uc application essay guide

University of California (UC) Personal Insight Questions Guide: 2021-2022

Not sure how to approach the UC Personal Insight Questions? With tips from an Ivy League graduate, CollegeAdvisor.com’s guide to the UC essay prompts will show you how to write engaging UC essay prompts.  Using both the UC essays guide and our UC PIQ examples, you can stand out from the crowd and maximize your admissions odds.

Want help crafting your UC personal insight questions? Create your free  account  or schedule a no-cost advising consultation by calling (844) 343-6272.

There are nine University of California campuses that offer undergraduate programs. The tenth campus, UC San Francisco, only offers graduate programs in the health sciences. Each campus requires essay responses for the UC Personal Insight Questions (PIQs). In this guide, we’ll walk through each of the UC Personal Insight Questions. We’ll also break down what each UC school looks for in its applicants.

UC  Personal Insight Questions Essay Guide Quick Facts:

• UC Berkeley  has an acceptance rate of 14.5%— U.S. News  ranks UC Berkeley as a  highly competitive  school.
• UC Davis  has an acceptance rate of 49%— U.S. News  ranks UC Davis as a  competitive  school.
• UC Irvine  has an acceptance rate of 29%— U.S. News  ranks UC Irvine as a  competitive  school.
• UC Los Angeles  has an acceptance rate of 10.8%— U.S. News  ranks UCLA as a  highly competitive  school.
• UC San Diego  has an acceptance rate of 34.3%— U.S. News  ranks UC San Diego as a  highly competitive  school.
• UC Santa Barbara  has an acceptance rate of 29.2%— U.S. News  ranks UC Santa Barbara as a  highly competitive  school.
• We recommend answering the UC Personal Insight Questions comprehensively and thoughtfully.

UC Merced ,  UC Riverside , and  UC Santa Cruz  are not ranked in the top 100 schools on U.S. News.

What are the UC Personal Insight Questions?

The UC Personal Insight Questions are UC essay  prompts  specific to the University of California campuses . The UC system does not accept the Common or Coalition Application —instead, they use their own application system called UC Apply. You can find the main UC application  here .

Looking for more information on how to navigate UC Apply? Check out our webinar hosted by a UC alumnus.

Read on for tips on the UC Personal Insight Questions as well as information about successful UC essay examples. Need tips on writing your Common App essay for other schools? Check out our  blog article .

How Many UC Essays are Required?

There are a total of eight UC Personal Insight Questions. You will only choose and complete four UC essay prompts, however. All eight UC PIQs are accepted at all of the University of California schools. This means you’ll have a bit of flexibility when writing your UC essays.

Below, we will walk you through all of the UC essay prompts. We’re also proud to feature our UC PIQ examples  here . Our UC PIQ examples include information from admissions officers about why each of the UC essay examples worked. Struggling to respond to the UC essay prompts? These UC Personal Insight Questions examples are a great place to start! Reading the UC essay examples will give you added insight on how to approach the UC essay prompts.

Remember that you will only need to respond to four UC essay prompts. Use this guide to determine which of the UC essay prompts is best for you!

How Long is Each UC Essay?

Each of the UC essay prompts has a maximum of 350 words. This is equal to about one double-spaced page for each of the UC essay prompts.

When reviewing our UC PIQ examples, you might notice that the UC essays feel long compared to other supplemental essays. However, once you read these UC Personal Insight Questions examples and start writing your responses to the UC essay prompts, you may find 350 words feels like relatively little space to answer the UC essay prompts!

Which UC Essay Should I Write?

Narrowing down which four UC essay prompts to respond to may be challenging—but don’t stress. No single UC PIQ will make or break your application. Read over the UC essay prompts and remind yourself—there is no wrong choice.

Struggling to select a prompt? Return to the UC Personal Insight Questions examples. From a Science Olympiad to a bullied student with a vocal coach, and finally, the teen hotline volunteer—notice how each of the UC PIQ examples offers a different perspective. Take your cue from the UC essay examples. A successful UC essay is not about prompt selection—it’s about how you write it.

