Berkeley Class of 2012 Forum

[worldtraveler]

When the office has your award ready they should be sending you an e-mail with the details anyway. If you are worried about it I would either wait for the e-mail or ask them to resend it. I got mine the day that my award was viewable.

[legends159]

I also can't access the letter either, although I did get an email version (titled Boalt Hall Grant Award 2009-10).

When I click on 2009-10 link (next to "Select a Financial Aid Year" in the "Offer Letter" section of Bear Facts>Students>Financial Aid), a new window/tab opens up which asks for my SSN. After that, a conditions page opens. After accepting the conditions, I finally get to the Financial Aid Offer Letter page, complete with the Menu bar on the left hand side. However, when I click at the View Awards and Missing Documents link, it says "Sorry, there are no Official or Preliminary Awards to view at this time." Curiously enough, the "See Your Budget Details" link works though (>$70 grant a year! I still can't believe it. My parents think I am making it up; they think I am trying to justify my profligate ways - that's what happens when you come from a country where owning a car is a big ass luxury thing and your parents wonder whether your son in the U.S. should really have bought a $3000 used car whether or not out of his own pocket and has a girlfriend etc etc when I am actually subsisting on PBJ and Ramen ironically enough. /rant).

That's the nuts of boalts of how things are between me and my online offer letter/finances issue as of now. Now let me go play Powerball.

They're giving you more than $70k a year when OOS COA is $70k? You mean you're not taking out ANY loans, not even Staffords? Wow!!! Congrats!!!

I got that too

Total Student Budget 70117
Less Student Contribution 0
Gross Financial Need 70117

What that meant was that I gotta make up the difference between grants and financial need with loans that the school can provide me with because they are a direct lender.

To my knowledge, I was told that everyone regardless of financial situation had to borrow at least thirty-something thousand a year.

[worldtraveler]

Does anyone else have serious problems with the e-mail system? Everytime I use it my internet stops and it takes forever to load a message.

[TheNerdProject]

Does anyone else have serious problems with the e-mail system? Everytime I use it my internet stops and it takes forever to load a message.

Not me but I just created my account (so syked! ). I'm not crazy about it in general though. Am too used to GMail.

For those of you that did set up an e-mail account, was the suffix "@berkeley.edu" or "@law.berkeley.edu"? I set mines up but didn't get the law. part. Thanks!

BTW TopCat - I sounded like a total asshole in my previous post and that was not my intention. I'm just genuinely surprised/shocked/happy for you about you possibly getting an amazing deal from Berk.

[TopCat]

I also can't access the letter either, although I did get an email version (titled Boalt Hall Grant Award 2009-10).

When I click on 2009-10 link (next to "Select a Financial Aid Year" in the "Offer Letter" section of Bear Facts>Students>Financial Aid), a new window/tab opens up which asks for my SSN. After that, a conditions page opens. After accepting the conditions, I finally get to the Financial Aid Offer Letter page, complete with the Menu bar on the left hand side. However, when I click at the View Awards and Missing Documents link, it says "Sorry, there are no Official or Preliminary Awards to view at this time." Curiously enough, the "See Your Budget Details" link works though (>$70 grant a year! I still can't believe it. My parents think I am making it up; they think I am trying to justify my profligate ways - that's what happens when you come from a country where owning a car is a big ass luxury thing and your parents wonder whether your son in the U.S. should really have bought a $3000 used car whether or not out of his own pocket and has a girlfriend etc etc when I am actually subsisting on PBJ and Ramen ironically enough. /rant).

That's the nuts of boalts of how things are between me and my online offer letter/finances issue as of now. Now let me go play Powerball.

They're giving you more than $70k a year when OOS COA is $70k? You mean you're not taking out ANY loans, not even Staffords? Wow!!! Congrats!!!

how I wish. I meant to say ">$70 grand a year" COA. I got a 29.5K grant so still borrowing around 40K for this year. Phew! [what I meant with my rant was that my folks can't believe that it costs so much. They're very worried that I may be ruining my life with *gasp* so much debt, an unthinkable amount back home ]

[Rotor]

For those of you that did set up an e-mail account, was the suffix "@berkeley.edu" or "@law.berkeley.edu"? I set mines up but didn't get the law. part. Thanks!

