personal statement uc

Writing the Personal Statement

Helpful tips and advice for drafting a compelling personal statement when applying for graduate admission.

Make sure to check the appropriate program website to find out if your statement should include additional or specific information.

What does this statement need to accomplish?

The personal statement should give concrete evidence of your promise as a member of the academic community, giving the committee an image of you as a person.

This is also where you represent your potential to bring to your academic career a critical perspective rooted in a non-traditional educational background, or your understanding of the experiences of groups historically under-represented in higher education and your commitment to increase participation by a diverse population in higher education.

What kinds of content belongs here?

Anything that can give reviewers a sense of you as a person belongs here; you can repeat information about your experiences in your research statement, but any experiences that show your promise, initiative, and ability to persevere despite obstacles belongs here. This is also a good place to display your communication skills and discuss your ability to maximize effective collaboration with a diverse cross-section of the academic community. If you have faced any obstacles or barriers in your education, sharing those experiences serves both for the selection process, and for your nomination for fellowships. If one part of your academic record is not ideal, due to challenges you faced in that particular area, this is where you can explain that, and direct reviewers’ attention to the evidence of your promise for higher education.

The basic message: your academic achievement despite challenges

It is especially helpful for admissions committees considering nominating you for fellowships for diversity if you discuss any or all of the following:

• Demonstrated significant academic achievement by overcoming barriers such as economic, social, or educational disadvantage;
• attendance at a minority serving institution;
• ability to articulate the barriers facing women and minorities in science and engineering fields;
• participation in higher education pipeline programs such as, UC Leads, or McNair Scholars;
• Academic service advancing equitable access to higher education for women and racial minorities in fields where they are underrepresented;
• Leadership experience among students from groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education;
• research that addresses issues such as race, gender, diversity, and inclusion;
• research that addresses health disparities, educational access and achievement, political engagement, economic justice, social mobility, civil and human rights, and other questions of interest to historically underrepresented groups;
• artistic expression and cultural production that reflects culturally diverse communities or voices not well represented in the arts and humanities.

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, how to write a perfect uc essay for every prompt.

College Essays

If you're applying to any University of California (UC) campus as an incoming first-year student , then you have a special challenge ahead of you. Applicants need to answer four UC personal insight questions, chosen from a pool of eight unique prompts different from those on the Common App. But not to worry! This article is here to help.

In this article, I'll dissect the eight UC essay prompts in detail. What are they asking you for? What do they want to know about you? What do UC admissions officers really care about? How do you avoid boring or repulsing them with your essay?

I'll break down all of these important questions for each prompt and discuss how to pick the four prompts that are perfect for you. I'll also give you examples of how to make sure your essay fully answers the question. Finally, I'll offer step-by-step instructions on how to come up with the best ideas for your UC personal statements.

What Are the UC Personal Insight Questions?

If you think about it, your college application is mostly made up of numbers: your GPA, your SAT scores, the number of AP classes you took, how many years you spent playing volleyball. But these numbers reveal only so much. The job of admissions officers is to put together a class of interesting, compelling individuals—but a cut-and-dried achievement list makes it very hard to assess whether someone is interesting or compelling. This is where the personal insight questions come in.

The UC application essays are your way to give admissions staff a sense of your personality, your perspective on the world, and some of the experiences that have made you into who you are. The idea is to share the kinds of things that don't end up on your transcript. It's helpful to remember that you are not writing this for you. You're writing for an audience of people who do not know you but are interested to learn about you. The essay is meant to be a revealing look inside your thoughts and feelings.

These short essays—each with a 350-word limit—are different from the essays you write in school, which tend to focus on analyzing someone else's work. Really, the application essays are much closer to a short story. They rely heavily on narratives of events from your life and on your descriptions of people, places, and feelings.

If you'd like more background on college essays, check out our explainer for a very detailed breakdown of exactly how personal statements work in an application .

Now, let's dive into the eight University of California essay questions. First, I'll compare and contrast these prompts. Then I'll dig deep into each UC personal statement question individually, exploring what it's really trying to find out and how you can give the admissions officers what they're looking for.

Think of each personal insight essay as a brief story that reveals something about your personal values, interests, motivations, and goals.

Comparing the UC Essay Prompts

Before we can pull these prompts apart, let's first compare and contrast them with each other . Clearly, UC wants you to write four different essays, and they're asking you eight different questions. But what are the differences? And are there any similarities?

The 8 UC Essay Prompts

#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.

#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.

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

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

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

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

#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?

How to Tell the UC Essay Prompts Apart

• Topics 1 and 7 are about your engagement with the people, things, and ideas around you. Consider the impact of the outside world on you and how you handled that impact.
• Topics 2 and 6 are about your inner self, what defines you, and what makes you the person that you are. Consider your interior makeup—the characteristics of the inner you.
• Topics 3, 4, 5, and 8 are about your achievements. Consider what you've accomplished in life and what you are proud of doing.

These very broad categories will help when you're brainstorming ideas and life experiences to write about for your essay. Of course, it's true that many of the stories you think of can be shaped to fit each of these prompts. Still, think about what the experience most reveals about you .

If it's an experience that shows how you have handled the people and places around you, it'll work better for questions in the first group. If it's a description of how you express yourself, it's a good match for questions in group two. If it's an experience that tells how you acted or what you did, it's probably a better fit for questions in group three.

For more help, check out our article on coming up with great ideas for your essay topic .

Reflect carefully on the eight UC prompts to decide which four questions you'll respond to.

How Is This Guide Organized?

We analyze all eight UC prompts in this guide, and for each one, we give the following information:

• The prompt itself and any accompanying instructions
• What each part of the prompt is asking for
• Why UC is using this prompt and what they hope to learn from you
• All the key points you should cover in your response so you answer the complete prompt and give UC insight into who you are

Dissecting Personal Insight Question 1

The prompt and its instructions.

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 a lead role in organizing an event or project. Think about your accomplishments 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?

What's the Question Asking?

The prompt wants you to describe how you handled a specific kind of relationship with a group of people—a time when you took the reigns and the initiative. Your answer to this prompt will consist of two parts.

Part 1: Explain the Dilemma

Before you can tell your story of leading, brokering peace, or having a lasting impact on other people, you have to give your reader a frame of reference and a context for your actions .

First, describe the group of people you interacted with. Who were and what was their relationship to you? How long were you in each others' lives?

Second, explain the issue you eventually solved. What was going on before you stepped in? What was the immediate problem? Were there potential long-term repercussions?

Leadership isn't limited to officer roles in student organizations. Think about experiences in which you've taken charge, resolved conflicts, or taken care of loved ones.

Part 2: Describe Your Solution

This is where your essay will have to explicitly talk about your own actions .

Discuss what thought process led you to your course of action. Was it a last-ditch effort or a long-planned strategy? Did you think about what might happen if you didn't step in? Did you have to choose between several courses of action?

Explain how you took the bull by the horns. Did you step into the lead role willingly, or were you pushed despite some doubts? Did you replace or supersede a more obvious leader?

Describe your solution to the problem or your contribution to resolving the ongoing issue. What did you do? How did you do it? Did your plan succeed immediately or did it take some time?

Consider how this experience has shaped the person you have now become. Do you think back on this time fondly as being the origin of some personal quality or skill? Did it make you more likely to lead in other situations?

What's UC Hoping to Learn about You?

College will be an environment unlike any of the ones you've found yourself in up to now. Sure, you will have a framework for your curriculum, and you will have advisers available to help. But for the most part, you will be on your own to deal with the situations that will inevitably arise when you mix with your diverse peers . UC wants to make sure that

• you have the maturity to deal with groups of people,
• you can solve problems with your own ingenuity and resourcefulness, and
• you don't lose your head and panic at problems.

Demonstrating your problem-solving abilities in your UC college essay will make you a stronger candidate for admission.

How Can You Give Them What They Want?

So how can you make sure those qualities come through in your essay?

Pick Your Group

The prompt very specifically wants you to talk about an interaction with a group of people. Let's say a group has to be at least three people.

Raise the Stakes

Think of the way movies ratchet up the tension of the impending catastrophe before the hero swoops in and saves the day. Keeping an audience on tenterhooks is important—and distinguishes the hero for the job well done. Similarly, when reading your essay, the admissions staff has to fundamentally understand exactly what you and the group you ended up leading were facing. Why was this an important problem to solve?

Balance You versus Them

Personal statements need to showcase you above all things . Because this essay will necessarily have to spend some time on other people, you need to find a good proportion of them-time and me-time. In general, the first (setup) section of the essay should be shorter because it will not be focused on what you were doing. The second section should take the rest of the space. So, in a 350-word essay, maybe 100–125 words go to setup whereas 225–250 words should be devoted to your leadership and solution.

Find Your Arc

Not only do you need to show how your leadership helped you meet the challenge you faced, but you also have to show how the experience changed you . In other words, the outcome was double-sided: you affected the world, and the world affected you right back.

Give your response to question 1 a compelling arc that demonstrates your personal growth.

Dissecting 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.

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?

This question is trying to probe the way you express yourself. Its broad description of "creativity" gives you the opportunity to make almost anything you create that didn't exist before fit the topic. What this essay question is really asking you to do is to examine the role your brand of creativity plays in your sense of yourself . The essay will have three parts.