You should select each UC essay based on what you think best reflects your identity, experiences, and personal circumstances. The most effective UC essay will be honest and well-written while allowing your personality to shine through. Read on for details about each of the UC essay prompts and more information on successful UC essay examples.

How to write UC Application Essays:

Uc personal insight questions — essay 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. (350 words maximum)

This guide will walk you through responding to all of the UC PIQs. Looking at the first UC essay, this UC PIQ asks you to discuss a leadership role you’ve held. It also asks you to reflect on the impact you had on others during this experience. Remember, leadership can mean more than just being president of a club at school. Leadership can also come from mentoring others, taking care of family members, or taking initiative in a volunteer position.

However you define leadership, make sure you write about an activity that is important to you. Have you resolved a dispute between members of an extracurricular organization that you belong to? Perhaps you took over for someone at church when they had to step down last minute from planning an event.

Additionally, leadership does not necessarily have to mean that you’re the one person “in charge.” You can discuss how you have contributed to group efforts in a collaborative way, working closely with a team of others to make a positive impact and lead by example. Let’s take a look at how they accomplished this in the UC Personal Insight Questions examples.

UC essay example

In the UC essay examples, one writer discusses her experience as a Science Olympiad in high school:

“ Three thousand, four hundred and seventy-one dollars. That was the bill for the hotel room expenses alone for our thirty-member excursion. And those were the least of my worries for the weekend. Between drilling wood pieces into a working frame for Air Trajectory and tying a knot in floss to build a pendulum, I was running down the halls, talking to worried parents on the phone, anatomy textbook in hand. The other captains study while I ensure everyone eats dinner and sleeps by 2 am, responsible as the school’s sole legal representative for ensuring typical high school shenanigans of music blasting didn’t manifest into real danger. ”

All of the UC essay examples begin with great anecdotes that pull the reader into the story, and the first of the UC essay examples is no different. Let’s tease out some of the information that this writer provides in the first few sentences of their UC PIQ. From reading, we know that they are a captain, which establishes their leadership role in the organization. We also know that they carry many responsibilities. From keeping track of trip expenses to overseeing team members’ welfare and acting as an informal representative with the hotel. Successful UC essay examples, like this, will show and not tell.

Be detailed

Like in the UC personal insight questions examples, and specifically, in the UC PIQ example above, you should provide context for your answer. In other words, describe the leadership position and organization and pay specific attention to your role. Another great way to discuss leadership is by demonstrating how you noticed something was missing and stepped in to fulfill the need. Admissions officers will want to hear about how and why you ended up in the position you were in. They’ll also want to know what you did in that position and what you learned from it.

Next, talk about your own actions and impact. Once you give context, then you can get into specifics. Did you elect to be in the leadership position? Did you offer to help a friend with their project and find you wanted to take on a more serious role?  Were you unsure of your capabilities as a leader and then proved your doubts wrong?

You will also want to reflect on the leadership experience itself. Was something about the situation particularly challenging? Did it make you realize you were a born leader? Did you gain a quality or notice an attribute about yourself that you’re proud of? Reflection is an important part of all the UC Personal Insight Questions.

UC essay example feedback

Finally, let’s review some of the feedback from the UC essay examples article for this UC PIC response. According to a former admission officer, “This essay works because the author not only demonstrates their leadership skills but also highlights the qualities and characteristics that make her a successful leader.” Finally, in the UC personal insight questions examples article, the admissions officer comments that “Beyond demonstrating her leadership, she effectively shows the admissions committee the type of student she will be on campus and how she will possibly contribute to the community.”

When crafting your own essay response, think about how your leadership experience works on broader terms. Does your chosen experience for this UC essay communicate a positive influence you had within a community? If not, you may want to consider if this is the strongest experience you can write on.