@berkeley.edu

Does anybody know if we can pull mail using outlook? Or do we have to use that circa 1995 webmail interface?

[heyyitskatie]

I forward all my mail going to that address to my gmail...it's pretty common to do that around here...and I'm pretty sure you can forward your calmail to anything.

[Rotor]

I forward all my mail going to that address to my gmail...it's pretty common to do that around here...and I'm pretty sure you can forward your calmail to anything.

Didn't see the forward option...but then again, I wasn't looking.

Thanks Katie.

[TheNerdProject]

I forward all my mail going to that address to my gmail...it's pretty common to do that around here...and I'm pretty sure you can forward your calmail to anything.

Didn't see the forward option...but then again, I wasn't looking.

Thanks Katie.

I haven't (yet) figured out how to forward to GMail but I did find a more modern interface: https://calmail.berkeley.edu/rc/

edit: NM.. I figured out how to forward: https://calmail.berkeley.edu/manage/account/forwarding/:

To set up or end forwarding your CalMail mail, go to the CalMail home page,

http://calmail.berkeley.edu/

click on "Manage your account", enter your account name and password to login, and then click on "Manage Mail Forwarding ...". When you set up mail forwarding, you specify the address to forward new mail to. The address that you specify will be saved; no validity checking is done. If you ask for your mail to be forwarded to an address which is invalid, you will not be notified of the error and the mail sent to you will be bounced. Once you start forwarding your mail it is a good idea to check that it's working correctly. If something seems to be wrong, try setting it up again via the Web pages, or email consult@berkeley.edu for further assistance. Additionally, if two accounts are both trying to forward mail to each other (it has been known to happen) the mail will bounce between the two, eventually to be accelerated to near light speed and crash into another eternally bouncing message in a cataclysmic crash of the kind that physicists like to study.

[heyyitskatie]

I forward all my mail going to that address to my gmail...it's pretty common to do that around here...and I'm pretty sure you can forward your calmail to anything.

Didn't see the forward option...but then again, I wasn't looking.

Thanks Katie.

I haven't (yet) figured out how to forward to GMail but I did find a more modern interface: https://calmail.berkeley.edu/rc/

edit: NM.. I figured out how to forward: https://calmail.berkeley.edu/manage/account/forwarding/:

To set up or end forwarding your CalMail mail, go to the CalMail home page,

http://calmail.berkeley.edu/

click on "Manage your account", enter your account name and password to login, and then click on "Manage Mail Forwarding ...". When you set up mail forwarding, you specify the address to forward new mail to. The address that you specify will be saved; no validity checking is done. If you ask for your mail to be forwarded to an address which is invalid, you will not be notified of the error and the mail sent to you will be bounced. Once you start forwarding your mail it is a good idea to check that it's working correctly. If something seems to be wrong, try setting it up again via the Web pages, or email consult@berkeley.edu for further assistance. Additionally, if two accounts are both trying to forward mail to each other (it has been known to happen) the mail will bounce between the two, eventually to be accelerated to near light speed and crash into another eternally bouncing message in a cataclysmic crash of the kind that physicists like to study.

+1 for being proactive/nice enough to spell it out...while I'm the ass who says "yeah...it's possible, I do it...duh"...sorry Rotor!

[Rotor]

No problemo Katie! I actually found it on my own (and wasn't nearly thoughtful enough to post the link or the instructions ).

NerdProject: thanks for the assist!

[emilybeth]

yeah, I too want to know when most people are going to start the hunt for off campus housing. I found a great fare out to the SF area if i book tonight but I'm not sure when to go -- early June? early July? in my college town people start the housing search in February/march and everything's goneby summer. but at the same time i don't want to go out there too early and not be able to sign anything. when are most people planning on finding a place?