Part 1: Define Your Creativity

What exactly do you produce, make, craft, create, or generate? Of course, the most obvious answer would be visual art, performance art, or music. But in reality, there is creativity in all fields. Any time you come up with an idea, thought, concept, or theory that didn't exist before, you are being creative. So your job is to explain what you spend time creating.

Part 2: Connect Your Creative Drive to Your Overall Self

Why do you do what you do? Are you doing it for external reasons—to perform for others, to demonstrate your skill, to fulfill some need in the world? Or is your creativity private and for your own use—to unwind, to distract yourself from other parts of your life, to have personal satisfaction in learning a skill? Are you good at your creative endeavor, or do you struggle with it? If you struggle, why is it important to you to keep pursuing it?

Part 3: Connect Your Creative Drive With Your Future

The most basic way to do this is by envisioning yourself actually pursuing your creative endeavor professionally. But this doesn't have to be the only way you draw this link. What have you learned from what you've made? How has it changed how you interact with other objects or with people? Does it change your appreciation for the work of others or motivate you to improve upon it?

Connecting your current creative pursuits with your chosen major or career will help UC admissions staff understand your motivations and intentions.

Nothing characterizes higher education like the need for creative thinking, unorthodox ideas in response to old topics, and the ability to synthesize something new . That is what you are going to college to learn how to do better. UC's second personal insight essay wants to know whether this mindset of out-of-the-box-ness is something you are already comfortable with. They want to see that

• you have actually created something in your life or academic career,
• you consider this an important quality within yourself,
• you have cultivated your skills, and
• you can see and have considered the impact of your creativity on yourself or on the world around you.

College admissions counselors, professors, and employers all value the skill of thinking outside the box, so being able to demonstrate that skill is crucial.

How can you really show that you are committed to being a creative person?

Be Specific and Descriptive

It's not enough to vaguely gesture at your creative field. Instead, give a detailed and lively description of a specific thing or idea that you have created . For example, I could describe a Turner painting as "a seascape," or I could call it "an attempt to capture the breathtaking power and violence of an ocean storm as it overwhelms a ship." Which painting would you rather look at?

Give a Sense of History

The question wants a little narrative of your relationship to your creative outlet . How long have you been doing it? Did someone teach you or mentor you? Have you taught it to others? Where and when do you create?

Hit a Snag; Find the Success

Anything worth doing is worth doing despite setbacks, this question argues—and it wants you to narrate one such setback. So first, figure out something that interfered with your creative expression .  Was it a lack of skill, time, or resources? Too much or not enough ambition in a project? Then, make sure this story has a happy ending that shows you off as the solver of your own problems: What did you do to fix the situation? How did you do it?

Show Insight

Your essay should include some thoughtful consideration of how this creative pursuit has shaped you , your thoughts, your opinions, your relationships with others, your understanding of creativity in general, or your dreams about your future. (Notice I said "or," not "and"—350 words is not enough to cover all of those things!)

Dissecting Personal Insight Question 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'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, 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?

Basically, what's being asked for here is a beaming rave. Whatever you write about, picture yourself talking about it with a glowing smile on your face.

Part 1: Narrative

The first part of the question really comes down to this: Tell us a story about what's amazing about you. Have you done an outstanding thing? Do you have a mind-blowing ability? Describe a place, a time, or a situation in which you were a star.

A close reading of this first case of the prompt reveals that you don't need to stress if you don't have an obvious answer. Sure, if you're playing first chair violin in the symphony orchestra, that qualifies as both a "talent" and an "accomplishment." But the word "quality" really gives you the option of writing about any one of your most meaningful traits. And the words "contribution" and "experience" open up the range of possibilities that you could write about even further. A contribution could be anything from physically helping put something together to providing moral or emotional support at a critical moment.

But the key to the first part is the phrase "important to you." Once again, what you write about is not as important as how you write about it. Being able to demonstrate the importance of the event that you're describing reveals much more about you than the specific talent or characteristic ever could.

Part 2: Insight and Personal Development

The second part of the last essay asked you to look to the future. The second part of this essay wants you to look at the present instead. The general task is similar, however. Once again, you're being asked to make connections:  How do you fit this quality you have or this achievement you accomplished into the story of who you are?

A close reading of the second part of this prompt lands on the word "proud." This is a big clue that the revelation this essay is looking for should be a very positive one. In other words, this is probably not the time to write about getting arrested for vandalism. Instead, focus on a skill that you've carefully honed, and clarify how that practice and any achievements connected with your talent have earned you concrete opportunities or, more abstractly, personal growth.

Remember to connect the talent or skill you choose to write about with your sense of personal identity and development.

What's UC Hoping to Learn About You?

Admissions officers have a very straightforward interest in learning about your accomplishments. By the end of high school, many of the experiences that you are most proud of don't tend to be the kind of things that end up on your résumé .

They want to know what makes you proud of yourself. Is it something that relates to performance, to overcoming a difficult obstacle, to keeping a cool head in a crisis, to your ability to help others in need?

At the same time, they are looking for a sense of maturity. In order to be proud of an accomplishment, it's important to be able to understand your own values and ideals. This is your chance to show that you truly understand the qualities and experiences that make you a responsible and grown-up person, someone who will thrive in the independence of college life. In other words, although you might really be proud that you managed to tag 10 highway overpasses with graffiti, that's probably not the achievement to brag about here.

Unless you were hired by the city to paint the overpasses, in which case definitely brag about it.

The trick with this prompt is how to show a lot about yourself without listing accomplishments or devolving into cliche platitudes. Let's take it step by step.

Step #1: Explain Your Field

Make sure that somewhere in your narrative (preferably closer to the beginning), you let the reader know what makes your achievement an achievement . Not all interests are mainstream, so it helps your reader to understand what you're facing if you give a quick sketch of, for example, why it's challenging to build a battle bot that can defeat another fighting robot or how the difficulties of extemporaneous debate compare with debating about a prepared topic.

Keep in mind that for some things, the explanation might be obvious. For example, do you really need to explain why finishing a marathon is a hard task?

Step #2: Zoom in on a Specific Experience

Think about your talent, quality, or accomplishment in terms of experiences that showcase it. Conversely, think about your experiences in terms of the talent, quality, or accomplishment they demonstrate. Because you're once again going to be limited to 350 words, you won't be able to fit all the ways in which you exhibit your exemplary skill into this essay. This means that you'll need to figure out how to best demonstrate your ability through one event in which you displayed it . Or if you're writing about an experience you had or a contribution you made, you'll need to also point out what personality trait or characteristic it reveals.

Step #3: Find a Conflict or a Transition

The first question asked for a description, but this one wants a story—a narrative of how you pursue your special talent or how you accomplished the skill you were so great at. The main thing about stories is that they have to have the following:

• A beginning: This is the setup, when you weren't yet the star you are now.
• An obstacle or a transition: Sometimes, a story has a conflict that needs to be resolved: something that stood in your way, a challenge that you had to figure out a way around, a block that you powered through. Other times, a story is about a change or a transformation: you used to believe, think, or be one thing, and now you are different or better.
• A resolution: When your full power, self-knowledge, ability, or future goal is revealed.

If, for example, you taught yourself to become a gifted coder, how did you first learn this skill? What challenges did you overcome in your learning? What does this ability say about your character, motivations, or goals?

Dissecting 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.

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?

Cue the swelling music because this essay is going to be all about your inspirational journey. You will either tell your story of overcoming adversity against all (or some) odds or of pursuing the chance of a lifetime.

If you write about triumphing over adversity, your essay will include the following:

A description of the setback that befell you: The prompt wants to know what you consider a challenge in your school life. And definitely note that this challenge should have in some significant way impacted your academics rather than your life overall.

The challenge can be a wide-reaching problem in your educational environment or something that happened specifically to you. The word "barrier" also shows that the challenge should be something that stood in your way: If only that thing weren't there, then you'd be sure to succeed.

An explanation of your success: Here, you'll talk about what you did when faced with this challenge. Notice that the prompt asks you to describe the "work" you put in to overcome the problem. So this piece of the essay should focus on your actions, thoughts, ideas, and strategies.

Although the essay doesn't specify it, this section should also at some point turn reflexive. How are you defined by this thing that happened? You could discuss the emotional fallout of having dramatically succeeded or how your maturity level, concrete skills, or understanding of the situation has increased now that you have dealt with it personally. Or you could talk about any beliefs or personal philosophy that you have had to reevaluate as a result of either the challenge itself or of the way that you had to go about solving it.

If you write about an educational opportunity, your essay will include the following:

A short, clear description of exactly what you got the chance to do: In your own words, explain what the opportunity was and why it's special.

Also, explain why you specifically got the chance to do it. Was it the culmination of years of study? An academic contest prize? An unexpected encounter that led to you seizing an unlooked-for opportunity?

How you made the best of it: It's one thing to get the opportunity to do something amazing, but it's another to really maximize what you get out of this chance for greatness. This is where you show just how much you understand the value of what you did and how you've changed and grown as a result of it.

Were you very challenged by this opportunity? Did your skills develop? Did you unearth talents you didn't know you had?

How does this impact your future academic ambitions or interests? Will you study this area further? Does this help you find your academic focus?

If writing about an educational obstacle you overcame, make sure to describe not just the challenge itself but also how you overcame it and how breaking down that barrier changed you for the better.

