uc school essay prompts 2021 22

First-year requirements

• Subject requirement (A-G)
• GPA requirement
• Admission by exception
• English language proficiency
• UC graduation requirements

Additional information for

• California residents
• Out-of-state students
• Home-schooled students

Transfer requirements

• Understanding UC transfer
• Preparing to transfer
• UC transfer programs
• Transfer planning tools

International applicants

• Applying for admission
• English language proficiency (TOEFL/IELTS)
• Passports & visas
• Living accommodations
• Health care & insurance

AP & Exam credits

Applying as a first year

• Filling out the application
• Dates & deadlines

Personal insight questions

• How applications are reviewed
• After you apply

Applying as a transfer

Types of aid

• Grants & scholarships
• Jobs & work-study
• California DREAM Loan Program
• Middle Class Scholarship Program
• Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan
• Native American Opportunity Plan  
• Who can get financial aid
• How aid works
• Estimate your aid

Apply for financial aid

• Tuition & cost of attendance
• Glossary & resources
• Santa Barbara
• Campus program & support services
• Check majors
• Freshman admit data
• Transfer admit data
• Native American Opportunity Plan
• Apply for aid
• You will have 8 questions to choose from. You must respond to only 4 of the 8 questions.
• Each response is limited to a maximum of 350 words.
• Which questions you choose to answer is entirely up to you. However, you should select questions that are most relevant to your experience and that best reflect your individual circumstances.

Keep in mind

• All questions are equal. All are given equal consideration in the application review process, which means there is no advantage or disadvantage to choosing certain questions over others.
• There is no right or wrong way to answer these questions. It’s about getting to know your personality, background, interests and achievements in your own unique voice.  
• Use the additional comments field if there are issues you'd like to address that you didn't have the opportunity to discuss elsewhere on the application. This shouldn't be an essay, but rather a place to note unusual circumstances or anything that might be unclear in other parts of the application. 

Questions & guidance

Remember, the personal insight questions are just that—personal. Which means you should use our guidance for each question just as a suggestion in case you need help. The important thing is expressing who you are, what matters to you and what you want to share with UC. 

1. Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time. Things to consider: A leadership role can mean more than just a title. It can mean being a mentor to others, acting as the person in charge of a specific task, or taking the lead role in organizing an event or project. Think about what you accomplished and what you learned from the experience. What were your responsibilities?

Did you lead a team? How did your experience change your perspective on leading others? Did you help to resolve an important dispute at your school, church, in your community or an organization? And your leadership role doesn't necessarily have to be limited to school activities. For example, do you help out or take care of your family? 2. Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side. Things to consider: What does creativity mean to you? Do you have a creative skill that is important to you? What have you been able to do with that skill? If you used creativity to solve a problem, what was your solution? What are the steps you took to solve the problem?

How does your creativity influence your decisions inside or outside the classroom? Does your creativity relate to your major or a future career? 3. What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time? Things to consider: If there is a talent or skill that you're proud of, this is the time to share it.You don't necessarily have to be recognized or have received awards for your talent (although if you did and you want to talk about it, feel free to do so). Why is this talent or skill meaningful to you?

Does the talent come naturally or have you worked hard to develop this skill or talent? Does your talent or skill allow you opportunities in or outside the classroom? If so, what are they and how do they fit into your schedule? 4. Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced. Things to consider: An educational opportunity can be anything that has added value to your educational experience and better prepared you for college. For example, participation in an honors or academic enrichment program, or enrollment in an academy that's geared toward an occupation or a major, or taking advanced courses that interest you; just to name a few.

If you choose to write about educational barriers you've faced, how did you overcome or strive to overcome them? What personal characteristics or skills did you call on to overcome this challenge? How did overcoming this barrier help shape who you are today? 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? Things to consider: A challenge could be personal, or something you have faced in your community or school. Why was the challenge significant to you? This is a good opportunity to talk about any obstacles you've faced and what you've learned from the experience. Did you have support from someone else or did you handle it alone?

If you're currently working your way through a challenge, what are you doing now, and does that affect different aspects of your life? For example, ask yourself, How has my life changed at home, at my school, with my friends or with my family? 6. Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom. Things to consider:  Many students have a passion for one specific academic subject area, something that they just can't get enough of. If that applies to you, what have you done to further that interest? Discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experience you have had inside and outside the classroom such as volunteer work, internships, employment, summer programs, participation in student organizations and/or clubs and what you have gained from your involvement.

Has your interest in the subject influenced you in choosing a major and/or future career? Have you been able to pursue coursework at a higher level in this subject (honors, AP, IB, college or university work)? Are you inspired to pursue this subject further at UC, and how might you do that?

7. What have you done to make your school or your community a better place? Things to consider: Think of community as a term that can encompass a group, team or a place like your high school, hometown or home. You can define community as you see fit, just make sure you talk about your role in that community. Was there a problem that you wanted to fix in your community?

Why were you inspired to act? What did you learn from your effort? How did your actions benefit others, the wider community or both? Did you work alone or with others to initiate change in your community? 8. Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California? Things to consider:  If there's anything you want us to know about you but didn't find a question or place in the application to tell us, now's your chance. What have you not shared with us that will highlight a skill, talent, challenge or opportunity that you think will help us know you better?

From your point of view, what do you feel makes you an excellent choice for UC? Don't be afraid to brag a little.

Writing tips

Start early..

Give yourself plenty of time for preparation, careful composition and revisions.

Write persuasively.

Making a list of accomplishments, activities, awards or work will lessen the impact of your words. Expand on a topic by using specific, concrete examples to support the points you want to make.

Use “I” statements.

Talk about yourself so that we can get to know your personality, talents, accomplishments and potential for success on a UC campus. Use “I” and “my” statements in your responses.

Proofread and edit.

Although you will not be evaluated on grammar, spelling or sentence structure, you should proofread your work and make sure your writing is clear. Grammatical and spelling errors can be distracting to the reader and get in the way of what you’re trying to communicate.

Solicit feedback.

Your answers should reflect your own ideas and be written by you alone, but others — family, teachers and friends can offer valuable suggestions. Ask advice of whomever you like, but do not plagiarize from sources in print or online and do not use anyone's words, published or unpublished, but your own.

Copy and paste.

Once you are satisfied with your answers, save them in plain text (ASCII) and paste them into the space provided in the application. Proofread once more to make sure no odd characters or line breaks have appeared.

This is one of many pieces of information we consider in reviewing your application. Your responses can only add value to the application. An admission decision will not be based on this section alone.

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• November 11, 2021

How To Write The University of California Essays (2021-2022)

Adrianne is a Master Admissions Counselor and TV/film director, producer, writer, and actress currently based in LA. She uses her experience in multiple disciplines to help students achieve their personal and academic goals.

Welcome to the 2021-2022 essay prompts for the University of California system! Here’s everything you need to know to write the best UC essays possible before the November 30th deadline.

These schools are some of the most popular in the country and admitted just over 132,353 prospective freshmen — including out-of-state and international students — last year out of a record-breakingly large applicant pool. Whether you’re a California resident or not, you’ll need to stand out amongst the crowd in your answers to these questions.

You can refer to the University of California admissions website if you want to see how exactly they’re presenting their essay prompts, also known as “Personal Insight Questions,” for this year. The UC school system has its own application, and all nine schools — UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, UC Riverside, UC Merced — accept the same application with the same essay questions.

You’ll need to respond to 4 of the 8 questions listed below, in essays of 250-350 words. This is a pretty big writing assignment, and you have a lot of freedom in which topics you choose, so spend some time brainstorming.

1. Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes , or contributed to group efforts over time.

Let me say right off the bat that this isn’t a great question. Even if you’ve demonstrated incredible leadership, The University of California has better essay prompts for you, so you’re welcome to read on, or skip ahead to the next question.

OK. This appears to be a good question for student-entrepreneurs—kids who’ve created impactful projects. As always, however, you need to make sure you’re going beyond your activities list—don’t just tell us about a project you’ve listed elsewhere on your application. The UC schools don’t accept the Common App, but they have a place on their application where they ask you to describe your “activities and awards.”

Think very small here, and focus on specific examples of leadership. Remember: essays are stories. This is your chance to tell a good one about a specific time you took the reins. All this being said, if the strongest leadership story you can muster is about helping a fellow student with his or her homework one time, you should probably choose another prompt — unless somehow it’s a really great story.

The hard thing about questions like this, as always, is resisting the temptation to brag, and finding a way to tell your story without sounding like you’re making yourself out to be a hero. Don’t sensationalize or exaggerate your accomplishments. Be matter-of-fact when talking about your achievements. Focus on a specific anecdote. Give us a clear sense of why a specific leadership experience mattered to you.

2. Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem-solving , original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.

Remember how I said there were better questions about leadership? Here’s one. Rather than tell the story about a time you were a leader-hero, why not answer this one? Frame your accomplishments in terms of your creativity, rather than in terms of your leadership. If you’ve started a business, non-profit, or club, it’s on your activities list and we know that you are “a leader” (at least on paper). But are you creative ? How did you come up with your idea? How did you make it happen?

This response doesn’t have to be about leadership, of course. It doesn’t need to be about problem-solving, and it doesn’t need to relate to your future major. Try not to write a boring, formulaic essay in response to this prompt, since it’s a little disappointing to read an essay about creativity that isn’t creative.

3. What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?

Again, don’t repeat what’s on your activities and awards list. Definitely don’t talk about your awards. They appear elsewhere, and how would you feel if someone you just met started talking about his or her gold medals and trophies? It doesn’t make you look well-adjusted.

It’s tough to talk about your skills without sounding braggy. “How has your talent or skill helped you in or outside the classroom?” Are they serious? I just can’t imagine how answering this question would make anyone look confident and mature.

The only effective response to this prompt would be about mundane or even downright pointless skills. Pomona, when it asks about talents, specifies that you are welcome to discuss “useless skills.” You’re welcome to do so for the UC schools as well. Don’t be flippant; make sure you have something meaningful to say about your mundane or useless skill. For example, I have a friend who can list in chronological order just about every hit rock, soul, and pop album released between 1964 and 1982. This ability has no practical application in his professional life as far as I can tell, but it says a great deal about who he is and how his mind works. And it’s a far more endearing detail than any of the awards and accolades he’s received in life.

4. Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

This is one of those questions where, for some, not answering is the best way to demonstrate self-awareness and maturity.

You’re being asked to talk about educational opportunities and barriers. Before you answer this question, ask yourself: have you received noteworthy educational opportunities and/or faced barriers to pursuing your education? If you got a big-deal scholarship or got into a charter school after taking an IQ test or something, there may be a story there. (Although, “I have a high IQ” isn’t a great story.) If you spent your junior year caring for a sick parent or grandparent or suffered a physical or mental health issue yourself, that’s definitely a barrier to education.

But, on the other hand, if the opportunities you’ve had in terms of education have to do with your parents’ ability to pay for a fancy school, choose a different question. If, for you, “barriers to education” means commuting forty-five minutes to school, or something like that, again, there are plenty of other questions to answer. Self-awareness is at the top of the list of qualities that schools like Berkeley, UCLA, and the other UC schools are looking for in their applicants. Make sure you’re in touch with the opportunities you’ve been given, and the impediments you’ve faced.

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?

See my comments on the previous question. If you’ve faced some real challenges, and if you have enough distance from them to write with perspective (and to feel comfortable writing about them, of course), this may be a question for you. But think long and hard about the challenges you’ve encountered. If they aren’t very serious in the big scheme of things, don’t try to exaggerate them, and to convince your readers you had a hard time.

This is a tempting question to answer if you want to explain a low grade, for example. Let’s say you got a C+ in ninth grade English. Be careful: the question wants to know about “the most significant challenge you faced”: so if you got that C+ because your cat died the day before the final exam, or because your teacher was a jerk, don’t write about it. Everybody has teachers they don’t like and all pets die at some point. (Sorry to be grim.) These are not life’s greatest challenges.

As with “talents” questions, “challenges” questions sometimes put applicants in a tricky situation. Make sure it doesn’t sound like you’re blaming others unfairly or complaining.

If you have an entertaining story about a challenge, which says a lot about who you are, but which isn’t a serious example of hardship, you can absolutely write about it. But use humor and be self-aware. In other words, make it clear that you are cognizant of the fact that your inability to parallel park, apply makeup properly, or beat your little brother in Fortnite doesn’t constitute a “real” challenge.

6. Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.

If you’re a nice “pointy” student, here’s your chance to talk about how all your intellectual activities over the past three years have served to further your passion for… fill in the blank (architecture, art history, astrophysics). Presumably, if you’re this kind of kid, you plan on majoring in an academic field related to what you’re writing about, so discuss your choice of major as well, and say what you plan on doing at the UC school(s) you’re applying to.

You can also answer this question by talking about an academic subject you have no intention of majoring in, provided that it’s interesting, and that you can clearly point to your experience with the subject. If you plan on majoring in history, but you had a really good bio teacher freshman year, that probably isn’t enough of a reason to talk about biology.

Maybe you plan on majoring in psychology at The University of California, but what you really want to do later in life is art therapy, and you’ve gained some experience in the subject, and have a real, demonstrable passion for art generally (you were in the art club, or you exhibited your work somewhere, or you did something else that is at least mildly remarkable with art). Talk about art.

7. What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?

I know I keep saying this, but beware of sounding braggy. Make sure you’re demonstrating self-awareness.

I keep saying these things because there are a good number of high schoolers out there who are effectuating real, significant societal change, and who are fighting in extremely ambitious ways to make their communities and even their country a better place. Keep kids like them in mind as you evaluate your own accomplishments in your community. I know this is intimidating — but remembering them will help you maintain perspective as you write.

Here’s a bad example of “making one’s community a better place” — the kind of thing you should not write about. When I was in high school, I was elected student body president, and I succeeded in getting our “student room” equipped with an electric kettle (for tea, ramen noodles, what have you). My fellow students were pretty psyched. But let me tell you: describing this kind of accomplishment would be a pretty pathetic response to the question that’s being asked here. In the big scheme of things, ramen noodles rank pretty low.

8. Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand out as a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?

Great question! Take the following phrase very seriously: “Beyond what has already been shared in your application.” Don’t talk about anything on your activities and awards list.

I know it’s tempting to write about your greatest achievements, but they’re already on your application. This is a great opportunity to talk about something new and different, in order to help your admissions committee get to know the real you a little better.

Think small and personal for this one. This is your chance to talk about that hobby of yours that doesn’t have any direct relation to your academic and professional future, or one of your personal quirks that maybe doesn’t matter much in the big scheme of things, but says a lot about who you are.

The way the question is phrased makes it sound like you need to show off here (“what do you believe makes you stand out”). Don’t give in to the temptation to brag. Or, if you do, brag about a useless personal talent, or make the bold claim that what makes you stand out as an applicant is that you’ve read every Stephen King novel ever written, or that you can do a near-perfect Elvis Costello impression. Think: humor and self-awareness.

As always, our Ivy League college consultants are here to help. Don’t hesitate to reach out .

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Step-by-Step Process To Write UC Essays Prompts With Examples For The Year 2021/2022

The University of California (UC) school system is the most prestigious state university system in the United States. It comprises nine undergraduate universities: UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, UC Riverside, UC Merced, and UC Irvine.

You’ve come to the right place if you apply to the University of California schools and write the UC Personal Insight Questions.

In this post, we’ll talk about 

• UC Personal Insight Question (PIQ) prompts

What exactly are the UCs looking for in a candidate?

• Best PIQ prompts you must choose?
• From where can you find ideas to pick your UC PIQ topics?
• A list of past topics other students have selected
• Common topics + a few topics to probably avoid (because they’re so common) 
• Tips for all the UC PIQ prompts
• A step-by-step guide to each UC Essay Prompt (+ Examples) 
• Examples essays for each Personal Insight Question

Let’s get started with the ultimate guide on the UC application. 

What is UC Personal Insight Question (PIQ) prompts?

UC calls these “ Personal Insight Questions ” instead of “essays .” So these must be treated differently from your personal statement/college essay. 

Remember, these are not essays you write for a class—they’re somewhat different. You’ll know that in a minute. 

But to make it easy for readers, I’ll alter between “Personal Insight Questions” and “essays” because people search for both.

The UC Personal Insight Question (PIQ) Prompts 

• Describe an example of a leadership experience in which you’ve positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time.
• Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem-solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistic, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.
• What would you say is your most outstanding talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?
• Describe how you’ve taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you’ve faced.
• Describe the most significant challenge you’ve faced and the steps you’ve taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?
• Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you’ve furthered this interest inside and/or outside the classroom.
• What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?
• Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand out as a strong candidate for admission to the University of California?

You’ll pick four prompts, and your answers can be up to 350 words each.

You can check UC’s website to find out what they’re looking for in the 13 points of a comprehensive review . When they evaluate your application, they look for these elements. I’ll still mention all the points below. 

The UC Points of Comprehensive Review 

• Grade-point average 
• Performance in and number of courses beyond minimum A-G requirements 
• UC-approved honors courses and advanced courses 
• Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC) (CA residents only) 
• Quality of senior-year program of study 
• Academic opportunities in California high schools 
• Outstanding performance in one or more academic subject areas 
• Achievements in special projects 
• Improvement in academic performance 
• Unique talents, achievements, and awards 
• Participation in educational preparation programs 
• Academic accomplishment in light of life experiences 
• Geographic location

For more details, click here .

What’s Your Objective on Your UC Application? 

Your objective is to do three things: 

• You have to be better than other students applying from your school.
• You’ve to show how you’ve won the most of the opportunities you’ve received and,
• The most important is to connect back to the points of comprehensive review .

From where you can find ideas to pick your UC PIQ topics

You can start from your UC activities list. If you haven’t developed your list yet, do it immediately. 

Your UC Activities List is the best place to find ideas for your topics. 

You can do that by clicking here. 

After creating your UC activities list, you have to choose 4 or 5 prompts that can help you explore your different personalities and dimensions. 

For example …

List of Past Topics Other Students Have Selected  

I’ve also mentioned the prompt numbers (UC1, 2, etc.):

• 1: Significant family responsibilities, 2: Acapella singing, 4: Working as a teacher’s assistant, 7: Advocating for worker’s rights
• 1: Robotics Club, 2: Drumming, 4: Developing an app, 8: Gardening
• 2: Drawing, 4: Research project, 6: Physics, 7: Filming school sports events
• 1: Leadership class, 5: Family challenges related to father’s unemployment, 7: Spreading awareness about disaster preparedness, 8: Experiencing three very different educational systems
• 1: Dance, 4: Volunteering at a physical therapist’s office, 6: Neuroscience, 7: Teaching kids more about STEM topics
• 2: Sculpting, 3: Cooking, 4: Inability to take AP courses and self-studying instead, 7: Starting a recycling program 
• 2: How art has shaped me, 5: Challenges related to taking care of brother, 6: Biology, 8: Fashion
• 1: Econ Club, 2: Emceeing, 6: Physics, 7: Creating an app

Examples of Common UC PIQ Topics In No Particular Order

• Anime/Manga Club
• Cross Country
• Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA)
• Girl Scouts
• Hospital Volunteering
• Marching Band
• Mission Trip
• Junior Statesmen of America
• Martial Arts
• Mock Trial Club
• Model United Nations
• Music (piano, violin, flute)
• Photography
• Religious Groups
• Science Olympiad
• Student Government
• Track & Field
• Video Games

So, the question is should you avoid these topics? The answer is you don’t need to if you have spent a lot of time writing about them. 

Having said that, here is a

List of Few Topics to Probably Avoid (The reason is they’re very common) 

A very common one is The Big Performance PIQ , here the author is actually able to remember all the lines/give a motivating speech, etc. 

The Big Game PIQ , here author either wins or loses and learns an important life lesson. A common script of all movies. 

The Mission Trip PIQ , here author visits a foreign/third world country and eventually learns one how grateful and happy they’re in very little or while they initially went there expecting to teach, what instead happened was just the opposite/something interesting 

If you’re still not sure which topics to choose? Let’s check out some

Important Tips For Each of The UC PIQ Prompts 

Uc 1: leadership.

Prompt: Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time.

Important Tip: A powerful way to start your application. Write about how you’ve shown leadership in high school. Leadership doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the owner or president of some organization. There are several ways to show leadership like taking huge responsibilities in your family at the time of financial crisis. If you feel people consider you any type of leader, consider writing for this prompt.

UC 2: Creative Side

Prompt: Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem-solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.

Important Tip : You can talk about how you’re creative like how you paint or you play multiple instruments. Here you have a good opportunity to bring variety to your application because the UCs are interested in more than just your academics. 

UC 3: Greatest Talent or Skill

Prompt: What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?  

Important Tip: Remember to connect your quality (it could be anything) to particular things you’ve done. Otherwise, your PIQ may sound very mainstream. How will you know if you’re being specific enough? Read your PIQ and ask, “Can I visualize this as I read it?” If not, brainstorm more specific examples of how this quality manifests itself in your life.

Another Important Tip: Let’s say soccer is your greatest talent and you can write about how soccer has taught you things like “discipline, hard work, and determination.” Instead, I recommend that you describe a talent or skill you’ve learned through soccer—looking out for others’ needs, for example, or looking at life in a more profound way. Show how volleyball has taught you that. Then, if you do end up mentioning how volleyball has helped you learn this, you can maybe even segue into how you’ve been able to use this skill elsewhere in your life (at home, for example, or in class).  

UC 4: Significant Educational Opportunity Or Educational Barrier

Prompt: Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced?

Important Tip : If you’re thinking to write about an “educational barrier,” ask yourself this question: Is this something I could shortly explain in my Additional Comments section? If you can explain it shortly there, don’t waste one of your PIQs on this prompt.

UC 5: Most Significant Challenge You’ve Faced 

Prompt: 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? 

Important Tip : Keep in mind some topics are more powerful than others when it comes to this prompt.

In the past, I’ve observed students write successfully about challenges such as: 

• Crime, racism, sexism, unemployment, violence, physical disability  
• How a challenging family situation influenced you to take on more responsibilities

I’ve found that these tend to be less successful topics: 

• Heavy breakup in a relationship
• Not making a team which you wanted to  
• Taking a challenging class
• Shy at first but then finding your voice (this is very common topic)
• Getting a bad grade

Another important tip: Remember to address how the hurdle impacted your academics since the prompt asks about this. If you faced big challenges but were still able to keep good grades, you can say simply, “Despite these difficulties, I was able to maintain my grades” or something alike.

UC 6: Academic Subject 

Prompt: Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.

Important Tip: This is an excellent prompt to reflect on. Why? Because it’s a solid way to show your intellectual side, and also you can pack in a lot of information. 

Another important tip: If you’re preparing to major in engineering, IT, or computer science, then you should definitely consider it because lots of students choose these majors and you can really show the UCs that you’re capable.

If you’re applying as a transfer student, you must write it as one of your four choices.

UC 7: School or Community Service 

Prompt: What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?

Important Tip : One more great prompt you can consider. Why? Because UCs love to hear how and what kind of impact you have made on your community. Can you think of any/several ways you have made an impact?

Another important tip: If you don’t choose this prompt, it’s a good idea to demonstrate the impact on your school or community in two of the other prompts.

UC 8: What else makes you stand out? 

Prompt: Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand out as a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?

Important Tip: This is the kind of prompt if you have something you want to include but you are not sure which other prompt it works for.

A step-by-step guide to each UC Essay Prompt (+ Examples)

Uc essay prompt 1: the “leadership” ship essay .

Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time.

How to compose an essay for UC Prompt 1:

1. Generate content for your essay by filling out the Best Extracurricular Activity Brainstorm I’ve Ever Seen (aka BEABIES), below.

The BEABIES Exercise

2.  Select a structure

Does your BEABIES content focus on a particular challenge you faced, what you did about it, and what you learned?

Use Narrative Structure.

Does your content focus on a few different experiences and problems that taught you different values and insights about leadership?

Try Montage Structure.

3. Build an outline

To outline a narrative, organize your BEABIES content into three sections: 

• Challenge (the Problem You Solved column)
• What I Did About It (What I Did and Impact I Had columns)
• What I Learned (Lessons Learned/Skills I Gained, and How I Applied What I Learned columns)

To outline a montage, you can take a couple of approaches:

• Think about (and write down) how different actions connect to and taught you about different values and insights regarding leadership. These can become your body paragraphs.

For example:

• Evolving robotics club and encouraging debate → pushed back against stereotypes learned to listen without moralizing or judgment
• Learning to listen first → invite dialogue; better at controlling momentum with debate team or basketball, help team maintain composure and resolve
• Another option is to just flip the BEABIES Exercise vertically, and that’s basically your outline (check out the essay below that essentially did just that).

4. Compose a draft!

If you’re writing a narrative (i.e., challenges-based) story, try devoting about ⅓ of your PIQ to each of the following: 

UC Prompt 1 example essay: Ming Ji Restaurant

Since 5th grade, I have been my parents’ right hand at Ming Ji Restaurant in our hometown of Zacatecas, Mexico. Sometimes, they needed me to be the cashier, other times, a dishwasher or chef’s assistant in the kitchen, and eventually I was expected to interact with customers as the youngest waiter on staff.

As I developed more in this role, I became a keystone piece for the waiters. I taught them how to properly attend groups of unsatisfied customers and the fundamentals of customer service. Consequently, I acquired organizational habits and dialogued more fluently to resolve problems. I developed better strategies to speed up home-delivery and in restaurant service. Through this, I achieved not only a better rapport with my colleagues but also a more honest and enjoyable relation with my dad’s employees. It implanted a strong work ethic in me that reminds me of the hardworking farmers of my past generations.

I believe that to achieve efficiency and productivity in the working environment between employees and the manager, it requires not only the firmness and attention of a boss, but also the empathy and vision of a leader. These were the very qualities I developed as my dad’s assistant.

Working through the many facets of a small business has taught me the key role of small groups in a system, and I applied this beyond the walls of the restaurant. In school, you will see me managing and organizing one-on-one mediations with peer counselors, and at the same time, earning myself a leading position in my school’s British English Olympics team. 

As a result of my years laboring for my family restaurant, you might think that I would like to become an entrepreneur. But in actuality, I picture myself as an engineer, as I believe both require adaptability, perseverance, dedication, and strategy to succeed in this field.

UC Essay Prompt 2: The “Creative Side” Essay 

How to write an essay for UC Prompt 2: 

For Prompt #2 I recommend the Uncommon Connections Exercise:

• Choose a topic.
• Imagine what someone else writing an essay on this same topic might write about—in particular, what values might that person emphasize? (Example: For violin, someone else might emphasize “discipline, hard work, and perseverance.” But that’s what a lot of others would focus on.) 
• Once you’ve brainstormed some usual (read: common or obvious) values, vow to NOT discuss only these values in your essay. Why? You’re more likely to blend in.