While we reviewed portions of the first UC Personal Insight Questions examples, you can read the rest of the UC PIQ response and the admission officer’s feedback in  CollegeAdvisor’s UC essay examples article. As with all of the provided UC essay examples, remember that you don’t need to model your UC PIQ response after them. What made the UC personal insight questions most effective is their authenticity. The University of California also publishes a UC Personal Insight Questions  guide  for applying freshmen.

UC PIQ Draft Key Questions:

• Do you define what leadership means to you?
• Does your UC PIQ essay directly describe how you made a positive impact, resolved a dispute, or worked with others?
• Like the first of the UC essay examples, does your draft  reflect  on your role in the community?

UC Personal Insight Questions — Essay 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. (350 words maximum)

This UC PIQ might push you to think further outside the box than some of the other UC essay prompts. Creativity can take many different shapes and forms; every industry has some sort of creative aspect. When this UC essay says “creative,” they’re asking what kinds of things or experiences do you  create  in your daily life. How do you innovate?

Your answer to this UC essay could discuss a more conventional creative outlet, such as poetry or visual art. You could also write about a less conventional activity. This could look like making your own crossword puzzles or talking about an entrepreneurial project or a nonprofit startup you are working on.

In this UC essay, you will first want to describe  what  it is that you do. Paint a picture of your creative outlet. What is your creative process? Once you have used active storytelling to talk about the  what , you can turn to the  why . Is this something you started doing for others, as a performance-based activity, or is it something that you use as a calming and centering activity in private?

Let’s look at the UC personal insight questions examples article again. In the second of the provided UC essay examples, the author wrote the following:

“ 440 Hz exactly. The flames flare to life, forming the perfect wavelength as I transitioned from note to note, the curves transitioning along. My classmates crowded around as I sang (shouted?) into the Ruben’s tube, a simple PVC pipe with holes cut at even intervals so that high notes translated to beautiful waves of flames.

The fight to get a vocal teacher in the first place was an uphill run. Singing, unlike playing the piano or learning to draw, wasn’t deemed worthy of spending money on – wasn’t even seen as a skill. After multiple pitches, I finally got my way, just a foot in the door: one month. ”

Each of the UC personal insight questions examples begins with a really strong story, and this UC essay is no different. The author doesn’t hop right in and tell us she sings and has a vocal coach. Instead, she draws readers in with a story that at first glance seems unrelated.

UC essay examples like the one above are most successful because they offer a brief history of how the student became involved with their creative activity. Other things to consider when you draft a response to this UC PIQ: end with a few thoughts on how this activity has shaped you and discuss what you’ve learned from it. Will you continue to pursue this creative activity while at school? How will this creativity inform your academic and personal development?

Whatever creative activity you choose to describe, make sure it is something that you  enjoy  doing. Your passion will shine through in your writing and make your UC essay engaging and dynamic. These UC Personal Insight Questions aim to reveal who you are on a deeper level than just the academic and extracurricular information you have already listed on your application. Admissions officers want to read your responses to the UC essay prompts and feel like they know you.

In fact, in the UC personal insight questions article, the former admissions officer notes how well the student who wrote the UC PIQ above highlighted her creativity by “weaving in examples of finding and using her voice in various situations.” Like in the second of the UC essay examples, your response to this prompt should just be a discussion of something creative you like to do, but how that creative pursuit has shaped your life.

• Does your essay give an example of a creative endeavor you enjoy?
• Like in the second of the UC personal insight questions examples, do you connect what you do with why you do it?
• Does your essay gesture towards how this creative activity connects to your future goals or your success at UC?

UC Personal Insight Questions — Essay 3

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

This UC essay asks you to do something a little different from other UC PIQ, and that might not come naturally to you—brag about yourself. Of course, you will want to keep a humble tone. However, this UC essay prompt is asking what you do best. In this UC PIQ, you should write about a time when you stood out or a time when you were the best at something. Do you have an interesting hidden talent? If so, this might be the essay for you!