Of course, whatever you write about in this essay is probably already reflected on your résumé or in your transcript in some small way. But UC wants to go deeper, to find out how seriously you take your academic career, and to assess  how thoughtfully you've approached either its ups or its downs.

In college, there will be many amazing opportunities, but they aren't simply there for the taking. Instead, you will be responsible for seizing whatever chances will further your studies, interests, or skills.

Conversely, college will necessarily be more challenging, harder, and potentially much more full of academic obstacles than your academic experiences so far. UC wants to see that you are up to handling whatever setbacks may come your way with aplomb rather than panic.

Define the Problem or Opportunity

Not every challenge is automatically obvious. Sure, everyone can understand the drawbacks of having to miss a significant amount of school because of illness, but what if the obstacle you tackled is something a little more obscure? Likewise, winning the chance to travel to Italy to paint landscapes with a master is clearly rare and amazing, but some opportunities are more specialized and less obviously impressive. Make sure your essay explains everything the reader will need to know to understand what you were facing.

Watch Your Tone

An essay describing problems can easily slip into finger-pointing and self-pity. Make sure to avoid this by speaking positively or at least neutrally about what was wrong and what you faced . This goes double if you decide to explain who or what was at fault for creating this problem.

Likewise, an essay describing amazing opportunities can quickly become an exercise in unpleasant bragging and self-centeredness. Make sure you stay grounded: Rather than dwelling at length on your accomplishments, describe the specifics of what you learned and how.

Elaborating on how you conducted microbiology research during the summer before your senior year would make an appropriate topic for question 4.

Dissecting 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?

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?"

It's time to draw back the curtains and expand our field of vision because this is going to be a two-part story of overcoming adversity against all (or some) odds.

Part 1: Facing a Challenge

The first part of this essay is about problem-solving. The prompt asks you to relate something that could have derailed you if not for your strength and skill. Not only will you describe the challenge itself, but you'll also talk about what you did when faced with it.

Part 2: Looking in the Mirror

The second part of question 5 asks you to consider how this challenge has echoed through your life—and, more specifically, how what happened to you affected your education.

In life, dealing with setbacks, defeats, barriers, and conflicts is not a bug—it's a feature. And colleges want to make sure that you can handle these upsetting events without losing your overall sense of self, without being totally demoralized, and without getting completely overwhelmed. In other words, they are looking for someone who is mature enough to do well on a college campus, where disappointing results and hard challenges will be par for the course.

They are also looking for your creativity and problem-solving skills. Are you good at tackling something that needs to be fixed? Can you keep a cool head in a crisis? Do you look for solutions outside the box? These are all markers of a successful student, so it's not surprising that admissions staff want you to demonstrate these qualities.

The challenge you write about for question 5 need not be an educational barrier, which is better suited for question 4. Think broadly about the obstacles you've overcome and how they've shaped your perspective and self-confidence.

Let's explore the best ways to show off your problem-solving side.

Show Your Work

It's one thing to be able to say what's wrong, but it's another thing entirely to demonstrate how you figured out how to fix it. Even more than knowing that you were able to fix the problem, colleges want to see how you approached the situation . This is why your essay needs to explain your problem-solving methodology. Basically, they need to see you in action. What did you think would work? What did you think would not work? Did you compare this to other problems you have faced and pass? Did you do research? Describe your process.

Make Sure That You Are the Hero

This essay is supposed to demonstrate your resourcefulness and creativity . And make sure that you had to be the person responsible for overcoming the obstacle, not someone else. Your story must clarify that without you and your special brand of XYZ , people would still be lamenting the issue today. Don't worry if the resource you used to bring about a solution was the knowledge and know-how that somebody else brought to the table. Just focus on explaining what made you think of this person as the one to go to, how you convinced them to participate, and how you explained to them how they would be helpful. This will shift the attention of the story back to you and your efforts.

Find the Suspenseful Moment

The most exciting part of this essay should be watching you struggle to find a solution just in the nick of time. Think every movie cliché ever about someone defusing a bomb: Even if you know 100% that the hero is going to save the day, the movie still ratchets up the tension to make it seem like, Well, maybe... You want to do the same thing here. Bring excitement and a feeling of uncertainty to your description of your process to really pull the reader in and make them root for you to succeed.

You're the superhero!

Dissecting 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.

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 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?

This question is really asking for a glimpse of your imagined possibilities .

For some students, this will be an extremely straightforward question. For example, say you've always loved science to the point that you've spent every summer taking biology and chemistry classes. Pick a few of the most gripping moments from these experiences and discuss the overall trajectory of your interests, and your essay will be a winner.

But what if you have many academic interests? Or what if you discovered your academic passion only at the very end of high school? Let's break down what the question is really asking into two parts.

Part 1: Picking a Favorite

At first glance, it sounds as if what you should write about is the class in which you have gotten the best grades or the subject that easily fits into what you see as your future college major or maybe even your eventual career goal. There is nothing wrong with this kind of pick—especially if you really are someone who tends to excel in those classes that are right up your interest alley.

But if we look closer, we see that there is nothing in the prompt that specifically demands that you write either about a particular class or an area of study in which you perform well.

Instead, you could take the phrase "academic subject" to mean a wide field of study and explore your fascination with the different types of learning to be found there. For example, if your chosen topic is the field of literature, you could discuss your experiences with different genres or with foreign writers.

You could also write about a course or area of study that has significantly challenged you and in which you have not been as stellar a student as you want. This could be a way to focus on your personal growth as a result of struggling through a difficult class or to represent how you've learned to handle or overcome your limitations.

Part 2: Relevance

The second part of this prompt , like the first, can also be taken in a literal and direct way . There is absolutely nothing wrong with explaining that because you love engineering and want to be an engineer, you have pursued all your school's STEM courses, are also involved in a robotics club, and have taught yourself to code in order to develop apps.

However, you could focus on the more abstract, values-driven goals we just talked about instead. Then, your explanation of how your academics will help you can be rooted not in the content of what you studied but in the life lessons you drew from it.

In other words, for example, your theater class may not have stimulated your ambition to be an actor, but working on plays with your peers may have shown you how highly you value collaboration, or perhaps the experience of designing sets was an exercise in problem-solving and ingenuity. These lessons would be useful in any field you pursue and could easily be said to help you achieve your lifetime goals.

If you are on a direct path to a specific field of study or career pursuit, admissions officers definitely want to know that. Having driven, goal-oriented, and passionate students is a huge plus for a university. So if this is you, be sure that your essay conveys not just your interest but also your deep and abiding love of the subject. Maybe even include any related clubs, activities, and hobbies that you've done during high school.

Of course, college is the place to find yourself and the things that you become passionate about. So if you're not already committed to a specific course of study, don't worry. Instead, you have to realize that in this essay, like in all the other essays, the how matters much more than the what. No matter where your eventual academic, career, or other pursuits may lie, every class that you have taken up to now has taught you something. You learned about things like work ethic, mastering a skill, practice, learning from a teacher, interacting with peers, dealing with setbacks, understanding your own learning style, and perseverance.

In other words, the admissions office wants to make sure that no matter what you study, you will draw meaningful conclusions from your experiences, whether those conclusions are about the content of what you learn or about a deeper understanding of yourself and others. They want to see that you're not simply floating through life on the surface  but that you are absorbing the qualities, skills, and know-how you will need to succeed in the world—no matter what that success looks like.

Focus on a telling detail. Because personal statements are short, you simply won't have time to explain everything you have loved about a particular subject in enough detail to make it count. Instead, pick one event that crystallized your passion for a subject   or one telling moment that revealed what your working style will be , and go deep into a discussion of what it meant to you in the past and how it will affect your future.

Don't overreach. It's fine to say that you have loved your German classes so much that you have begun exploring both modern and classic German-language writers, for example, but it's a little too self-aggrandizing to claim that your four years of German have made you basically bilingual and ready to teach the language to others. Make sure that whatever class achievements you describe don't come off as unnecessary bragging rather than simple pride .

Similarly, don't underreach. Make sure that you have actual accomplishments to describe in whatever subject you pick to write about. If your favorite class turned out to be the one you mostly skipped to hang out in the gym instead, this may not be the place to share that lifetime goal. After all, you always have to remember your audience. In this case, it's college admissions officers who want to find students who are eager to learn and be exposed to new thoughts and ideas.

Dissecting Personal Insight Question 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?

This topic is trying to get at how you engage with your environment. It's looking for several things:

#1: Your Sense of Place and Connection

Because the term "community" is so broad and ambiguous, this is a good essay for explaining where you feel a sense of belonging and rootedness. What or who constitutes your community? Is your connection to a place, to a group of people, or to an organization? What makes you identify as part of this community—cultural background, a sense of shared purpose, or some other quality?

#2: Your Empathy and Ability to Look at the Big Picture

Before you can solve a problem, you have to realize that the problem exists. Before you can make your community a better place, you have to find the things that can be ameliorated. No matter what your contribution ended up being, you first have to show how you saw where your skills, talent, intelligence, or hard work could do the most good. Did you put yourself in the shoes of the other people in your community? Understand some fundamental inner working of a system you could fix? Knowingly put yourself in the right place at the right time?

#3: Your Problem-Solving Skills

How did you make the difference in your community? If you resolved a tangible issue, how did you come up with your solution? Did you examine several options or act from the gut? If you made your community better in a less direct way, how did you know where to apply yourself and how to have the most impact possible?