Dare to stand out! How? Like this:

• Choose several uncommon values. (Example: For violin, you might select “privacy,” “practicality,” or even “healthy boundaries” in one of the blanks and then discuss how violin has helped you develop all three of these instead.)

Here’s an essay that demonstrates lots of variety:

UC Prompt 2 example essay: Drumming

Sometime during middle school, I began my journey to establish a rock band, become its drummer, and, most importantly, grow magnificent long hair. I enrolled at a local music institute for drum classes twice a week. I didn’t have a drum kit at home, so I’d eagerly wait for those two one-hour sessions of smashing cymbals and double-kicking bases every week. I was having a great time, but some part of me always felt that I was not exploring my musical creativity as much as I could. 

Over the next few months, as I continued to develop my mastery of the drum kit, percussion became a part of my everyday life and soon I could sense rhythmic patterns in ordinary sounds. When no drums were available, I’d start finger-tapping in synchronous rhythms on any rigid surface and, before long, finger-tapping became an integral part of my rhythmic intelligence.

Unlike drumming, finger-tapping allowed me to incorporate melody into standard grooves by tapping on surfaces that had varying degrees of hollowness. Since it was a percussion style that I instinctively developed by myself, finger-tapping gave me the artistic freedom to create something new.

But I didn’t want to shape my spontaneous finger-tapping artistry to master another percussion instrument like the Tabla or Maschine.

Therefore, I decided to invent my own instrument. Equipped with my expertise in robotics and coding, I used electronic items like piezoelectric sensors, pcbs, and transistors to build an instrument that reflected my own finger-tapping habits and patterns. It had ten small pads for my fingers and two large pads for my palms. I chose a raspberry-pi as its CPU and programmed it to play all kinds of melodies and beats. In this way, I learned how to coordinate my different talents and skills to amplify my total creative output.

My friends and family suggested that I name and advertise my invention and maybe sell it to a company. But if I did that, I would lose the essence of why I built it. I built it not to master its musical capacity but to develop my own musical creativity. 

UC Essay Prompt 3: The “Greatest talent or skill” Essay 

Prompt: What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?

How to write an essay for UC Prompt 3:

As with Prompt 2, I recommend completing the Uncommon Connections Exercise. How? Like this:

• Choose a topic. 
• Imagine what someone else writing an essay on the same topic might write about using the Values Exercise—in other words, brainstorm the cliché version. 
• Once you’ve done this, vow to NOT discuss only these values in your essay. Why? You’re more likely to blend in. Stand out by instead electing to:
• Choose several uncommon values. 

Then, before you start writing:

• Create a simple outline by picking a theme for each paragraph. Here were the themes for this author’s paragraphs

UC Prompt 3 example essay: Finding connections among the dissimilar

I’ve always strived to find connections among the dissimilar. 

It started when I was a kid and my dad taught me Sudoku. As he explained the rules, those mysterious scaffoldings of numbers I often saw on his computer screen transformed into complex structures of logic built by strategy. Gradually, puzzles became a constant in my life. In elementary school, I began searching for patterns in the world around me: thin, dark clouds signaled rain, the moon changed shape every week, and the best snacks were the first to go. I wanted to know what unseen rules affected these things and how they worked. My parents, both pipeline engineers, encouraged this inquisitiveness and tried explaining how they solved puzzles in their own work. Their analytical mindsets helped me muddle through homework and optimize matches in Candy Crush.

In high school, I threw myself into all my classes and studied by linking concepts across subjects. Mathematical syntax transitioned easily to English grammar, and the catalysts for revolutions resembled isomers of the same element, nominally different with the same properties. 

As I grew older, my interests expanded to include the delicate systems of biology, the complexity of animation, and the nuances of language. Despite these subjects’ apparent dissimilarity, each provides fascinating perspectives on the world with approaches like color theory and evolution. Unsurprisingly, my career aspirations changed every week: one day I wanted to be an illustrator, the next a biochemist, then a stand up comedian. But when I discovered computer science, something seemed to settle; I had finally found a field where I could be creative, explore a different type of language, and, yes, solve puzzles.

Best of all, I believe my superpower has helped me knit together my identity. Although my relatives’ rapid Mandarin escapes me, in them I recognize the same work ethic that fueled me through marching band practices and late nights. My multicultural friend group is linked by our diverse passions: k-pop, hockey, Hamilton. While to others my life may seem like a jumble of incompatible fragments, like a jigsaw puzzle, each piece connects to become something more. (350 words)

UC Essay Prompt 4: The “Educational Opportunity or Barrier” Essay 

Prompt: Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

How to write an essay for UC Prompt 4:

There are a couple of possibilities for this essay, and note that you don’t have to write about both a significant educational opportunity and an educational barrier—just write about one. For the “significant educational opportunity,” you could write about anything from an internship experience, a challenge you faced that taught you something or something else entirely. 

If you’re writing about a significant educational opportunity,” you might choose to use the Montage Structure and use the BEABIES Exercise to brainstorm your content (scroll up to find that).

If you’re writing about an educational barrier, the Narrative (challenges essay) Structure works well for this. Try devoting about ⅓ of your PIQ to each of the following: 

Let’s look at an example that uses the Montage Structure to discuss a significant educational opportunity. But notice that the student interpreted the prompt in an unusual way.

UC Prompt 4 example essay: Construction

Five years ago I took up a job in construction from a couple of neighbors who needed help doing a demolition job on an old house. I saw this as an opportunity to help pay bills around the house as well as cover my own personal expenses. I did a good enough job that my neighbors told me that, if I wanted, I could continue working with them. 

It has been a demanding job and I made numerous mistakes at first, like using the wrong tools for different tasks or the wrong size screw. On occasion, I was scolded for my mistakes and I felt incompetent, as I wasn’t able to complete tasks as fast as my co-workers. There were even days that I considered quitting, but I stuck with it. 

Since then, I've built, repaired, and remodeled numerous homes for family, friends, neighbors, and even strangers. I’ve removed and replaced carpets; broken down walls as well as driveways; installed cabinets, lights, both wood and tile flooring; and painted room after room. 

Working in construction has made me feel like a bigger part of society, because I’m shaping the buildings and offices my community uses. Although I don’t make the choices in design, my workmanship is reflected in every job I’ve done. Because of this, my most memorable projects are those that I’ve taken on by myself.

It has been a personally fulfilling experience—there’s just something about peeling away the last strip of tape off a new floor that’s indescribable—and getting to see hours of planning, preparation, and work come together is such a rewarding experience. The best part? Knowing that some family will get to enjoy my work.

But this is not what I will do the rest of my life. 

There are other ways I can help cover my family’s expenses, and getting a degree is the next step. In fact, I have a feeling that would be an even more fulfilling journey.

UC Essay Prompt 5: The “Significant Challenges” Essay 

Prompt: 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?

How to write an essay for UC Prompt 5:

• Finish the Feelings and Needs Exercise .
• Determine what the 3-6 “parts” of your essay are. One easy way to do this is to use the Challenges/What I Did/What I Learned structure. Use the questions in the outline above to expand from the 3“chunks” (i.e., paragraphs or “scenes” in your story) to 5 or 6. Note that you might also choose to take your Feelings and Needs Exercise and simply write a paragraph on each column. (Cool, huh?) 
• Write a draft!

Have a look at a shortened version of an essay that was composed as part of a four-day workshop. The student wrote this after finishing the Feelings and Needs Exercise, and then shortened it from 650 words (for the Common App) to 350 words (so that I could share it with you here):

UC Prompt 5 example essay: Example 1: What had to be done (Narrative Approach, based on a challenge)

At six years old, I stood locked away in the restroom. My dad was being put under arrest for domestic abuse. He’d hurt my mom physically and mentally, and my brother Jose and I had shared the mental strain. It’s what had to be done.

For a few years the quality of our lives started to improve as our soon-to-be step-dad became part of our family. He paid attention to the needs of my mom, my brother, and me, but our prosperity was short-lived as my step dad’s chronic alcoholism became more recurrent. When I was eight, my younger brother Fernando’s birth complicated things even further. As my step-dad slipped away, Fernando’s care was left to Jose and me. I cooked, Jose cleaned, I dressed Fernando, Jose put him to bed. We did what we had to do.

I grew determined to improve the quality of life for my family and myself.    

Without a father figure to teach me the things a father could, I became my own teacher. I learned how to fix bikes, how to swim, and even how to talk to girls. I found a job to help pay bills. I became as independent as I could to lessen the time and money mom had to spend raising me.

I worked hard to earn straight A’s, I shattered my school’s 1ooM breaststroke record, and I learned to play the oboe. I tutored kids, teens, and adults on a variety of subjects ranging from basic English to home improvement and even Calculus. As the captain of the water polo and swim team I’ve led practices, and I became the first student in my school to pass the AP Physics 1 exam.

I’ve done tons, and I'm proud of it.

But I’m excited to say there’s so much I have yet to do. I haven’t danced the tango, solved a Rubix Cube, or seen the World Trade Center. And I have yet to see how Fernando will grow.  

I’ll do as much as I can from now on. Not because I have to.

Because I choose to. 

UC Essay Prompt 6: The “Favorite Subject” Essay 

How to write an essay for UC Prompt 6:

Head to BEABIES. To learn more about how to fill out the BEABIES Exercise, head here. 

No need to go crazy with this chart to write a strong essay. After you’ve filled the chart:

• You now have to decide on the 3-6 “chunks” (read: paragraphs) of your essay based on the content you’ve created and decide what the main point of each paragraph will be.

UC Prompt 6 example essay: History

Through books like Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl about his incarceration at Auschwitz and documentaries like Enemies of the People about the Khmer Rouge, history has taught me that human empathy knows no borders. 

My favorite “history nerd” moments occur when I can explain a modern socio-political phenomenon by drawing connections to a historical event, like tying the gender pay gap to the Neolithic Revolution and linking recent voting patterns to centuries of de jure/de facto racism. For my IB Extended Essay, I am writing about the Second Amendment, and I hope to elucidate the current gun control debate with research surrounding the legacy of the Glorious Revolution. 

My passion for history led me to an internship at the Sejong Institute, a think-tank specializing in Korean diplomacy. While I translated Korean research publications on topics like denuclearizing North Korea and resolving the South China Sea disputes, I drew heavily from what I learned of the region’s past, coming to understand that international conflicts cannot be resolved in the absence of historical insight. 

This notion also applies to my participation in Model UN. Exploring the ramifications of historical events has helped me create more comprehensive solutions; learning about the often-controversial past actions of nations has prompted me to raise ethical questions. For instance, I was appalled to learn that the Kurdish crisis, Syrian Civil War, and ISIL could be traced to the Sykes-Picot agreement, which carved up the region into ‘spheres of influence’ in 1916. In resolving these conflicts, how do we balance national sovereignty with the responsibility of former colonial powers to stabilize the region?

This summer, I enrolled in “Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology” at UC Irvine. From tracing the African exodus of Homo erectus two million years ago to examining La Bestia (Mexican freight trains used by US-bound migrants), I now understand that migration is as old as history itself. 

In college, I hope to continue drawing connections between history and contemporary geopolitics as a Political Science major. Eventually, I hope to become a civil rights attorney, and the first Asian woman on the Supreme Court. 

UC Essay Prompt 7: The “Community Service” Essay

How to write an essay for UC Prompt 7:

There’s an exercise our team has developed based on an article, it is about a pitch that Elon Musk made for the Tesla Powerwall. You can check out this article here after reading this article you’ll end up writing a “community service” essay.

The Elon Musk Exercise

1. Buy a blank sheet of paper, turn it horizontally, and start making these columns:

• In Column 1: Identify the problem . Describe the challenge you were facing. The problem could be something global, like an environmental issue, or something more local, like a lack of creative opportunities in your high school.
• In Column 2: Raise the stakes . Help us understand: Why was (or is) overcoming this challenge important? What might happen if this problem went (or goes) unchecked? 
• In Column 3: Articulate the vision. What might the world look like if this problem were solved? As Raskin says in his article, “Show the promised land before explaining how you’ll get there.” Inspire us to dream with you.
• In Column 4: Describe what you did . Tell us the specific things you (or you and your team) did to solve the problem.
• In Column 5: Clarify your role .  Describe your particular involvement. Why were (or are) you crucial to the project’s or club’s success?
• In Column 6: Share the impact you had, lessons you learned, or values you gained . Provide specific evidence that gives us a sense that your work mattered. 

2. Then fill in the chart with all of these details.

3. Turn the paper vertical and notice (voila!) those six columns = your essay.

4. Write a draft using one column per paragraph (or so).

Once you’ve completed your draft, read the first sentence of each paragraph out loud to see whether they flow together. If not, rewrite them so that they sound better. After that rewrite the paragraphs so they connect to those first sentences. 

If they do flow together, then your work is done.

If you don’t think it’s possible to fit all that content into just 350 words? Check out this essay. 

UC Prompt 7 example essay: Earthquakes

Last year, nearly 600 earthquakes hit my hometown of Reno in a ‘swarm’. Although the magnitudes of these quakes ranged from 2.5 to 3.7, the constant fear and anxiety of impending doom rose in the community. A disaster is unprecedented and unpredictable and, in our community, we always acknowledged their occurrence elsewhere but never fully admitted that a large-scale catastrophe may happen at our doorsteps.

Recognizing this unspoken apathy, I decided to take a step beyond my school club and get involved in the community chapter of the Reno Red Cross Disaster Cycle Services team. As I was learning the basics of preparedness i.e., general earthquake and fire safety drills, I realized that if disaster were to strike, the majority of people in my community could not confidently say that they are prepared. As part of the DCS committee, it is my goal to increase the confidence of as many youth and families as possible.

During my training, I accompanied volunteers during the Home Fire Preparedness Campaign, where we installed and updated smoke alarms and detectors in over thirty low income households in the Reno area, free of charge. I began teaching the “Pillowcase Project” in local elementary schools, leading workshops in and instilling the importance of disaster preparedness for the youngest of children.

Representing DCS on the Youth Executive Board for our local chapter, I also led a Youth in Disaster Services Seminar, where we trained young adults in CPR Certification as well as basic Shelter Fundamentals.

Through my work with the Red Cross, and in my interactions with survivors and rescuers who assisted during Hurricane Katrina, I’ve come to discover how teaching even just small preparedness procedures to individuals can help save entire communities.

The impact of disaster services reverberates throughout our communities, both at home and internationally. It is a selfless, necessary job in which youth, as the future generation of an ever-changing disaster prone world, must take urgent action.

UC Essay Prompt 8: The “The One Thing That Sets You Apart”

How to write an essay for UC Prompt 8:

To me, this is a kind of catch-all, or “topic of your choice” prompt that essentially asks, “What else you got?” Several of the samples above, you’ll notice, work for this prompt too.

So far, we’ve discussed three ways/exercises to use when brainstorming and writing your essay. 

Good news: Any of these could work for Prompt 8. 

How? Once you’ve decided on a topic (ideally, something that shares a part of you that isn’t demonstrated elsewhere in your other three essays), read over these methods again:

The Uncommon Connection (UC) Game

Find several uncommon qualities or values that connect to your topic, and focus on one quality/value per paragraph. Example: The santur has helped me connect with my culture and Persian heritage (one paragraph), serves as a tool for social change (another paragraph), and connects me to my father and grandfather (another paragraph).

Or if you’re writing about an extracurricular activity, you might consider using …

The Best Extracurricular Activity Brainstorm I’ve Ever Seen (BEABIES)

Choose your topic. Then, create a chart with four columns labeled:

• Problems I solved
• Lessons learned/values gained 
• Impact I had

Choose the two most impressive, and emphasize those in your essay.

Or, if you’re writing about a service project, you might opt for …

Create a chart with six columns labeled:

• The problem/challenge
• Raise the stakes/why now?
• Promised land/vision
• What I/we did
• My specific role
• Impact/lessons/values

UC Prompt 8 example essay: Three IDs (Narrative Approach, based on a challenge)

Ten minutes had passed and I was stuck on the same question. Which of the three bubbles am I supposed to fill? It was one of the most complicated questions I faced in my life: the question of race. “Which choice best describes you?“

Chinese? True, I have the physical traits of my parents who are both Chinese. 

However, I was born in Washington. So technically I should fill in Chinese-American. It was there when my feelings arose. “Felipe, there is barely anything you know about your legal hometown, Taxco. You have never been back there after your birth,” I told myself. I reassessed my choice.

I began recalling the community where I grew up, Zacatecas. Most of my friends speak Spanish; I eat enchiladas and I listen to banda; the fiery lyrics of the Mexican Anthem echoes my pride. It turns out that my heart does indeed belong to Mexico. However, when I would first encounter other Mexican-Americans, they would jolt in curiosity or gaze with suspicion. 

It was impossible to extinguish the burning enigma that is my identity.

Fortunately, everything became clearer in high school when I moved to the US. I was classified as the “Asian Felipe” amongst my peers; I still embraced and honored my Mexican culture, since my mind works in Spanish. At home, I attempt to recount my day to my grandparents in Taishan, my family’s native language, and I practice Buddhism while living in my birthland, America. 

Sometimes, I do not resonate with any of these worlds. Differentiated by my physical appearance in Mexico, and ostracized by my lack of fluency in Chinese here, I define myself as a Third Culture Kid, yet here I stand converging across the various cultures that makes me more than a “math genius” or a “lazy machista”.

 While I could blend three entities of mine and become part of the melting pot, I instead choose to keep each unique trait of my multiethnicity to become a salad bowl, with all of its ingredients mixed together, yet separated enough to taste the individual flavor of each one.

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12 Great University of California Essay Examples

What’s covered, essay #1: leadership, essay #2: creativity, essay #3: creativity, essay #4: creativity, essay #5: talent, essay #6: talent, essay #7: academic interest, essay #8: academic interest, essay #9: community, essay #10: community, essay #11: community, essay #12: community.

The University of California system is comprised of nine undergraduate universities, and is one of the most prestigious public school systems in the country. The UC schools have their own application system, and students must respond to four of eight personal insight questions in 350 words each. Every UC school you apply to receives the same application and essays, so it’s important that your responses accurately represent your personality and writing abilities. 

In this post, we’ll share some UC essay examples and go over what they did well and where they could improve. We will also point you to free resources you can use to improve your college essays. 

Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized. 

Read our guide to the UC personal insight questions for more tips on writing strong essays for each of the prompts.

Prompt: Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time. (350 words)

1400 lines of code. 6 weeks. 1 Pizza.

I believe pizza makers are the backbone of society. Without pizza, life as we know it would cease to exist. From a toddler’s birthday party to President Obama’s sporadic campaigning cravings, these 8 slices of pure goodness cleverly seep into every one of our lives; yet, we never talk about it. In a very cheesy way, I find representation in a pizza maker. 

The most perplexing section of physiology is deciphering electrocardiograms. According to our teacher, this was when most students hit their annual trough. We had textbooks and worksheets, but viewing printed rhythms and attempting to recognize them in real-time is about as straining as watching someone eat pizza crust-first. Furthermore, online simulators were vastly over-engineered, featuring complex interfaces foreign to high-school students.

Eventually, I realized the only way to pull myself out of the sauce was by creating my own tools. This was also the first year I took a programming course, so I decided to initiate a little hobbyist experiment by extrapolating knowledge from Computer Science and Physiology to code and share my own Electrocardiogram Simulator. To enhance my program, I went beyond the textbook and classroom by learning directly from Java API – the programmer’s Bible.

The algorithms I wrote not only simulated rhythms in real-time but also actively engaged with the user, allowing my classmates and I to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the curriculum. Little did I know that a small project born out of desperation would eventually become a tool adopted by my teacher to serve hundreds of students in the future.

Like pizza, people will reap the benefits of my app over and over again, and hardly anyone will know its maker. Being a leader doesn’t always mean standing at the front of rallies, giving speeches, and leading organizations. Yes, I have done all three, but this app taught me leaders are also found behind-the-scenes, solving problems in unimaginable ways and fulfilling the hidden, yet crucial niches of the world. 

1400 lines of code, and 6 weeks later, it’s time to order a pizza. 

What the Essay Did Well

This is a great essay because it is both engaging and informative. What exactly does it inform us about? The answer: the personality, work ethic, and achievements of this student (exactly what admissions officers want to hear about).

With regards to personality, the pizza through-line—which notably starts the essay, ends the essay, and carries us through the essay—speaks volumes about this student. They are admittedly “cheesy,” but they appear unabashedly themself. They own their goofiness. That being said, the student’s pizza connections are also fitting and smoothly advance their points—watching someone eat pizza crust-first is straining and pizza is an invention that hardly anyone can identify the maker of. 

While we learn about this student’s fun personality in this essay, we also learn about their work ethic. A student who takes the initiative to solve a problem that no one asked them to solve is the kind of student an admissions officer wants to admit. The phrase “I decided to initiate a little hobbyist experiment” alone tells us that this student is a curious go-getter.

Lastly, this student tells us about their achievements in the last two paragraphs. Not only did they take the initiative to create this program, but it was also successful. On top of that, it’s notable how this student’s accomplishments as a leader defy the traditional expectations people have for leaders. The student’s ability to demonstrate their untraditional leadership path is an achievement in itself that sets the student apart form other applicants.

What Could Be Improved

This is a strong essay as is, but the one way this student could take it above and beyond would be to tell less and show more. To really highlight the student’s writing ability, the essay should  show the reader all the details it’s currently telling us. For example, these sentences primarily tell the reader what happened: “The most perplexing section of physiology is deciphering electrocardiograms. According to our teacher, this was when most students hit their annual trough.” 

Rewriting this sentence to show the reader the student’s impetus for creating their app could look like this: “When my teacher flashed the electrocardiogram on the screen, my once attentive physiology class became a sea of blank stares and furrowed brows.” This sentence still conveys the key details—student’s in the physiology class found electrocardiograms to be the hardest unit of the year—but it does so in a far more descriptive way. Implementing this exercise of rewriting sentences to show what happened throughout the piece would elevate the entire essay.

Prompt: Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side. (350 words)

For the past few years, participating in debate has been one of the foremost expressions of my creativity. Nothing is as electrifying as an Asian parliamentary-style debate. Each team is given only thirty minutes to prepare seven-minute speeches to either support or oppose the assigned motion. Given the immense time pressure, this is where my creativity shines most brightly.

To craft the most impactful and convincing argument, I have to consider the context of the motion, different stakeholders, the goals we want to achieve, the mechanisms to reach those goals, and so much more. I have to frame these arguments effectively and paint a compelling and cohesive world to sway my listeners to my side on both an emotional and logical level. For example, In a debate about the implementation of rice importation in the Philippines, I had to frequently switch between the macro perspective by discussing the broad economic implications of the policy and the micro perspective by painting a picture of the struggles that local rice farmers would experience when forcefully thrust into an increasingly competitive global economy. It’s a tough balancing act.

To add to the challenge, there is an opposing team on the other side of the room hell-bent on disproving everything I say. They generate equally plausible sounding arguments, and my mission is to react on the spot to dispel their viewpoints and build up our team’s case.

When two debate teams, both well-prepared and hungry for victory, face off and try to out-think one another, they clash to form a sixty-minute thunderstorm raining down fierce arguments and rebuttals. They fill up a room with unbelievable energy. After several years of debate, I have developed the capacity to still a room of fury and chaos with nothing but my words and wit.

Debate has been instrumental in shaping me into the person I am today. Because of debate, I have become a quicker and stronger thinker. Lightning quick on my feet, I am ready to thoroughly and passionately defend my beliefs at a moment’s notice.

This prompt is about creativity, though its wording emphasizes how students aren’t required to talk about typically-creative subjects. That said, it might take a bit more work and explanation (even creativity, one could say) to position a logical process as creative. This student’s main strength is the way they convince the reader that debate is creative.

First, they identify how “Asian parliamentary-style debate” differs from other forms of debate, emphasizing how time constraints necessitate the use of creativity. Then, they explain how both the argument’s content (the goals and solutions they outline) and the argument’s composition (the way they frame the argument) must be creatively orchestrated to be convincing. 

To drive home the point that debate is a creative process, this student provides an example of how they structured their argument about rice importation in the Philippines. This essay is successful because, after reading it, an admissions officer has no doubt that this student can combine logic and creativity to think intellectually.

One aspect of this essay that could be improved is the language use. Although there are some creative metaphors like the “sixty-minute thunderstorm raining down fierce arguments”, the essay is lacking the extra oomph and wow-factor that carefully chosen diction provides. In the second paragraph, the student repeats the phrase “I have to” three different times when stronger, more active verbs could have been used.

Essays should always reflect the student’s natural voice and shouldn’t sound like every word came straight out of a thesaurus, but that doesn’t mean they can’t incorporate a bit of colorful language. If this student took the time to go through their essay and ask themself if an overused word could be replaced with a more exciting one, it would make the essay much more interesting to read.

As I open the door to the Makerspace, I am greeted by a sea of cubicle-like machines and I watch eagerly, as one of them completes the final layer of my print.

Much like any scientific experiment, my countless failures in the Makerspace – hours spent designing a print, only to have it disintegrate – were my greatest teachers. I learned, the hard way, what types of shapes and patterns a 3D printer would play nice to. Then, drawing inspiration from the engineering method, I developed a system for myself – start with a solid foundation and add complexity with each iteration – a flourish here, a flying buttress there. 

But it wasn’t until the following summer, vacationing on a beach inundated with plastic, that the “aha” moment struck. In an era where capturing people’s attention in a split-second is everything, what better way to draw awareness to the plastic problem than with quirky 3D-printed products? By the time I had returned home, I had a business case on my hands and a desire to make my impact.

Equipped with vital skills from the advanced math-and-science courses I had taken in sophomore year, I began applying these to my growing business. Using my AP Chemistry analytical laboratory skills, I devised a simple water bath experiment to test the biodegradability claims of 3D-printer filaments from different manufacturers, guaranteeing that my products could serve as both a statement and play their part for our planet. The optimization techniques I had learned in AP Calculus were put to good use, as I determined the most space-efficient packaging for my products, reducing my dependence on unsustainable filler material. Even my designs were tweaked and riffed on to reflect my newfound maturity and keen eye for aesthetics.

My business is still going strong today, raising $1000 to date. I attribute this success to a fateful spark of creative inspiration, which has, and will, continue to inspire me to weave together multiple disciplines to address issues as endemic as the plastic problem. 

This essay begins with a simple, yet highly effective hook. It catches readers’ attention by only giving a hint about the essay’s main topic, and being a standalone paragraph makes it all the more intriguing. 