Talent vs. skill

If you are having a hard time thinking of particular talents you have, you might turn to the second option in this prompt: a skill. A skill can be anything from an accomplishment to a trait you like about yourself. Perhaps you never fail to make your friends laugh, even in the most stressful of situations. Maybe your biggest strength is that you’re an incredibly empathetic person. You could provide anecdotes of times when empathy has helped you, perhaps to understand a friend when they needed help that they couldn’t articulate.

You will want to include a narrative arc in this UC essay. Here, Admissions Officers will be looking to read a story of what your talent is, how you have developed it, and why it means so much to you. You could describe an obstacle you have faced while performing this skill or talent and then demonstrate growth in how you overcame that obstacle.

As you respond to this UC PIQ, you want to show that you value creative pursuits and that you will bring your creative skills to the UC campuses. How has this activity offered you a new perspective on other aspects of your experiences? How does this creative activity interact with other areas of your life?

Let’s look at how one student approached this prompt in the third of our UC personal insight questions examples. The second paragraph in our provided UC essay examples is the heart of why this author’s response was successful.

“ The best swimmers are 5’10” with broad shoulders and huge feet. These characteristics are advantages during competitions because the athletes are able to move faster in the pool without being pushed back by the waves. I am not a typical swimmer. I am half-Black and half-Mexican, topping out at a whopping 5’0″. My skills are not Olympic-bound, but I am passionate about the sport despite the fact that I initially felt like an outlier. ”

Let your self-awareness shine through

As you can see, the author isn’t necessarily bragging, which you may see in many UC PIQ examples. Instead, she readily admits that she may not be the best swimmer, but it is her greatest  skill , one that she’s passionate about and has developed since the age of eight. UC PIQ examples like this demonstrate that there are many ways to answer this prompt, especially if you don’t feel that you have any talents/skills. Like the author, think of the things that you’re passionate about and have been practicing for years. While you may not be a prodigy, you have most likely become skilled. Let the passion and dedication that you feel for this talent/skill shine through in your response. Additionally, UC PIQ examples like this are effective because the author doesn’t just establish her skill but talks about what the skill/talent has brought her.

“ Even though I used to get lonely when swimming, I found a huge amount of joy in being a part of the sport at my high school. Our team started off with only six members, most of whom had never even been to a swim meet before. Eventually, we gained enough participants and experience to compete against other schools. We were neither the largest nor the fastest team, but I did not care. I had finally found a group of people I connected with. ”

Of the three UC personal insight questions examples, this draws the reader into the author’s vulnerabilities. Not only does she “confess” to not being the greatest swimmer, but she talks of how lonely she found her skill until she was able to find community in her high school swim team. The former admissions officer in the UC PIQ examples article, says that this is the author’s strength.

This essay works because it’s touching and speaks to the admissions officers’ emotional side. This applicant scores high on the likability factor. As a reader, you are able to quickly connect with the author and find yourself cheering for them. The student comes across as dedicated, determined, humble, appreciative, caring, and sincere – which is a lot to accomplish in just 350 words.

In other words, don’t be afraid to be vulnerable in your UC essay prompts, this can be an effective way to connect with your readers.

As you can see from the third of our UC personal insight questions examples, there are different ways to answer this UC PIQ! Check out the remainder of this author’s essay in our UC essay examples article.

• Does your essay define what your skill or talent is?
• Have you discussed how you’ve worked at this talent over time?
• Do you sound proud of yourself?
• Do you fit this accomplishment into who you are as a person and who you hope to be on a UC campus?

UC Personal Insight Questions — Essay 4

Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced. (350 words maximum)

This UC essay asks about your journey in overcoming a specific hardship. You will want to take readers through the narrative arc you followed while you were living through your chosen experience. You will then want to discuss the resonance of this event for the rest of your life, with specific regard to your academic career. This emphasis on academics sets this UC PIQ apart from other UC essay prompts.