[legends159]

When I was looking for housing at Berkeley, here's what a few Berkeley UG's told me:

Let me just give you a few tips about apartment hunting in Berkeley. First thing is that the places in Berkeley tend to come and go fairly quickly -- craigslist.com is a great resource to find places in the price range you suggested. I would just keep looking for places, and keep talking to landlords/former tenants to find a place.

Second, I'd say that there are two areas you should be looking that are a mile from campus. One is nearby the law school dorms on Shattuck or the streets nearby (Fulton, Ellsworth, Dana). The other is in the College area, which may be a little bit more expensive but are nicer places.

Finally, I think that Boalt gives you access to an apartment listing that the university provides. The website is:

https://calrentals.housing.berkeley.edu/UCBOCH/och.htm

There's a fee, but I think it's a great resource.

Let me give you some places that are worse to live than others:

1) The areas around the fraternities. This is Piedmont, Warring, and parts of Prospect streets that span from Durant down to Parker. It's loud, and although it's not dangerous/sketch, it is really distracting from what I hear.

2) The area around People's Park. This is the area between Haste and Dwight; Bowditch and Regent. People's Park is across from where I currently live, and is the place where many of Berkeley's homeless congregrate and live. Although the homeless folks don't give us too much trouble, they attract the kind of people from Richmond, Oakland, etc. that sometimes do.

3) The area known generally as "South Berkeley." This area is one of the most dangerous areas in Berkeley and although rent is cheap, it is kind of a scary place. That's streets below Martin Luther King Jr. and Ashby/Adeline.

hope this info is helpful to someone.

[legends159]

oh and Katie provided me with this info about the owner of Raj and Everest Properties, Reddy. A lot of housing around campus is owned by him.

Lakireddy Bali Reddy, a 1960 Berkeley alum, was accused of exploiting two teenage sisters he had imported from his village in India.

Reddy owns most of the properties in the local area surrounding the University of California, Berkeley. This gives students a very limited housing selection that will not add to Reddy’s coiffeurs in any way. In fact, Reddy owns over 1,000 apartments under the management names of Raj and Everest properties, which earns him approximately one million dollars a month, making him the largest and wealthiest landlord in Berkeley after the University.

It was discovered that Reddy had imported and sexually abused two teenage sisters, 17-year-old girl Chanti Pratipatti and 18-year-old Lalitha Pratipatti from his village in India. When Lalitha died of carbon monoxide poisoning in one of his apartments, Reddy attempted to dispose of the body instead of calling the police. When Chanti put up a fight, Reddy attempted to silence her and dispose of her as well. Instead of sending these girls to school, he forced them to work as his personal sex slaves and forced them to do menial labor in his restaurants in Berkeley and Santa Clara.

The WASS website reports, “Judge Armstrong sentenced Reddy to 97 months in federal prison and restitution of $2 million as well as a three-year period of supervised release.” Additionally, Reddy was mandated to register with the state of California as a sex offender under Meagan’s List.

http://hardboiled.berkeley.edu/issues/1 ... ience.html

You guys can do whatever you want with this information, but it's better to know who your potential landlords may be.

[emilybeth]

thanks -- that's good to know. another concern I have is location, since I'm not going to have a car and will be relying on public transportation and my feet to get from home to campus and back. I worry that if I wait too long to sign a lease somewhere, then I won't be able to find housing close enough. ugh... maybe I should just suck it up and live in campus housing. the no-pets thing is a deterrent though as my plans include a cat. come on everyone... I know you're facing the same dilemma. thoughts?

[Rotor]

yeah, I too want to know when most people are going to start the hunt for off campus housing. I found a great fare out to the SF area if i book tonight but I'm not sure when to go -- early June? early July? in my college town people start the housing search in February/march and everything's goneby summer. but at the same time i don't want to go out there too early and not be able to sign anything. when are most people planning on finding a place?

I'm scanning craigslist now. Just signed up for the CalRentals, but there isn't much there for what we're looking for. (there was one place in the Berk Hills that was 5900/mo and a 12k security deposit!!). For those not needing to find room for a family, CalRentals may be more helpful.

Prob won't get a chance to come out, but I have friends/family who will keep it from being completely sight unseen.

