for your advice. We will look out for the ROHP virtual program and register for it. Appreciate your help!
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Looking back at 2020 emails, the ROHP invite arrived six days after early admissions decisions. It was from ROHP and had [Action Required] in the subject.
To give you an idea of the ROHP program, here is a link to last year’s website.
https://rohp.berkeley.edu/
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I am guessing everyone got the email
"Dear ,
We realize you’ve been anxiously awaiting your decision from UC Berkeley and want to let you know that your application is currently under review.
While you may have heard that a few applicants received notification of their decision, we are still reviewing the majority of first-year applications…
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yes
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Yep. Their annual “don’t freak out yet” email.
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ABsolutely not, and it looks like may be MET did not come out. Even if it did, in fact your MET inteview invite augurs well for your COE admission. Just chill for now.
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Is it about 2000 candidates who get the Feb 9 email?
2022 early admit numbers were around 1350 according to Ms Sun’s website. No data for 2023. A very small number in comparison to the number of applicants.
Hey man, I get how you feel right now. I also applied MET, got the video essay, but didn’t get anything yesterday. Waiting 48 days till regular decisions is going to be incredibly tough, but that’s the nature of it. Feeling a bit panicky is completely understandable, but, you know, we’re aspiring engineering students, so let’s try to do the practical thing and look at this rationally.
First, MET is incredibly difficult to get into. If CoE wasn’t bad enough, MET takes it to the next level. In general, not making it to MET shouldn’t be a sign that things have gone horrid.
Second, the MET video essay is sent to like 200 to 300 students out of a pool of 6000 to 7000. If we look from that perspective, the video essay itself is the top 5% (conservatively, assuming 300 students out of 6000). Practically, it’s probably much below that. That reflects pretty well on the CoE application in general, which is like 7% to 14% max depending on major.
Tie that in with the fact that past years reflect that those who got the MET video essay more or less got their CoE major at the very least, I think you have reason to feel a bit optimistic, at the very least. I caution against feeling completely confident – I’m trying not to, as well – but it definitely reduces the panic right now.
Finally, not sure how last year went now because there are so many different sources. Some people are saying things came out in March for MET, too, while others are saying it was just Feb, etc, so things are looking vague. However, if you look up at that email screenshot (and the fact that the MET website says decisions come out in “February or March”), I think there’s still a chance that more MET decisions are to come out. Who knows?
Bottom line being: panicking for 48 days doesn’t seem sustainable at all. Getting the MET video essay should give you a bit of confidence about your CoE major based off past data and just the simple statistics of how exclusive the video essay invite was.
Sorry for the lengthy response, but I hope it addressed everything. My goal isn’t to gaslight you – and also me – into believing that everything’s going perfect. Clearly, it’s not. That’s why I’m on this forum right now instead of doing basically anything else. I found that there’s a lot of noise and just random rumors spreading around, in this forum and elsewhere, and it’s just not conducive to anything. It just spreads more anxiety to people who are already feeling the weight of some of the most important decisions of their lives.
But there’s some stuff in our favor, and, at the end of the day, there’s nothing in our hands right now. Something that’s given me a bit of hope is thinking that maybe I can take these 48 days and work on myself and prove to myself, at the very least, that I have the makings of a good engineer. If that’s at Cal, great. If not, we’ll figure it out. 
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I honestly wish Berkeley had an early rejection program as well. I don’t want to stress out over colleges I might have not been cut out for in the first place.
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I can’t help but feel a bit down cause I didn’t get in yesterday. I’m happy for everyone else that got in however I’m now beginning to lose hope. I am valedictorian in my class of 600 students in a California public high school with perfect grades, 1580 SAT, scored all 5s on 12AP tests. Took the most vigorous courses got gold president metal for volunteer work, active in schools clubs Pres. VP etc internships etc. I’m a National Merit Semifinalist. I was told my piqs were really good. Now I’m beginning to think if I can’t get early acceptance to Berkeley that means they don’t think my application is competitive enough so my chances of getting into top schools like Stanford caltech Pomona is nonexistent. I was so full of hope until yesterday. Thanks for listening.
That is around the top 1 percent, I suppose!
I get it. I felt the same. But really, I think we just have to trust the process. Berkeley early acceptances and regents are really difficult to get, it probably gets more competitive every year. While it’s ok to stress, it’s also not worth it to lose sleep over being anxious about something we can’t change right now. All our apps have been submitted, and now it’s the waiting game. There are a lot of decisions coming out in March, and we’ll end up where we need to be! Don’t lose hope yet
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Yes, the top 1-2% as defined by UC Berkeley.
The VAST majority of accepted students find out in March. It means absolutely nothing that you didn’t hear yesterday. It does NOT mean that you aren’t a competitive applicant. Don’t lose hope.
They really aren’t related at all, though. These schools each look for slightly different things in candidates, so a perfect fit at one might not be a perfect fit at another.
You sound amazing and I have no doubt that you’re going to get some great acceptances.
Well, and that’s the other thing. Yesterday’s acceptance rate was probably less than 2%. Even Stanford has a higher acceptance rate than that - in fact, it’s twice that. Pomona is around 7% - significantly higher than Cal early admits. As for Caltech…Definitely looking for VERY different things than what Cal is looking for. They are just completely different schools. I don’t think you can compare their admissions at all.
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Thank you all for the reassurance. It is good to know every school is looking for different things. I am really not expecting to get regents or early admit yesterday cause I know it is really hard but not making it yesterday got me thinking and worried. I didn’t apply to any Ivies or out of state schools. I only wanted to stay in Ca. I did apply to some safeties. I also only applied RD.
Yes I need to just stop worrying and hope for the best RD. Good luck to everyone!
This is the absolute worst time - when decisions are getting so close, yet are still so far away. It’s really stressful, I know that. Try to stay distracted by other things as much as you can. Stay busy, do things that bring you joy. It’s going to work out. And if you have a safety or two that you’d be happy at, then you’re all set. Everything else will be icing on the cake. But try to focus on other things for now so that you don’t drive yourself crazy.
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