How to discuss an educational opportunity

There are two directions you can take when writing this UC PIQ. If you discuss an educational opportunity, you should first describe what the opportunity was and how you came to do it. You should then focus on describing how you made the most of this opportunity. It’s one thing to go to the best summer intensive research program in your field, and it’s another thing to follow up with one of the professors you meet there and pursue a personal project with them as a mentor.

You’ll want to talk about how you utilized the resources that this opportunity provided in order to squeeze the most out of it. This UC essay prompt examines how much of a go-getter you are, so show that to the Admissions Officers!

How to discuss an educational barrier

You might also choose to follow the second avenue this UC PIQ offers and discuss a setback or barrier you encountered. If you go this route, you will first want to define and contextualize the challenge you faced. Because this UC essay specifically asks about an  educational  barrier, you want to make sure that the experience you discuss impacted your academic life specifically. If you have a non-academic-related challenge that deeply impacted your life, save that for UC PIQ 5. You’ll want to pay careful attention to what each of the UC essay prompts asks of you and be sure to respond directly to the  question  in each of the UC Personal Insight Questions.

After you define the challenge, explain how you overcame it. Focus on your strategies, ideas, and actions specifically. This is the work that you did to defeat the barrier and come out stronger on the other side. You’ll want to demonstrate how you learned or matured from your experience. If you need inspiration, check out our UC Personal Insight Questions examples; you’ll notice that growth and maturity are common themes.

You will also want to reflect a bit on how this experience affected you long term. How did this barrier influence other aspects of your life? What did you gain from the opportunity you had? You could mention any professional skills or qualities that you might have developed from your chosen experience and how you will carry those with you in your future endeavors. In all of these UC essay prompts, you will want to gesture toward your future intentions; Admissions Officers would like to see that you’re forward-thinking in your responses to the UC Personal Insight Questions.

• Do you address a topic specifically related to your academic experience?
• Does your essay show that you learned something from the experience?
• Does your essay demonstrate a thoughtful approach to your academic career and opportunities?

UC Personal Insight Questions — Essay 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? (350 words maximum)

Overcoming a challenge is a classic college supplemental essay topic, and the UC essay prompts are no exception. Admissions Officers want to see how you handle a crisis and how you move forward in the face of adversity when they read your UC PIQ responses.

Make sure it’s a “real” challenge

This UC essay asks for  the most  significant challenge you’ve ever faced—so try to pick something bigger than your first C on a test. This UC PIQ should discuss a time when you faced a setback but did not let that setback beat you. As you can see from reading successful UC PIQ examples, Admissions Officers will be looking for your resourcefulness, creativity, and problem-solving skills when they are reading this UC essay. Make sure you focus on describing the  how  and not just the  what  in this UC PIQ.

In a college environment, you will likely face unexpected academic and personal challenges. UC wants to know that you can struggle, or even fail, and come back stronger than before. This UC PIQ asks you to prove that you will face any challenges head-on and not be overwhelmed when things take a turn for the worse.

Be sure to demonstrate growth

In this UC essay, be sure to clearly address both what the problem was and how you fixed it. Focus on your storytelling abilities to connect point A (the setback) to point B (your solution). Admissions Officers are looking for your creativity and problem-solving methodology: what is the process you use when addressing a challenge? Why was this challenge such a meaningful one to you? What was at stake for you? You will want to indicate that you perform well under pressure in this UC essay.

Once you have described both the challenge and your process in overcoming it, you should turn to the final part of this UC PIQ; that is, you’ll want to discuss the relationship between this challenge and your academics. Be sure to address how the challenge you faced impacted your academic achievement in particular, though the challenge itself does not have to be an academic one. You should describe how overcoming this challenge resonated throughout your life and perhaps changed your perspective, provided you a new way of thinking, or altered your academic path in some way. These UC Personal Insight Questions want you to showcase what kind of student you are and how you will succeed on the UC campuses.