Clarify not just what the problem and solution was but also your process of getting involved and contributing specific skills, ideas, or efforts that made a positive difference.

Community is a very important thing to colleges. You'll be involved with and encounter lots of different communities in college, including the broader student body, your extracurriculars, your classes, and the community outside the university. UC wants to make sure that you can engage with the communities around you in a positive, meaningful way .

Make it personal. Before you can explain what you did in your community, you have to define and describe this community itself—and you can only do that by focusing on what it means to you. Don't speak in generalities; instead, show the bonds between you and the group you are a part of through colorful, idiosyncratic language. Sure, they might be "my water polo team," but maybe they are more specifically "the 12 people who have seen me at my most exhausted and my most exhilarated."

Feel all the feelings. This is a chance to move your readers. As you delve deep into what makes your community one of your emotional centers, and then as you describe how you were able to improve it in a meaningful and lasting way, you should keep the roller coaster of feelings front and center. Own how you felt at each step of the process: when you found your community, when you saw that you could make a difference, and when you realized that your actions resulted in a change for the better. Did you feel unprepared for the task you undertook? Nervous to potentially let down those around you? Thrilled to get a chance to display a hidden or underused talent?

To flesh out your essay, depict the emotions you felt while making your community contribution, from frustration or disappointment to joy and fulfillment. 

Dissecting Personal Insight Question 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?

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.

If your particular experience doesn't quite fit under the rubrics of the other essay topics , or if there is something the admissions officers need to understand about your background in order to consider your application in the right context, then this is the essay for you.

Now, I'm going to say something a little counterintuitive here. The prompt for this essay clarifies that even if you don't have a "unique" story to tell, you should still feel free to pick this topic. But, honestly, I think you should  choose this topic only if you have an exceptional experience to share . Remember that E veryday challenges or successes of regular life could easily fit one of the other insight questions instead.

What this means is that evaluating whether your experiences qualify for this essay is a matter of degrees. For example, did you manage to thrive academically despite being raised by a hard-working single parent? That's a hardship that could easily be written about for Questions 1 or 5, depending on how you choose to frame what happened. Did you manage to earn a 3.7 GPA despite living in a succession of foster families only to age out of the system in the middle of your senior year of high school? That's a narrative of overcoming hardship that easily belongs to Question 8.

On the flip side, did you win a state-wide robotics competition? Well done, and feel free to tell your story under Question 4. Were you the youngest person to single-handedly win a season of BattleBots? Then feel free to write about it for Question 8.

This is pretty straightforward. They are trying to identify students that have unique and amazing stories to tell about who they are and where they come from. If you're a student like this, then the admissions people want to know the following:

• What happened to you?
• When and where did it happen?
• How did you participate, or how were you involved in the situation?
• How did it affect you as a person?
• How did it affect your schoolwork?
• How will the experience be reflected in the point of view you bring to campus?

The university wants this information because of the following:

• It gives context to applications that otherwise might seem mediocre or even subpar.
• It can help explain places in a transcript where grades significantly drop.
• It gives them the opportunity to build a lot of diversity into the incoming class.
• It's a way of finding unique talents and abilities that otherwise wouldn't show up on other application materials.

Let's run through a few tricks for making sure your essay makes the most of your particular distinctiveness.

Double-Check Your Uniqueness

Many experiences in our lives that make us feel elated, accomplished, and extremely competent are also near universal. This essay isn't trying to take the validity of your strong feelings away from you, but it would be best served by stories that are on a different scale . Wondering whether what you went through counts? This might be a good time to run your idea by a parent, school counselor, or trusted teacher. Do they think your experience is widespread? Or do they agree that you truly lived a life less ordinary?

Connect Outward

The vast majority of your answer to the prompt should be telling your story and its impact on you and your life. But the essay should also point toward how your particular experiences set you apart from your peers. One of the reasons that the admissions office wants to find out which of the applicants has been through something unlike most other people is that they are hoping to increase the number of points of view in the student body. Think about—and include in your essay—how you will impact campus life. This can be very literal: If you are a jazz singer who has released several songs on social media, then maybe you will perform on campus. Or it can be much more oblique: If you have a disability, then you will be able to offer a perspective that differs from the able-bodied majority.

Be Direct, Specific, and Honest

Nothing will make your voice sound more appealing than writing without embellishment or verbal flourishes. This is the one case in which  how you're telling the story is just as—if not more—important than what you're telling . So the best strategy is to be as straightforward in your writing as possible. This means using description to situate your reader in a place, time, or experience that they would never get to see firsthand. You can do this by picking a specific moment during your accomplishment to narrate as a small short story and not shying away from explaining your emotions throughout the experience. Your goal is to make the extraordinary into something at least somewhat relatable, and the way you do that is by bringing your writing down to earth.

Your essays should feature relatable thoughts and emotions as well as insights into how you will contribute to the campus community.

Writing Advice for Making Your UC Personal Statements Shine

No matter what personal insight questions you end up choosing to write about, here are two tips for making your writing sparkle:

#1: Be Detailed and Descriptive

Have you ever heard the expression "show; don't tell"? It's usually given as creative writing advice, and it will be your best friend when you're writing college essays. It means that any time you want to describe a person or thing as having a particular quality, it's better to illustrate with an example than to just use vague adjectives . If you stick to giving examples that paint a picture, your focus will also become narrower and more specific. You'll end up concentrating on details and concrete events rather than not-particularly-telling generalizations.

Let's say, for instance, Adnan is writing about the house that he's been helping his dad fix up. Which of these do you think gives the reader a better sense of place?

My family bought an old house that was kind of run-down. My dad likes fixing it up on the weekends, and I like helping him. Now the house is much nicer than when we bought it, and I can see all our hard work when I look at it.

My dad grinned when he saw my shocked face. Our "new" house looked like a completely run-down shed: peeling paint, rust-covered railings, shutters that looked like the crooked teeth of a jack-o-lantern. I was still staring at the spider-web crack in one broken window when my dad handed me a pair of brand-new work gloves and a paint scraper. "Today, let's just do what we can with the front wall," he said. And then I smiled too, knowing that many of my weekends would be spent here with him, working side by side.

Both versions of this story focus on the house being dilapidated and how Adnan enjoyed helping his dad do repairs. But the second does this by:

painting a picture of what the house actually looked like by adding visual details ("peeling paint," "rust-covered railings," and "broken window") and through comparisons ("shutters like a jack-o-lantern" and "spider-web crack");

showing emotions by describing facial expressions ("my dad grinned," "my shocked face," and "I smiled"); and

using specific and descriptive action verbs ("grinned," "shocked," "staring," and "handed").

The essay would probably go on to describe one day of working with his dad or a time when a repair went horribly awry. Adnan would make sure to keep adding sensory details (what things looked, sounded, smelled, tasted, and felt like), using active verbs, and illustrating feelings with dialogue and facial expressions.

If you're having trouble checking whether your description is detailed enough, read your work to someone else . Then, ask that person to describe the scene back to you. Are they able to conjure up a picture from your words? If not, you need to beef up your details.

It's a bit of a fixer-upper, but it'll make a great college essay!

#2: Show Your Feelings

All good personal essays deal with emotions. And what marks great personal essays is the author's willingness to really dig into negative feelings as well as positive ones . As you write your UC application essays, keep asking yourself questions and probing your memory. How did you feel before it happened? How did you expect to feel after, and how did you actually feel after? How did the world that you are describing feel about what happened? How do you know how your world felt?

Then write about your feelings using mostly emotion words ("I was thrilled/disappointed/proud/scared"), some comparisons ("I felt like I'd never run again/like I'd just bitten into a sour apple/like the world's greatest explorer"), and a few bits of direct speech ("'How are we going to get away with this?' my brother asked").

What's Next?

This should give you a great starting point to address the UC essay prompts and consider how you'll write your own effective UC personal statements. The hard part starts here: work hard, brainstorm broadly, and use all my suggestions above to craft a great UC application essay.

Making your way through college applications? We have advice on how to find the right college for you , how to write about your extracurricular activities , and how to ask teachers for recommendations .

Interested in taking the SAT one more time? Check out our highly detailed explainer on studying for the SAT to learn how to prepare best.

Worried about how to pay for college after you get in? Read our description of how much college really costs , our comparison of subsidized and unsubsidized loans , and our lists of the top scholarships for high school seniors and juniors .

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

Student and Parent Forum

Our new student and parent forum, at ExpertHub.PrepScholar.com , allow you to interact with your peers and the PrepScholar staff. See how other students and parents are navigating high school, college, and the college admissions process. Ask questions; get answers.

Ask a Question Below

Have any questions about this article or other topics? Ask below and we'll reply!

Improve With Our Famous Guides

• For All Students

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 160+ SAT Points

How to Get a Perfect 1600, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 800 on Each SAT Section:

Score 800 on SAT Math

Score 800 on SAT Reading

Score 800 on SAT Writing

Series: How to Get to 600 on Each SAT Section:

Score 600 on SAT Math

Score 600 on SAT Reading

Score 600 on SAT Writing

Free Complete Official SAT Practice Tests

What SAT Target Score Should You Be Aiming For?

