If you are a parent of a senior applying to the University of California schools, your child’s essays should reflect more than a few of their extracurricular activities or how they scored a winning touchdown. Their UC essays should reflect ALL their strengths and talents. And given the recent court announcement that the University of California “..can no longer use ACT or SAT as a determinant for admissions” (CNN), I can guarantee the UC personal insight essays will play a crucial role in how admissions officers differentiate between applicants this year.
When we work with students at Colledge, we spend a considerable amount of time on all essays – brainstorming topics, calendaring deadlines, offering critical feedback, and polishing final drafts – to help students write statements that stand out.
Here are just some of the ways we work with students on the UC Personal Insight essays.
ACADEMIC SUBJECT ESSAY
Question #6: Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.
There are few topics that excite admission officers more than reading about how much a student is engaged by an specific academic subject. Be it Math, Physics, Finance, Education, Media Studies, Film, Theatre, or Creative Writing, if the spark is there, write about it! The UC schools are interested in admitting scholars, students who care about their learning and want to pursue their studies more deeply.
Our student Chris never stopped asking scientific questions, so we worked to help him describe in great detail the innerworkings of his mind. We advised him to share his inventions and his theories about why things work, and he wrote his heart out. Chris shared speculative answers to “How the world came to be?” and “How do germs spread?” and many of the UC schools offered him a spot, including UCSD, UCSB, UCLA, and UC Berkeley.
SIGNIFICANT CHALLENGE ESSAY
Question #5: Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?
When faced with this question, students may think “I’ve never experienced hardship, so I’m not going to get into college” and avoid this prompt altogether. But a challenge could be something school-related that you’ve overcome such as discovering a new study approach for a harder class, or a touchy social situation between friends where you have taking on a mediator role.
The second part of the question asks about how this challenge has affected your academic achievement, which simply probes deeper into how this has permeated the rest of your life.
Consider this example from one of our students. Audrey was anxious about test-taking and we helped her craft her UC essay about how she would become frozen, almost paralyzed by tests. She shared how she learned to self-soothe through breathing and visualizing the best outcome. Audrey showed UC admissions officers how empowered she felt when she realized she could block the judgement of others from her mind, and keep her attention on herself and her true ability. Audrey is now starting her first year at UC Berkeley!
Here are some other examples of topics students might write about in response to this question:
- Learning disability or difference
- Surviving parents’ divorce
- Loss of a loved one or pet
- Self-advocacy when experiencing bullying
- Additional responsibilities at home (caring for younger sibling)
- After-school work responsibilities
- Anxiety or depression
- Changing high schools midstream
When I worked in admissions for UCLA, my time was very limited when reading applications. But when I stumbled upon an application that was well-crafted, with the essays clearly presented, the applicant stood out. When the essays did not shine, I moved on quickly. I can only imagine the time management challenge admission officers faced as they tackled over 105,000 applications at UCLA in 2019-20.
If you want your child to avoid the common pitfalls of UC essays or other essays, like procrastination, not answering the prompt, or thinking they’ve got it all figured out by themselves, click HERE to set up a free phone phone consultation with us today.
Click HERE to start your UC application now.