[TopCat]

thanks -- that's good to know. another concern I have is location, since I'm not going to have a car and will be relying on public transportation and my feet to get from home to campus and back. I worry that if I wait too long to sign a lease somewhere, then I won't be able to find housing close enough. ugh... maybe I should just suck it up and live in campus housing. the no-pets thing is a deterrent though as my plans include a cat. come on everyone... I know you're facing the same dilemma. thoughts?

FWIW, I am planning to get this done in June. Will fly out for a week or so mid-June or thereabouts, stay with an old friend who happens to be in the area, and use calrentals and/or craigslist to aggressively search for the best place available. I have heard that the latest one can hope to get the best places is mid-June or so. I don't know how true this is.

I am thinking of areas North of the campus. I am planning to bike to Boalt Hall most of the times. Ideally, I want somewhere close to a bus route so that I have options (for rainy days).

[Lowndes]

thanks -- that's good to know. another concern I have is location, since I'm not going to have a car and will be relying on public transportation and my feet to get from home to campus and back. I worry that if I wait too long to sign a lease somewhere, then I won't be able to find housing close enough. ugh... maybe I should just suck it up and live in campus housing. the no-pets thing is a deterrent though as my plans include a cat. come on everyone... I know you're facing the same dilemma. thoughts?

FWIW, I am planning to get this done in June. Will fly out for a week or so mid-June or thereabouts, stay with an old friend who happens to be in the area, and use calrentals and/or craigslist to aggressively search for the best place available. I have heard that the latest one can hope to get the best places is mid-June or so. I don't know how true this is.

I am thinking of areas North of the campus. I am planning to bike to Boalt Hall most of the times. Ideally, I want somewhere close to a bus route so that I have options (for rainy days).

I was told this as well before starting at Berkeley but found it to be false. For one a lot of apartments are just rented immediately after becoming available. When I looked in June there was never a whole lot available. This past year I just looked at the beginning of August and found that there were many more options and the prices were a little better.

Just my personal experience.

[TopCat]

thanks -- that's good to know. another concern I have is location, since I'm not going to have a car and will be relying on public transportation and my feet to get from home to campus and back. I worry that if I wait too long to sign a lease somewhere, then I won't be able to find housing close enough. ugh... maybe I should just suck it up and live in campus housing. the no-pets thing is a deterrent though as my plans include a cat. come on everyone... I know you're facing the same dilemma. thoughts?

FWIW, I am planning to get this done in June. Will fly out for a week or so mid-June or thereabouts, stay with an old friend who happens to be in the area, and use calrentals and/or craigslist to aggressively search for the best place available. I have heard that the latest one can hope to get the best places is mid-June or so. I don't know how true this is.

I am thinking of areas North of the campus. I am planning to bike to Boalt Hall most of the times. Ideally, I want somewhere close to a bus route so that I have options (for rainy days).

I was told this as well before starting at Berkeley but found it to be false. For one a lot of apartments are just rented immediately after becoming available. When I looked in June there was never a whole lot available. This past year I just looked at the beginning of August and found that there were many more options and the prices were a little better.

Just my personal experience.

So do you think I should hit the streets in July rather than in June? Thanks for the input.

[Lowndes]

TopCat, that is personally what I would do. I feel like you would have more luck finding a great place that way. However, you definitely can find a place in late June, it's just the availability seemed to be much more limited. It certainly is nice knowing that you have secured a place to stay as far in advance as possible.

Hopefully, another Berkeley student will weigh in with their experience. Mine has definitely been with later is better though.

Another option is just to keep an eye on Cal Rentals and Craigslist and once you see plenty of options popping up with August availability to plan your trip that way.

[TopCat]

Thanks, lowndes. I think I will plan my trip around July.