15 Strategies to Improve Your SAT Essay

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 4+ ACT Points

How to Get a Perfect 36 ACT, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 36 on Each ACT Section:

36 on ACT English

36 on ACT Math

36 on ACT Reading

36 on ACT Science

Series: How to Get to 24 on Each ACT Section:

24 on ACT English

24 on ACT Math

24 on ACT Reading

24 on ACT Science

What ACT target score should you be aiming for?

ACT Vocabulary You Must Know

ACT Writing: 15 Tips to Raise Your Essay Score

How to Get Into Harvard and the Ivy League

How to Get a Perfect 4.0 GPA

How to Write an Amazing College Essay

What Exactly Are Colleges Looking For?

Is the ACT easier than the SAT? A Comprehensive Guide

Should you retake your SAT or ACT?

When should you take the SAT or ACT?

Stay Informed

Get the latest articles and test prep tips!

Looking for Graduate School Test Prep?

Check out our top-rated graduate blogs here:

GRE Online Prep Blog

GMAT Online Prep Blog

TOEFL Online Prep Blog

Holly R. "I am absolutely overjoyed and cannot thank you enough for helping me!”

Home » Campus Life » Career Education » Career Studio » Graduate School Planning » Application Essays

Application Essays

A personal statement or statement of purpose is a central part of any graduate admissions application.

Like a college application essay, it gives a graduate admissions committee (usually made up of program faculty and current graduate students) a chance to learn more about you beyond your grades or test scores.

Unlike a college essay, however, a personal statement or statement of purpose for graduate or professional school should highlight what interests you about the program AND what you will contribute to the program in terms of research, seminar discussions, conferences and other collaborative opportunities. It should answer two central questions:

• What interests and qualifications make you the ideal applicant for this program?
• Why are you pursuing a career in this field?

Personal Statement

A personal statement tells a story of experiences that have shaped your interest in your intended field of study and made you who you are. A personal statement is typically 500-800 words, or one to two double-spaced pages.

A Personal Statement should:

• TELL A STORY: Engage the reader. Use a writing style that is fresh and active. Don’t be afraid to use dialogue and descriptive language. Back up statements with examples and details.
• HAVE AN ANGLE: Even if your life has been less than dramatic, you still have a story to tell. Find a theme or “through line” that can unify all your paragraphs.
• PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THE “LEAD”: The first paragraph will either grab the reader's attention or lose it. Use the lead to set the tone and direction for the statement. The lead can but does not have to be an attention-grabbing story. By the end of the first paragraph, the reader should know who you are and what your goal is.
• What's special, unique, distinctive, or impressive about you or your life story?
• When did you become interested in this field? What have you learned about it - and about yourself - that has further stimulated your interest and reinforced your conviction that you are well suited to this field? What insights have you gained?
• How have you learned about this field? What classes, readings, seminars, work or volunteer experiences, or conversations with people in the field have significantly advanced your knowledge or inspired you to learn more?
• If you have worked during your college years, what have you learned (leadership or managerial skills, for example), and how has that work contributed to your growth?
• What are your career goals?
• Are there any gaps or discrepancies in your academic record that you should explain (great grades but mediocre GRE scores, for example, or a distinct upward pattern to your GPA if it was only average in the beginning)?
• Have you had to overcome any unusual obstacles or hardships (for example, economic, familial, or physical) in your life?
• What personal characteristics (for example, integrity, compassion, and/or persistence) do you possess that would improve your prospects for success in the field or profession? Is there a way to demonstrate or document that you have these characteristics?
• What skills (for example, leadership, communicative, analytical) do you possess?
• Why might you be a stronger candidate for graduate school – and more successful and effective in the profession or field – than other applicants?
• What are the most compelling reasons you can give for the admissions committee to be interested in you?

Tell a story

Think in terms of showing or demonstrating through concrete experience. If your statement is fresh, lively and different, you'll put yourself ahead of the pack. If you distinguish yourself through your story, you will make yourself memorable.

Be specific

Your desire to become a lawyer, engineer or whatever should be logical – the result of specific experience that is described in your statement. Your application should emerge as the logical conclusion to your story.

Find an angle

If you're like most people, your life story lacks drama, so figuring out a way to make it interesting becomes the big challenge. Find an angle or "hook."

Concentrate on your opening paragraph

This paragraph is the most important. Grab the reader's attention.

Tell what you know

The middle section of your essay should detail your interest and experience in your field. Be specific in relating what you know about it and use the language professionals use. Refer to work experiences, research, classes, conversations with people in the field, books you’ve read, seminars you've attended, or any other source of information about the career you want and why you're suited to it. Your choices of what to include and what to leave out will indicate your overall judgment.

Leave out some subjects

Certain things are best left out of personal statements. For example, references to experiences or accomplishments in high school or earlier are generally not relevant. Don't mention potentially controversial subjects (for example, controversial religious or political views).

Do some research

Many schools want to know why you're applying there rather than elsewhere. Do some research to find out what sets your choice apart from other universities or programs. If the school setting would provide an important geographical or cultural change for you, this might be a factor to mention.

Be meticulous. Type and proofread your essay very carefully. Many admissions officers say that good writing skills are important. Express yourself clearly and concisely. Stick to the word limits.

Statement of Purpose

In contrast to a personal statement, a statement of purpose focuses on your reasons for applying. It should discuss your professional, intellectual and research interests and the expertise you have gained.

A Statement of Purpose should:

• SHOW THAT YOU KNOW SOMETHING: The main section explains what you know and who you are. Show knowledge of your field (e.g., a specific research focus) or your profession. Show how you will impact the field, or what has impacted you in the pursuit of your field.
• FOCUS ON YOUR SPECIFIC RESEARCH or PROFESSIONAL INTERESTS WITHIN YOUR FIELD: Detail how your academic and professional experiences have developed your research or professional interests and prepared you to pursue them at a higher academic level. Include courses, experts whose work you admire or whose work aligns with your interests, and factors such as internship opportunities or opportunities afforded by the school’s location.
• MATCH YOUR RESEARCH INTERESTS with the PROGRAM: Explain how your research interests can be pursued at this program and this institution.

General Guidelines for Both Personal Statements and Statements of Purpose

Whether you are writing a Personal Statement or Statement of Purpose:

• Answer the questions that are asked: Lots of schools may ask for similar information, but not all are the same. Use different statements for different schools, depending on the requirements.
• Leave out some topics: Accomplishments from high school are probably not relevant. Also, avoid controversial subjects. Your choice of content indicates your maturity and judgment.
• Avoid clichés: Saying “I like science” or “I want to help people” isn't specific enough to warrant pursuing a graduate or professional degree.
• Do your research: What sets this program apart? Why does this program attract you?
• Stay focused on what you can offer: What can you offer them?
• Edit and proofread: Be meticulous and thorough with your editing. Type and proofread your essay carefully. Many admissions officers say good writing skills are important. Express yourself clearly and concisely. Stick to the word limits.
• Watch out for "I" statements: Be careful not to begin every statement with “I.” One way to vary sentence beginnings is to focus on the program and the field.
• Don’t simply list or tell stories about all the points that can be found in your resume or CV.
• Avoid sounding defensive or self-pitying. Instead, take responsibility for challenging or difficult life circumstances and show how you have grown as a person and as a potential candidate.
• Don’t preach to your reader or tell them things they already know. For example, don’t summarize the research of a professor in the program you are applying to; they know this already.
• Avoid talking about money as a motivating factor in your decision process.

Some of this page content was adapted from "Writing Personal Statements" by the UCLA Undergraduate Writing Center.

Application form

Nearly all applications can be completed online. Each program’s website should list application deadlines, mailing addresses, GRE institution or department codes and other information. Carefully read and follow all instructions.

Application fees

You’ll be expected to submit a separate fee for each university—and perhaps each program—when you apply. Many institutions, including all UC campuses, offer fee waivers to applicants based on financial need or participation in certain programs, such as McNair Scholars. Check with each campus graduate division to learn more.

Recommendations

Generally, all your letters should be from professors. But if you have done research or been employed in your proposed field of study, a letter from your mentor or supervisor also may be helpful; check with faculty advisors in the programs to which you are applying. Request recommendations from professors in your field who know you well, think highly of your work, and can attest to your ability to succeed in the graduate program. Give recommenders enough time to provide you with a strong, thoughtful, well-written letter.

Transcripts

Most institutions will require that official transcripts be sent from each institution you have attended, including any community colleges. You may need to pay a fee for each transcript. Check with the institutions to which you are applying to be sure official transcripts are required. If the program explicitly states unofficial transcripts may be submitted, you can save yourself some money.

Required testing

Some programs require applicants to take the GRE or other standardized tests. Prepare for and take tests early so you will have time to study and retake them if you’re not satisfied with your scores.

Statement of purpose

Admissions committees use this important essay to gain insight into your motivation, competence and potential as a graduate student. They will also look at it to evaluate your writing skills.

Personal history statement

Some schools may ask you to submit an additional essay, often called a personal history statement or personal statement, that highlights how you will contribute to the school’s diversity and be an asset to the program. This is different from the statement of purpose. The personal history statement allows you to share your achievements and highlight your ability to persevere in the face of social, economic or educational challenges.

Supplemental materials

Some programs allow you to include supplemental information, such as your résumé, curriculum vitae (CV), publications or portfolio. Do not include any additional materials unless the instructions specifically state that they are accepted.

