Glad you could make it to my home-page. Quite a few people stumble here looking for guidance when they apply to graduate school at berkeley. That's quite understandable. I surfed around the student pages before applying to berkeley.

This is a list of questions I usually get:

• What are the chances of my getting admitted to Berkeley?
  Please remember that I'm a grad student. Therefore I do not have a good idea. Looking at your resume will not help. Also, I usually dont have the patience to go through lengthy resumes. (No wonder the people who do this demand a $35 processing fee). I have never served on any admission commitee (sometimes students are given a place) and therefore cannot give you any reasonable guess. Here is a brief list of things which will affect your chances of getting into Berkeley:
  1. GRE and TOEFL scores This is an elimination factor. If your GRE score is very low, then you shall be shortlisted off during the first phase and your application might not even reach the faculty. Please have a look usnews.com in the section:
     Graduate School -> Engineering Schools -> Berkeley
     to get a brief idea of the average GRE scores for admission. Generally, GRE scores of 2100+ are considered reasonable. Also, scores in analytical and quantitative are usually more important than verbal, although not always. (wasn't true in my case !)
  2. College of Graduation This is usually a big factor
  3. Class Rank Combined with the previous factor, this can do wonders to your chances. The top 3-5 students from a good college can usually expect a good chance of getting admitted and getting aid.
  4. Competitions Participating and winning in competitions helps a lot! The bigger the competition, the better.
  5. Prizes / Honors Scholarships/honors.
  6. Recommendations and also the recognition of the person giving it plays a big part.
  7. SOP The all-important Statement of Purpose. Written clearly and concisely, it can do wonders to your chances. The SOP is supposed to serve as a statement of your talents and the interests you'll pursue in graduate school. Please dont be melodramatic.
  8. Publications If you have published papers, it look great on an academic resume. However, its understood that undergraduates have a very little chance of getting into publications before grad school, so don't worry.
  9. LUCK Best of Luck!!!
  The best advice I can give you is to look at the resumes of the students already here (here's mine), discount the things which they've done in grad school and compare your own resume to theirs. This will give you a good idea of how you compare with an average student here.
• What are the areas in which funding is currently available?
  I have doing pretty focussed research for the last many years and therefore I dont have an idea of the current situation.
• What are the chances of my getting admission to Michigan Ann Arbor?
  (... or some other grad school). Sorry! Absolutely no idea.
• A professor replied with "Your chances are good. I would encourage you to apply". What are my chances?
  Exactly what the prof says. Apply!