The next paragraph then begins with a seamless transition that ties back to the Makerspace. The essay goes on to show the writer’s creative side and how it has developed over time. Rather than directly stating “I am most creative when I am working on my business,” the writer tells the story of their creativity while working with 3-D printers and vacationing on the beach. 

It is the “aha” moment that perhaps responds to the prompt best. Here we get to see the writer create a new idea on the spot. The next two paragraphs then show the writer executing on their idea in great detail. Small and specific details, such as applying analytical laboratory skills from AP Chemistry, make the writer’s creativity come to life. 

From start to finish, this essay shows that the key to writing a stellar response to this prompt is to fill your writing with details and vivid imagery. 

The second to last paragraph of this essay focuses a bit too much on how the writer built their business. Though many of these details show the writer’s creativity in action, a few of them could be restated to make the connection to creativity clearer. The last sentences could be rewritten like so: 

Working on my business was where my creativity blossomed. In my workshop, optimization techniques that I learned in AP Calculus became something new — the basis for space-efficient packaging for my products that reduced my dependence on unsustainable filler material…

Profusely sweating after trying on what felt like a thousand different outfits, I collapsed on the floor in exasperation. The heaping pile of clothes on my bed stared me down in disdain; with ten minutes left to spare before the first day of seventh grade, I let go of my screaming thoughts and settled on the very first outfit I tried on: my favorite.

Donning a neon pink dress, that moment marked the first time I chose expression over fear. Being one of the few Asians in my grade, clothing was my source of disguise. I looked to the bold Stacy London of What Not to Wear for daily inspiration, but, in actuality, I dressed to conceal my uniqueness so I wouldn’t be noticed for my race. Wearing jeans and a t-shirt, I envied the popular girls who hiked their shorts up just a few inches higher than dress code allowed and flaunted Uggs decorated with plastic jewels, a statement that Stacy London would have viewed as heinous and my mother impractical. 

However, entering school that day and the days after, each compliment I received walking down the hallways slowly but surely broke down the armored shield. Morphing into an outlet to amplify my voice and creativity, dressing up soon became what I looked forward to each morning. I was awarded best dressed the year after that during my middle school graduation, a recognition most would scoff at. But, to me, that flimsy paper certificate was a warm embrace telling me that I was valued for my originality and expression. I was valued for my differences. 

Confidence was what I found and is now an essential accessory to every outfit I wear. Taking inspiration from vintage, simplistic silhouettes and Asian styles, I adorn my body’s canvas with a variety of fabrics and vibrant colors, no longer depriving it of the freedom to self expression and cultural exploration. I hope that my future will open new doors for me, closet doors included, at the University of California with opportunities to intertwine creativity with my identity even further.

Colorful language and emotion are conveyed powerfully in this essay, which is one of its key strengths. We can see this in the first paragraph, where the writer communicates that they were feeling searing judgment by using a metaphor: “the heaping pile of clothes on my bed stared me down.” The writer weaves other rich phrases into the essay — for example, “my screaming thoughts” — to show readers their emotions. All of these writing choices are much more moving than plainly stating “I was nervous.”

The essay moves on to tell a story that responds to the prompt in a unique way. While typical responses will be about a very direct example of expressing creativity, e.g. oil painting, this essay has a fittingly creative take on the prompt. The story also allows the writer to avoid a common pitfall — talking more about the means of being creative rather than how those means allow you to express yourself. In other words, make sure to avoid talking about the act of oil painting so much that your essay loses focus on what painting means to you.

The last sentence of the essay is one more part to emulate. “I hope that my future will open new doors for me, closet doors included…” is a well-crafted, flawlessly succinct metaphor that looks to the future while connecting the end of the essay to its beginning. The metaphors are then juxtaposed with a summary of the essay’s main topic: “intertwine creativity with my identity.” 

This essay’s main areas for improvement are grammatical. What Not to Wear should be italicized, “self-expression” should be hyphenated, and the last sentence could use the following tweaks to make it less of a run-on: “I hope that my future will open new doors for me, closet doors included, at the University of California. There, I will have opportunities to intertwine creativity with my identity even further.”

Since identity is the main topic of this essay, it would also be fitting for the writer to go into more depth about it. The immediate takeaways from the essay are that the writer is Asian and interested in fashion — however, more descriptions could be added to these parts. For example, the writer could replace Asian with Laotian-American and change a sentence in the second to last paragraph to “dressing up in everything from bell bottom jeans to oversized flannel shirts soon became what I looked forward to each morning.”

Prompt: What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time? (350 words)

Let’s fast-forward time. Strides were made toward racial equality. Healthcare is accessible to all; however, one issue remains. Our aquatic ecosystems are parched with dead coral from ocean acidification. Climate change has prevailed.

Rewind to the present day.

My activism skills are how I express my concerns for the environment. Whether I play on sandy beaches or rest under forest treetops, nature offers me an escape from the haste of the world. When my body is met by trash in the ocean or my nose is met by harmful pollutants, Earth’s pain becomes my own. 

Substituting coffee grinds as fertilizer, using bamboo straws, starting my sustainable garden, my individual actions needed to reach a larger scale. I often found performative activism to be ineffective when communicating climate concerns. My days of reposting awareness graphics on social media never filled the ambition I had left to put my activism skills to greater use. I decided to share my ecocentric worldview with a coalition of environmentalists and host a climate change rally outside my high school.

Meetings were scheduled where I informed students about the unseen impact they have on the oceans and local habitual communities. My fingers were cramped from all the constant typing and investigating of micro causes of the Pacific Waste Patch, creating reusable flyers, displaying steps people could take from home in reducing their carbon footprint. I aided my fellow environmentalists in translating these flyers into other languages, repeating this process hourly, for five days, up until rally day. 

It was 7:00 AM. The faces of 100 students were shouting, “The climate is changing, why can’t we?” I proudly walked on the dewy grass, grabbing the microphone, repeating those same words. The rally not only taught me efficient methods of communication but it echoed my environmental activism to the masses. The City of Corona would be the first of many cities to see my activism, as more rallies were planned for various parts of SoCal. My once unfulfilled ambition was fueled by my tangible activism, understanding that it takes more than one person to make an environmental impact.

One of the largest strengths of this response is its speed. From the very beginning, we are invited to “fast-forward” and “rewind” with the writer. Then, after we focus ourselves in the present, this writer keeps their quick pace with sentences like “Substituting coffee grounds as fertilizer, using bamboo straws, starting my sustainable garden, my individual actions needed to reach a larger scale.” A common essay-writing blunder is using a predictable structure that loses the attention of the reader, but this unique pacing keeps things interesting.

Another positive of this essay is how their passion for environmental activism shines through. The essay begins by describing the student’s connection to nature (“nature offers me an escape from the haste of the world”), moves into discussing the personal actions they have taken (“substituting coffee grounds as fertilizer”), and then explains the rally the student hosted. While the talent the student is writing about is their ability to inspire others to fight against climate change, establishing the personal affinity towards nature and individual steps they took demonstrate the development of their passion. This makes their talent appear much more significant and unique. 

This essay could be improved by being more specific about what this student’s talent is. There is no sentence that directly states what this student considers to be their talent. Although the essay is still successful at displaying the student’s personality, interests, and ambition, by not explicitly mentioning their talent, they leave it up to the reader’s interpretation.

Depending on how quickly they read the essay or how focused they are, there’s a possibility the reader will miss the key talent the student wanted to convey. Making sure to avoid spoon-feeding the answer to their audience, the student should include a short sentence that lays out what they view as their main talent.

At six, Mama reads me a story for the first time. I listen right up until Peter Pan talks about the stars in the night sky. “What’s the point of stars if they can’t be part of something?” Mama looks at me strangely before closing the book. “Sometimes, looking on is more helpful than actively taking part. Besides, stars listen- like you. You’re a good listener, aren’t you?” I nod. At eleven, my sister confides in me for the first time. She’s always been different, in a way even those ‘mind doctors’ could never understand. I don’t understand either, but I do know that I like my sister. She’s mean to me, but not like people are to her. She tells me how she sees the world, and chokes over her words in a struggle to speak. She trusts me, and that makes me happy. So, I listen. I don’t speak; this isn’t a story where I speak. At sixteen, I find myself involved with an organization that provides education to rural children. Dakshata is the first person I’ve tutored in Hindi. She’s also my favorite. So, when she interrupts me mid-lesson one evening, lips trembling and eyes filling with tears, I decide to put my pen down and listen. I don’t speak; I don’t take part in this story. Later, as I hug the girl, I tell her about the stars and how her mother is among their kind- unable to speak yet forever willing to listen. Dakshata now loves the stars as much as I do. At seventeen, I realize that the first thing that comes to my mind when someone asks me about a skill I possess is my ability to listen. Many don’t see it as a skill, and I wouldn’t ask them to either, but it’s important. When you listen, you see, you need not necessarily understand, but you do comprehend. You empathize on a near-cosmic level with the people around you and learn so much more than you ever thought possible. Everything is a part of something- even the stars with their ears.

The essay as a whole is an excellent example of narrative-based writing. The narrative begins with a captivating hook. The first sentence catches the reader by surprise, since it does not directly respond to the prompt by naming the writer’s greatest talent or skill. Instead, it tells a childhood story which does not seem to be related to a skill at first. This creates intrigue, and the second sentence adds to it by introducing a conflict. It causes readers to wonder why Peter Pan’s stargazing would make a six year old stop listening — hooked into the story, they continue reading.

The writer continues to create a moving narrative by using dialogue. Dialogue allows the writer to show rather than tell , which is a highly effective way to make an essay convey emotion and keep readers’ attention. The writer also shows their story by using language such as “mind doctors” instead of “psychologists” — this immerses readers in the author’s perspective as an 11 year old at the time. 

Two motifs, or recurring themes, tie the essay together: listening and looking at the stars. The last paragraph powerfully concludes the essay by explaining these themes and circling back to the introduction.

Crafting transitions is one area where this essay could be improved. The paragraph after “I nod” begins abruptly, and without any sentence to connect the writer’s dialogue at age six with her experiences at age 11. One way to make the transition smoother would be to begin the paragraph after “I nod” with “I try to be a good listener again at eleven, when my sister confides in me for the first time.”

This essay would also be more impactful if the writer explained what they aspire to do with their ability to listen in the future. While it is most important for your essay to explain how your past experiences have made you who you are in the present, looking towards the future allows admissions readers to imagine the impact you might make after graduation. The writer could do this in the last paragraph of their essay by writing the following: “Many don’t see it as a skill, and I wouldn’t ask them to either, but I find it important — especially as an aspiring social worker.”

Prompt: Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom. (350 words)

I distinctly remember the smile on Perela’s face when she found out her mother would be nursed back to health. I first met Perela and her mother at the Lestonnac Free Clinic in San Bernardino where I volunteered as a Spanish translator. I was in awe of the deep understanding of biology that the medical team employed to discover solutions. Despite having no medical qualifications of my own, I realized that by exercising my abilities to communicate and empathize, I could serve as a source of comfort and encouragement for Perela and her mother. The opportunity to combine my scientific curiosity and passion for caring for people cultivated my interest in a career as a physician.

To further explore this interest, I attended a summer medical program at Georgetown University. I participated in lectures on circulation through the heart, practiced stitches on a chicken leg, and assisted in giving CPR to a dummy in the patient simulation laboratory. Every fact about the human body I learned brought with it ten new questions for me to research. I consistently stayed after each lecture to gain insight about how cells, tissues, and organs all work together to carry out immensely complicated functions. The next year, in my AP Biology class, I was further amazed with the interconnected biological systems as I learned about the relationships between the human body and ecosystems. I discussed with my teacher how environmental changes will impact human health and how we must broaden our perspectives to use medicine to tackle these issues.

By integrating environmental and medical science, we can develop effective solutions to reduce the adverse effects of environmental degradation that Perela’s mother may have faced unintentionally. I want to go into the medical field so I can employ a long-term approach to combat biology’s hidden anomalies with a holistic viewpoint. I look forward to utilizing my undergraduate classes and extracurriculars to prepare for medical school so I can fight for both health care and environmental protection.

This student primarily answers the prompt in their middle paragraph as they describe their experience at a summer medical program as well as their science coursework in high school. This content shows their academic curiosity and rigor, yet the best part of the essay isn’t the student’s response to the prompt. The best part of this essay is the way the student positions their interest in medicine as authentic and unique.

The student appears authentic when they admit that they haven’t always been interested in medical school. Many applicants have wanted to be doctors their whole life, but this student is different. They were just in a medical office to translate and help, then got hooked on the profession and took that interest to the next level by signing up for a summer program.

Additionally, this student positions themself as unique as they describe the specifics of their interest in medicine, emphasizing their concern with the ways medicine and the environment interact. This is also refreshing!

Of course, you should always answer the prompt, but it’s important to remember that you can make room within most prompts to say what you want and show off unique aspects of yourself—just as this student did.

One thing this student should be careful of is namedropping Georgetown for the sake of it. There is no problem in discussing a summer program they attended that furthered their interest in medicine, but there is a problem when the experience is used to build prestige. Admissions officers already know that this student attended a summer program at Georgetown because it’s on their application. The purpose of the essay is to show  why attending the program was a formative moment in their interest.

The essay gets at the  why a bit when it discusses staying after class to learn more about specific topics, but the student could have gone further in depth. Rather than explaining the things the student did during the program, like stitching chicken legs and practicing CPR, they should have continued the emotional reflection from the first paragraph by describing what they thought and felt when they got hands-on medical experience during the program. 

Save describing prestigious accomplishments for your extracurriculars and resume; your essay is meant to demonstrate what made you you.

I love spreadsheets.

It’s weird, I know. But there’s something endlessly fascinating about taking a bunch of raw numbers, whipping and whacking them into different shapes and forms with formulas and equations to reveal hidden truths about the universe. The way I like to think about it is that the universe has an innate burning desire to tell us its stories. The only issue is its inability to talk with us directly. Most human stories are written in simple words and letters, but the tales of the universe are encrypted in numbers and relationships, which require greater effort to decode to even achieve basic comprehension. After all, it took Newton countless experimentation to discover the love story between mass and gravitation.

In middle school, whenever I opened a spreadsheet, I felt like I was part of this big journey towards understanding the universe. It took me a couple of years, but I eventually found out that my interest had a name: Data Science. With this knowledge, I began to read extensively about the field and took online courses in my spare time. I found out that the spreadsheets I had been using was just the tip of the iceberg. As I gained more experience, I started using more powerful tools like R (a statistical programming language) which allowed me to use sophisticated methods like linear regressions and decision trees. It opened my eyes to new ways to understand reality and changed the way I approached the world.

The thing I love most about data science is its versatility. It doesn’t matter if the data at hand is about the airflow on an owl’s wing or the living conditions of communities most crippled by poverty. I am able to utilize data science to dissect and analyze issues in any field. Each new method of analysis yields different stories, with distinct actors, settings, and plots. I’m an avid reader of the stories of the universe, and one day I will help the world by letting the universe write its own narrative.

This is an essay that draws the reader in. The student’s candid nature and openness truly allows us to understand why they are fascinated with spreadsheets themself, which in turn makes the reader appreciate the meaning of this interest in the student’s life. 

First, the student engages readers with their conversational tone, beginning “I love spreadsheets. It’s weird, I know,” followed shortly after by the phrase “whipping and whacking.” Then, they introduce their idea to us, explaining how the universe is trying to tell us something through numbers and saying that Newton discovered “the love story between mass and gravitation,” and we find ourselves clearly following along. They put us right there with them, on their team, also trying to discover the secrets of the universe. It is this bond between the student and the reader that makes the essay so engaging and worth reading.

Because the essay is focused on the big picture, the reader gets a sense of the wide-eyed wonderment this student experiences when they handle and analyze data. The student takes us on the “big journey towards understanding the universe” through the lens of Data Science. Explaining both the tools the student has used, like R and statistical regression, and the ideas the student has explored, like owl’s wings and poverty, demonstrates how this student fits into the micro and macro levels of Data Science. The reader gets a complete picture of how this student could change the world through this essay—something admissions officers always want to see.

The biggest thing that would improve this essay is an anecdote. As it’s written, the essay looks at Data Science from a more theoretical or aspirational perspective. The student explains all that Data Science can enable, but besides for explaining that they started coding with spreadsheets and R, they provide very little personal experience working with Data Science. This is where an anecdote would elevate the essay.

Adding a story about the first data set they examined or an independent project they undertook as a hobby would have elicited more emotion and allowed for the student to showcase their accomplishments and way of thinking. For example, they could delve into the feeling of enlightenment that came from first discovering a pattern in the universe. Or maybe they could describe how analyzing data was the catalyst that led them to reach out to local businesses to help them improve their revenue. 

If you have an impactful and enduring interest, such as this student does, you will have at least one anecdote you could include in your essay. You’ll find that essays with anecdotes are able to work in more emotional reflection that make the essay more memorable and the student more likable.

Prompt: What have you done to make your community a better place? (350 words)

Blinking sweat from my eyes, I raised my chin up to the pullup bar one last time before dropping down, my muscles trembling. But despite my physical exhaustion at the end of the workout, mentally, I felt reinvigorated and stronger than ever.

Minutes later, I sat at my computer, chatting with my friends about our first week in quarantine. After listening to numerous stories concerning boredom and loneliness, it struck me that I could use my passion for fitness to help my friends—I jumped at the chance to do so. 

After scouring the internet for the most effective exercises and fitness techniques, I began hosting Zoom workouts, leading friends, family, and anyone else who wanted to join in several fun exercises each week. I hoped these meetings would uplift anyone struggling during quarantine, whether from loneliness, uncertainty, or loss of routine. I created weekly workout plans, integrating cardio, strength, and flexibility exercises into each. Using what I learned from skating, I incorporated off-ice training exercises into the plans and added stretching routines to each session. 

Although many members were worried that they wouldn’t be able to complete exercises as well as others and hesitated to turn their cameras on, I encouraged them to show themselves on screen, knowing we’d only support one another. After all, the “face-to-face” interactions we had while exercising were what distinguished our workouts from others online; and I hoped that they would lead us to grow closer as a community. 

As we progressed, I saw a new-found eagerness in members to show themselves on camera, enjoying the support of others. Seeing how far we had all come was immensely inspiring: I watched people who couldn’t make it through one circuit finish a whole workout and ask for more; instead of staying silent during meetings, they continually asked for tips and corrections.

Despite the limitations placed on our interactions by computer screens, we found comfort in our collective efforts, the camaraderie between us growing with every workout. For me, it confirmed the strength we find in community and the importance of helping one another through tough times.

This essay accomplishes three main goals: it tells a story of how this student took initiative, it explores the student’s values, and it demonstrates their emotional maturity. We really get a sense of how this student improved their community while also gaining a large amount of insight into what type of person this student is.

With regards to initiative, this student writes about a need they saw in their community and the steps they took to satisfy that need. They describe the extensive thought that went into their decisions as they outline the planning of their classes and their unique decision to incorporate skating techniques in at-home workouts.

Additionally, they explore their values, including human connection. The importance of connection to this student is obvious throughout the essay as they write about their desire “to grow closer as a community.” It is particularly apparent with their final summarizing sentence: “For me, it confirmed the strength we find in community and the importance of helping one another through tough times.”

Lastly, this student positions themself as thoughtful when they recognize the way that embarrassment can get in the way of forming community. They do this through the specific example of feeling embarrassment when turning on one’s camera during a video call—a commonly-felt feeling. This ability to recognize fear of embarrassment as an obstacle to camaraderie shows maturity on the part of this applicant. 

This essay already has really descriptive content, a strong story, and a complete answer to the prompt, however there is room for every essay to improve. In this case, the student could have worked more descriptive word choice and figurative language into their essay to make it more engaging and impressive. You want your college essay to showcase your writing abilities as best as possible, while still sounding like you.

One literary device that would have been useful in this essay is a conceit or an extended metaphor . Essays that utilize conceits tend to begin with a metaphor, allude to the metaphor during the body of the paragraph, and end by circling back to the original metaphor. All together, it makes for a cohesive essay that is easy to follow and gives the reader a satisfying opening and conclusion to the essay.

The idea at the heart of this essay—working out to strengthen a community—would make for a great conceit. By changing the anecdote at the beginning to maybe reflect the lack of strength the student felt when working out alone and sprinkling in words and phrases that allude to strength and exercise during the essay, the last sentence (“For me, it confirmed the strength we find in community and the importance of helping one another through tough times”) would feel like a fulfilling end to the conceit rather than just a clever metaphor thrown in. 

Prompt: What have you done to make your school or your community a better place? (350 words)

The scent of eucalyptus caressed my nose in a gentle breeze. Spring had arrived. Senior class activities were here. As a sophomore, I noticed a difference between athletic and academic seniors at my high school; one received recognition while the other received silence. I wanted to create an event celebrating students academically-committed to four-years, community colleges, trades schools, and military programs. This event was Academic Signing Day.

The leadership label, “Events Coordinator,” felt heavy on my introverted mind. I usually was setting up for rallies and spirit weeks, being overlooked around the exuberant nature of my peers. 

I knew a change of mind was needed; I designed flyers, painted posters, presented powerpoints, created student-led committees, and practiced countless hours for my introductory speech. Each committee would play a vital role on event day: one dedicated to refreshments, another to technology, and one for decorations. The fourth-month planning was a laborious joy, but I was still fearful of being in the spotlight. Being acknowledged by hundreds of people was new to me. 

The day was here. Parents filled the stands of the multi-purpose room. The atmosphere was tense; I could feel the angst building in my throat, worried about the impression I would leave. Applause followed each of the 400 students as they walked to their college table, indicating my time to speak. 

I walked up to the stand, hands clammy, expression tranquil, my words echoing to the audience. I thought my speech would be met by the sounds of crickets; instead, smiles lit up the stands, realizing my voice shone through my actions. I was finally coming out of my shell. The floor was met by confetti as I was met by the sincerity of staff, students, and parents, solidifying the event for years to come. 

Academic students were no longer overshadowed. Their accomplishments were equally recognized to their athletic counterparts. The school culture of athletics over academics was no longer imbalanced. Now, everytime I smell eucalyptus, it is a friendly reminder that on Academic Signing Day, not only were academic students in the spotlight but so was my voice.

This is a good essay because it describes the contribution the student made to their community and the impact that experience had on shaping their personality. Admissions officers get to see what this student is capable of and how they have grown, which is important to demonstrate in your essays. Throughout the essay there is a nice balance between focusing on planning the event and the emotions it elicited from this student, which is summed up in the last sentence: “not only were academic students in the spotlight but so was my voice.”

With prompts like this one (which is essentially a Community Service Essay ) students sometimes take very small contributions to their community and stretch them—oftentimes in a very obvious way. Here, the reader can see the importance of Academic Signing Day to the community and the student, making it feel like a genuine and enjoyable experience for all involved. Including details like the four months of planning the student oversaw, the specific committees they delegated tasks to, and the hundreds of students and parents that attended highlights the skills this student possesses to plan and execute such a large event.

Another positive aspect of this essay is how the student’s emotions are intertwined throughout the essay. We see this student go from being a shy figure in the background to the confident architect of a celebrated community event, all due to their motivation to create Academic Signing Day. The student consistently shows throughout the essay, instead of telling us what happened. One example is when they convey their trepidation to public speaking in this sentence: “I walked up to the stand, hands clammy, expression tranquil, my words echoing to the audience. I thought my speech would be met by the sounds of crickets.”

Employing detailed descriptions of feelings, emotions, fears, and body language all contribute to an essay that reveals so much in subtle ways. Without having to be explicitly told, the reader learns the student is ambitious, organized, a leader, and someone who deeply values academic recognition when they read this essay.

While this essay has many positives, there are a couple of things the student could work on. The first is to pay more attention to grammar. There was one obvious typo where the student wrote “the fourth-month planning was a laborious joy”, but there were also many sentences that felt clunky and disjointed. Each and every essay you submit should put your best foot forward and impress admissions officers with your writing ability, but typos immediately diminish your credibility as a writer and sincerity as an applicant.

It’s important to read through your essay multiple times and consider your specific word choice—does each word serve a purpose, could a sentence be rewritten to be less wordy, etc? However, it’s also important you have at least one other person edit your essay. Had this student given their essay to a fresh set of eyes they might have caught the typo and other areas in need of improvement.

Additionally, this student began and ended the essay with the smell of eucalyptus. Although this makes for an intriguing hook, it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual point of the essay. It’s great to start your essay with an evocative anecdote or figurative language, but it needs to relate to your topic. Rather than wasting words on eucalyptus, a much stronger hook could have been the student nervously walking up to the stage with clammy hands and a lump in their throat. Beginning the essay with a descriptive sentence that puts us directly into the story with the student would draw the reader in and get them excited about the topic at hand.

Prompt: What have you done to make your school or community a better place? (350 words) 

“I wish my parents understood.” Sitting at the lunch table, I listened as my friends aired out every detail of their life that they were too afraid to share with their parents. Sexuality, relationships, dreams; the options were limitless. While I enjoyed playing therapist every 7th period, a nagging sensation that perhaps their parents should understand manifested in me. Yet, my proposal was always met with rolling eyes; “I wish they understood” began every conversation, but nothing was being done beyond wishing on both sides. 

I wanted to help not just my friends but the countless other stories I was told of severed relationships and hidden secrets. Ultimately, my quest for change led me to BFB, a local nonprofit. Participating in their Youth Leadership program, I devised and implemented a plan for opening up the conversation between students and parents with the team I led. We successfully hosted relationship seminars with guest speakers specializing on a range of topics, from inclusive education to parental pressure, and were invited to speak for BFB at various external events with local government by the end of my junior year. Collaborating with mental health organizations and receiving over $1,000 in funding from international companies facilitated our message to spread throughout the community and eventually awarded us with an opportunity to tackle a research project studying mental health among teens during the pandemic with professors from the University at Buffalo and UC Los Angeles. 

While these endeavors collectively facilitated my team to win the competition, the most rewarding part of it all was receiving positive feedback from my community and close friends. “I wish my parents understood” morphed into “I’m glad they tried to understand”. I now lead a separate program under BFB inspired by my previous endeavors, advancing its message even further and leaving a legacy of change and initiative for future high schoolers in the program. As I leave for college, I hope to continue this work at the University of California and foster a diverse community that embraces understanding and growth across cultures and generations.

The essay begins with a strong, human-centered story that paints a picture of what the writer’s community looks like. The first sentence acts as a hook by leaving readers with questions — whose parents are being discussed, and what don’t they understand? With their curiosity now piqued, readers become intrigued enough to move on to the next sentences. The last sentence of the first paragraph and beginning of the second relate to the same topic of stories from friends, making for a highly effective transition.

