Back in 2015, Ivy Coach reported on a policy change that really shook up the admissions landscape in the University of California system: UC Berkeley began to offer applicants the option to submit letters of recommendation. A lot of you are probably thinking, “Hold on. UC Berkeley didn’t require letters of recommendation until 2015!?” Nope! None of the UCs did. In fact, to this day none of the UC schools require letters of recommendation. UC Berkeley’s decision to give certain applicants the option to submit letters of recommendation was so radical because it was the first time letters of recommendation were brought to the table at all in the UC system. This highly personalized component of most elite college applications is not a standard practice for California’s elite public universities.

Let’s examine how UC Berkeley goes about asking applicants for letters of recommendation, and why their policy differs so greatly from their elite college counterparts.

Only “Select” Applicants Are Asked to Submit Letters of Recommendation to Berkeley After Application Submission

You read that right. Admissions officers only ask certain applicants to submit letters of application after all of the other application materials have already been evaluated. Berkeley’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions clarifies:

“Select applicants to UC Berkeley are invited to submit two letters of recommendation. Submission is voluntary and not required for full consideration of the application for admission. However, it is highly recommended that students use this opportunity as it can provide additional academic and personal context. Only students invited to submit letters of recommendation can do so, and we will not accept unsolicited letters or supplemental information.”

Even Berkeley admits that letters of recommendation are quite useful for making admissions decisions. So how do they distinguish between the students who receive a request and those who do not? Berkeley uses letters of recommendation to tip the scales on the students they are not totally sure about admitting. Say you’re an applicant with a strong academic profile but not-so–strong essays. The admissions officers over at Berkeley might not be sure if you’ll contribute to campus culture. A letter of recommendation helps to answer this question and fill in the gaps of their knowledge of you as a student and community member. It goes without saying, but if you’re given the option to submit letters, you should absolutely take them up on it!

Why Aren’t All Applicants Allowed to Submit Letters of Recommendation to Berkeley?

If letters of recommendation are so crucial for painting a three-dimensional picture of who a student really is, why wouldn’t Berkeley (or any school in the UC system, for that matter) extend the opportunity to all applicants? It’s a great question! No competitive application is truly complete without this missing piece. But Berkeley simply doesn’t have the manpower to read multiple letters of recommendation from each and every applicant.

Over 125,000 students applied to join Berkeley’s Class of 2027. At the University of California — Los Angeles, these numbers were even higher, sitting at a record-setting 170,047 applications for the same year (the highest of any college in the nation). These numbers make the Ivy League applicant pools seem like the little leagues. If admissions officers at Berkeley were saddled with letters of recommendation from every last applicant, they would not be able to select an incoming class in a timely manner. Hence their as-needed policy.

Some have speculated that the ever-subversive UC system has shied away from letters of recommendation because of the potential for biased evaluations. We have some news for these speculators: it’s all about efficiency, not favoritism. Letters of recommendation remain an incredibly useful way to probe what a student is really like in the classroom and in a school community. If this time-honored application component were abandoned due to the potential for unfairness, pretty much every other component would be out the door as well. Standardized tests? Biased in favor of academically-accomplished kids. The Personal Statement? Works against students without much to say. Do you see our point?

Not to give any further airtime to this ludicrous notion — Berkeley admissions officers just can’t spend time reading the praises of every last applicant!