• Do you explain why this challenge was so important to you?
• Does your UC PIQ response demonstrate how you solved or addressed the challenge?
• Do you reflect on the impact of overcoming this challenge?

UC Personal Insight Questions — Essay 6

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

You might read this UC PIQ and know exactly what subject you want to write about. It might be clear that you have a passion for English because you took AP Language and AP Literature, you’re in the journalism club, you write for the school literary magazine, and tutor ESL students after school. Even if you have all of these great examples, you will still want to address  why  this subject inspires you. What is it about literature or the English language that excites you? Maybe you’re obsessed with grammar, or maybe you read translations in their original language and then in English to discover any discrepancies. This UC PIQ gives you a valuable opportunity to discuss your academic inspirations and where they come from!

However, you might not have such an easy response to this UC PIQ. Maybe you’re passionate about multiple subjects, or maybe you only discovered your true passion a few months ago and don’t have that many specific experiences to discuss. If no subject immediately jumps to mind when you look at this UC essay, you can still answer this UC PIQ! Once again, refer to the UC Personal Insight Questions examples for more guidance.

In this UC PIQ, you don’t have to write about your favorite subject or the subject where you got the very best grades. Instead, you can write about an academic subject that really challenged you, for example, and discuss how that inspired you to go above and beyond what was required in the classroom in order to grasp the material better.

Make connections between your chosen academic subject and your other interests

You could also connect an extracurricular to an academic subject in a more abstract way. Maybe you love physics, and you use your understanding of the body in motion to aid you in dance competitions outside of school. Maybe a love of math translates into a love of baking because you devise your own recipes and perfect the ratios of ingredients.

Whatever you choose to write about in this UC PIQ, make sure you tie everything back together to the subject which sparks your interest. You should also give anecdotal details about things you have done either inside the classroom, outside the classroom, or, or if you can, both.

In this UC essay, you should aim to show how you are goal-oriented and directed in your studies and extracurriculars. You’ll want to synthesize your academic and non-academic activities to reinforce an interest in your chosen subject. Show that you’re passionate, use specific anecdotal examples, and illustrate what you have learned from your chosen subject.

• Does your UC essay clearly communicate the topic which excites you?
• Do you articulate why your chosen subject matters to you, and how it has influenced your growth and identity?
• Does your UC PIQ supplement and/or complicate the other aspects of your application, with special regard to academic preferences?

UC Personal Insight Questions — Essay 7

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

This UC PIQ asks how you interact with those around you. There are many ways to understand “community,” so you should begin your UC essay by defining what community means to you. Are you talking about a club or organization, a certain place where you feel at home, or a group of people? You might also mention what makes you feel connected to this community— why  it is so meaningful to you. If you decide to write about your school, make sure you clarify that as your chosen definition of community for this UC essay.

In order to reflect on your impact on your community, you should first define the particular areas for growth you noticed in this community. You might want to describe how your connection with your community helped you to see what they needed or what you could give to them.

Here, you will show your capacity for empathy and your ability to think big-picture, especially with regard to an organization or group of people that might be close to your heart. This will show Admissions Officers that you can think critically, which is what the UC Personal Insight Questions are all about.

Be specific

Once you explain how you identified a problem or a challenge facing your community, you will want to discuss the concrete steps you took towards fixing this problem.  How  did you improve your chosen community? This UC essay wants to understand how you interact with those around you in meaningful and effective ways.

Be as specific as possible in your UC PIQ response. Walk your reader through your journey of joining this community, discovering a need within the community, and filing that need with your problem-solving skills. You should also frontload your decision-making process as you write this UC essay. In your UC PIQ response, Admissions Officers want to see how you will contribute to the community on the UC campuses.

UC example essay

Let’s look at the creative way that one student approached this in the fourth example in our UC PIQ examples article. The final essay in our UC Personal Insight Questions examples broaches a heavy subject and begins with a vivid anecdote.