“What keeps me going is the community: Having a group of grad school friends reminds me that I am not alone; having non-grad school friends reminds me that there still exists a world outside of the classroom and library.”

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

The Role That Essays Play in the UC Admissions

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Vinay Bhaskara in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

What’s Covered:

Why your essays matter, how to approach your essays, understanding and selecting prompts.

Essays are a critical component of your application to the University of California (UC) system. Since the UC system no longer considers standardized tests, like the SAT, ACT, AP, or IB examinations, when reaching admissions decisions, there are fewer data points with which admissions officers can assess candidates. 

A complete application for admission to the UC system consists of three main components: 

• Academic Performance: All of the schools you have attended, coursework you have taken, and the grades you received.
• Extracurricular Involvement: A list of your activities and awards.
• Essays: Four responses to the personal insight questions. 

Since there are fewer components to the application for admission, essays account for up to 35% of the admissions decision at the most competitive UCs, such as UC Berkeley and UCLA . The essays are still an important component of your application to less competitive but still selective UCs, such as UC Santa Barbara, San Diego, Irvine, Davis, and Riverside. And although UC Santa Cruz and Merced will mostly base their decision on your academic performance, your essays are still relevant to their admissions decisions. 

There are many applicants to the UC system who are all equally qualified and have similar academic and extracurricular profiles. For these students, the essays will likely be the single source of information by which admissions officers differentiate between otherwise comparable applicants before making admissions decisions. In this situation, you want the admissions officers to affirmatively choose you over another applicant. 

Since there is no dominant personal statement that you will submit, it is helpful to approach the UC application essays as if they form a portfolio. Each essay should speak to different aspects of your character, commitments, responsibilities, values, and goals. Your essays should provide context, analysis, and self-reflection, and they should not read like a resume or be overly linear or chronological in structure. If you would like to highlight an accomplishment of yours in an essay, you should make sure that you provide context, craft a compelling narrative, and balance description with sufficient analysis and self-reflection. 

There are eight personal insight questions to choose from, and you must provide four responses that are each a maximum of 350 words. Broadly speaking, the personal insight questions fall under two categories. 

The first category of personal insight questions focuses on personal qualities and includes prompts 1, 2, 5, and 7: 

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

The second category of personal insight questions focuses on your accomplishments and interests and includes questions 3, 4, 6, and 8: 

• Prompt 3. What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time? 
• Prompt 4. Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.
• Prompt 6.  Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom. 
• Prompt 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?

To strike a good balance across all four essays, we recommend that you respond to two questions regarding your personal qualities and two questions regarding your accomplishments and interests. Ultimately, you should select the prompts that you are most confident and excited to respond to and that present a holistic view of who you are. 

For more information on writing the application essays for admission to the University of California, review the article on How to Write the University of California Essays .

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

• College Application

UC Personal Statement Examples

Use our UC personal statement samples to learn how to write a college essay for these prestigious institutions. The UC application system has eight prompts that they refer to as “personal insight questions.” Not unlike other college essays , the UC prompts cover very common college essay topics familiar to all applicants, including background, family, strengths, weaknesses, hobbies, and so on. You can go through UC personal statement samples if you are finding it hard to write supplemental college essays of your own. Practicing the writing of supplemental essays will give you the confidence to easily overcome that obstacle when the time comes to submit your application to the university. Read on to learn how to write the best UC essay for your application.

>> Want us to help you get accepted? Schedule a free strategy call here . <<

Article Contents 9 min read

Uc personal statement requirements.

Before we go ahead and have a look at each prompt and the UC personal statement samples, let us go over the UC personal statement requirements.

According to the UC application requirements, prospective candidates must choose to respond to four out of the eight available questions. Each essay has a word limit of 350 words.

UC also offers a piece of advice by suggesting that while the questions you choose are up to you, you should choose the prompts that are “most relevant to your experience and that best reflect your individual circumstances.” Keep in mind that the prompts are quite open-ended, so you have a lot of creative freedom when it comes to writing your essays. Try to choose prompts where you can showcase the qualities valued by the UC schools, such as leadership, creativity, diversity, academic prowess, and so on.

Learn how to write your college essays:

Now, let’s review expertly written UC personal statement samples. Below are essays that were written in response to four out of the eight prompts, as is required by UC. The fifth one is a bonus.

Prompt 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.

In my junior year of high school, I set a goal for myself: I would start a jazz club. Although we had several music clubs, including acapella, classical, and rock – there were none for the music I loved: jazz. To me, jazz is a genre that transcends race and nationalities. It is the music of “understanding.” By my junior year, I’d been playing the saxophone for five years, mostly at home, and wanted to continue to play with others. I also wanted to expose my peers to the music that meant so much to me. 

However, I also understood that jazz is the kind of music that attracted a distinct following. One must be exposed to live jazz before one can appreciate the beauty of this genre. I, therefore, knew I had to start by creating a buzz before considering forming a club, or it would be a club of one. And to create this buzz, I had to expose my schoolmates to live jazz and, therefore, create a jazz band.

I started looking for band members among my classmates. Not only did I ask my school to advertise my search in the school newspaper, but I also put up flyers at the entrance of the school to attract musicians. 

Slowly, over three months, I found four musicians to form our jazz quintet. Once we had set up our rehearsal schedules and practiced a few songs, we were confident enough to perform our first gig at the upcoming “Culture Day” hosted by our school.

After enthusiastic ovations for our last song, we took the opportunity to announce our intention to form a school jazz club and welcome everyone to join us in appreciation of this eclectic genre.

Shortly after our performance, we had our club. Over the last year, the club has grown exponentially. I continued to practice with my band and other club members, and we even began to invite local jazz musicians to play with us. Today, the club is growing strong and I hope will remain a part of the X high school for years to come.  (350 words)

As you can see from the UC personal statement samples and prompts, the UC schools are trying to understand what kinds of experiences you will bring to the college community. Remember, research each UC school to strategically choose experiences and skills to highlight in your essay.

Want to learn more about UC schools?

The UC personal statements are submitted using the UC application system, so you will simply be banned from submitting your work.

Your essays should be stories. Tell the admissions committee who you are and what got you to where you are today.

Don’t forget to spell check and make sure there are no grammatical errors.

UC schools are some of the best universities in the world. This means, the competition for admission each year is cutthroat.

Focus on ways you can increase your chances by creating exceptional personal statements and essays.

You can only join a UC school if you have a minimum 3.0 GPA as a California resident and a 3.4 GPA if you are a non-resident.

Not everyone is good at writing personal statements. But, you can go ahead and work with college essay advisors to get some pointers on how to write a competent personal statement.

It really doesn’t matter if the UC prompts change every year or not. The point is that you learn to write the best essays that you can and succeed in getting admitted to the university – regardless of the prompt.

The first thing you need to remember is that the personal statement is like a story about you. If you look at the prompts for the UC personal statements, you can see that they ask about you and how you affect – or are affected by – your community, your background, your experiences, and so on.

To make your personal statement stand out, you need to tell a compelling story when answering the prompts.

Since you’re talking about your life and experiences, you can go with a semi-casual tone. Avoid vulgar terms, stay away from controversial topics, and never write about current hot topics in politics.

Remember: you want to leave a good impression with the admissions committee – so don’t shoot yourself in the foot by inadvertently offending them.

Want more free tips? Subscribe to our channels for more free and useful content!

Apple Podcasts

Like our blog? Write for us ! >>

Have a question ask our admissions experts below and we'll answer your questions, get started now.

Talk to one of our admissions experts

Our site uses cookies. By using our website, you agree with our cookie policy .

FREE Training Webinar:

How to make your college applications stand out, (and avoid the top 5 mistakes that get most rejected).

Time Sensitive. Limited Spots Available:

We guarantee you'll get into your dream college or university or you don't pay.

Swipe up to see a great offer!

Health Sciences - UC Santa Barbara

Personal Statements

The Personal Statement, or application essay in the case of Physical Therapy and the PTCAS application, is an opportunity to begin to show admissions committees who you are on a more personal level.  This essay, the length of which will vary depending on the program you are applying to, is your opportunity to share your  Why .  Essentially, why do you want to pursue a particular health profession. The personal statement also provides applicants with the opportunity to share information and characteristics of themselves that can not be read or gleaned elsewhere in the application.  We encourage pre-health students to begin thinking about and drafting responses to this question as early as possible--even freshman/first year. 

New Personal Statement/Application Essay Writing Resource!

We are very excited to share with you all a set of video resources created by UCSB's very own Janet Mizrahi!   Ms. Mizrahi has been part of the Writing Department at UCSB for over 20 years and has taught the Writing 109HP Writing for the Health Professions course over 50 times!  In this video series, "How to Write your Personal Statement," you will learn how to compose a personal statement to use as part of your health professions school application.  In addition to the videos, Ms. Mizrahi has also shared several worksheets to assist students throughout the process of writing their personal statements. 

Video 1 ( Click Here )

Video 2 ( Click Here )

Video 3 ( Click Here )

Video 4 ( Click Here )

Video 5 ( Click Here )

Video 6 ( Click Here )

Additional information to consider as you begin writing your personal statement/application essay.

The key to composing a compelling personal statement is to create a theme in which to frame your story and to avoid a few common mistakes. 