The writer then does a great job of describing their community impact in specific detail, which is crucial for this prompt. Rather than using vague and overly generalized language, the writer highlights their role in BFB with strong action verbs like “devised” and “implemented.” They also communicate the full scope of their impact with quantifiable metrics like “$1,000 in funding,” all while maintaining a flowing narrative style.

The essay ends by circling back to the reason why the writer got involved in improving their community through BFB, which makes the essay more cohesive and moving. The last sentences connect their current experiences improving community with their future aspirations to do so, both in the wider world and at a UC school. This forward-looking part allows admissions officers to get a sense of what the writer might accomplish as a UC alum/alumna, and is certainly something to emulate.

This essay’s biggest weakness is its organization. Since the second paragraph contains lots of dense information about the writer’s role in BFB, it would benefit from a few sentences that tie it back to the narrative in the first paragraph. For instance, the third sentence of the paragraph could be changed like so: “Participating in their Youth Leadership program, I led my team through devising and implementing a plan to foster student-parent conversations — the ones that my 7th period friends were in need of.”

The last paragraph also has the potential to be reorganized. The sentence with the “I wish my parents understood” quote would be more powerful at the end of the paragraph rather than in the middle. With a short transition added to the beginning, the new conclusion would look like so: “ Through it all, I hope to help ‘I wish my parents understood’ morph into ‘I’m glad they tried to understand’ for my 7th period friends and many more.” 

I drop my toothbrush in the sink as I hear a scream. Rushing outside, I find my mom’s hand painfully wedged in the gap between our outward-opening veranda doors. I quickly open it, freeing her hand as she gasps in relief. 

As she ices her hand, I regard the door like I would a trivia question or math problem – getting to know the facts before I start working on a solution. I find that, surprisingly, there is not a single protrusion to open the door from the outside! 

Perhaps it was the fact that my mom couldn’t drive or that my dad worked long hours, but the crafts store was off-limits; I’ve always ended up having to get resourceful and creative with whatever materials happened to be on hand in order to complete my impromptu STEM projects or garage builds. Used plastic bottles of various shapes and sizes became buildings for a model of a futuristic city. Cylindrical capacitors from an old computer, a few inches in height, became scale-size storage tanks. 

Inspired by these inventive work-arounds and spurred on by my mom’s plight, I procure a Command Strip, a roll of tennis racket grip, and, of course, duct tape. I fashion a rudimentary but effective solution: a pull handle, ensuring she would never find herself stuck again.

A desire to instill others in my community with this same sense of resourcefulness led me to co-found “Repair Workshops” at my school – sessions where we teach students to fix broken objects rather than disposing of them. My hope is that participants will walk away with a renewed sense of purpose to identify problems faced by members of their community (whether that’s their neighbor next door or the planet as a whole) and apply their newfound engineering skills towards solutions.

As I look towards a degree and career in engineering and business, these connections will serve as my grounding point: my reminder that in disciplines growing increasingly quantitative, sometimes the best startup ideas or engineering solutions originate from a desire to to better the lives of people around me.

This essay is a good example of telling a story with an authentic voice. With its down-to-earth tone and short, punchy paragraphs, it stands out as a piece of writing that only the author could have written. That is an effective way for you to write any of your college essays as well.

After readers are hooked by the mention of screaming in the first sentence, the writer immerses the readers in their thinking. This makes the essay flow very naturally — rather than a first paragraph of narrative followed by an unrelated description of STEM projects, the whole essay is a cohesive story that shows how the writer came to improve their community. 

Their take on community also makes the essay stand out. While many responses to this prompt will focus on an amorphous, big-picture concept of community, such as school or humanity, this essay is about a community that the writer has a close connection to — their family. Family is also not the large group of people that most applicants would first attach to the word “community,” but writing about it here is a creative take on the prompt. Though explaining community impact is most important, choosing the most unique community you are a part of is a great way to make your essay stand out.

This essay’s main weakness is that the paragraph about Repair Workshops does not go into enough detail about community impact. The writer should highlight more specific examples of leadership here, since it would allow them to demonstrate how they hope to impact many more communities besides their family. 

After the sentence ending with “fix broken objects rather than disposing of them,” a new part could be added that shows how the writer taught students. For example, the writer could tell the story of how “tin cans became compost bins” as they explained the importance of making the world a better place. 

Then, at the end of the paragraph, the writer could more concretely explain the visions they have to expand the impact of Repair Workshops. A good concluding sentence could start with “I too hope to use engineering skills and resourcefulness to…” Adding this extra context would also make the paragraph transition better to the final paragraph of the essay, which somewhat abruptly begins by mentioning the writer’s previously unmentioned career interests in engineering and business.

Where to Get Feedback on Your UC Essays

Want feedback like this on your University of California essays before you submit? We offer expert essay review by advisors who have helped students get into their dream schools. You can book a review with an expert to receive notes on your topic, grammar, and essay structure to make your essay stand out to admissions officers. In fact, Alexander Oddo , an essay expert on CollegeVine, provided commentary on several of the essays in this post.

Haven’t started writing your essay yet? Advisors on CollegeVine also offer expert college counseling packages . You can purchase a package to get one-on-one guidance on any aspect of the college application process, including brainstorming and writing essays.

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

How to Write the University of California (UC) Application 2021-2022

The University of California application is one application for all nine UC schools: UC Davis, UC Berkeley, UC Merced, UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, UC Riverside, UC Irvine, and UC San Diego. The UC app is similar to the Common App but has some slightly different questions and its own set of essay prompts. We have covered the UC app before , but have updated it for this year. 

When applying, you will submit individually to the schools you’re interested in, but be warned that each school has its own specialties and some are more selective than others. For example, UC Santa Cruz has a 51% acceptance rate, while UCLA has a 12% acceptance rate. Also, note that the UC system has a cap of 18% for out-of-state applicants. 

There are eight essay prompts on the UC application (you choose 4), one required and the other three you will choose from a set of seven questions. They each have a word limit of 250-350. Keep reading to see our question-by-question guide on how to best tackle these prompts.

General Essays (Pick 4 out of 8)

Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time.

If a story immediately popped into your head, this could be a great option for an essay. The UC schools aren’t interested in hearing you talk about the traditional leadership roles you’ve taken on during school - no captain of the football or debate team talk here. You can lead in smaller settings too -- perhaps you settled a tense situation during a group project at school, or you organized a recurring monthly trash clean-up with your neighbors. Think about times you’ve taken charge at school, at home, and in your community. You may not be the family leader, but what are you in charge of at home?

You’ll want to pick a story that exemplifies your best characteristics as a leader, and try to focus on a positive outcome instead of a general sense of positivity. Talk about how with your piece of the puzzle, everyone was able to come together to solve a problem or find a solution. Don’t be afraid to think small with this prompt!

Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.

UC might say they want you to describe your creative side here, but it will be so much more effective if you show it. Tell a story with a distinct beginning, middle, and end. Maybe you write songs or do improv comedy, or maybe you love designing floral arrangements or crocheting clothes! Whatever it is, you can tell a story about how you discovered this creative outlet, and what it feels like to indulge in it. This is also a great prompt to play with form, or to add humor and punchiness to your story. If you write poetry, write them a poem. Make sure to get creative while telling your story.

What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?

This is the perfect chance to brag on yourself - but be careful, too much brag with too little story is going to come off super cringey. If you get lost in defining your own talent, ask 10 of the people in your life to tell you what your greatest talent or skill is. Most likely, there will be some crossover and you’ll be able to work backwards from there. Pick a story that explains how you discovered you had this skill, how you’ve grown with the skill, and how you use it now.

We also recommend picking something that is not reflected in your resume, so if they already know about your prowess on the soccer field, find another one of your skills to expand on. Skills or talents do not always need to be technical - you can also talk about your incredible sense of humor, or your superb navigational skills. Just be sure to tell a story with a distinct beginning, middle, and end that demonstrates the “why” of your skill. 

Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

If you do not have an immediate answer for this, we recommend skipping this question. If you have faced a barrier or taken advantage of a unique opportunity, then go for it! Please also note that while COVID-19 probably impacted your education to a significant degree, this is not the place to discuss that, as every student in the world was impacted by COVID-19 to some degree.

When you tell your story, bring everyone into the scene. Maybe you got a scholarship to an educational summer camp, and you’re telling us all the details of opening the letter and running to tell your mom. Maybe you grew up in a district that didn’t have funding for the programs and classes you wanted, so you sought out the topics on your own. Whatever you choose to write, make sure you set the scene with the before, tell us what happened during, and expand on what the outcome was. 

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?

Like the question before, if you do not have an immediate answer to this question, do not choose it. This question will be similar to how you would answer the Common App’s additional information section, but quite a bit shorter. If you have faced serious health problems that impacted your attendance or grades, this would be a place to talk about it. Maybe you faced a difficult loss in the last few months that you feel is important for the UC schools to know about. 

We also want to let you know that even if these things apply to you, you do not have to write about them. We give you permission to not talk about any trauma or serious issues you’ve had if you don’t want to. There are seven other questions for you to choose to show the University of California system who you are without feeling like you have to dredge up any pain.

Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.

What was the last Wikipedia hole you went down? Do you secretly love philosophy even though you want to study marketing? Did a trip to the museum inspire you to teach yourself Latin? You’re going to tell UC a story (sensing a theme yet?) about a time you discovered a new academic interest and how you’ve continued to explore it. Make sure to have a distinct beginning, middle, and end and bring all the details into it that will make it come to life. You could discuss trips to the library to pick up books on your new special interest, or how you taught yourself a language, or how you did summer camps to expand your knowledge. Whatever it is, use this prompt to show UC a side of yourself they can’t glean from your application alone. 

What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?

You guessed it - this is another great prompt to tell UC a story! In the past we’ve had students write about how they created a recycling program in their neighborhood, or how one student would dress up as Santa or Cupid and pass out candy to other kids at school. Whatever you pick here, you’ll want to tell a distinct story that reflects your values.

Take for example one student who volunteered at a soup kitchen. Once she was volunteering, she realized she wasn’t being very useful and decided to help in another way. She figured out how to source the soup kitchen’s food from local restaurants, therefore creating an impact that would last longer than her two-hour-long Saturday morning shift. 

Bring us into your world when you tell this story. What is your school or community like? How did you locate the problem that needed to be solved, or find out about the situation you wanted to improve? What were your key actions, and why did you take them? Use this prompt to show some of your values and character. 

Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand out as a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?

This is the best question on the list because you can write about anything you want. Here, UC is looking for depth beyond the application. If it was on your resume or previously answered in the other prompts, don’t write about it. Like all the other prompts on this list, use it to tell a story, one that brings us into the scene and has a distinct beginning, middle, and end.

You can tell a story about your perseverance, or sense of humor, or cooking skills. Maybe you have an odd hobby, or you started making and selling jewelry at your local flea market. Maybe you spend your weekends mastering the art of cooking eggs, or you’re a theater nerd who researches string theory in their spare time. Go nuts! Show UC a new side of you that they haven’t seen yet. 

We know the admissions process can be daunting. If you need guidance on the process, or assistance with your essays, reach out to us here .

UC Essay Prompts 2024-25

Uc essay prompts 2024-2025.

Students applying to UC schools must be prepared to answer the UC prompts as part of the application process. Each year, the University of California receives over 200,000 undergraduate freshmen applications. An important part of these applications are the UC Personal Insight Questions, also known as UC PIQs. In this article, we’ll break down the UC essay prompts to help you ace your UC application.

In addition to reviewing each of the UC essay prompts, we will discuss unique aspects of the UC application. We will also share tips to help you choose the UC prompts that are best suited to you. Finally, we’ll share additional resources that can aid you in writing your UC PIQs, including UC essay examples.

Applying to the University of California

Many of the University of California’s campuses are ranked among the best colleges in the nation. Not only that, the UCs are also some of the most affordable schools, especially for California residents. So, it’s no surprise the number of students that end up applying to UC schools. With so many qualified applicants, it’s important to start early and put dedicated time and effort into your UC PIQs.

Ready to learn more about UC Personal Insight Questions? Before we dive into the UC PIQs, we’d like to share a bit about the UC application process . The UC admissions process differs in several ways from many other U.S. schools. Here are a few key facts to keep in mind before you start responding to the UC essay prompts:

You must apply through the UC system’s application, known as UC Apply .

The UC schools do not accept the Common Application or the Coalition Application. As such, they will not see the personal statement that many schools require you to submit via these applications. Ensure anything you want to share comes across in your responses to the UC Personal Insight Questions.

The UC Apply deadline is November 30 .

The UC schools do not have special deadlines like early action or early decision. However, their general application deadline is earlier than it is at most other schools. The UC application is available to fill out from October 1 to November 30 each year. As a result, we recommend choosing your UC essay prompts as soon as they become available. That way, you can write several drafts of your UC essays and polish them in advance of the November deadline.

The UCs use a holistic admissions process.

After reading your UC Personal Insight Questions, each UC school will consider your application as a whole. That means your grades, courses, special research projects, talents, and high school rank, among many other factors, are all important. As such, put effort into every part of your application. Notably, the UC schools are test blind , meaning they do not review test scores. Hence, do not lose sight of the importance of answering your UC prompts fully. Each of the UC Personal Insight Questions is a chance to prove yourself as a candidate for admission. 

We hope this provides more context as to how the UC Personal Insight Questions fit into the broader application process. Next, we’ll explore the UC schools more in-depth.

How many UCs are there?

There are ten University of California schools in total. However, only nine have undergraduate programs. These nine schools are the following, in order of most selective to least selective:

UC Acceptance Rates

• UCLA – 9% acceptance rate
• UC Berkeley – 12% acceptance rate
• UC Irvine – 26% acceptance rate
• UC San Diego – 25% acceptance rate
• UC Santa Barbara – 28% acceptance rate
• UC Davis – 42% acceptance rate
• UC Santa Cruz – 61% acceptance rate
• UC Riverside – 70% acceptance rate
• UC Merced – 89% acceptance rate

Several of these schools rank among the best colleges in California . Keep in mind that you can apply to all nine with the same application using UC Apply. While this makes applying convenient, it also means that all the UCs you apply to will receive the same UC essays. As a result, your UC Berkeley essays will be identical to your UC Davis essays and UC Irvine essays.

With this in mind, you might be wondering how to make your application stand out to a specific UC. First, start by reviewing the admissions processes for each of the UC schools you wish to attend. Then, identify key characteristics those UC schools are looking for in their applicants.

For example, consider UCLA. A successful UCLA application will demonstrate a student’s academic and personal achievements, despite any challenges they may have faced. Touching on these themes in your UCLA essay can help you build a strong UCLA application.

Make sure that your UC essays reflect your best characteristics in some form. Since the UC schools are part of the same system, they share many of the same values. Common characteristics they are looking for include creativity, problem-solving, persistence, leadership, and diversity. Use your responses to UC essay prompts to highlight how you demonstrate these qualities.

Which UCs require essay prompts?

All of the UCs require students to respond to UC Personal Insight Questions as part of their UC application. When you submit your responses to the UC PIQs on UC Apply, you’ll select which UCs to send them to. Unlike the school-specific nature of some supplemental essays, your UC essays should not mention a specific school. They are, instead, solely focused on your personal experiences.  

Furthermore, each of the UCs you apply to will review your application independently. Schools are not aware of which other UCs you applied to. Nor are they able to tell whether you were admitted to another UC. In short, although the UC essay prompts are the same at every school, they are evaluated separately by each school.

How many UC Personal Insight Questions are required?

Freshmen are required to submit responses to four of the eight available UC Personal Insight Questions. Meanwhile, transfer students must only respond to three. However, in addition to these UC essay prompts, transfer students must also submit a response to one additional required question.

Later, we’ll explore each of the eight UC PIQ prompts in depth. We’ll also share tips for selecting the right UC PIQs for you. Before we get to the prompts, let’s look at how long your responses to the UC essay prompts should be.

How long are UC Personal Insight Questions?

Each of your four responses to the UC Personal Insight Questions can be up to 350 words long. With limited space, you should focus on sharing only the most important reflections and details to strengthen your story. Once you’ve written drafts, ask a friend or mentor to help edit your responses to the UC essay prompts. A second set of eyes can help you remove unnecessary words or phrases, finding space for more critical ideas. 

While 350 words for one essay is not a lot of space, remember you are writing four essays in total. As such, you have 1400 words in total to express who you are in your UC PIQs. 

Next, we’ll share the UC essay prompts that you can respond to for your PIQs. 

What are the UC Essay Prompts?

As we mentioned above, there are eight UC essay prompts. Remember, all eight UC essay prompts are the same no matter which school you are applying to. So, you can use the same prompt for your UC Irvine essay, UC San Diego essay, or UC Davis essay. 

Here are the eight UC prompts for the UC PIQs:

Below, we’ll explore each UC essay prompt in greater detail. And, we’ll provide tips and reflection questions to ensure your responses answer the prompt effectively .

UC Essay Prompt #1: Leadership

The first of the eight UC essay prompts is about leadership. The question is as follows:

UC Personal Insight Question #1

Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time..

The word leadership often calls to mind a formal title, such as president of a club or head of student council. However, that is not how these UC prompts define leadership. In fact, the UC essay prompts allude to the fact that leadership occurs in many different scenarios. Colleges also value informal forms of leadership, such as the examples listed in the prompt.

Importantly, the UC essay prompts ask for an example of your leadership. Be sure to provide a specific example in your essay, rather than simply stating that you are a leader. For instance, maybe you stood up for a friend who was being bullied. Or maybe you created a study group to help your classmates do well on a difficult test. These are instances of informal leadership that would be excellent ideas for UC PIQ prompts.

Writing UC Personal Insight Questions about leadership can be intimidating if you feel like you haven’t had much formal leadership experience. However, almost everyone has had some experience where they’ve positively influenced others. Use these tips to discover and capture your leadership experience when answering your UC PIQ prompts:

Tips for approaching UC PIQ #1

1. ask friends, family, and mentors for examples..

Sometimes, it can be hard to see our own accomplishments. Consider surveying your friends, family, and mentors, like teachers or coaches, for examples. Ask them how they have seen you positively influence others. From there, note if any examples feel particularly meaningful to you.

2. Be specific.

As with all UC essays, you’ll want to be specific to make a captivating argument. Spend time brainstorming specific details about your experience so that you can write about it in a compelling manner. For example, if you stood up for a friend who was being bullied, consider including details about the incident. How did you feel in the moment? What stands out to you now? 

3. Highlight your impact.

In this UC PIQ, admissions is looking for an example of how you made an impact on others. So, don’t forget to include what the effect of your involvement was. Perhaps in the bullying example, your friend told you they felt supported and safer at school, and the bullying stopped. What you learned from your experiences is as important as what happened to you.

If you choose the leadership prompt as one of your UC PIQ prompts, be sure to use these tips. Thoroughly reflecting on an experience is key to writing successful UC PIQs. Strong UC PIQ examples demonstrate strong critical thinking, another valuable trait to demonstrate in your UC Personal Insight Questions.

UC PIQ #1 Reflection Questions

As you review your draft response to the leadership UC PIQ, consider whether your response answers the following questions:

• Does your response clearly demonstrate a positive impact you had on others?
• Did you provide details to illustrate your story?
• Does your essay have an insightful reflection on what you learned about leadership?

Responding effectively to PIQ #1 requires answering yes to all these questions. Now, let’s continue looking at the UC prompts with UC PIQ #2.

UC Essay #2: Creativity 

The second of the eight available UC PIQ prompts focuses on creativity. Like the leadership question, you should interpret creativity broadly. Here is the second of the UC prompts:

UC Personal Insight Question #2

Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. describe how you express your creative side..

You might read this question and think: “I’m not creative!” However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t choose it for one of your UC Personal Insight Questions. As the UC prompts state, every person is creative. We simply express our creativity differently. Creativity can include finding new routes to school in the morning to evade traffic. It might also look like discovering new ingredients and recipes for your school lunches. However you define or express your creativity is valid and could make a great topic for your UC PIQs.

When selecting a topic for your UC essay prompts, think about moments when you were particularly mentally energized. Reflect on what you were doing and how you approached that situation. Then consider whether you can tell an engaging story about that situation that demonstrates your creativity. 

Here are some tips for writing strong responses to UC essay prompts on creativity:

Tips for approaching UC PIQ #2

1. think outside the box..

Creativity at its core is about tapping into your individual passions and interests. Allow yourself to think broadly about your own creativity and release any assumptions about what it means to be traditionally creative. Your UC essay prompts are a space for you to be yourself.

2. Pick a passion.

This prompt is designed to let you highlight personal passions. Maybe that passion is drawing or singing, or maybe it is solving math problems. Whatever you choose to describe, make sure it is a topic that matters deeply to you. 

3. Paint a picture.

Even if your chosen topic has nothing to do with art, use details that awaken the reader’s senses. Help us feel the joy behind your creative endeavor by giving us specific sensory details that excite you. Make your UC PIQs enjoyable and exciting to read.

Of all the UC essay prompts, this one is about creativity – so be creative and have fun writing! That will translate into an interesting response. If you’re feeling stuck, it might be helpful to review other UC PIQ examples. That way, you can get a sense of how different students respond to their UC essay prompts.

UC PIQ #2 Reflection Questions

As you finish drafting your UC Personal Insight Questions, use these questions to reflect upon your response:

• Does your topic reflect a unique way of thinking or creating?
• Does your response reflect your passion for a creative endeavor?
• Do you include sensory details that make your creativity come to life?

Whether you are working on a UC Irvine essay or a UC San Diego essay, ask yourself these questions. That way, you can feel confident you’ve done a comprehensive job responding to your UC prompts.

UC Essay Prompt #3: Talent

When choosing among the UC essay prompts, you might be drawn to one that allows you to talk about one of your strengths. This is your opportunity to brag about yourself, while also having self-awareness and reflecting upon your skills or talents. The third prompt on our list of the UC prompts is as follows:

UC Personal Insight Question #3

What would you say is your greatest talent or skill how have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time.

The key to answering this question well is to respond to all parts of the question. Start by reflecting on talents and skills that you have. A talent is anything you feel you can naturally do well, while a skill is something you’ve acquired over time. Both require work to hone. Sharing how you put work into your passions is important for any student including this talent prompt in their UC PIQs.

Again, keep an open mind as you reflect. We often associate talents and skills with huge accomplishments, like being a famous singer or an Olympic swimmer. In fact, talents can be seemingly small abilities, like memorizing difficult rap lyrics or putting together a stylish outfit. Skills can include everything from planning fun birthday parties to listening well to others. No talent or skill is too small to mention, so long as you provide engaging descriptions and meaningful reflections. (You might hear that caveat a lot when reviewing the UC prompts.)

Here are some tips for acing the third of the UC essay prompts:

Tips for approaching UC PIQ #3

1. brag a little..

As we mentioned, these UC prompts are designed to learn more about you. If you don’t tell UC admissions officers about your accomplishments, they won’t know about them. The strongest UC essay examples share achievements that may not be evident elsewhere on an application.

2. Be honest and vulnerable.

Just because you have a skill doesn’t mean you are perfect. Feel free to share what you find challenging about this activity or how you have sought to improve. Several UC PIQ examples highlight where students have struggled or failed in learning a new skill. Whether writing a UC Davis or UC San Diego essay, this vulnerability will stand out.

3. Focus on growth.

A strong response to UC prompts always includes self-reflection. Find the balance between bragging and highlighting weaknesses by finding the lessons you learned from this experience. Maybe you have always had a knack for predicting the weather, but one day predicted wrong and ended up soaked by a downpour. Perhaps your lesson is to be humble and always find secondary evidence to back up your predictions. 

As with all UC essay prompts, try to pick a topic you enjoy writing about. That genuine interest will come across, whether you’re writing a UCLA essay or UC Berkeley essay.

UC PIQ #3 Reflection Questions

After capturing your talent for one of your four UC PIQs, consider these reflection questions:

• Did you highlight a talent or skill that is important to you?
• Did you find a balance between bragging and reflecting upon your growth?
• Did you describe your talent or skill with descriptions that make it come to life?

Check out other UC essay examples in this guide for ideas of how other students approached their UC prompts. But for now, let’s continue our exploration of the UC prompts.

UC PIQ #4: Educational opportunities and barriers

Uc personal insight question #4, describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced..

The fourth of the UC essay prompts is a unique question that asks you to share an educational opportunity or barrier. Other UC prompts thus far have asked you to focus on experiences you chose. However, this question opens the door to discuss an experience that happened to you. But remember, your PIQs should always focus on you. Just as you would for other UC essay prompts, you must make a point to highlight your own growth or learnings.

Indeed, the UC school system is very aware of educational inequities across the state and country. This question acknowledges that disparity, providing space for UC admissions officers to consider a student’s educational experience in their evaluation. Students working on their UC Berkeley essay or UCLA essay might be worried about their grades not being strong enough. Those students may wish to choose this prompt if their grades or course choices don’t reflect their best abilities. 

On the flip side, applicants can also use this PIQ to share further details about an opportunity they took advantage of. For example, maybe your UCLA application includes your summer research experiences but doesn’t offer space to elaborate on them. In that case, you may want to choose PIQ #4 as one of your four UC essay prompts.

When writing about education barriers or opportunities, you should be cautious about how you explain your experience. Here is some guidance about responding to this question as one of your UC PIQs effectively:

Tips for approaching UC PIQ #4

1. choose a barrier or an opportunity that had significant impact on your academic career..

Your UC PIQs must highlight experiences which shaped you profoundly. Some UC PIQ examples highlight how students were accepted into programs that exposed them to a new career path. Other UC essay examples discuss how their school’s lack of classes for students with special needs prevented them from excelling. Use your UC essay prompts to your advantage by being strategic about which experiences to highlight. 

2. Remain an active participant in your story.

The goal of these UC prompts is to learn more about how you approach life. After describing the barrier or opportunity, share how it shaped you. What did you learn from the experience? What did you put into the experience to make sure you could succeed? A UC Davis essay passively complaining about a high school’s lack of advanced courses is unlikely to impress UC Admissions.

3. Focus on your growth and goals.

In many of the UC essay prompts, you have an opportunity to share your intentions for the future. Whether you grew up extremely privileged or lacking resources, UC Admissions wants to understand the quality of your character. Share how you have grown and what you hope to accomplish next.

No matter which UC prompts you select, give your full effort towards making sure they reflect your best qualities. 

UC PIQ #4 Reflection Questions

In contrast to other UC prompts, this response can be answered in two distinct ways. By focusing on an educational barrier or an educational opportunity. Regardless of which route you take, you’ll want to review your response to ensure it answers these reflection questions:

• Does your response highlight an opportunity or barrier that is academic in nature?
• Do you demonstrate how you played an active role in overcoming the barrier or making the most of the opportunity you chose?
• Does your response demonstrate how you grew or learned from your experience?  