While I'm at it, let me put this one out there as well:

I am seriously considering getting a moped/scooter (gas powered ones) in lieu of a car (selling my very used/abused one pretty soon). The only reason I want private transportation option is because my girlfriend and I cook our own stuff most of the time. As such, we want the luxury of getting our groceries without having to rely on public transportation. Also, an occasional outing here and there. So I am thinking of getting one of those midrange 150cc ones with trunk space under the seat etc. These are a lot cheaper than buying a car, low maintenance, very high mileage etc. and are fun to drive (if not funny ). However, I don't want to look like a fool driving this:

--LinkRemoved--

when hardly anyone does so in/around Berkeley (and the Bay Area in general). Also, these things are not street legal in CA, meaning all the hassle of getting a license (I think M2 or something like that in CA), insurance etc. So I wonder if I should allocate funds for this (from the $ off of my car) and/or look for a place to live that can also safely house such a beast

Current Berkeley students have any ideas about this? Do you know of anyone who does this?

[Lowndes]

hey guys, I was talking about grad housing through berkeley. like the ones that the university owns. that might be more convenient for me so i don't have to look for housing....at least for the first year....

if i can't do that, i was planning to roll out end of july/beginning of august to find a place. I have never looked for a place more than 2 weeks in advance or so...

I saw one 1L that thought this was reasonable to do, any other input?

(I was trying to avoid having to fly to find an apartment, and then fly out to actually move into it....)

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

[Lowndes]

Thanks, Lowndes. I think I will plan my trip around July.

While I'm at it, let me put this one out there as well:

I am seriously considering getting a moped/scooter (gas powered ones) in lieu of a car (selling my very used/abused one pretty soon). The only reason I want private transportation option is because my girlfriend and I cook our own stuff most of the time. As such, we want the luxury of getting our groceries without having to rely on public transportation. Also, an occasional outing here and there. So I am thinking of getting one of those midrange 150cc ones with trunk space under the seat etc. These are a lot cheaper than buying a car, low maintenance, very high mileage etc. and are fun to drive (if not funny ). However, I don't want to look like a fool driving this:

--LinkRemoved--

when hardly anyone does so in/around Berkeley (and the Bay Area in general). Also, these things are not street legal in CA, meaning all the hassle of getting a license (I think M2 or something like that in CA), insurance etc. So I wonder if I should allocate funds for this (from the $ off of my car) and/or look for a place to live that can also safely house such a beast

Current Berkeley students have any ideas about this? Do you know of anyone who does this?

I'm no pro on scooters, mopeds, motorcycles or anything like that but see many people driving them in the vicinity of campus. Actually, I have wanted one on occasion because there is special parking for that type of vehicle right next to the law school.

Now, since you said that these things aren't street legal in CA I wonder if there is a difference between what I have seen and what you are showing.

[TopCat]

Thanks for indulging me, lowndes. Looks like the ones I am interested in aren't street legal (not because they're not DOT/EPA approved but because they don't meet the CARB standards). I have no idea why CARB won't approve them. I was under the impression that scooters are, in general, a lot more environmentally friendly. Didn't know they could have emissions problems. And I am talking about brand new vehicles here. Puzzled.

Edit: I was under the (incorrect) impression earlier that >50cc's are not "street legal" in the sense they require a license, registration etc. Now I know exactly what is meant by 'street legal' in CA at least. My legal education has begun. I am now reading up on a few cases involving CARB and powered/motorized scooters.

Edit: OK, so it is: "'Retailers are as responsible as the manufacturers of vehicles for assuring that the products they sell meet California’s tough air pollution requirements,' said ARB Chairman Mary D. Nichols. 'We are seeing increasing numbers of scooters being sold as an inexpensive alternative to cars, as well as for recreational use. On a mile per mile basis, they actually create more smog than passenger cars.'" [But that's not the EPA complaining, just the CARB]

--LinkRemoved--

With this, I end my monotonous moped monologue. Excuse me for hijacking the thread. Please carry on like this didn't happen

[dueprocess14]

Hey my fellow future bears,

On the subject of housing, does anyone know much about the Ida Jackson house? I know I read earlier in this forum it's near the frats and can get really loud some nights, but I'm just wondering if that's mostly contained to weekends and if earplugs will solve the problem (no one responded when someone asked this a few months ago)? Thanks!