• Use a formal essay structure (Introductory paragraphs, body paragraphs, conclusion).
• Show, don’t tell!  (Use specific verbs, strong adjectives, etc. to show the reader how and why you chose to pursue a career in healthcare and developed as a pre-health student.)
• Explain hardships or adversity you have overcome
• Use cliches
• Recite your resume
• Have too broad a focus
• Get off topic
• Let the focus deviate from you to other people
• Complain or place blame on others

Remember, your pre-health advisors are here to help you, and we are happy to review your personal statement as we are able.  If you have never met with one of us, we will need you to provide, at minimum, an up-to-date resume to provide us with some context for your personal statement.  Please plan on scheduling an appointment to meet with one of us for help brainstorming ideas for your personal statement and/or to have one of us read and look over your drafts.  We also encourage students to consider taking the Writing 109HP course, Writing for Health Professionals.

• UC Santa Barbara Career Services
• Explore Grad School

Write Your Draft

Tell Your Story So Far  

Graduate schools ask you to submit admissions essays in an effort to get to know you better and understand your motivations for pursuing their program. Nearly every graduate program you encounter requires at least one essay, as it is an effective tool for them to gain key insights.

Fortunately, writing essays is something that should feel familiar to you by this point in your education, however, there can be more than what meets the eye in the various formats and prompts that are provided for application essays.

Use this page to compose a powerful draft for a Statement of Purpose, Personal Statement, Research Statement, and other statements for graduate admission.

Three-Pronged Outline

To begin drafting your document, it can help to begin with an outline that covers the three fundamental topics of most admissions essays:

• Motivations: Why do you want to go to graduate school in your chosen field or discipline? Why do you want to attend the particular program to which you are applying?
• Qualifications: Why are you qualified to attend the graduate program? How do your academic performance, experiences, and extracurricular achievements demonstrate your suitability for that graduate program?
• Direction: Where do you see yourself heading professionally, and how will the graduate program help you accomplish this goal?

An Introduction That Captivates

Consider creating a storyline with an opening that is personal to you. Here are some strategies for creating a memorable opening to your essay:

• Place the reader into your story at a key moment in time
• Draw inspiration from a significant character in your story by beginning with something they once told you
• Provide a narrative, account, or observation about a current event that pertains to your story

Avoid an opening that states that you have wanted to pursue the field since a young age, as this is the most common way that applicants begin their admissions essays. You can certainly open this way, but know that it is frequently used, and your readers appreciate variety just like anyone else.

Writing Tips  

There are a few key considerations when writing, refining, and editing the body of your essay. Here are some essential tips.

Consider Your Audience

What will your audience want to learn about in order to better understand why you would be a great match for their program? If you are using significant space to tell a story that is not bolstering this point, you may want to edit it out. Keep your writing focused and concise.

Keep a Positive Tone

One of the biggest red flags that graduate programs see is an applicant who puts others down (i.e., another institution, organization, or individual) in an attempt to build themselves up. Your essay should not be judgmental in any way. This is unbecoming on a personal level and unprofessional.

Avoid Complimenting a Program’s Prestige

This is not an appropriate medium for you to make broad compliments about a program or explain why the program to which you are applying is better than your undergraduate college or university. Instead, focus on concrete aspects of the program that would add value to your career.

Condense Your Prose

Take any paragraph in your essay and calculate its word count. Now try to get the same message across in half as many words. You may not be able to do it, but the effort will show you where you can and cannot trim.

Proofread for Typos

Mistakes with grammar and spelling look unprofesional and undermine your credibbilty as a schollar. Don’t you aggree? :)

Get a Fresh Perspective

Enlist a friend you trust to read your essay. When they are done, go back to each paragraph and ask them to paraphrase what you wrote. Is what they remember the thing you wanted to get across? If not, rewrite so that it is.

    Take Action: Where to Go From Here

Suggested Steps for Success

ATTEND AN EVENT

See Details >>

GET CAREER ADVISING

CONTINUE TO UNDERGRAD CVS

Book navigation

Social sharing block.

How to Write a Compelling Personal Statement for University of California--Davis School of Law

Learn how to craft a winning personal statement for University of California--Davis School of Law with our comprehensive guide.

Posted May 12, 2023

Featuring Machmud M.

Deciding Which Law School to Attend

Tuesday, april 2.

7:00 PM UTC · 60 minutes

Applying to law school can be an intimidating and competitive process, but your personal statement is an opportunity to showcase your unique qualities and stand out from the crowd. In this article, we will guide you through the process of writing a compelling personal statement for the University of California--Davis School of Law (UC Davis Law) that will impress admissions officers and increase your chances of acceptance.

Why the Personal Statement is Important for Law School Admissions

As the name implies, the personal statement is your chance to share your personal story, experiences, and motivations for pursuing a law degree. Admissions officers use this statement to learn more about you beyond your grades and test scores, and to gauge your fit with their law school. A well-crafted personal statement can make your application stand out and demonstrate your potential as a law student and future lawyer.

Additionally, the personal statement allows you to showcase your writing skills and ability to communicate effectively. As a law student and future lawyer, strong writing skills are essential for success in the field. Admissions officers will be looking for clear and concise writing, as well as your ability to make a persuasive argument. Therefore, it is important to take the time to carefully craft your personal statement and ensure that it reflects your best writing abilities.

Understanding the UC Davis School of Law’s Personal Statement Prompt

The UC Davis Law personal statement prompt asks applicants to "describe the personal qualities, accomplishments, experiences, or goals that you believe will enable you to contribute to the UC Davis School of Law community and to the legal profession." This prompt is intentionally broad to allow applicants to showcase their unique qualities and viewpoint. However, it's important to keep in mind the values and characteristics that are important to the UC Davis Law community, such as diversity, public service, and social justice.

One way to approach this prompt is to reflect on your personal experiences and how they have shaped your perspective on the legal profession. For example, if you have volunteered at a legal aid clinic or worked on a social justice project, you can discuss how these experiences have influenced your goals and aspirations. Additionally, you can highlight any unique skills or qualities that you possess, such as language proficiency or cultural competency, that would enable you to contribute to the diverse and inclusive community at UC Davis Law. Ultimately, the personal statement is an opportunity to showcase your passion for the law and your potential to make a positive impact in the legal profession.

Researching the UC Davis School of Law and its Values before Writing Your Personal Statement

Before you start writing your personal statement, take some time to research the UC Davis Law community and values. Read their website and mission statement to understand their priorities and goals. Look for opportunities to connect your experiences and aspirations with their values. This will not only help you write a targeted and effective personal statement but also demonstrate your sincere interest in their program.

One way to research the UC Davis School of Law is to attend one of their information sessions or open houses. This will give you the opportunity to meet current students, faculty, and staff, and ask questions about the program and its values. You can also learn about the different clinics, programs, and organizations that are available to students, and see how they align with your interests and goals.

Another important aspect to consider when researching the UC Davis School of Law is its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Take a look at their diversity and inclusion initiatives, and see how they are working to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for all students. Consider how your own experiences and perspectives can contribute to this community, and how you can help promote diversity and equity within the legal profession.

Brainstorming and Outlining Your Personal Statement for UC Davis School of Law

Once you have a better understanding of the prompt and the UC Davis Law community, it's time to brainstorm and outline your personal statement. Start by listing your experiences, accomplishments, and goals that are relevant to the prompt. Think about your challenges, turning points, and unique perspective that can add value to the UC Davis Law community. Then, organize your ideas into an outline that includes an introduction, body, and conclusion. Your outline will serve as a roadmap to ensure that your personal statement is coherent, logical, and impactful.

When brainstorming, it's important to not only focus on your achievements, but also on your failures and setbacks. These experiences can often be just as valuable in demonstrating your resilience and determination. Additionally, consider incorporating specific examples and anecdotes to illustrate your points and make your personal statement more engaging.

Once you have a draft of your personal statement, it's crucial to seek feedback from others. This can include friends, family, or even a professional editor. Getting an outside perspective can help you identify areas for improvement and ensure that your message is clear and effective. Remember, your personal statement is your chance to showcase your unique qualities and convince the admissions committee that you are a strong candidate for UC Davis School of Law.

Tips for Writing an Attention-Grabbing Introduction for Your UC Davis Law Personal Statement

Your introduction sets the tone for your personal statement and should grab the attention of the reader. Consider starting with a strong hook, such as a personal story, quote, or statistic, that highlights your motivation and passion for law. Avoid cliches and generic statements that don't add value to your application. Your introduction should also provide a clear thesis statement that outlines the main points you will cover in your personal statement.

Another important aspect to consider when writing your introduction is to make sure it is concise and to the point. Admissions officers have to read through hundreds of personal statements, so it's important to make sure your introduction is not too long or rambling. Stick to the main points and avoid going off on tangents.

Finally, don't be afraid to be creative and showcase your unique voice and personality in your introduction. This is your chance to stand out from the crowd and make a memorable impression. Just make sure that your creativity doesn't overshadow the content of your personal statement or come across as unprofessional.

Telling a Compelling Story in Your UC Davis Law Personal Statement

A great personal statement is not a list of your qualifications, but a cohesive and engaging story that showcases your unique qualities and experiences. Use anecdotes, examples, and vivid language to paint a picture of your journey and highlight your strengths. Focus on a few key experiences or themes and explore them in detail. However, be mindful of the word count and avoid including irrelevant or repetitive information.