As much as your UC essay prompts are about your experiences, they are ultimately about you. Make sure you demonstrate how you became who you are in your responses to the UC essay prompts.

Alright, we’re halfway through reviewing the UC essay prompts! If these first four UC prompts didn’t speak to you, there are four more you can choose from. Keep reading to learn about PIQ #5.

UC Essay Prompt #5: Significant Challenge

Next is the significant challenge prompt. Of the UC prompts, this UC PIQ is considered the challenge essay. This is a common topic – you’ve probably encountered similar prompts for supplemental essays on other applications. The prompt for #5 of the UC PIQS is as follows:

UC Personal Insight 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.

Like all the UC essay prompts, this requires some thought before diving in — what do successful UC essays cover here? Firstly, remember all of the UC PIQ prompts are very particular with their wording. Note “overcome” and “affected” in this UC PIQ. These are the “whats” of your essay.

The UC essay prompts ask for essays that reveal more about who you are as a person and a learner. Therefore, if you use this prompt for one of your UC PIQs, your challenge should be linked to your academics. That is to say, while not all successful UC essay examples for this prompt concern academic challenges, many do.

So, what topics are ideal for these UC essay prompts? Although you may have faced many academic challenges, the best UC Personal Insight Questions go above and beyond. Some UC PIQs discuss challenges that have little to do with academics but nevertheless have an effect. When brainstorming here, think about times that you struggled academically, and pinpoint the source. Common challenges are not off-limits, provided you tackle them with specificity and nuance in your UC PIQs.

Your responses to UC essay prompts should give your readers a better sense of who you are. Think of how many UC PIQs the UC Berkeley essay readers or UC Irvine essay review team see every year. The strongest UC PIQs will discuss a challenge and the writer’s reaction in a compelling way. Here are some tips to consider when answering #5 of the UC essay prompts:

Tips for approaching UC PIQ #5

1. consider your personal narrative..

Once you’ve decided on your topic, consider the most unique or interesting aspect of your journey with your challenge. Answering UC essay prompts starts with determining how your topic relates to your personal narrative . Let your writing capture something about your personality while highlighting certain aspects of your background.

2. Focus on the journey.

It may be tempting to get caught up in the what and the why of the challenge. While these are important details to include in your essay, be sure to detail what you did to overcome this challenge. Effective responses to UC essay prompts about challenges illustrate the writer’s character through their response to adversity. 

3. Connect back to academics.

Even if your challenge was not directly related to academics, it should connect back to some aspect of your education. Emphasize ways in which you continued to apply yourself academically, despite or in spite of this challenge. Successful UC essay examples demonstrate academic tenacity—not necessarily unbroken success—throughout hardship. 

Remember, this prompt is about overcoming a challenge. Frame the challenge as something you surmounted when drafting your UC PIQs. 

UC PIQ #5 Reflection Questions

Here are some reflection questions to consider if you choose to write about #5 of the UC PIQ prompts:

• Does your essay clearly define the challenge you overcame?
• Does your approach to the challenge highlight your unique and compelling traits?
• Do you describe the effect of the challenge on your academic achievement?

Keep these questions in mind to keep your response focused and continually engaged with the prompt.

UC PIQ #6: Academic Interests

Next on our list of UC essay prompts is the academic interests essay. Among the UC prompts, this is one of the most straightforward:

UC Personal Insight Question #6

Think about an academic subject that inspires you. describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom..

Some of the UC essay prompts give a lot of room for interpretation and exploration. However, academic interest UC PIQs are rather simple. These UC essays should discuss the writer’s academic passion and their track record engaging with it. As with other UC essay prompts, look closely at the wording. Your focus may be “inside and/or outside of the classroom.” Let’s say you’ve researched astronomy on your own but your school doesn’t offer an astronomy class. If it inspires you, that’s still a great topic for this essay prompt!

Your topic can be any academic subject that you’ve pursued in a tangible way. Of course, if you’ve undertaken research or other work in that field, that experience is an excellent start. However, you could also write about personal research projects, or maybe school organizations and events you’ve been a part of. Like the other UC essay prompts, this PIQ asks not just what you like, but how you pursue your interests.

UC prompts invite you to showcase what makes you unique, from your academic passions to your creative drive. Consider these tips when writing your own responses to the UC essay prompts:

Tips for approaching UC PIQ #6

1. ground your essay in an anecdote..

Think about when you first engaged in this topic – what inspired you? How did you get involved? If it is directly aligned with your intended college major, when did you decide you wanted to continue your studies? Or make a career out of it? Grounding your essay in a specific moment can demonstrate your passion while bringing life to the person behind that passion.

2. Showcase your drive.

A strong UC PIQ essay for this prompt will be unambiguous in describing your interest and how you pursue it. But great UC essays will describe these in a way that leaves little doubt about your force of will. Learning, particularly at a college level, does not end in a classroom. A curious and driven student will take any chance to learn. Will a UC San Diego essay reader see you as a passionate, driven, inspired person? Strong responses to the UC prompts should leave the reader with no doubt that you will excel at a UC.

3. Tell a story.

Make sure there is movement in your essay. That means telling a story with a beginning, middle, and end, propelled forward through change and action. Is there a way your UC PIQ can demonstrate genuine enthusiasm for your topic through your actions? The best responses for UC essay prompts exhibit out-of-the-box thinking and a willingness to pursue—or make—opportunities.

When writing responses to the UC essay questions, reading UC essay examples may inspire you. If you’re unclear on ideal approaches for UC prompts, UC PIQ examples can steer you in the right direction. Since the UC PIQ prompts often overlap through UC application cycles, you may find guidance in past UC PIQs.

UC PIQ #6 Reflection Questions

Use these reflection questions to keep you on track during the writing process:

• Do you clearly identify your academic passion and ways you’ve pursued it?
• Do you highlight positive traits about yourself (persistence, creativity, curiosity, etc.) through your actions?
• Does your essay portray you as a flexible learner who goes beyond textbooks in pursuit of understanding?

This academic PIQ is one of the best opportunities you have to characterize yourself as a student and a learner.

UC Essay Prompt #7: Community

The next of the UC prompts asks a question common to college essays. Other UC essay prompts ask about you—your background and qualities, your leadership potential. In contrast to those UC Personal Insight Questions, this one asks about your contributions to a community. Here is the prompt:

UC Personal Insight Question #7

What have you done to make your school or your community a better place.

Like with the other UC Personal Insight Questions, the wording here matters. UC PIQ examples for community UC prompts, past and present, discuss a variety of communities, including school. Your community may be a religious or cultural community, or one centered on a particular identity. Your UC Davis essay or UC San Diego essay may even center around a hobby community, like a knitting circle.

In a similar vein, “a better place” is a key point here. Poorly thought-out UC PIQs may simply rehash a scenario where the writer exhibited leadership or initiated something. However, remember that responses to the UC prompts should address the prompt directly. Therefore, effective UC Personal Insight Questions will emphasize the positive impact the writers had on their community. Consider how your leadership or initiative improved the community and the experiences of its members and beyond.

Strong UC PIQ examples build on the personal narrative constructed elsewhere in the UC application. UC Personal Insight Questions should show the writer demonstrating core traits that they want UC admissions to know. Here are some tips to help you be clear about your contribution(s) to the community and your impact:

Tips for approaching UC PIQ #7

1. identify your community..

When responding to UC essay prompts about community, the obvious first step is to identify the community and its significance. Touch on how you got involved and what this community means to you.

2. Measure your impact.

Answering these UC essay prompts can feel somewhat similar to completing your Common App extracurriculars section. That is to say, strong UC essays often use concrete figures and details when discussing impact. Would the UC Irvine essay review team have a clear picture of your impact from your essay? Can a UC Berkeley essay reader understand exactly what you’ve accomplished from your UC essays?

3. Be honest and realistic.

Be honest about your efforts and the difference you’ve made, however large or small. The connection between action and effect should be logical. A shared calendar for your gardening club may not save lives, but organizing mutual aid through a community organization might. Don’t oversell the impact your actions have had. Of course, your UC application (and college applications in general) should portray you as an ideal candidate—but not through exaggeration. 

Finally, take pride in your contribution. Certainly, leadership tends to make for strong UC PIQs. However, you can improve your community even without being in an official leadership role. Think deeply about your community participation and how you can best highlight your impact in your UC Personal Insight Questions.

UC PIQ #7 Reflection Questions

Use these questions during the editing process to ensure you submit as strong an essay as possible to UC Admissions:

• Do you clearly identify your community and your contribution—with statistics where applicable?
• Does your UC PIQ showcase positive personal traits in the way you improved your community?
• Do you portray yourself as a helpful member of your community?

Next, we’ll review the final UC PIQ prompt.

UC PIQ #8: Beyond Your Application

The last of the UC essay prompts gives applicants carte blanche to cover anything not mentioned in other UC PIQs. Let’s look at the final item on the list of UC prompts:

UC Personal Insight Question #8

Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you a strong candidate for admissions to the university of california.

This is distinct from other UC essay prompts in that it is very open-ended. While it may seem easy to write this essay, it can be much more challenging than the other UC PIQs. Whatever topic you choose, your essay should ultimately strengthen your case for admission. Particularly if this is a UC Berkeley essay or UCLA essay, this UC PIQ should be highly individualized and impressive.

Think carefully about your topic and whether it could be used for other UC essay prompts. A chronic health condition may be better suited for the challenge essay. Efforts in activism might be a better answer to the leadership, creativity, or community UC Personal Insight Questions. Of the UC prompts, this may lend itself best to preparation through reading UC PIQ examples. Successful UC essay examples can help you figure out what kinds of experiences you may have that fit this prompt.

So you’ve chosen your topic and decided it doesn’t fit any other UC essay prompts as well as this one. How can you approach this essay? Here are some tips to help you get started:

Tips for approaching UC PIQ #8

1. focus on character..

Like with other UC prompts, there’s a question that you need to answer: why are you an outstanding candidate? Strong candidates are curious, self-driven students whose values align with those of the institution to which they are applying. Consider the qualities that make you prepared to take on challenging coursework and enrich the campus community. 

2. Fill in the gaps.

Consider how your personality and character show in your other three UC essay prompts answers. Is there another trait that a UC Davis essay reviewer would miss if they read your UC Personal Insight Questions? Maybe you mentioned a non-academic interest that you could expand on to add depth to your UC Irvine or UCLA application. Either way, this UC PIQ should add additional, essential context that wouldn’t suit the other UC prompts.

3. Save it for last.

It may be best to finish the other UC Personal Insight Questions before this one. In doing so, you can review your responses to other UC prompts to see what’s missing from your application. And, you can be sure your response connects back and complements your other essays.

If, while writing, you find that your topic fits the other UC essay prompts better, roll with it! Unlike UC prompts 1 through 7, not everyone will have something to say for this prompt. Since you can choose four of the eight UC Personal Insight Questions, you’ll have ample opportunity to reflect elsewhere.

UC PIQ #8 Reflection Questions

Keep these questions in mind throughout the writing process, from choosing a topic to revising your drafts:

• Is your essay topic best suited to this topic out of the eight UC essay prompts?
• Does your essay introduce new information or context that bolsters the strength of your application?
• Does your essay build on the narrative you’ve built in your other UC Personal Insight Questions?

Now, we’ve covered all eight of the UC essay prompts. Next, let’s discuss how to choose the right UC prompts for you.

Choosing the Right UC PIQs for You

Of the eight UC essay prompts, you can only write four UC essays. So which ones should you pick? The first step to choosing your UC prompts is to read them thoroughly and see which ones stand out. Trust your gut and start brainstorming —you may even end up making ideas for all eight UC essay prompts. There are tons of writing exercises you can use when searching for essay topics, and you may need to try several.

Once you’ve thought of essay topics, figure out which ones are most viable. Which ideas could spark great UC PIQ examples, written with genuine enthusiasm and clarity? If you can’t avoid a somewhat cliche topic, can you write about it in a compelling way? What insights can you find in your experiences that nobody else would—and how do you show them? Choose the UC prompts that excite you and enable you to showcase the traits that make you a strong candidate. 

Every strong UC San Diego essay or UC Davis essay will be personally inspiring and aspirational. It may take a few brainstorming sessions for you to figure out which UC essay prompts inspire your best writing. Be flexible when planning your essays: ideas for one of the UC PIQ prompts may end up fitting other UC prompts. In those cases, be willing to change your chosen UC essay prompts to get the best fit for your ideas.

How to Make Your UC Essays Stand Out

Once you’ve chosen your UC essay prompts and drafted your UC essays, there’s still work to be done. Between writing a first draft and submitting an Irvine or UCLA application, you must revise your essays. Above, we gave you reflection questions for each of the UC prompts. Now, here are a few questions you should ask yourself about your responses to UC essay prompts as a whole.

Do your UC PIQs paint a vivid picture of who you are and what you’ll bring to the campus community?

At heart, the UC essay prompts ask you to explain who you are and how you navigate the world. Remember, every aspect of your application is evaluated holistically, whether it’s a UCLA application or a UC Davis application. And, since UC Apply doesn’t use standardized test scores for admission decisions, your essays must help make your case. Your UC Personal Insight Questions should explore key parts of your experience in an interesting, authentic fashion. After reviewing your PIQs, a reader should have no doubt that you’re a great fit for your UCs of choice.

Have you gotten feedback from a trusted peer or mentor about how well your essays describe you?

Getting a fresh pair of eyes on a UC PIQ is an often-underrated style of editing. After you’ve reviewed them on your own, ask someone you trust to review your responses to the UC essay prompts. They may have suggestions on ways to help your voice shine through. Or even notes on if you’ve misrepresented yourself in your writing. Before putting anything in UC Apply, try to have another person read your UC PIQs.

Are there any technical errors in your UC PIQs?

This is pretty obvious, but the last thing you want in your essays is a spelling or grammar mistake. This is another reason a second opinion can be helpful! Ensuring your essays are error-free is an easy way to help polish your UC Personal Insight Questions.

UC Application Deadlines

After all that effort you’ve put into your UC Personal Insight Questions, don’t let a missed deadline ruin your chances. Since all UC schools from UCLA to UC Davis use the UC Apply portal , they have the same deadline: November 30 . Note that UC Apply does not have early decision or early action application options .

Contrary to the Common Application, which can be submitted as early as September, UC Apply opens its filing period in October. Of course, just because you can’t submit your UC application before October 1 doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start early. Your UCSD or UCLA essay writing should start well before the deadline. That way, you can ensure you have time to plan, draft, revise, and make your application stand out . Especially in light of the competitiveness of top schools like Berkeley and UCLA , you don’t want to rush the process.

Another benefit of starting early is that you get plenty of time to research the UC Personal Insight Questions. You’ll have time to read the UC prompts, find UC PIQ examples, and learn what UC admissions officers look for. If you browse UC sites, you may even find additional tips for writing your UC Personal Insight Questions.

More Essay UC Resources from CollegeAdvisor

CollegeAdvisor has a lot of experience helping students through the UC admissions process. To help more students, we’ve put our wisdom into free resources. Our online resources are open to all, providing helpful advice from current and former students, as well as admissions officers.

We have an array of broad-scope “how to get into” guides for the UCs and beyond. Our UCLA guide covers everything from the ideal GPA to UCLA essay strategies. Other UC schools we’ve covered include UC Irvine , UC Berkeley , and UC Santa Barbara . If you’re interested in other UCs, search our website for other schools on your list!

Maybe you’re still focused on the UC essay prompts. In that case, we have other UC essay guides that may be helpful to your writing process. Since the UC prompts haven’t changed significantly in the past few years, a winning UC Irvine essay approach from 2020 still holds up. We have 2021-2022 UC essay examples to inspire you as you write your own. Another excellent resource is our article on common college essay questions , which covers challenge essays and unique essays.

As some of the best schools in California, the UC schools can be challenging to get into without excellent essays. But, with in-depth, free resources from CollegeAdvisor.com, you’ll be better equipped to craft knockout UC PIQs.

UC Essay Prompts 2024-2025 – Final Thoughts

With schools from UC Berkeley to UC Santa Barbara , the UC system serves thousands of students from across the world. Applying to the best UC schools can seem daunting, especially given the eight different UC essay prompts. Even if you have impressive extracurriculars, a high GPA, and California residency, UC essays can tip your admissions odds.

In this article, we took a deep dive into the UC essay prompts, also called the UC Personal Insight Questions. We discussed each of the UC PIQ prompts and what sorts of topics may be best suited for each. Then, we went into more detail about approaching each essay, from exploring ideas to putting them together. Additionally, we provided some advice on reflecting on your experiences and choosing your four UC essay prompts. Finally, we left you with a hearty helping of UC essay examples and guides.

Your UC Essay matter

Whether you’re applying to UC Santa Cruz or ticking off boxes from UCLA to UCSD, you need strong UC essays. We hope this article has given you a steady foundation from which to start your essay writing journey. With the tips and tricks we provided, you’re better prepared to write essays to wow UC Admissions.

Still looking for more support? CollegeAdvisor.com specializes in personalized, one-on-one college advising, even before senior year. If you’re looking for individual guidance for your UC essays, reach out for a consultation with our admissions experts.

This essay guide was written by Gina Goosby and senior advisor, Courtney Ng . Looking for more admissions support? Click here to schedule a free meeting with one of our Admissions Specialists. During your meeting, our team will discuss your profile and help you find targeted ways to increase your admissions odds at top schools. We’ll also answer any questions and discuss how CollegeAdvisor.com can support you in the college application process.

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How to Write Great UC Essays (Examples of All Personal Insight Questions Included)

A step-by-step guide to conquering all uc personal insight questions (piqs), with examples of all uc essay prompts and an analysis of successful uc essays.

(Note: This article can also be found in our free, 110-page comprehensive guide to writing every college essay, How to Get Into America’s Elite Colleges: The Ultimate Guide .

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: the uc personal insight questions, overview: the uc essay prompts, how to choose uc prompts, outlining your uc essays, uc personal insight question 1: leadership, uc personal insight question 2: creativity, uc personal insight question 3: talent, uc personal insight question 4: educational opportunity/barrier, uc personal insight question 5: adversity, uc personal insight question 6: academic passion, uc personal insight question 7: community, uc personal insight question 8: everything else, uc personal insight question 9: transfer, part 3: frequently asked questions.

Whether you’re a California resident or not, you may have considered applying to University of California (UC) schools —and for good reasons. In addition to being the nation’s best public university system overall, the UC system includes several elite schools that may be better options than private schools for competitive applicants due to their prestige, diversity, and value. At the top of this list are UC Berkeley and UCLA, widely considered Public Ivies . Educating nearly quarter of a million undergraduates, UCs are a home for California residents, out-of-state attendees, and international students alike.

Given their attractiveness, admission is competitive, ranging from 8.8 percent for UCLA and 11.6 percent for UC Berkeley to about 25.7 percent for UC Irvine and 62.7 percent for UC Santa Cruz (all numbers for the 2023 entering class). And every year, it gets tougher to make the cut for some of the most sought-after campuses like UCLA, which sat at 18 percent in 2014–2015 and has been sinking steadily since.

But it’s worth the effort to apply to UC schools. Why? Because filling out one application allows you to apply to every UC school.

You can think of the campuses according to the following tiers, based on their U.S. News & World Report rankings . Eight of the nine undergraduate campuses ( UCSF and UC Hastings offer graduate degrees only) rank in the top 100 schools, with six of nine in the top 50:

Tier 1: UCLA (#15) tied with UC Berkeley (#15) in 2024, UC San Diego (#28) tied with UC Davis in 2024. Tier 2: UC Irvine (#33), UC Santa Barbara (#35), Tier 3: UC Merced (#60), UC Riverside (#76), UC Santa Cruz (#82)

(Related reading: The Best UC Schools: UC Rankings )

An overview of applying to UC schools

If you’re already filling out the Common Application, that means you’ll write a personal statement, complete the Activities section, and assemble supplemental essays for several schools. If you’re also applying to the UCs, you might consider ordering your process this way:

Write your Common App personal statement .

Shorten your Common App personal statement for use on one UC essay, if applicable.

Write remaining UC essays and fill out the UC Activities section (which is longer than the Common App Activities section ).

Repurpose your UC Activities list for Common App Activities and your remaining UC essays for Common App supplemental essays .

However it would be a mistake to treat the UC application as another set of supplemental essays, or as small fry after tackling your 650-word personal statement. Here’s how we recommend planning and then executing the essays that comprise your application to the University of California.

Why do UC essays matter? How much do they matter?

Over the past decade, as the University of California received more applications— 206,893 freshman applications for the 2024 entering class —the admissions committees found themselves unable to make difficult calls on students based solely on test scores and GPAs. That’s why, in 2017, the UC system switched to new “personal insight questions.” They are, in other words, an opportunity for you to show who you are beyond your scores; that’s why the committees dreamed these up, and it’s why spending time to craft these essays will go a long way.

These questions are also a chance to show more sides of yourself than students could in previous years when applying to UC schools, when there were fewer questions asking for longer answers.

The UC schools follow holistic admissions, like many private universities, which means their ranking system takes into account a number of qualitative aspects of your life—whether or not you’ve made the most of the opportunities you’ve been given, the level of your extracurricular involvement, and other “big picture” elements. While holistic admissions can be frustrating to those of us on the outside, leaving us to question what exactly gets weighed behind the scenes, there is one certainty: your essays matter—some folks estimate they account for up to 30% of admissions decisions—when a university tells us its process is qualitative and subjective.

Looking for UC Personal Insight Question examples? Subscribe below to gain instant access to 50 full-length example essays covering each prompt, plus an in-depth analysis of each essay to learn what UC admissions committees are looking for.

Gain instant access to 50 exclusive full-length UC personal insight question essay examples covering all eight questions, plus in-depth analyses for each empowering you to write exceptional essays.

Let’s meet our students

As we move through this guide to acing your UC application, we’ll be following a few students who successfully made it to Tier 1 UC campuses. These students are based on several real applicants with whom we have worked over the past nearly 20 years.

Student #1: Arman. Arman, a generalist, has strong grades, earning a 4.0 with high honor roll. He participates in academic team events, and is also physically active, playing intramural basketball and coaching younger children in YMCA after-school activities. He’s not sure what he’d like to major in, but he’s worked at a law office over the summer and is interested in cultural studies and education.

What’s not on his resumé? Arman comes from a mixed ethnic background—he’s Mexican-American and Armenian-American—and both cultures have informed his childhood, sometimes complementing one another, and other times colliding.

Student #2: Maria. Maria is passionate about the environment, having grown up in California during the drought. From her AP Environmental Science class to the various recycling and water-saving initiatives she’s volunteered on in her small Central Valley town in the northern part of the state, she’s learned what she likes and hopes to study. She also plays tennis and has danced since she was small.

What’s not on her resumé? She’s never pursued it in a formal extracurricular fashion, but Maria loves art, and does pottery and ceramic work here and there on weekends.

Student #3: Karan. Karan, an international applicant, is interested in the arts. He likes reading and cinema, and might want to study anything from Art History to English to French film. He moved around a lot so his extracurriculars are inconsistent, but he has made some short films on YouTube and has competed in parliamentary debate.

What’s not on his resumé? Karan’s lived in three countries: India, the U.A.E., and Canada. Due to the constant geographic instability and the need to always chase the next visa, he’s never felt quite at home in any of those environments.

Student #4: Denise. Denise, a transfer applicant, has always been interested in technology. Though her large public high school did not have much in the way of computer science courses, she got herself accepted to STEM summer programs, where her passions were confirmed. She wants to be closer to the tech world, though she isn’t sure what she’d like to study—STEM, business, or some intersection of the two.

What’s not on her resumé? Denise was raised by a single father and her family has not had an easy time financially for many years.

Student #5: Nadia. Nadia is passionate about politics and political advocacy. An enthusiastic competitor on the statewide mock trial and debate circuits, she has taken every class at her large public high school related to government and speech possible. She’s also interested in international relations and law school.

What’s not on her resumé? Nadia struggled with low self-esteem and physical and cyberbullying when she was younger. Her older siblings often had to intervene to keep things from getting out of hand. This is often still on her mind.

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As we’ve said, there is only one application required to be considered by all the UC campuses. There are eight essay prompts (called “personal insight questions”) on the UC application. UC requires students to answer four of the personal insight questions, and there’s no right answer about which ones you choose. Each of the eight UC personal insight questions has a 350 word limit.

This is not quite like your Common App. The Common App gives you the chance to make one single, bold, loud statement—a 650-word personal statement—and to embellish that essay with more information in the Activities section and, in some cases, in supplemental essays. The UC application, by contrast, gives you four chances to make shorter, more focused statements. This means you’ll want to think about coherency and consistency, while also avoiding repetitiveness.

The main difference between the UC personal insight questions and the Common app personal statement essay is that with UC, you may not be able to tell a single story in all its glory, as you can theoretically do in the Common App essay. But the advantage with the UC personal insight essays is that you have multiple chances and multiple angles to express yourself. In many ways, the UC application can feel “truer to life,” since so few of us have a single story or experience that defines us, but are rather comprised of many smaller stories. Thinking about the UC application in those terms can lift some students out of the funk that comes from the sense that you need to express your whole self to an admissions committee in order to get in.

Here are the most recent University of California freshman application personal insight questions :

Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time.

Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.

What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?

Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

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?

Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.

What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?

Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand out as a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?

Some students have the impulse to try to parcel out what they feel is their “Single Important Story” across several essays, since they have only 350 words instead of 650. We suggest not thinking of the UC application in these terms. Instead, try to offer four pieces of yourself that, when placed together, add up to make a whole.

So how do you choose which four pieces to use—or, more directly, how do you choose which four questions to answer of the eight offered? It’s not about picking one question to describe the four extracurricular activities you’ve participated in, or one question that explains your major, another that explains your personal life, and two for extracurricular activities. There’s no formula. But here are a few things to take under consideration as you determine which questions make the most sense for you to answer:

1. Recyclability

Can you reuse your personal statement or supplemental essays to answer one of the UC prompts?

Does the phrasing of any of these questions remind you of the prompt you responded to on your Common App personal statement?

For example, when considering questions 4 and 5, “an educational barrier” and “significant challenge”, recall this Common App prompt: “The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?”

Does the phrasing of any of these questions remind you of a Common App supplemental essay, or have you written something that answers the question already?

