@math3matical @3advanced5me @Ynotgo It was for instate and no problem!! Glad to help you guys out and saves you a lot of stress and worry. No more wild guesses needed. Best of luck in the admissions cycle. And consider UCLA it’s a fun place. And for those who haven’t seen the video it is all about the letters of rec Berkeley piloted with the class of 2020.
https://youtu.be/M-4pi-zlk8g
Thanks for sharing this video. The presentation seems to suggest that those who are high maybes should NOT send LORs, but those who may be low maybes SHOULD send them.
I know that aggregate numbers, cited a number of times in this thread, suggest that generally those who sent letters were admitted at a higher rate than those who did not, but, again reviewing the presentation, it looks like that is correlation not causation.
Looking instead at the breakdown ( go to about the 34 minute mark in the presentation)(https://youtu.be/M-4pi-zlk8g)
–higher maybes had a 7-10% DECLINE in their admit chance than they would have if they had not submitted an LOR.
–Low maybes should submit letters because those letters increased their chances by 2-4%.
–URMs probably should submit letters regardless because there was little or no negative impact on the high side and positive impact on the low maybe side.
In general, one always wants to assume that letters always help you – and that is where this thread started out --, but for UC Berkeley this is clearly NOT the case.
I watched the video. Very interesting. At our HS, many kids were asked for LOR. My S was not. He has a UC GPA of 4.54 and 1500 single sitting on the old SAT. I assume since he did not get asked, he is a yes after the first read? Can’t see how he would be an automatic no. The video gave our family optimism.
@BigPapiofthree did you mean new sat? 1500/1600? Are you in state?
Very confusing… just cant understand how sending lors will affect once admissibility
No his 1500 was on the old SAT a single sitting as part of a 2250 total. I am told they do not look at the writing section. His score would translate to a 1540 on the new SAT. Yes in state.
@USUG21 The correlation with high maybes having a worse chance of being admitted is possibly due to poor letters or not having the it factor Berkeley is looking for. Either way it’s still a good idea to send them. Especially if they are quality letters.
@BigPapiofthree I’m pretty sure, but I might be wrong, UC Berkeley takes the old SAT and uses a conversion to the new sat. The writing section is still used albeit separately.
My D is in the same situation. She is instate with 4.0 UW (lots of APs), 2400 SAT and did not get any LOR request. She did apply for EECS and MET though. Watching the video, I am hopeful that she was in a YES pile, at least through machine reading. I think they also send out additional LORs during first human reading, and that is why we are seeing some LOR requests come now. Don’t know when the first reading is done (how long can LOR requests still go out). Once that period is past, I would guess if you are high stat, instate applicant, there is high chance that you are a yes.
@CaliDad2017 Good luck to your daughter. EECS is hard enough but the new Haas combo is on a whole new lvl. EECS and engineering is already in the single digit admit rates.
@10s4life Since the high-maybes are asked after a review, there may be something in the essays that caused them to want to get more information about the applicant. That may be related to the apparent disadvantage of sending LoRs for high-maybes.
(My son has not yet been asked for LoRs. @BigPapiofthree We are also taking that as a positive sign, given this video.)
@Ynotgo What do you think defines a high-maybe applicant (GPA/Test/Essay/EC-wise)?
@3advanced5me Sorry, I don’t have any particular idea where the high-maybe border is.
Based on the video, it looks like the majority of LOR requests were sent BEFORE readers reviewed them. (Because they found that they were not able to read them quickly enough.)
This means that the assessment that produced the LOR request was done by a machine reading and thus would have only included non subjective items – i.e. test scores, gpa, and course level rigor.
@Ynotgo, let’s hope our optimism is correct.
@freetofall Which part of the video are you referring to?
@3advanced5me
Take a look at minute 27:30 or so: 80% machine selection; 40% by readers (with 20% picked up both ways). I would guess that the human readers were more likely to flag low maybes whereas the algorithm was set to include the full spectrum. In any event, in most cases ECs and essays did not even come into play for 60 % of those who received LOR requests, at least not at this stage.
This assumption appears true as the lor requeat was sent as quickly as i submitted the application.
Assuming what @freetofall said, I would be one of the low-spectrum people who were flagged by a human reader. I did not receive a request until recently. It also matches my stats (but I am just one other example that supports the theory).
Why u think u r low spectrum