One effective way to create a compelling personal statement is to start with a strong opening that captures the reader's attention. This could be a personal anecdote, a thought-provoking question, or a bold statement that sets the tone for the rest of your essay. Remember that the admissions committee reads hundreds of personal statements, so you want to make sure yours stands out.

Another important aspect of a successful personal statement is to demonstrate your passion for the law and your commitment to pursuing a legal career. This can be achieved by discussing specific experiences or challenges that have motivated you to pursue a law degree, or by highlighting your involvement in relevant extracurricular activities or volunteer work. By showing your dedication and enthusiasm, you can convince the admissions committee that you are a strong candidate for their program.

Highlighting Your Relevant Experiences and Skills in Your UC Davis Law Personal Statement

Your personal statement should provide evidence of your qualifications and potential as a law student and lawyer. Highlight your relevant experiences, such as internships, work, or volunteering, and the skills and knowledge you gained from them. Demonstrate your ability to think critically, communicate effectively, and collaborate with others. Use concrete examples and avoid unsupported claims.

Demonstrating Your Passion for Law in Your UC Davis Law Personal Statement

Your personal statement should convey your interest and commitment to the field of law. Discuss why you want to study law and how it aligns with your personal and professional goals. Be specific about your area of interest and how that connects with your experiences and aspirations. Avoid generic statements or exaggerations. Admissions officers want to see your genuine passion and curiosity, not just a rehearsed pitch.

Using Specific Examples to Support Your Claims in Your UC Davis Law Personal Statement

One of the most effective ways to make your personal statement stand out is by using specific and detailed examples to illustrate your claims. Avoid making generic and abstract statements, such as "I'm determined" or "I'm a team player," without providing evidence to support them. Use real-life situations and experiences to demonstrate your qualities and skills. This will not only make your application more convincing but also memorable.

Avoiding Common Mistakes in Writing a UC Davis Law Personal Statement

Writing a personal statement can be challenging, especially with the pressure of making it perfect. However, there are some common mistakes that you should avoid to ensure your personal statement stands out for the right reasons. These include writing in a convoluted or archaic language, being too vague or generic, being too negative or cynical, or oversharing personal details. Keep in mind the purpose of the personal statement and the audience you're writing for.

Editing and Proofreading Your UC Davis Law Personal Statement to Perfection

After you've written your personal statement, it's time to edit and proofread it to ensure it meets the highest standards of quality. Give yourself enough time to revise and refine your statement. Read it aloud or ask a friend or mentor to review it for grammar, structure, and clarity. Make sure your ideas are well-organized, your language is clear and concise, and your tone is professional and engaging. Avoid any typos or errors that can detract from your message.

Submitting a Strong and Effective Personal Statement to UC Davis School of Law

Finally, when you're satisfied with your personal statement, it's time to submit it to the University of California--Davis School of Law. Double-check the submission guidelines and deadlines, and make sure you've followed them accurately. Submit your personal statement along with the rest of your application materials and wait for the decision. Remember that your personal statement is only one part of your application, so don't stress too much about it. Be confident and proud of your work, and trust that your hard work and dedication will pay off.

Browse hundreds of expert coaches

Leland coaches have helped thousands of people achieve their goals. A dedicated mentor can make all the difference.

Browse Related Articles

May 12, 2023

How to Write a Compelling Personal Statement for University of Chicago Law School

Learn how to craft a winning personal statement for University of Chicago Law School with our comprehensive guide.

How to Write a Compelling Personal Statement for University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

Learn how to craft a powerful personal statement that will impress the admissions committee at University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.

How to Write a Compelling Personal Statement for Duke University School of Law

Learn how to craft a standout personal statement for Duke University School of Law with our comprehensive guide.

How to Write a Compelling Personal Statement for Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law

Learn how to write a compelling personal statement that will make your application stand out for Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.

How to Write a Compelling Personal Statement for Georgetown University Law Center

Learn how to craft a personal statement that will impress the admissions committee at Georgetown University Law Center.

How to Write a Compelling Personal Statement for University of Southern California Gould School of Law

Learn how to craft a powerful personal statement that will make your application stand out to the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.

How to Write a Compelling Personal Statement for University of Minnesota Law School

Learn how to craft a powerful personal statement that will grab the attention of the University of Minnesota Law School admissions committee.

How to Write a Compelling Personal Statement for University of California, Irvine School of Law

Learn how to write a compelling personal statement that will impress the admissions committee at the University of California, Irvine School of Law.

How to Write a Compelling Personal Statement for Emory University School of Law

Learn how to craft a powerful personal statement that will impress the admissions committee at Emory University School of Law.

How to Write a Compelling Personal Statement for Ohio State University Moritz College of Law

Learn how to craft a powerful personal statement that will impress the admissions committee at Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.

How to Write a Compelling Personal Statement for William & Mary Law School

Learn how to craft a powerful personal statement that will impress the admissions committee at William & Mary Law School.

How to Write a Compelling Personal Statement for Indiana University Maurer School of Law

Learn how to craft a winning personal statement for Indiana University Maurer School of Law with our expert tips and advice.

• Dissertation Writing
• Buy Dissertation
• Thesis Editing
• Dissertation Editing
• Dissertation Proposal
• Assignment Writing
• Coursework Writing
• Buy Assignments
• Research Papers
• Research Proposal
• Essay Writing Service
• Buy Essay Online
• Essay Editing Service
• Critical Essay
• Online Story
• Book Reviews

Personal Statement

• Term Papers
• Literature Review

How to write a personal statement

If you want to give current article to your teenage child you might be right. But adults can be interested in it too. Personal statement is a piece of individual writing a person usually encloses to his or her university application. It's never too late to study, universities accept not only young and enthusiastic people but representatives of all ages. Anyway, we think it's vital to know how to write a personal statement. Who knows maybe next year you'll express desire to go back to school! Internet as usual can offer you a huge amount of personal statement examples for any case. We prefer to stick to theory that it should be unique and reflect best traits of your character and has a full story of your achievements. Personal statement format is not strict but of course there is a plan to follow. First is introduction. It should be catchy and captivate reader's attention from first sentence. In several blocks tell briefly but vividly about your education, experience and skills. Don't ask anyone for help, use your own words and phrases, let the committee know what a person you are. Search for tips on how to write a personal statement but do writing part yourself, without appropriating anyone's thoughts. In personal financial statement explain need of scholarship or financial aid. In personal mission statement define your primary goals you plan to achieve in life with help of high school.

Personal statement examples for different aims

Not to get lost under flood of information about personal statements, everyone should know that for each type of high school there should be a unique piece of paper.

Personal statement for graduate school won't contain any information about your desperate need of financial assistance in studying. This is what a personal financial statement for.

Planning to become a famous doctor and getting a medical certificate? Write a medical school personal statement, describe your preference. There is surely a noble reason for choosing career of doctor. After finishing studies and applying for a place in hospital as an intern there is a necessity to write residency personal statement. And again you say what made you think this very hospital would provide the best experience for you.

Dreaming of a career in jurisprudence? Be sure to make best law school personal statement ever. The competition between applicants is quite hard, as there are plenty of them. With moderate or low grades knowledge of how to write a personal statement is not just important, it's vital. When looking through samples ignore those that don't belong to necessary sphere. Medical school personal statement examples are not proper when applying for law school.

Importance of a good statement

Use of correct personal statement format is significant. Grades matter too but a brilliant piece of writing may win you a place in high school. Devote as much time as possible to compose it. Even when making a personal statement for college do your best. Examine your work several times, make notes, change part you don't like, give it to you teacher or senior to evaluate. Personal mission statement examples will help to make a right decision and sometimes completely change your mind.

• Customer support 24/7
• 100% satisfaction guaranteed
• 100% confidentiality
• On-time help provided
• Contact directly to the helper
• Unique ideas and thoughts
• 14 Techniques to Spend Your Summer Productively & Enjoy
• Overcome Shyness Meeting New People & Old Acquaintances
• Productive Homework Tips for Students to Achieve Success
• How to Improve Public Speaking Skills and Confidence?
• Manage Academic Expenses With Easy Ways to Save Money
• Dissertation VS Thesis Know the Similarities & Variation
• How To concentrate On Studies And Retain Employment?
• How to Write a Dissertation and Concurrently Seek Work?
• Controlling the Average Student Budget For Entertainment
• Rephrasing Productively to Avoid Plagiarism in Your Work

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved | Preparation Center LLC

Admissions » Apply » Tips and Resources » Writing Prompts

Application Writing Prompts

For the purpose of your Cincinnati application, writing ability is demonstrated in both The Common Application essay and University of Cincinnati personal statement. It is important to put your best foot forward through these responses in order for the admissions staff to draw a full picture of why you would be a good fit at the University of Cincinnati. Therefore, as you prepare your application, spend time on these components of the application and don't be afraid to have family, teachers, or counselors weigh in and provide feedback.

Students must choose one of the following topics to complete an essay of no more than 650 words:

• Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
• 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?
• Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome? 
• Describe a problem you've solved or a problem you'd like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma—anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.
• Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
• Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?
• Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design. 

Personal Statement

Students must also submit a personal statement in response to the following prompt in approximately 500 words:

• Why did you apply to each of the academic programs listed on your application? This personal statement should provide additional information not already referenced in your application.