For example, question 2 asks you to describe the way in which you are creative. This might overlap with a response to one of the recent supplemental essay questions from Rice University—“The quality of Rice's academic life and the Residential College System are heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural traditions each student brings. What personal perspective do you feel that you will contribute to life at Rice?”—if you wrote about intellectual or academic creativity, as Maria did.

2. Repetitiveness vs. coherency

Perhaps you want the admissions committee to know about your experience navigating a large high school with few academic opportunities. You might see a chance to explain this in either Question #4 (which we’ll call the educational opportunity/barrier question) and Question #5 (which we’ll call the personal adversity question).

There’s no reason you can’t answer both. But you’ll need to be able to articulate a separate goal for each answer. Drawing up a separate mini-outline for each question (which we’ll explain more shortly) will help you determine whether you’re truly writing two different essays about related topics, or repeating yourself without adding new information or angles on the original.

3. Add to your uniqueness

As mentioned above, you’ll likely be competing against over 200,000 applicants for a limited number of UC seats. That means you’ll need to highlight anything that makes you stand out or speaks to your uniqueness.

Choosing questions like number six (Think about an academic subject that inspires you) or number seven (What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?) can give you space to elaborate on unique qualities you have that would benefit UC schools.

Try to think of your responses as painting a full picture of you as a person and imagine how an admissions committee member might imagine you when reading your essays. Choose to answer questions that help you stand out and provide insight into the person you will become given the opportunity to be a UC student.

4. Identify Your Strengths

Are you better at sharing a detailed personal narrative or discussing an abstract idea? Choose prompts that allow those strengths to shine through.

For example, questions 1, 5, and 7 are all about experiences or moments in your life where you did something or faced a challenge. These would be prime candidates for a personal narrative, allowing you to highlight your storytelling and “hook” the reader with attributes of your journey or personality that would benefit the UC community.

On the other hand, you may choose question 3 or 6 to discuss an abstract idea. These questions offer you the space to dive into an interest an explain the idea thoroughly. In this way, your enthusiasm for a subject can be featured. Answering prompts like these can be especially beneficial if you already know what you’d like to major in giving you a chance to explain why your preferred UC school is the perfect place to explore your passions.

5. Consider Your Campus Choices

Not all the UCs are the same. Some are more focused on the arts, others on sciences or research. Does a particular prompt allow you to highlight skills or interests that would resonate with a specific campus?

When advising our students on standardized tests who ask, “What makes a good score?” we often say strive for your highest score, not a good score. Why aim lower? The same advice applies here. You’ll likely be applying to multiple UC schools, but you probably have a favorite in mind. Research the school you’d like to attend and write about how aspects of your skills align with aspects of that school’s character. If UCLA is your dream school because you wish to study film, perhaps questions two or three would be a good choice for you to expand upon your creative talents.

Additionally, a few prompts give you the chance to be more future-focused and discuss your aspirations and goals within your answer. Choosing questions such as one, three, five, or seven grant you an opportunity to slide in future plans about what you intend to do upon acceptance to a UC and how that school will make your bright future possible.

6. Most importantly: which questions speak to you?

Your heart might not start to thud faster at every single one of these questions. But there’s likely one “buzzword” that popped out to you. Creativity. Leadership. Community. Challenge. Figure out which question contained that lucky buzzword, and work on answering that one first. That will put you in a positive headspace for continuing to the other questions that may not come quite as naturally.

While 350 words isn’t very long—about three paragraphs—it’s still long enough that you may benefit from outlining your essay in advance. The good news is that most 350-word, three-paragraph essays follow a standard structure. Some students treat their UC essays as short-answer questions, which might imply that you don’t need an outline. Try to avoid that by, instead, treating them as highly-condensed essay questions.

We’ll get into some specific examples shortly as we go question-by-question, but for now, keep this basic model of the three-paragraph, tripartite essay in mind:

Paragraph 1: Hook (and thesis statement)

In this paragraph, the writer hooks us, with an image, a brief anecdote, or a snappy sentence or two. But there’s little time to linger.

By the end of the paragraph, the writer clearly articulates their thesis statement, which will guide us through the next two-thirds of the essay.

In an essay this short, the thesis statement does not always come at the end of the first paragraph. Sometimes the first two paragraphs are taken up by captivating narration of an event, and the thesis comes in the conclusion, in the successful thematic and narrative tying-up of the essay. But when outlining and planning your essay, it’s a good idea to be certain about what the thesis is, and to try to begin to convey it—either outright, or hinting at it—by the end of the first paragraph. We’ll see some examples of it appearing in the first, second, and third paragraphs below.

Paragraph 2: Examples, illustrations, and a sense of change/growth overtime

In this paragraph, the writer brings in specific illustrations of the thesis statement, and, crucially, must convey a sense of time, change, and/or growth. Like many college essays, the UC questions ask applicants to reflect on a significant moment in order to demonstrate introspection and analytical insight. Change is often crucial to that. Usually you are not the same on one side of a major life experience as you are on the other.

Paragraph 3: Conclusions, including a sense of how the essay topic will influence the writer now and into the future

As with many good essays, this paragraph should try to lead the reader to a sense of closure, conveying a lesson and a sense of what has been learned and gained from the experience.

Here is the first personal insight essay prompt, with notes from the UC Admissions website about how to think about it:

Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time.   Things to consider: A leadership role can mean more than just a title. It can mean being a mentor to others, acting as the person in charge of a specific task, or taking the lead role in organizing an event or project. Think about what you accomplished and what you learned from the experience. What were your responsibilities? Did you lead a team? How did your experience change your perspective on leading others? Did you help to resolve an important dispute at your school, church, in your community or an organization? And your leadership role doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to school activities. For example, do you help out or take care of your family?

Leadership UC essay example

Let’s use Arman’s essay as an example:

I exclaimed, “You’re too lazy for your own good!” In the moment, it seemed like a perfect way to motivate my best friend, Serj. I was trying to get him to the gym. He’d asked me to hold him accountable as his workout partner. But as soon as those words slipped out, I saw in Serj’s posture, wide eyes, and flared nostrils that I had made a huge mistake.

This exchange had been a long time coming. For months I had texted Serj one hour before our scheduled gym sessions. Still, Serj canceled on me frequently. When he did show up, he seemed happy—but that was rare. I’d been lifting weights for three years, and I know how great you can feel because of it. But by yelling at Serj, I was not convincing him of the benefits of being active. I was shaming him. Five gut-wrenching seconds after I delivered my stinging honesty, I apologized. But we hardly spoke for two weeks. Eventually he accepted my apology, even thanking me for pushing him to be active. I knew, though, that I would have to earn his trust again as a workout partner.

That day, I discovered honesty’s best friend: empathy. I thought telling Serj the cold truth about his behavior would finally help him see that he was wrong to blow off the gym. But my honesty was my subjective opinion. When I later talked to Serj, I learned about the fears that had kept him from self-motivation—he had never been athletic, and he found it hard to believe that putting himself through a physical ordeal would be useful. He was already berating himself enough in his head. I didn’t need to do it for him. Since that experience, I have exercised more empathy when asked to lead. When coaching elementary school kids at sports camps, I praise their effort first before delivering criticism. Children are glad to retry any drill—but I know it’s in part because I’ve imagined, first, how scary it is to try something new, and I’ve acknowledged that first.

We can reverse-outline Arman’s essay to see how it’s working:

Paragraph 1:  He has a hook —him yelling at his best friend, and then he provides brief context, just enough to inform us without derailing us.

There’s not much of a big “thesis” statement when you first glance at that paragraph, but when we look closer, we see that there is one sentence that will drive us through the next two paragraphs: “I had made a huge mistake.” That’s enough here.

Paragraph 2: You could say paragraph #2 is all about offering more context for how we reached this emotionally climactic moment that served as the hook.

But it’s also doing the work we mentioned above, of demonstrating change. Note that Arman isn’t showing change or growth overtime by saying “on day one of working out we did this, on day two that…” etc. Instead, he’s demonstrating a sense of change and growth through reflection and retrospection. We can tell that he has grown since the mistake because he acknowledges why it was a mistake (“shaming him”). The paragraph also mentions an apology, which is a sign of change.

Paragraph 3:  Lastly, the essay begins its final paragraph with a very clear lesson that is an elaboration on the thesis in the first paragraph: “I discovered honesty’s best friend: empathy.” Now we can read the previous paragraphs through that lens.

Even better, paragraph three does two more things with its conclusion: First, it resolves the original conflict and we learn what happened with Serj. And second, it actually uses a personal story to discuss extracurricular activities, but without being heavy-handed. It spins out the lesson with Serj to something that is already listed on Arman’s activity list, coaching kids’ sports.

One key takeaway from Arman’s essay is its careful balance of humility and reflection. When students see the word “leader,” they can often begin to brag about themselves and their accomplishments. But your activity list can contain all the big wins and important titles under your belt. The essay is a chance for you to humanize those, and to demonstrate introspection. Arman does that by showing how he made a mistake and corrected for it.

Arman also avoids getting bogged down in abstract concepts, another pitfall of questions that ask about “leadership” and “community.” In fact, Arman doesn’t even use the word “leader” until the final paragraph—that’s a major show of strength. It demonstrates that he understands how he is answering the question—by discussing two intangibles of leadership, honesty and empathy. He earns the right to talk about honesty and empathy because he’s writing only about his own experience for two paragraphs, so by the time he touches on those big, abstract words, he’s already filled them with his own meaning.

Here is the second personal insight essay prompt, with notes from the UC Admissions website about how to think about it:

Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.   Things to consider: What does creativity mean to you? Do you have a creative skill that is important to you? What have you been able to do with that skill? If you used creativity to solve a problem, what was your solution? What are the steps you took to solve the problem? How does your creativity influence your decisions inside or outside the classroom? Does your creativity relate to your major or a future career?

Creativity UC essay example

Let’s use Maria’s essay as an example:

For twelve years, I have spent my weekends and summers making ceramics and painting at the community center, and when I need to relieve stress, I often sketch. These might seem like private acts of self-expression. But they have impacted the way I solve problems, particularly in my sustainability work. I’m passionate about the environment, and a few years ago, I realized many of my classmates didn’t understand how to live with the lowest impact on the environment. With the help of a science teacher, I founded the Water Conservation Club and set out to engage my peers. Art proved invaluable in these projects.

The first initiative we tried was a calendar initiative for elementary school students. I visited classrooms, talked about recycling, environmentalism, and clean energy, and then asked first, second, and third-graders to draw pictures of how they could live more sustainably. Their drawings showed them picking up trash, saving water, even going on a hiking trip with their families instead of flying across the country for vacations. With the children’s parents’ okay, we turned their drawings into calendar art, and sold the calendars, raising over $1,000 for TreePeople’s Drought Defense Challenge, which hopes to tackle California’s 6-year drought. I’ve visited those classrooms and found that those students are still engaged. Their parents arranged a carpool, they use leftover water to water the class plants, and recycle paper and plastic.

The second initiative was a children’s book I wrote and illustrated, called It’s Just One Drop. It followed an anthropomorphized water drop walking around town, seeing the different ways people waste water, which affected his reservoir home. The community members eventually realize their wrongdoings and work to conserve water through taking shorter showers, turning the sink water off, and doing full loads of laundry. Although the book hasn’t been published yet, I’ve used it to teach preschoolers the importance of water conservation.

In either case, I could have talked to classrooms using a chalkboard or a PowerPoint. But bringing my proclivity for art into the picture helped me reach young people who might otherwise have glazed over.

How is Maria’s essay working? It’s not quite like Arman’s, or like the standard model we outlined above, but that’s just fine. She reached this structure organically, with her first draft, and it can serve as another model for how to answer these questions.

Paragraph 1: Maria explains that she loves art (which answers “how she expresses her creative side”) and offers a clear thesis statement about how art helps her solve non-artistic problems. The thesis statement is especially strong because she’s not talking about art applying to non-artistic problems in the abstract—she specifically tells us she’s going to discuss her environmentalism work.

Paragraphs 2 and 3: Both of these serve as the body paragraphs that give two different examples of Maria’s artistic inclinations empowering her to do better work on sustainability.

Paragraph 4: Maria doesn’t need much of a conclusion here, because it’s pretty clear how art has helped her deal with non-artistic problems. She also doesn’t need a whole lot of emotional introspection for this essay. All she needs is to remind us that without her art habit, those would have been more boring projects. Maria could also talk about her prospective major or how she wants to leverage art in it, but when she reached this version of the essay, it read as complete and fulfilled in its own right.

A good application would have some answers that read like Arman’s—introspective, personal, emotional—and some like Maria’s—efficient, clear, interested in communicating her skills and activities. But too many like Maria’s will make a student sound cold and calculating, whereas too many like Arman’s might make the admissions committee forget that he is a student who can accomplish tasks and get things done.

Here is the third personal insight essay prompt, with notes from the UC Admissions website about how to think about it:

What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?   Things to consider: If there’s a talent or skill that you’re proud of, this is the time to share it. You don’t necessarily have to be recognized or have received awards for your talent (although if you did and you want to talk about it, feel free to do so). Why is this talent or skill meaningful to you? Does the talent come naturally or have you worked hard to develop this skill or talent? Does your talent or skill allow you opportunities in or outside the classroom? If so, what are they and how do they fit into your schedule?

Talent UC essay example

Let’s take a look at Denise’s essay on this topic:

The first time I touched a computer, I didn’t know it was a computer. That is to say: I am of the generation that never had to think much about technology, because it’s always been available to us. But one day in middle school I asked my father how it worked. “How what works?” he asked. “The phone,” I said, pointing to his cell phone. And then I realized my question applied to the other devices I’d taken for granted—the computer, streaming videos, apps. That summer, my dad found out about a free program at a local university on Saturdays. It would teach you the basics about computers, including how to code.

Ever since, I have been learning about coding as much as I could. My high school does not have a computer science class, but I petitioned my school to let me enroll in a few classes on technology and society, including intro to computer science, at a community college. I have also used resources like General Assembly to self-teach. I came to love working with computers and coding because each problem I had to solve goes toward building something. The reward doesn’t always come quickly—there are bugs to fix and many ways you can break what you are trying to build. But when it does, it’s visible.

I also studied design and graphics on my own and used the combination of these skills to create websites for friends, family, and local businesses. While it is not a formal extracurricular activity, it is my after-school job.

It would be funny to call coding a “talent.” It has never felt like it came naturally, but through sweat and frustration. Perhaps my talent is my interest in computers, the same thing that caused me to ask “How does it work?” when I was younger is now what causes me to ask “How can I make this work?”

Denise’s essay is built in the following manner, which may now be familiar to you!:

Paragraph 1: A hook, though it’s a mild hook. She begins by telling us a bit about what she got to take for granted as a young person, then points out that she pushed against the grain of truly taking it for granted. It’s an expert humble-brag.

There’s no clear thesis statement in this paragraph in the sense that Denise doesn’t say “My talent is coding.” Rather, there’s an implied thesis emerging at the end of the essay, when she tells us that her “talent” is a combination of determination (“sweat and frustration”) and curiosity (“how can I make this work?”). That’s an awesome way to redefine the prompt on her own terms.

Paragraphs 2 and 3: This section shows the growth and change we look for in the middle of an essay. It’s very concrete, telling us everything Denise did to get herself an education in technology.

Paragraph 4: In the concluding paragraph, Denise makes sure we don’t get lost in the weeds that paragraphs 2–3 brought us into. She’s at risk of allowing us to forget that she’s supposed to be talking about her talent in an introspective way if she doesn’t do this. But in the first sentence of the paragraph (“It would be funny to call coding a ‘talent.’”) she reminds us of the essay’s topic while also subverting it. It’s another great humble brag—in telling us that she doesn’t believe it came innately, she’s humble, but she’s just intelligently chronicled (the brag!) all the ways she worked hard to get to this place. Again, here she could choose to add, “therefore I wish to study computer science in California,” but it’s implied in this strong essay.

Here is the fourth personal insight essay prompt, with notes from the UC Admissions website about how to think about it:

Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced. Things to consider: An educational opportunity can be anything that has added value to your educational experience and better prepared you for college. For example, participation in an honors or academic enrichment program, or enrollment in an academy that’s geared toward an occupation or a major, or taking advanced courses that interest you — just to name a few. If you choose to write about educational barriers you’ve faced, how did you overcome or strive to overcome them? What personal characteristics or skills did you call on to overcome this challenge? How did overcoming this barrier help shape who are you today?

Educational opportunity/barrier UC essay example

Let’s take see what Karan wrote on this topic:

The summer after ninth grade, I had the chance to attend a pre-college program in North Carolina. It was a special opportunity because I had never before been to the United States, and I knew I wanted to go to college in the U.S. I have grown up around the world, in India, the U.A.E., and Canada. But this program had a few spots for international students, and I was selected to attend. Students took a college-level course for three weeks. I chose to enroll in a class called ‘Philosophy in Literature and Film.’ The focus, for my session, was philosophies of technology and science.

Over those weeks, I read thinkers and writers and watched films and listened to music by artists I had never heard of, from Philip K. Dick to Jean Baudrillard to Kraftwerk. I learned to think about art as what my professor called an “anxious condition”—the way society expresses its concerns, about politics, the future, and, in the case of our class, technology.

As the product of a school system where math and science are prized above the humanities, I had to convince my parents that studying philosophy in books and movies was a good way to spend the summer, and I came back personally certain that it had been. I could now see big themes and meaning in popular culture and in the books I read. And before, I was unsure of how to integrate my interest in things other people thought of as abstract: religion, philosophy, history, books, and film. My summer class showed me that ideas like religion and philosophy can serve as lenses to analyse the past and popular culture, or as the material that we use in writing books or making films.

I would like to continue this journey of interdisciplinary study in college, possibly becoming a professor. The program I attended marked the beginning of my certainty about this path.

Karan’s essay has a few things going for it, namely that it’s written in a readable and informational style both on the structural and the sentence level, which is to his advantage because he’s discussing complex ideas, including critical theory, philosophy, and more. Let’s break it down:

Paragraph 1:  This paragraph is all about the who-what-when-where-why. Karan tells us what the program was, how he came to attend it, when he went, and crucially tells us why it mattered to him (“a special opportunity”). The “thesis” for this essay will come later, and that’s fine, because the opener is very clear.

Paragraph 2: This paragraph demonstrates more specifics about the program. It’s really important that Karan does this, because otherwise the admissions committee might think he doesn’t remember much of what he learned in class. He gives just enough information—three names and one phrase used by the professor—to show that he was mentally present and, more importantly, intellectually moved by the course.

Paragraph 3: Now we get into the meat of why what Karan learned mattered to him—that change and growth. He gives several specific takeaways: he discovered the value of the humanities, and learned about what interdisciplinary study means. Again, his concreteness while discussing abstract topics works to his advantage.

Paragraph 4: Karan concludes efficiently and tells us that the summer has shaped his professional ambitions. That clearly answers the question about how he took advantage of the opportunity.

There are a few other small things Karan did that are worth noticing. He paid attention—consciously or subconsciously—to the language in the question, which differentiated between opportunities and barriers. He chose to write about an opportunity, which implies privilege; his parents may have paid for this program. But because he acknowledges it as a ‘special opportunity’ and says he ‘had the chance’ to go, he doesn’t come across as entitled, but in fact, grateful.

Here is the fifth personal insight essay prompt, with notes from the UC Admissions website about how to think about it:

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? Things to consider: A challenge could be personal, or something you have faced in your community or school. Why was the challenge significant to you? This is a good opportunity to talk about any obstacles you’ve faced and what you’ve learned from the experience. Did you have support from someone else or did you handle it alone? If you’re currently working your way through a challenge, what are you doing now, and does that affect different aspects of your life? For example, ask yourself, “How has my life changed at home, at my school, with my friends or with my family?”

Adversity UC essay example

Here is Maria’s response to this question:

It was October my junior year, when my mom learned she had breast cancer. It was terrifying. I couldn’t eat or sleep. I went to school exhausted, helped with errands, and tried to juggle classes and extracurriculars. My energy began to drop, as did my grades.

Unexpectedly, it was tennis that helped me overcome this academically and personally challenging period. Since I was six, my dream was to win a tennis tournament. But I struggled with the pressure of competition. I foreshadowed my loss prior to a match, allowing nerves take over. My body trembled; it was difficult to breathe. By the end of middle school, my losses outweighed my wins, and I no longer believed in myself.

But shortly after my mother received her news, I began to work with a new coach—Dusan Vemic, Novak Djokovic’s former assistant coach. Novak’s positive mindset had encouraged and inspired me at some of my lowest points, so working with Dusan seemed like fate. I explained my anxieties, hoping he could fix them. He simply said, “Make the most of every moment and focus on yourself. This is how you win.”

The advice was almost annoyingly simple. And yet, his Zen-like philosophy emanated every time he watched from the sidelines. It turned out that he wasn’t trying to get me to win. He was trying to get me to enjoy tennis as I had not been able to for years. I won more, though not a whole tournament.

More importantly, I took the new perspective off the court, to AP English, my toughest class, when my mind would always wander to my mom. It took me tremendous effort to write essays and comprehend the material. I was so scattered that my teacher advised me to drop the class. But Dusan’s meditative philosophy helped. I stayed in the class, focused on each step, gradually improving, ultimately earning a 4 on the AP exam. When school was out, I got my reward: I could come home and sit next to my mom, and just be with her for a while.

Maria successfully handles three challenges in this question by wrapping them into one: her mother’s illness, a difficulty with AP English, and struggles with tennis. Her key idea comes in an unexpected place, right in the middle of the essay. But because she braids the whole piece around Dusan’s philosophy, this essay works. Let’s look closer:

Paragraph 1: She introduces us to the major challenge (the hook), her mother’s diagnosis. But then she quickly and clearly articulates how that manifested to her—low energy, exhaustion.

Paragraph 2: This paragraph has a clear thesis statement—tennis helped her—and then backs into a bit of context about tennis, which is necessary for us to understand the rest of the essay. It also articulates a goal—winning a tournament—which in this case ends up being a red herring. It’s not what the essay is about, but it tells us what Maria thought life might be geared toward at the time.

Paragraphs 3 and 4: In these paragraphs we see growth and change. A change literally occurs in that a new character enters Maria’s life in paragraph 3, her tennis coach; in paragraph 4, he gives her advice which goes on to affect her life.

Paragraph 5: This concluding paragraph very clearly (though not heavy-handedly) ties up all three challenges, telling us how the tennis philosophy served her through her school troubles. Maria might have reached the end of a draft and realized that she didn’t have a great resolution for her mother’s diagnosis. It’s such a big, existentially challenging question to try to tackle in 350 words. That’s why the brevity of her final line works so well: it acknowledges that she can’t fix that, but, using that Zen-like philosophy of her coach, admits that the best she can do at this point in time is to spend time with her sick mother, and that’s pretty good.

One of the toughest things about answering the Challenge Question is the risk of cliché. Often when we are facing major challenges—illness, grief, loss, anxiety, etc—we are dealing with emotions beyond the scope of language. That means that the language we use to talk about it, with other people, with therapists, and in an essay, can sound like platitudes. “Just be in the moment” is, in a vacuum, a pretty cheesy lesson, no matter how much truth is contained in it.

Maria does a good job here of acknowledging that the words her coach gave her were not enough. She characterizes his words (“Zen-like philosophy”) and interprets them for us, telling us they weren’t about getting her to win but about giving her another kind of strength. It doesn’t matter if she’s gotten her coach’s intention right—what matters is that the admissions committee sees how Maria internalized those words, which would be clichéd on their own, and made them into something particular and healing for her circumstance.

Here is the sixth personal insight essay prompt, with notes from the UC Admissions website about how to think about it:

Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom. Things to consider:  Many students have a passion for one specific academic subject area, something that they just can’t get enough of. If that applies to you, what have you done to further that interest? Discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experience you have had inside and outside the classroom — such as volunteer work, internships, employment, summer programs, participation in student organizations and/or clubs — and what you have gained from your involvement. Has your interest in the subject influenced you in choosing a major and/or future career? Have you been able to pursue coursework at a higher level in this subject (honors, AP, IB, college or university work)? Are you inspired to pursue this subject further at UC, and how might you do that?

Academic passion UC essay example

Nadia has a strong response to this question that we will use as an example:

The academic subject from which I draw the most inspiration is US Government and Politics. My interest in understanding the process through which our country’s government affects every individual stems from observing the material I learned in the classroom applied in a real world setting.

My interest in the subject encouraged me to enroll in the Advanced Placement course. One of the topics discussed that spoke to me most is the power of political participation. Inspired by this particular lesson, I practiced my activism by applying for an internship at the office of my district’s congressman, Matt Dababneh. There, I spent four months answering phone calls, filing papers, and reading letters, and learned the importance of community relations, social skills, and organizational skills needed to thrive in politics.

Following the completion of my internship, I continued my community involvement by joining my school’s student council, where I was selected by the administration to become class representative. My duties were similar to that of my internship, where I addressed complaints from students and moderated them directly to the administration. One example was when a group of students approached me regarding the lack of a mock trial class at our school. I gathered signatures, wrote a letter of request, and took the matter to the principal. My community participation led the school to offer a mock trial class to all middle and high school students.

At the University of California, I intend to pursue a major in Political Science to further my understanding of politics and the impact of each individual on policymaking. Furthermore, I am compelled to participate in student government upon my acceptance to UC schools in order to exercise my interests in a much larger and diverse community of students.

Nadia’s essay is short, efficient, and gets to the point—but it gets the job done. A word like “passion” can sometimes cause us to entertain flights of fancy, trying to convey something about the ineffable reasons we find poetry transcendent, or our abstract dreams of becoming a doctor in the wake of a grandparent’s death. Sometimes it is the right choice to use dramatic language to talk about a dramatic issue. But Nadia’s approach matches her personality. She’s a get-things-done kind of person. She developed an interest in politics, and went about chasing that career.

We can look more closely, still:

Paragraph 1: This is an example of an essay that opens with its thesis statement. Nadia doesn’t fuss about with a hook. She could—another student might open with the day they first saw the California state capitol—but her essay is just fine without that, because it’s clear and communicative. She also tells us that her interest stemmed from the intersection of theory and real-life application, which means that we can expect her essay to discuss the real-life application of politics.

Paragraphs 2 and 3: And indeed it does! Off the bat, Nadia tells us about working for Dababneh in paragraph 2, and in the ensuing paragraph, about her student council work. Giving us two different experiences is great because it shows a pattern of interest in the subject. It’s even better that Nadia draws a through-line—she talks about her experience at the Congressman’s office influencing her run for student government. That tells the admissions committee not only that there was change and growth, that key quality the middle of the essay must convey, but also that Nadia is aware of that change and growth and can make narrative sense of it.

