Ms. Sun's Admission Blog for Highly Selective California Public Universities - Personal Statement Writing Guidelines

The UC personal statement prompts are here: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/apply/how_apply/personal_statement.html. I strongly encourage you to follow some kind of writing process. While a personal statement is not your regular English paper, it should, at the very least, have a central idea, evidence to support the idea, and transition from paragraph to paragraph. By the way, please do NOT use essays you wrote in your English class as your personal statement. Every admissions rep I spoke to advised against doing that.

Prompt 1 for Freshman Applicants

The way Prompt 1 is worded is rather misleading. According to what I heard at the Berkeley training session, admissions (or at the very least, Berkeley and Irvine - confirmed by a student who attended a seminar at UCI) wants to hear you talk about your dreams and aspirations, and what you have done so far to achieve those dreams and aspirations. My guess is the family/background thing got thrown in there to give students with hardships/special circumstances the chance to use that prompt to discuss them.

I imagine the best way to approach the first prompt is to figure out what your dreams and aspirations are, and what you have done so far to achieve them, only plug something in your background for support if appropriate. But whether you choose to describe your background (family, friends, school, community, etc.) or something else, the description should take up no more than a 1/3 of your essay and the remaining 2/3 should be about YOU (see here for an explanation of the 1/3-2/3 guideline, which I would like to take credit for inventing; altho now it has been labeled as a rumor).

Prompt 1 for Transfer Applicants

UCs expect you to have good grades and demonstrate interest in your field of study. There are three places on the application for you to tell the UCs how you have pursued your field of study with a passion: Academic History (coursework in your field of study), Activities & Awards (extracurriculars in your field of study), and Personal Statement. Your job is to use the Personal Statement to paint a picture for the application evaluators of how you have progressively pursued your interest thru your coursework and extracurriculars and that you are well prepared for advanced studies in your field at the UC level.

While it is extremely important for you to demonstrate some sort of involvement in your field of study, what happens if you have few or no extraucurriculars to show? Well, what the UCs really want to know from Prompt 1 is that you have a full understanding of the field you are getting into and that there aren't any surprises when you start your upper division study. So even if you have few or no "real world" experience in your field of study, you need to make a compelling case to the application evaluators as to why you want to study your field, what you want to do with with a degree in that field, and why you know the field is the right for you.

Prompt 2 for All Applicants

Prompt 2 is a way for your to showcase something about yourself that makes you stand out from your peers. You can do that by discussing a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience (pq/t/a/c/e for short). Why are you proud of this pq/t/a/c/e? What does the pq/t/a/c/e say about you as a person? Does the pq/t/a/c/e demonstrate that you are a hardworking individual who perseveres? Does that pq/t/a/c/e illustrate how you come thru for your team no matter what? And how will that pq/t/a/c/e help you succeed in college? Again, describe the pq/t/a/c/e using about 1/3 of your essay and really get into talking about YOURSELF in the remaining 2/3.

You can also think of Prompt 2 as a commercial spot for yourself. What would be the theme of the commercial? What clips from your life would be featured in the commercial?

How Do I Know If My Personal Statement Is Good?

Swap personal statement with friends or put away your personal statement draft for couple days so you can read it with fresh eyes. Then evaluate the personal statement using this rule from Collegewise founder, Kevin McMullin: pretend you are reading the personal statement to pick your college roommate.

After reading the personal statement, ask yourself if you have a good idea of what the person is like and whether you would want to be friends with the person. Revise the personal statement if anything sounds cliché, obnoxious, or intellectually-challenged. Your personal statement should leave a positive impression even if you are discussing hardships (the focus should be on how you overcame the hardships). Avoid famous quotes (one of the worst kind of cliché), racially charged comments (even self-deprecating ones, because it's just not cool no matter how you look at it), and grandiose life lessons you didn't actually learn (yes, people can tell when you are insincere).

Additional Resources

There is a plethora of books on writing college essays (over 9,000 if you search "college essay" on Amazon). These are good sources to flip thru if you want to see essay samples and get a general idea on the different ways you can organize your personal statement. You can also find them at your local library or bookstores.

I recently found The Berkeley Book of College Essays: Personal Statements for California Universities and Other Select Schools on Amazon. The book is a collection of more than 60 college essays from the students at Berkeley High School in California. Out of those, about 4 essays are from students who got into UCLA, 3 essays are from students who got into Berkeley, and couple essays each from students who got into San Diego, Davis, and Santa Cruz. The rest of the essays have a high concentration of Vassar and Yale admits and few other admits to private universities across the nation. While the personal statements in the book are from the old three prompt format (prior to November 2007), you will get a decent idea of what successful personal statements should look like.

Other personal statement help - Quirky Essays a Window to Future Success? is a story by NPR on the trend of college essay questions. The moral of the story is that no matter how unique you think your essay is, 200 other students wrote about the same thing. Reflect on that thought and search within yourself for a genuine voice when you sit down and write your personal statement.