Paragraph 4: Nadia concludes with a natural spin-it-forward take. At UC, she plans on continuing with these interests, and she knows exactly how.

As is the case with many of these responses, we wouldn’t want all of Nadia’s essays to read exactly like this. We’d want her to have a little bit more personal introspection in at least one of the others, even if that doesn’t come naturally to her. But this essay is spot-on in answering the question honestly and with good energy.

Here is the seventh personal insight essay prompt, with notes from the UC Admissions website about how to think about it:

What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?   Things to consider: Think of community as a term that can encompass a group, team or a place — like your high school, hometown or home. You can define community as you see fit, just make sure you talk about your role in that community. Was there a problem that you wanted to fix in your community? Why were you inspired to act? What did you learn from your effort? How did your actions benefit others, the wider community or both? Did you work alone or with others to initiate change in your community?

Community UC essay example

We’re going to turn to Nadia again, here:

For most of my childhood, I was overweight. I was bullied by my classmates, who pushed and shoved me and called me “fatso” and “blimp.” When I was fourteen, I began eating healthier and exercising. It took two years to shed not only the weight but also the pain that had come with being a pariah. I did not want anyone else to suffer from the physical and mental pain that I endured as an overweight child.

In order to spread awareness about childhood obesity, I co-founded the Healthy Kids club, which organizes fundraisers and invites guest speakers to educate students about early-onset heart disease and diabetes, as well as how these diseases follow into adulthood and worsen with age. We worked to get healthier snacks in school, successfully banning certain junk foods like chips and soda, and regularly met with cafeteria staff to ensure health conscientious items remain on the menu.

In my junior year, we registered the organization as a 501c (3) nonprofit. Working with other schools in the Los Angeles area, we initiated a program called “An Apple a Day Fades it Away”, where we visited schools, handed out apples, and presented elementary school students with activity-filled days of education about the critical role healthy eating plays in lifelong health.

My own experience led me to found the group, and continues to inform our presentations. At each session with young people, I tell my own story. The ability to show students pictures of myself from five years ago, not being able to play sports or participate in PE due to asthma, and now the captain of a varsity team, means I can connect with students on a personal level. As I depart for college, I will ensure that the Healthy Kids Foundation remains a presence in my high school hallways, and I hope to create a chapter of it at the University of California, where I can draw on college students to serve as volunteers, spreading the message in even more communities.

Nadia’s doing a lot well here. Notice that in this essay, she did get pretty personal, which makes that hyper-efficient academics question more tenable.

Talking about her own vulnerability also serves another purpose: it gives her humility in a question that might often invite a sense of savior-like arrogance. Most of us, at eighteen, haven’t solved a major problem in the world; we might have put in some respectable work in our communities, though, and this question gives students a chance to articulate that.

Getting this question right requires a sense of scope and scale—students should be able to talk about a major issue they care about, and then explain how they’ve addressed it in their own communities, without pretending that they’ve solved the root cause of that entire issue. In other words, you should try to tap into a global issue and address how you dealt with it locally.

We’ll take a look at the play-by-play to see how Nadia’s achieving this effect:

Paragraph 1: Here, Nadia does have a hook—her own pain, frustration, and change—and by the end of the paragraph, she’s made the personal public, turning her pain into a force for larger good.

Paragraphs 2 and 3: These paragraphs document and detail what Nadia did in the group. Her trademark efficiency is back here. She’s clear about her accomplishments, which is a breath of fresh air for admissions officers, who often see vagueness when young people try to categorize what exactly they do with their extracurriculars.

Paragraph 4: Nadia concludes this by returning to her personal story, which bookends the essay nicely, and then she also does what she did in the academics question, spinning her interest forward.

Here is the eighth and final personal insight essay prompt, with notes from the UC Admissions website about how to think about it:

Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand out as a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California? Things to consider:  If there’s anything you want us to know about you, but didn’t find a question or place in the application to tell us, now’s your chance. What have you not shared with us that will highlight a skill, talent, challenge or opportunity that you think will help us know you better? From your point of view, what do you feel makes you an excellent choice for UC? Don’t be afraid to brag a little.

Everything else UC essay example

For this last essay, let’s return to Arman:

I grew up in an insular ethnocultural community that is very proud of its “pure” heritage. As a biracial Mexican-American and Armenian individual attending an Armenian private school with “full Armenians” my entire life, I have often felt like an outsider. For example, I have heard many Armenians express serious disapproval about Armenians like my mother marrying odars, that is, foreigners. Unfortunately, this way of thinking insults my proud Mexican-American heritage, and leads me to wonder whether I am a disgrace or even a burden to my community. This thought process extends to my relationships with others. I am often wondering if race plays into how people interact with me.

Of course, I’ve experienced many occasions when Armenians wanted to learn about me or become friends initially based on my biracial status. But the bad has sometimes outweighed the good, causing my confidence to plummet.

I hope to develop a more positive self-concept at the University of California through interactions with diverse students and by studying my two heritages in a way I cannot in high school. Through ethnic studies classes—many of which were pioneered at UC schools—and extracurricular groups, I think I can have more conversations about race that have not been possible in my life thus far. By learning from professors and other student leaders, I will be able to facilitate complex, yet necessary conversations about race for others, in turn, so that members of my college community feel integrated and appreciated for their differences.

Arman uses this essay to talk about exactly what isn’t on his resumé. In another one of his essays, the Academic Passion question (Question #6), he did discuss his interest in cultural studies and global identities. But he hasn’t had a chance to discuss this element of his personal life yet, so here it goes. It’s a good way to make use of Question #8.

You might also take advantage of Question #8 to adapt your Common App PS, if you haven’t already been able to shorten and reuse that. This is a chance to communicate what hasn’t already found a home.

For one last time, let’s break down Arman’s essay:

Paragraph 1: Arman is primarily interested in communicating something personal as clearly as possible here, so he doesn’t mess around with a hook, but instead moves quickly to his thesis: “I have often felt like an outsider.” He uses the rest of this question to provide informational context for a reader who doesn’t know what it was like to grow up Armenian-American and Mexican-American.

Paragraph 2: This is a middle paragraph that doesn’t quite show the “change and growth” we’ve been talking about, but it still works. In this case, Arman has set up one concept—his outsider status—in paragraph 1, and he uses paragraph 2 to briefly caveat it, acknowledging what his reader might be thinking. (“Is that really always the case?”) But he quickly moves it back to his territory.

Paragraph 3: Now, Arman spins things forward, and in a very rich manner. He not only says “I want to go to the University of California to pursue xyz,” but demonstrates that he has fully imagined how his life can change intellectually and personally from attending a UC school. He also shows that he knows something about the UC system, referencing its diversity and academic history.

It’s a short essay, well below word count, but it answers the question with intelligence and flourish, so hats off!

Students applying to transfer to the University of California must answer three of seven questions— the question list is the same as the above, minus the “Academic Passion” question. There is, for the fourth response, one required question all transfer applicants must address. Here it is:

Please describe how you have prepared for your intended major, including your readiness to succeed in your upper-division courses once you enroll at the university.

Things to consider: How did your interest in your major develop? Do you have any experience related to your major outside the classroom — such as volunteer work, internships and employment, or participation in student organizations and activities? If you haven’t had experience in the field, consider including experience in the classroom. This may include working with faculty or doing research projects. If you’re applying to multiple campuses with a different major at each campus, think about approaching the topic from a broader perspective, or find a common thread among the majors you’ve chosen.

Transfer UC essay example

Let’s see how Denise handled this question:

I have spent my first two years at Foothill Community College in Los Altos, California, learning about the technology industry, which is in our backyard. It has been an education both in and out of the classroom. In the classroom, I have focused on computer science, while out of the classroom I have completed internships to learn more about Silicon Valley, where I hope to make my career.

My computer science courses have prepared me technically for a career in the industry. From my class in IT systems to my honors distinctions as a Cisco securities technician and as a VMWare certified professional, I have the skills to find work at a technology company (as I did as an intern last summer at a software firm in San Jose). My hope is that by transferring to the University of California, I can add to these competencies a larger sense of the technology world, by learning about advancements across fields from virtual reality to artificial intelligence.

I have also prepared to pursue a second major in business at the University of California. I have taken courses in basic business law, where I learned more about the regulations technology companies are subject to, and in marketing, where I practiced explaining complicated scientific ideas to lay people and learned more about the psychology behind getting users’ attention and keeping it. In addition to my tech internship at the software firm last summer, I have also continued working with that company’s marketing department part-time. I interview companies who use this firm’s software and write up case-studies about their use-cases, which the company then uses to get more clients. All this has trained me to understand the day-to-day workings of businesses. I look forward to learning more about international business trends at the University of California, and to attending public talks led by business leaders around the state.

Denise tackles this question in three neat paragraphs:

Paragraph 1: She ties together her two interests, in computer science and business, and also states that she’s worked on them in and out of the classroom.

Paragraph 2: She devotes this paragraph to talking about technology. Her resumé and GPA are both a little stronger on business matters, but she’s articulated a clear interest in technology, which makes this paragraph ring authentically. It also recalls her other essay about her talent, and keeps a consistent picture.

Paragraph 3: Denise then does the same thing in her business paragraph. In both paragraphs, she makes sure to spin things forward, making it clear that she has goals that will be much more easily achieved if she can attend the University of California.

How should I think about the activities section? Can I copy and paste my Common App activities?

Take a look at our Common App Activities Section guide for general help with tackling extracurriculars. You’ll notice that the UC application lets students go longer, listing up to 30 activities, whereas the Common App won’t let you write down more than 10 activities. The UC application also divides things into categories, including Coursework other than A-G, Educational Prep Programs, Volunteer & Community Service, Work Experience, Awards & Honors, and Extracurricular Activities.

Because the UC application allows for more entries—and a higher character count, 500 as opposed to 150—than the Common App, we suggest writing the UC list first, then figuring out what your top 10 most important or meaningful activities are and cutting those down to size for the Common App.

(Suggested reading: How to Write an Impressive UC Activities List )

Should I apply to all the UCs? How should I choose, if I’m not applying to all of them?

The University of California makes it easy to apply to its campuses; all you have to do is click the boxes next to schools’ names. We advise you to apply to all the schools you’re even remotely interested in if you have the financial resources to pay each application fee ($70 per school).

To choose which schools to apply to, research introductions to the campus provided by the university admissions offices, try to visit, watch YouTube videos of campus tours, and speak with current students and alumni about their college experience. Those will give you a good sense of the qualitative elements that distinguish campuses from one another.

I’m an out-of-state student. Do I stand a chance of getting in?

You do, but it’s harder. Each campus has different demographics . At UC Berkeley, about 79.9% of freshmen in the fall of 2023 were in-state students, whereas at UC Riverside, 94.4% were California residents. Out-of-state applicants must have a 3.4 GPA or above, and never earn less than a C grade. You can find more information about the differences between applying as an in-state versus out-of-state student here , from the admissions office.

I’m an international student. Should I apply to the UC system?

The University of California is a popular choice for international students for many reasons. These are big research schools, and some of the best in the world. Though international students make up a small percentage of UC students across all campuses—just over 10%—it’s still worth applying to as many of the campuses as you can.

I attend a competitive high school in California—does this ruin my shot at getting into the highest-ranked UCs (e.g., UC Berkeley and UCLA)?

There are longstanding questions among California residents about how the UCs make their decisions. There have been reports, for instance, about capping out-of-state admits to keep things from being too competitive for in-state students. We’ve also heard that UC schools prefer to admit international students because they pay full tuition. Nevertheless, one thing college counselors seem to agree on: UCs, even the “lower-tiered” ones, make for very competitive safety schools.

In general, college admissions are getting more competitive because more people are applying to college. This is the case for in- and out-of-state applicants. But it seems like the UCs have responded to public criticism a few years ago by holding out-of-state applicants to high standards (requiring a baseline of a 3.4 GPA), and trying to give spots to more Californians.

Overall, though, students who attend better schools with more resources are expected to achieve higher academic and extracurricular accomplishments than their counterparts at schools with fewer AP classes, extracurriculars, etc. Holistic admissions means students are evaluated within their own context, based on whether or not they took full advantage of what was available to them. Many students from competitive public and private high schools across the state get in each year, so it's certainly possible to get into a Tier 1 UC regardless of where you attended high school.

Does my declared major matter for getting into one UC or another?

Admissions committees don’t expect your major to stay stable between what you put on your application and what you end up studying, so in many cases you aren’t applying for admission to a particular department. The exceptions are engineering, which requires a separate application at UC Berkeley (and applying as an undeclared major as an engineer is very competitive); arts and architecture, engineering and applied science, nursing, and theater/film/television at UCLA; and dance, music, engineering and creative studies at UCSB.  

But if you feel strongly about one course of study or another, you might consider making that a topic or a mention in one of your essay responses. The admissions committee is looking for a clear story across your four essays, so if you’re interested in biology and medicine but write two essays about your high school English class, you might also want to balance that with an answer that explains your interest in medicine, or even how your love of reading dovetails with your interest in biology and medicine.

About the Author

Dr. Shirag Shemmassian is the Founder of Shemmassian Academic Consulting and one of the world's foremost experts on college admissions. Over the past 15 years, he and his team have helped thousands of students get into top programs like Harvard, Stanford, and MIT using his exclusive approach.

Want to learn more about what it takes to get into UC schools?

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Last updated April 17, 2023

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Blog > UC Essays > How to Answer the UC Essay Prompts

How to Answer the UC Essay Prompts

Admissions officer reviewed by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University

Written by Alex McNeil, MA Admissions Consultant

Key Takeaway

Taken collectively, the University of California receives more college applications every year than any other set of institutions in the world.

As a proud Californian, I can't help but love the UCs. Where else do you find such a massive, well-funded, geographically dispersed system of top-quality public education?

California rules.

Ok, got that out of my system. Time to talk about how you can actually get into the UCs by mastering those devilish "personal interest questions," better known as the UC essays.

UC admission is an increasingly pitched battle

I know I just went off about how good the UCs are. But the reality is, they aren't what they used to be from at least two perspectives: cost and ease of admission.

Did you know that tuition at UC Berkeley in 1980 was $2,600 per year? Today the cost of attending is $19,000 and more than $50,000 yearly for out-of-state students.

Equally alarming is the shift in admission rates over that time. In 1980 only  9,000 students  applied to Berkeley. In 2021 more than 85,000 applied. Today the admission rate at Berkeley is just over 11%. These same trends have unfolded at the other UC campuses, as well.

So students who want to attend Berkeley, UCLA, or any of the UC schools will need to bring their A-Game.

That means, of course, killing it academically throughout high school. Test scores no longer matter for UC admission, as the UC collectively decided to throw out SAT and ACT scores in the evaluation process.

Indeed, UC admission comes down to a few factors: grades, recommendations, and essays.

I have no control over your grades or your recommendations (although I do talk about recommendations elsewhere). I hope, however, to have a positive influence on your UC essays.

That's what this post is dedicated to, anyway. This is a long post, so let me give you a quick roadmap.

First, we’ll go over the basics: what the UC essays are, what all they require of you, and how they’re evaluated.

Then we’ll move into talking about the three “rules” (read: strategies) that I encourage all students to follow to write the best UC essays possible.

Finally, I’ll go through each UC essay prompt in turn. I’ll break down what every single prompt is asking you to do and give you brainstorming and outlining exercises to get you started. I’ve also included UC essay examples for all eight prompts so you know what you should look for in your own.

Okay, ready? Let's get into it.

What are the UC Essays?

The UC essays are a set of 8 prompts from which applicants must select and answer four. These prompts provide you an opportunity to show UC admissions committees exactly who you are.

The UC website  introduces  these prompts in this slightly bizarre way: "Imagine UC was a person. If we met face-to-face, what would you want us to know about you?"

OK, don't love the idea of imagining a massive institutional system as a singular person, but there it is.

Instead of picturing the UCs as a person, try approaching your UC essays with a few institutional values in mind. Things like intellectual curiosity, community-mindedness, innovation, leadership, and altruism should underlie your essay writing.

Why? Because those are the values central to the University of California system. The University of California’s motto is, “ Let there be light ,” and the Office of the President sums up the University’s mission with these three phrases : We Teach. We do research. We provide public service.

Since you’re applying to join this institution, your essays are the perfect place to demonstrate that you belong there.

Now, back to the essays themselves.

UC Personal Insight Question Word Limit

Each of the four essays you select has a maximum word length of 350 words. That means that you’ll be writing a maximum of 1,400 words for your UC essays.

But don’t worry about perfectly meeting this word limit for every single essay. You should shoot to hit at least 275 words for each essay, though.

If you’re using a word processor, 275 words is just over half a page single-spaced or a full page double-spaced. If you’re on the upper end of the word limit, you should be about 3/4 page single-spaced or almost 1.5 pages double-spaced for every single essay.

As long as you’re within the word count, though, what matters most is the quality of your essays.

How Important are Personal Insight Questions?

As the UC explains, the UC Personal Insight Questions play an important role in UC admissions decisions.

The UC system emphasizes that all the prompts are evaluated equally; that is, no prompt is more or less valuable to answer than any of the others.

With that information in hand, you should feel comfortable choosing the four prompts that best suit your needs. Don’t worry about an admissions officer analyzing why you chose the prompts you chose. Just choose the ones that let you tell your story in the fullest and most strategic way possible.

Also be comforted by the fact that the UCs explicitly state that there isn’t a right or wrong way to answer each prompt. Now, some ways are definitely better than others (and we’ll get to that in a minute). But UC admissions officers won’t go into your essay with an already-established idea of what your essay should be about.

But just because you have some flexibility with the Personal Insight Questions doesn’t mean that you should just write whatever you want. They’re an extremely important part of the selection process, nearly equal to the importance of one's grades and academic performance.

Each individual UC campus gives different weight to the essays in the decision process. You can click through each campus to read more about that on the UC’s website . But no matter which campuses you’re applying to, your admissions officers will base their admission decision, at least in part, on your essays.

Phew! So as with any college essay, the stakes are high.

But what makes UC essays a bit challenging is the fact that they are completely different animals than the Common Application Essay or school-specific supplementals (if you want to read more about either of those, check out our Resource Hub). UC essays require a totally different approach to presenting your narrative.

Before we get into our strategies for approaching your UC essay narrative, it’s important to look more specifically at how the UCs evaluate your essays.

UC Points of Comprehensive Review

One of the reasons college essays are so hard to write is because it’s difficult to know what’s expected of you. You write your essays as well as you can, you submit them when you’re ready, and you hope for the best.

On the other side of the admissions portal is an admissions officer who you’ve likely never met. They don’t know you, so all they have to go on is what you and your recommenders have put on paper.

Similarly, colleges don’t typically put out rubrics or outline exactly what they want to see of you.

Well, most colleges don’t. Thankfully for all of us, the UCs do.

In a list called the “Points of Comprehensive Review,” the UC system describes in detail each part of their application review process. If you are really interested in this stuff, it might benefit you to read through the UC's own information on a page called " How applications are reviewed ."

But I’ll summarize them for you here.

First off, the UCs, like the vast majority of colleges, evaluates your academic performance within the context of your school. For example, if your school doesn’t have any AP or IB classes, your application will be evaluated differently than someone whose school does.

Other points of review are also relatively standard among admissions committees. These include factors like GPA, the number and level of rigorous classes, and class rank.

The UCs also look for students who have demonstrated commitment to and excellence at particular subject areas or special projects. That means things like going to your local college to take a more advanced math class or working with your city to study pollution in your nearby stream—things outside of the classroom that show initiative and impact.

If you’re following along on the UC’s How Applications are Reviewed list, then you’ll see that numbers 10-12 are bulky. They’re also the places where your UC essays can shine the most light and have the biggest impact, so pay close attention.

Number 10 lists off a number of considerations, including things like special talents, achievements, intensive studies or explorations, leadership, community service, and intellectual vitality.

Number 11 references the impact you’ve had on your school community, including special projects related to academics, school events, or programs.

Finally, number 12 states that the UCs also factor in how impressive your accomplishments are relative to your personal and family background.

If it’s your senior year, you can’t do much about where you fall on the first half of this list. Factors like GPA, class rigor, and extracurricular performance are, at this point, somewhat out of your control.

But these soft factors also play an important role in determining whether you’ll be admitted. How you talk about your accomplishments, your role in your community, your leadership skills, and your identity matters.

That’s why your essays matter. And that’s why it’s important to write them strategically.

Scroll to the bottom of the page if you want to jump straight to our prompt-specific guides, but we think it’s helpful to first go over three rules that will keep your UC essay strategy on track.

Writing the UC Essays

The UC essays are entirely different than your Common Application essay or supplemental essays. In particular, the most important thing you need to know about the UC essays is that they require a different tone and structure than the other, more personal essays required by many schools.

But if you do the UC essays right, they can also serve as the groundwork for all your other writing. This is because UC essays are relatively straightforward and to-the-point. You tell a story, highlight what steps you took to make a change, and reflect briefly on what it all means.

Going through this thought process for every UC essay you write can give you great material for your personal statement and supplemental essays. So take the process seriously, not only for your UCs but also for your other applications, too.

Before we go through the prompts, and definitely before you begin writing, we need to go over three strategies that will give your essays the best shot possible.

Here they are—are a few "rules" that will help you tackle the UC essays.

Rule #1: UC Essays Should Cut Straight to the Point

In non-UC personal college essays, it is generally OK to be reflective and abstract. Of course, the best personal essays are defined by their attention to detail. But many personal essays land on ambiguous and uncertain footing. There is often no clear-cut conclusion or lesson, and for those essays, that's OK.

But the UC essays do not follow the same rubric.

You simply cannot write a UC essay in the same way you write a Common App personal statement. This is because the UC essays are evaluated partly on their directness and specificity. They are not exercises in creative writing or in unvarnished reflection.

Each UC essay should tell a straightforward story from your life. They should highlight an experience, what you learned from it, and (sometimes) how the experience will shape your future.

Part of writing direct, to-the-point UC essays is also about effectively reading and understanding each prompt. The prompts often contain multiple parts and can have confusing wording. I’ll walk you through each one, but it’s important that you know the why behind doing prompt analyses.

Consider prompt #5 as an example: "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? "

This is not an invitation to tell a long story about the feeling of being privileged and bereft of topics for your college essay.

Instead, it's a time to talk about an acute problem (either persistent or temporary) and the actions you took to overcome it. The prompt also asks: How did it affect your academic achievement?

We can answer this prompt well if we do three things in this specific order:

• Explain a specific problem. Be a good journalist and expand on who, what, where, when, and why?
• Talk about the solution. What did you do to deal with your problem?
• Talk about the effect the problem had on your academics.

I know this might seem self-evident. But countless students have (and will continue to) roast themselves on prompts like this because they neglect to address a third of it. Every single part is important. The order in which you write about each part is important.

In case I haven't been clear: The UC essays require straightforwardness. Answer the prompt. Directly.

Rule #2: Try to Write the UC Essays First

It can be hard to navigate the transition from a reflective personal statement to the UC essays. That's why I usually have my students tackle the UC prompts first.

There are two benefits to this.

First, the UC applications are due earlier (November 30th) than most other schools. At up to 1,400 words collectively, they're a pretty major undertaking. So it's great to get going early, otherwise you’ll be stressed and write worse essays.

Second, I usually find that in the process of writing the UC prompts, my students discover the germs of the stories that they want to write about for their common application or for school-specific supplemental essays.

(Prompts about intellectual vitality, in particular, end up being easy to translate over to supplemental essays, and the prompts that ask about personal background can help you think about the stories that are most important to you.)

The UC essays are an exercise in concision. You will need to pare down your writing so that only the most essential details are present. If you rise to meet the challenge of the UC essays early, the rest of your essays will benefit from a war chest of succinct and powerful turns of phrase, sections of exposition, and whole paragraphs that can be transplanted at will into other essays.

Your UC essays lay out your stories, actions, and lessons. Your personal statement and supplementals can take these stories and run with them.

Rule #3: Select Prompts that Balance Your Narrative

Let's go back to that chunky block quote taken from the UC website for a second.

In your essays, they are looking for...

Special talents, achievements and awards in a particular field, such as visual and performing arts, communication or athletic endeavors; special skills, such as demonstrated written and oral proficiency in other languages; special interests, such as intensive study and exploration of other cultures; experiences that demonstrate unusual promise for leadership, such as significant community service or significant participation in student government; or other significant experiences or achievements that demonstrate the student’s promise for contributing to the intellectual vitality of a campus.

You can't be all of these things. But you can be at least four of them, because that's how many essays you get to write.

Have you ever played a video game where you had to balance your character's attributes? Turn up the speed, adjust down the strength, balance out the agility. It's kinda like that. You have a fixed number of "points" that you get to put into each category.

In this context, those categories might look like: creativity, intellectual vitality, leadership, resilience, compassion, and community engagement, just to name a few. They’re the kinds of values that we talked about way back at the UC motto and mission statement.

My advice: take a hard look at your application, figure out where your greatest strengths are, and lean into that area with two of your essays. Then, with the other two, show your diversity.

In other words, your essay narrative allotment should look like this:

Essay #1: Show a strength

Essay #2: Emphasize that same strength

Essay #3: Add some spice—throw a different topic in there.

Essay #4: Add even more spice—focus on a different fourth topic.

So if you're a really strong student, maybe you'll pick prompts #4 (academic opportunity) and #6 (intellectual passion). Those two should give you enough space to write expansively about your intellectual interests, research experience, and plans for study in college.

Then to show that you aren't just a bookworm, you can pick up prompts #1 (leadership) and #2 (creativity). The first will allow you to show the side of yourself that are externally engaged. The second will give you a chance to show you have multiple intelligences and diverse interests that go beyond a narrow academic scope.

Finding this balance is one of the keys to success in UC admissions.

OK, there are the rules: write in a straightforward style that answers the prompt directly, focus on your UC essays first, and choose four prompts that let you balance your narrative.

How are you doing? Need to take a snack break?

When you’re ready, it’s time to go through all eight of the UC prompts.

Here we go!

UC Essay Prompt #1: Leadership

The first UC essay prompt asks you to reflect on a "leadership experience." Whether or not you’re a team captain or manager at a restaurant, you can still answer this prompt. A leader can be any individual who shows initiative and effort, even if you’re working in isolation to change your community for the better.

Either way, this prompt is about "inter-relations." It’s a tool for getting at the question of how you relate to others. If written well, it can really help to humanize you in the eyes of the committee and show that you don’t just exist in your community—you contribute to it.

Let’s look at the exact wording of the prompt and dive a little deeper into how you can answer it.

1. Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time.

So this prompt is asking for two main things from us:

We need to “describe an example of” our “leadership experience.”

But it’s can’t be just any leadership experience. It needs specifically to be an experience where we:

a) “positively influenced others”

b) “helped resolve disputes”

c) or “contributed to group efforts over time”

The example you choose doesn’t have to address all three of these criteria, but it should address at least one.

Also notice that the prompt isn’t asking you to talk about the biggest or most monumental way you’ve led people. It’s simply asking you to describe a time you’ve taken on a leadership role and influenced the people around you.

Your “leadership experience” could look a lot of different ways. Here are just a couple of examples:

• Taking the lead on a group biology project
• Resolving a dispute between your friends or siblings
• Improving the process for packing hygiene kits for the community organization you volunteer with
• Encouraging your debate teammates to practice more regularly
• Organizing your choir peers to sing for the local retirement home

Whatever your experiences have been, this prompt asks you to think about the specific instances in your life when you have taken the lead and had a positive influence on the people and communities around you.

What this prompt is good for: The UCs value student initiative and leadership. This prompt can be a great way to show how you aren’t afraid to have an impact.

Prompt #1 Brainstorm Activity

To answer this prompt, begin by brainstorming some areas of your life where you’ve shown leadership. Remember that UC essays should be direct, to-the-point, and focused on the action steps you took. As you’re brainstorming, focus on examples that allow you to demonstrate actions and lessons.

Once you have a sense of your options, remember UC Essay Rule #3: you need to balance your overall application narrative. Narrow down your options by picking an example of your leadership that works in tandem with your other essays to create a holistic picture of who you are. Doing so will help the UC admissions committees learn about the most important parts of you.

Prompt #1 Outline Activity

Once you’ve chosen an experience to write about, it’s time to start planning out your essay. As we explain in our UC essay guide, the most important rule to remember when writing UC essays is that you need to be direct and to-the-point.

Writing a UC essay is completely different than writing your Common App personal statement or your supplemental essays.

Instead of writing creatively to tell a deeply meaningful story, your UC essays need to lay out exactly what the situation was, what you did to impact the situation, and what the overall outcomes were.

In the case of UC Prompt #1, let’s return to the criteria of the prompt:

Describe an example of your leadership experience

Explain how you positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts.

Your essay structure will likely depend on the specific leadership experience you’ve decided to write about.

But a good structure to use might look something like this:

I. Introduction: Introduce your leadership experience by briefly explaining how the experience came about.

II. Middle: Address the specific details that led you to positively influence others, resolve disputes, or contribute to group efforts. Write about these details in a logical (likely chronological) way, and emphasize the action steps you took.

III. Conclusion: Reflect on the implications of your leadership. How did people react to your influence? What lesson did your leadership experience teach you? What was your overall impact?

As you write, keep your sentences clear and straightforward. Make sure the story you tell is clearly-organized and action-oriented.

UC Prompt #1 Example Essay

You can find an example essay for UC Prompt #1 on our UC Example Essays post.

UC Prompt #1 Final Takeaways

You don’t need to have moved mountains to pick this prompt. Even if you were alone in your bedroom mapping out neighborhood routes to canvas for a politician in your community, your initiative and actions have undoubtedly affected the people around you. The UCs want to hear about those leadership experiences, so pick the ones that stands out best to you, and write about it in a way that emphasizes actions and outcomes.

UC Prompt #2: Creativity

This is another prompt that can be approached from both conventional and unconventional angles. The most straightforward way to answer this prompt is by addressing artistic creativity. Are you a sculptor or a musician? Maybe this is where you talk about your creative process or what you feel when you make art.

But your answer can also imagine “creativity” more broadly. One of the best answers I ever saw to this prompt was about soccer. The student linked his analytical creativity (the tactical mind of a soccer captain) to the organic, in-the-moment creativity expressed through play.

Let’s look at the specific wording of the prompt.

2. Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.

The central question this prompt asks you is:

• Describe how you express your creative side.

That means that your essay isn’t just going to be a description of your history playing the cello. Instead, your essay should focus on how it is that you express your creativity.

The prompt also gives us a few hints to get us started. “Creativity,” the prompt explains, can manifest itself in a number of ways: problem-solving, original or innovative thinking, or artistically.

Because the prompt allows you to write about more than traditional artforms or creative practices, you have a little bit of freedom with what you write about.

Here are just a few examples of how people might express their creativity:

• Playing an instrument
• Acting in theatre
• Doing comedy
• Building model trains
• Writing and testing code
• Writing prose or poetry
• Creating online or digital content
• Engineering structures or circuits

The list goes on and on. If you can make the case that your activity allows you to express a creative side of you, then you can write about it.

What this prompt is good for: Colleges love creative thinkers. Creativity, innovation, and problem-solving are all characteristics of people who aren’t afraid to make art and make a change in the world. If you want to show admissions officers that you’re one of those people, then this may be a good prompt for you.

Prompt #2 Brainstorming Activity

If you’re already deeply involved in a creative activity like music or theatre, then your topic choice for this question might be obvious.

Or maybe you’ve already quickly decided on a more unconventional creative topic to focus on.

But if you still can’t decide, then try out this brainstorming chart.

Hopefully you’re able to think up a few options. If not, then no worries! Maybe this prompt just isn’t the best one for you. You have seven others to choose from, so you still have lots of other options.

Prompt #2 Outlining Activity

If this prompt is the right choice for you, then you may find it helpful to outline a rough structure before you start writing.

With creativity essays especially, it can be difficult not to get distracted by personal expression and creative writing. But remember that all UC essays, even this creativity one, prioritize directness, so keep your focus on answering the prompt.

Here’s an example structure to get you started:

I. Introduction: Introduce what your creative activity is and what your history with it has looked like. You could also introduce what your “creative side” looks like.

II. Middle: Go in-depth on how, exactly, you express your creative side through this activity. Use specific details and action steps.

III. Conclusion: Briefly conclude by emphasizing what this creative expression has allowed you to do.

UC Prompt #2 Example Essay

You can find an example essay for UC Prompt #2 on our UC Example Essays post.

UC Prompt #2 Final Takeaways

Your creative activity doesn’t have to be a traditional artform. But you do need to make it clear a) what your “creative side” looks like and b) how you express that creative side through this activity.

UC Prompt #3: Exceptional Skill

When we think of skills, we might gravitate toward those singular abilities (juggling, playing an instrument, writing) that we have honed over time. But what you write about doesn’t just have to be something worthy of a talent show.

Here is a list of other, equally valid skills you might have: communication, listening, dream-interpretation, rock-skipping, phone repair, or doing a headstand. These other kinds of talents can be just as interesting and revealing.

Do these seem dumb? I admit: it might make for a bad essay to wax poetic about how you learned to balance on your head. But if talking about balancing on your head allows you to go deep into your quest to learn about physiology and exercise science, then we might be onto something.

What matter less than the specific talent you choose is the way you choose to write about it. If nothing immediately comes to mind for you, then it might be better to choose one of the other seven prompts. But if you do have something you want to write about, then run with it.

Let’s analyze the prompt and go over how you can write an essay that stands out.

3. What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?

Of the UC prompts, this one is fairly to-the-point and straightforward. It simply asks you to answer three direct questions:

What is your greatest talent/skill?

How have you developed it over time?

How have you demonstrated it over time?

So the talent or skill you choose probably shouldn’t be something you learned on a whim and have only done once in your life. Maybe you learned that you’re really good at flying a hot air balloon but have only done it one time because you don’t own a hot air balloon. Okay, that might actually make for a good essay. But would it fully answer the prompt? Probably not.

Anyway, the talent or skill you choose should reveal something about yourself—or, more specifically, one of your core strengths—to the admissions committee.

What this prompt is good for: The skill you select can shine light on a deeper character quality or a commitment to learning and improving. From that angle, this prompt can be a good opportunity to showcase perseverance and stick-to-it-ness.

Prompt #3 Brainstorming Activity

Before you work through the following chart, let’s briefly expand on the difference between “develop” and “demonstrate.” I think you could interpret these terms a few ways, but I would say that this is the main difference:

Develop: How did you learn you were capable of this skill? What have you done to improve your abilities? How did you stick with the skill despite any odds?

Demonstrate: How do you show your talent or skill to others? How does it affect the people or world around you?

Prompt #3 Outlining Activity

Thankfully, Prompt #3 also provides a fairly straightforward way for you to organize your essay response. If it makes sense for you, you can outline your essay in exactly the same order the questions are presented in the prompt:

I. Introduction: Introduce your greatest talent or skill. Be detailed about what exactly it is that you can do.

II. Middle:

• Elaborate on how you developed this skill. Describe specific action steps you took to improve your abilities.
• Elaborate on how you demonstrate this skill. Describe specific action steps you’ve taken to share your skill with others.
• Don’t forget the “over time” part of the prompt, either. Your essay should emphasize how these factors have existed throughout time.

III. Conclusion: Conclude by reflecting on what you have gained from developing and demonstrating this skill.

UC Prompt #3 Example Essay

You can find an example essay for UC Prompt #3 on our UC Example Essays post.

UC Prompt #3 Final Takeaways

Prompt #3 isn’t for everyone, but it can be a great way to write about something memorable, highlight a special skill that few people possess, or demonstrate a significant perspective or ability to persevere.

UC Prompt #4: Opportunity / Barrier in Education

Alert: read. the. prompt. This alert is important for all UC essays but especially this one. This prompt is not an invitation to talk about any old opportunity or challenge in your life. It is specifically about how these have touched down on your education .

The UC provides some instructive info about this prompt. They say that "an educational opportunity can be anything that has added value to your educational experience and better  prepared you for college ." With this extra guidance, you have some flexibility in your topic choice.

If you enrolled in a foreign school and underwent a year of intensive language immersion, you might choose this prompt. But it doesn't need to be so grand. You could write about an internship you took that helped you clarify your research focus. Or you could go through what it was like to deal with the stigma of having an IEP.

Let’s walk through each part of the prompt, and then we’ll explain how you can best approach it.

4. Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

This prompt can be confusing because it’s a “fork in the road” prompt, which means that it’s asking you to choose one of two different options. And the options it gives you are on opposite sides of the spectrum. Because the prompt puts an “or” in between these two options, we know that you do not have to answer both. You can choose to focus on one or the other.

Option 1: Educational Opportunity

For this option, you’ll need to do two things:

Describe a significant educational opportunity you’ve been presented.

Describe how you took advantage of it.

Option 2: Educational Barrier

For this option, you’ll also need to do two things:

Describe an educational barrier you have faced.

Explain how you worked to overcome it.

Note that the prompt says “ worked to overcome it.” That means that you don’t necessarily have to have solved every single part of the problem you experienced. What the admissions committee really wants to see here is effort. If your educational barrier is that you’ve moved several times throughout high school, then that’s not something you can solve. What you should focus on instead is how you found a way to persist and do your best in spite of the challenges.

What this prompt is good for: The advantage of this prompt depends on which direction you take the fork in the road. If you choose Option 1, then the advantage is that you get to elaborate on a cool opportunity you’ve been presented and show how well you can take advantage of what’s in front of you. If you take Option 2, then you have a legitimate and thoughtful way to explain any educational hardships you’ve experienced, and you can show that you are resilient and capable of improving.

Prompt #4 Brainstorming Activity

If this is the prompt for you, then something will probably immediately come to mind. If not, it’s better not to force a non-opportunity or non-barrier to fit into those boxes.

“Opportunities” might include things like: an internship or research opportunity, a particularly amazing teacher you connected with, a special guest lecturer, an educational trip with school or family, a study abroad trip, an educational extracurricular activity, and more.

“Barriers” might include things like: school or family situations that led to grade blips, parts of your personal health or mental health journey, experiences with learning differences, and more.

If something in this list resonated with you or sparked any ideas, then try moving on to the outlining activity. But if you’re still coming up blank, then you might consider choosing another prompt.

Prompt #4 Outlining Activity

The biggest thing to remember when writing this essay is to focus on actions . This fact is important in all UC essays but especially this one. The prompt very specifically asks you to describe the steps you’ve taken to “take advantage of” or “overcome” the experience you’ve decided to write about.

I. Introduction: Introduce the educational opportunity or educational barrier you want to focus on.

II. Middle: Describe the action steps you took to take advantage of the opportunity or work to overcome the barrier.

III. Conclusion: Reflect on how the opportunity or barrier and your response to it has shaped where you’re at today.

UC Prompt #4 Example Essay

You can find an example essay for UC Prompt #4 on our UC Example Essays post.

UC Prompt #4 Final Takeaways

This prompt isn’t for everyone, so don’t try to force it. But if you’ve experienced an impactful opportunity or want to explain some academic challenges you’ve overcome, then it can be a great way to let the admissions committee know. If you write this essay, just be sure that you’re keeping your focus on academics and emphasizing your actions.

UC Prompt #5: General Challenge

I think this is one of the best prompts to answer among the UC essays. Why? Because everyone faces challenges, even if we don't want to admit it.

From my perspective, this prompt can be worth double points. First, you get the opportunity to write a great essay about engaging with a problem. But second, you get to show off the additional maturity it takes to dig deep and admit to a committee of strangers that your life ain't so perfect.

Just remember, remember, remember: your job is not to elicit pity. It’s to show your maturity and resilience in dealing with adversity.

Let’s break down the prompt and talk about how to write it.

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?

We have another three-parter here. The prompt asks you to do several things:

Describe your most significant challenge

Describe the steps you took to overcome that challenge

Explain how that challenge affected your academic achievement specifically

It's important to keep the wording of the prompt in mind. Notice how the prompt says “the most significant challenge you have faced.” It’s not asking for a day-to-day challenge or, worse, a challenge that’s actually a brag in disguise (”I worked too hard on building my award-winning robot!”).

It’s asking you to be vulnerable in sharing a deeply impactful challenge you’ve faced. And not just any challenge, but one you’ve dealt with enough to try to overcome. This should not be an essay about your ongoing efforts to deal with existential malaise. Your problem should be clearly identifiable, and you should also be able to point out how you have managed it.

Finally, you need to address how the challenge has touched back on your academic performance or experience.

What this prompt is good for: If you've faced any major challenges, this prompt can help share that story with an admissions committee. It’s also a great prompt to answer if you specifically had a big lapse in grades due to something that happened in your life.

Prompt #5 Brainstorming Activity

To make sure you’re hitting all parts of the prompt, consider filling out this chart. If you’ve faced a complex challenge or multiple challenges, you may also find it difficult to distill your experiences into a concrete example. If that’s the case, try being as specific as you can and filling out more than one row on the chart until you find something that you feel most comfortable with.

Prompt #5 Outlining Activity

This essay is one that you may not write in the exact same order as the prompt lists the questions. Since your challenge likely affected your academic achievement before you began taking steps to overcome it, it may make sense to discuss your academic challenges before your action steps.

If that’s the case for you, your outline may look something like this:

I. Introduction: Introduce the challenge and the effect it had on you.

• Describe how the challenge affected your academic achievement specifically.
• Describe the specific steps you took to overcome the challenge and improve your situation.

III. Conclusion: Reflect on what you learned from this experience.

UC Prompt #5 Example Essay

You can find an example essay for UC Prompt #5 on our UC Example Essays post.

UC Prompt #5 Final Takeaways

Don’t feel compelled to share anything you’re not ready to share. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: you do not have to write about trauma to get into college. In fact, writing about challenges that you haven’t begun to heal from can result in essays that miss the mark.

But at the same time, you may find that you want to write about a challenge to explain part of your personal background or transcript. If so, this prompt can be a great opportunity to share your story.

UC Prompt #6: Intellectual Vitality

Calling all nerds! I almost always recommend that my students answer this prompt, and I’ll recommend that you should consider it, too.

Why? If you've been reading closely, you may have noticed by now that many of these prompts come back to academic experience. It's no mystery: the UCs care above all about their academic culture.

This is the only prompt from the list that directly asks you about your academic proclivities. Go for it. Even if you aren't someone who strongly identifies as an academic, you should make an effort to talk about what inspires you in and outside the classroom.

Intellectual vitality can draw admissions officers into your interests and show them why you’re such a great fit for the UCs’ vibrant academic cultures. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to show what a curious student you are.

Here we go—I’ll break down the prompt and give you a few ways to choose the right subject.

6. Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.

After the fairly complicated wording of prompts #4 and #5, this fairly straightforward prompt is a breath of fresh air.

In terms of answering the prompt, you have to do a few simple things:

Think about an academic subject. That means it can’t be just any topic—it needs to be academic and relate to a subject taught in college.

The subject should be one that clearly inspires you.

Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.

So your essay should describe an academic interest that inspires you, and you should explain how you have taken your interest and run with it either inside or outside of school.

Part #3 leaves you with a lot of flexibility with the definition of “furthered.” You may interpret “furthered” to mean simply that you learned more about the subject, or it could mean that you took your knowledge and applied it to the real world. You may have advanced your knowledge by taking more classes related to the subject, or you may have taken the initiative to learn things outside of school.

With the prompt broken down, the real challenge comes in picking the right topic and writing about it in an interesting way.

What this prompt is good for: I recommend that everyone writes this essay because it’s a great way to show admissions officers that you are ready to tackle the intellectual challenges of college. The UCs are internationally recognized for their academic rigor, so showing that your intellectual vitality can match that of the schools is important. Additionally, it’s a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate fit for a particular major or general area of study you are interested in.

Prompt #6 Brainstorming Activity

Everyone learns. One of my students answered this prompt by talking about how his economics class helped him get into equities trading. As he learned more about regional markets as part of his trading strategy, he found that he became more engaged in the classroom too.

As long as you can relate your interest to an academic discipline, your options are really limitless.

If you’re applying with a specific major in mind, your academic interest can relate to that subject or not.

The key to choosing a topic, however, is that you have to be able to show concrete steps you took to “further this interest.”

Here’s a chart to help you brainstorm.

Prompt #6 Outlining Activity

I. Introduction: Introduce your academic subject. (Make sure it’s academic .)

II. Middle: Elaborate on how you furthered this interest. Explain whether it was inside or outside (or both) the classroom. Focus on specific details and action steps.

III. Conclusion: Conclude by focusing on how your intellectual vitality has benefited from this journey. You may also look forward to how you want to continue this academic or educational journey in the future.

UC Prompt #6 Example Essay

You can find an example essay for UC Prompt #6 on our UC Example Essays post.

UC Prompt #6 Final Takeaways

You should probably write this essay. It’s one of the best options you can choose because you can’t go wrong in demonstrating academic interest and fit. Just be sure that you focus on an academic topic and write about the concrete steps you took to “further” or advance your understanding of the topic.

UC Prompt #7: Community Betterment

Just as you have flexibility in defining “leadership” in prompt #1, the key to this prompt is to define the concept of "community." Community could refer to any scale of human organization. Your family. Your group of friends. Your graduating year. Your high school. Your town. Your state. The country.

It doesn't matter what level of organization you focus on. What does matter is that you have a compelling action to talk about. How did you improve your community? The change could be a cultural or material one. It could affect a small number of people or an entire city or state.

Before you begin writing, it will be helpful to analyze this deceptively simple prompt.

7. What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?

This simple question, only fourteen words, is actually asking you to do quite a bit of work. Let’s break it down.

First, you have to choose a community to focus on.

Next, you have to describe what actions you have taken

And finally, your actions have to be ones that have specifically made your chosen community a better place.

There are millions of ways you could approach this question. But what determines how you approach it is the community you choose.

If you’ve done something world-changing, then this is the place to write about it. But if you haven’t, don’t worry. Even small, local impacts within your family, friend group, or school community can have a deep impact on admissions officers.

What’s important to show is your care for and willingness to engage in your community.

What this prompt is good for: I find this one a bit boring to write, but it’s usually worthwhile. It shows off a great characteristic: altruism. The UC system is looking for students who are outwardly engaged in the problems of today. This prompt can provide an opportunity to align yourself with that value.

Prompt #7 Brainstorming Activity

Since you have lots of options because you’re undoubtedly part of lots of different communities, you may find it helpful to brainstorm what different community options might look like.

Start by writing down all the communities you can think of. Remember that “communities” can be more apparent (home, work, church, athletic, music, city communities) or they can be less apparent (friend groups, a specific classroom, an online community, a community of people with similar interests).

For each community you come up with, brainstorm the impact you’ve had. And if you don’t think you’ve had an impact—think again! Even actions as small as encouraging a member of your Spanish small group to speak aloud can have a huge impact.

Once you’ve determined your impact, think about what actions you took to get there. Be specific and detailed.

Finally, reflect on any relevant lessons you’ve learned.

When your brainstorm is complete, try picking out the community in which you’ve a) had the biggest impact and b) taken the clearest action steps.

Prompt #7 Outlining Activity

Based on what the prompt is asking you to do, a good essay structure may look something like this:

I. Introduction: Introduce the school or other community you’ve chosen to focus on. Describe your specific role in that community.

II. Middle: Explain a) what you understood the problem(s) to be, b) what specific actions you took to address those problems, and c) the ways in which your actions made the community better off.

III. Conclusion: You can reflect more on how or why you made your community better, what it’s like to be in a better community, or what lessons you learned as part of the process.

As always with UC essays, don’t forget to focus on the specifics.

UC Prompt #7 Example Essay

You can find an example essay for UC Prompt #7 on our UC Example Essays post.

UC Prompt #7 Final Takeaways

If you’re having trouble deciding between the prompts, this one is another good bet. It’s likely that you’re part of more communities than you realize. As you write, just be sure that you define the specific community you’re writing about and describe your action steps in detail.

UC Prompt #8: Open Prompt

I don't want to offer a ton of commentary here. I believe that most possible essay topics are covered by the first 7 prompts, and I usually try to steer my students toward those. But on a case-by-case basis, I think prompt #8 can be the right call.

That may be the case especially if you feel like a part of yourself hasn’t been fully represented in the other prompts. Or if you’ve written another essay or supplemental essay that you feel is necessary to understanding your story, then you may also consider this option.

But if not, don’t worry about not answering this prompt. The UC admissions committees explicitly state that all prompts are weighted equally, so you won’t be penalized if you do or don’t choose prompt #8.

If you do feel like it is the right choice for you, then let’s take a look at what it’s asking of you.

8. Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand out as a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?

This prompt lists a few requirements:

“Beyond what has already been shared in your application” implies that whatever you share in this essay should not appear anywhere else in your application.

You also need to choose something that “you believe makes you stand out”

But it can’t just be anything that makes you stand out. You should stand out specifically as “a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California.”

Like other open-ended prompts, you’ll have to make your case for why the essay topic you choose is important. Don’t just plop any ole essay in here and hope that it works. You’ll need to meet each of these expectations to write a good and effective essay answer.

Take another look at the Points of Comprehensive Review if necessary.

What this prompt is good for: If you feel like anything in your application is left unsaid, then this is your chance to say it.

Prompt #8 Brainstorming Activity

Since this prompt is so open-ended, a brainstorming activity probably wouldn’t be very helpful to you. It’s one of those “iykyk” prompts—if you know that you have something else to write about, then you already know that this is the prompt for you.

But as you’re reflecting on your topic choices, remember UC Essay Rule #3: Select Prompts that Balance your Narrative. Whatever you include here should be a piece of information that is essential to balancing out your application narrative.

Prompt #8 Outlining Activity

You have a similar kind of flexibility with how you structure your essay, as long as you’re adhering to each of the three parts of the prompt.

With those components in mind, your essay may look something like this:

Introduction: Introduce your topic in a way that makes the topic clear.

Middle: Describe any action steps you took in a way that makes it clear a) why this topic makes you stand out and b) why this topic makes you a strong candidate for admissions to the UCs.

Conclusion: Conclude by driving home why this topic is important to your story.

UC Prompt #8 Example Essay

You can find an example essay for UC Prompt #8 on our UC Example Essays post.

UC Prompt #8 Final Takeaways

If four of the other seven prompts work well with your story, then you might just want to skip past this one. But if you feel like there’s really something else you need to say, then just make sure you’re meeting all the requirements of this open-ended prompt.

Final Thoughts

The UC essays are exercises in precision, strategy, and honesty.

You need to understand your own strengths and weaknesses as an applicant, then carefully pick the prompts that support those. Then, you need to write clearly and directly, telling four stories that help the committee get to know you.

It's really hard. But doable, I promise. Hopefully this guide has been helpful! If so, check out our other college essay guides and the Essay Academy course for guidance on your other college essays. Until then. 👋

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Irena Smith, Former Stanford Admissions Officer

We built the best admissions chancer in the world . How is it the best? It draws from our experience in top-10 admissions offices to show you how selective admissions actually works.

This is the first article in a new series where we will be dissecting each of the UC essay prompts in depth, providing examples and tips on how you can make your application stand out.

For many years now, the University of California school system has attracted a record-breaking number of talented applicants from all over California and the rest of the world. Just last year, UCLA took home the title of being the most applied-to university in the entire world, with over 100,000 students seeking admission. Yet in 2018, their acceptance rate hovered at a mere 14%, making UCLA and other UC schools just as competitive as many historic Ivy League universities.

With these statistics and a relatively early application deadline, the pressure is on for UC hopefuls. It’s time to start thinking about those essays, but we know that’s easier said than done. In today’s article, we’ll break down some overall facts about the essays and provide general tips for how to approach the entire application.

UC Essay Prompt Structure

There are 9 total campuses under the University of California school system, but there is only 1 application portal for all of them. In other words, you are submitting the same essays to every UC you decide to apply to.

In other words, you are submitting the same essays to every UC you decide to apply to. The benefits of this structure are that you’ll be saving a lot of time by only having to write a single set of essays that could be sent to up to 9 different schools. However, this means you cannot tailor your essays to any specific campus. So if you are applying to multiple UCs, you won’t be able to write much about how much you love UC Berkeley’s computer science department in your essays.

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Which Prompts Should You Answer?

The UCs give you 8 different essay prompts to choose from that all have a maximum word count of 350 words. In the following days, we’ll be dissecting each one in depth by providing ideas, templates, and examples to work with. But out of the 8 prompts, you only need to choose 4! How do you decide which ones to answer?

Everyone has a slightly different strategy, but the first piece of advice I can give is to listen to your instincts. On your first glance of all the prompts, which ones did you immediately have ideas for and which ones just caused you to draw a blank? When ideas seem to flow easily without much effort, it’s likely a good sign that you should write that prompt.

Another tip is that you should choose a variety of different prompts that can allows you to showcase as many aspects of yourself as possible. As you’ll see later on in this series, several of the prompts ask about your educational interests. Unless you have remarkably different educational interests that could answer the prompts differently, I would try answering only one of them. In general, each of your essays should reveal a new layer to you that couldn’t have been found in a different essay.

Discover the 8 UC essay prompts below. Simply click on the prompts to delve deeper and learn more.

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