“Hi, this is Teen Line, what’s bothering you tonight?” That simple phrase rings through the tiny room, merely enough space for a few desks and chairs. On one end of the line is a teenager, sharing stories of anything from the dark dread of depression and anxiety to a plea for a savior from the downward spiral of suicide. A tearful voice, desperate for help – a girl barely in high school, suffering at the hands of her “friends” and on the brink of suicide, complete with a plan to choke herself with a dog leash.

UC example essay feedback

UC personal insight questions examples like this one show the power of a strong beginning to draw in your readers. The author goes on to discuss her participation in Teen Line, a non-profit nationwide teen helpline. She defines community not only as of the teens that she talks to in her immediate area but also as of the national and international callers as well. The best UC PIQ examples show you how you can take your reader on a journey in 350 words or less. This is reflected in the former admissions officer’s strong feedback.

Sometimes admissions officers have to present candidates before a larger committee. This is an example where, if it came down to it, an officer would probably fight to ensure this student is admitted to the college or university if the rest of their application materials were strong overall, but perhaps slightly weaker in some areas. Simply put, this is a student an admissions officer would want as part of their campus community.

Among the UC personal insight questions examples that we cover in our UC PIQ examples article, this is a great example of how to discuss sensitive topics like depression and suicide.

• Do you define what community means to you?
• Does your essay describe both the problem you found within the community and the solution you crafted to address this problem?
• Does your essay reflect on the journey of your experience and the problem-solving skills you employed?

UC Personal Insight Questions — Essay 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? (350 words maximum)

This UC essay seems misleadingly simple; you may think this UC PIQ asks you to respond with  anything  that you feel makes you a strong applicant, but that is not entirely true. You will want to think very hard about whether the information you share in this UC essay could easily be a response to any of the other UC essay prompts. If so, choose that prompt instead. The previous 7 UC PIQ prompts cover a lot of ground, so read through those UC Personal Insight Questions and review the UC PIQ examples before choosing this prompt.

When you should answer this prompt

You should only select this UC PIQ if you have something extraordinary to write about that genuinely has  no other place  anywhere on the application for you to discuss it. Though the prompt asks for what makes you stand out, you have lots of other places to demonstrate what makes you stand out from other applicants in the other UC essay prompts. Notably, this UC PIQ does not appear in our UC Personal Insight Questions examples, as it’s much more open-ended.

For example, if you’re considering answering this question by talking about the time you overcame a chronic illness that kept you out of school for months at a time, you could also respond to UC essay 5 with this answer. Did you grow up in a suburban town with same-sex parents and face homophobia towards your family because your peers all had a mom and a dad? That’s a unique experience you could definitely write about for this UC essay.

How you should answer this prompt

If you’re having trouble, return to the UC Personal Insight Questions examples. Notice how each of the UC essay examples is unique. Just because this UC PIQ is more open-ended doesn’t mean it’s the only one that will let you be creative. If there’s one thing to learn from the UC Personal Insight Questions examples, it’s that any prompt will let you be creative.

Your response to this UC essay should describe your unique situation or experience. It should also turn outwards to demonstrate how this experience, skill, or activity sets you apart from other UC applicants. This UC essay can help readers understand how you will help diversify campus through your lived experience. It can also help explain any gaps or dips in your grades or the rest of your application.

You will want to be direct and specific in this UC essay. Honesty is important here; try not to exaggerate too much with your tone or over-dramatize your story. Since you’re writing about an experience that is specific and unique to you, you don’t need to do the work of performatively explaining just  how  unique your activity, talent, or experience is. The topic you discuss should speak for itself.

• Does your essay respond to a different prompt in the UC PIQ examples?
• Do you use straightforward language to discuss your chosen topic?
• Does your essay describe what happened to you, how it affected you, and how this will impact the perspective you bring to the UC campuses?

What Should I Put in the Additional Comments Section of the UC application?

There are two additional comments sections of the UC application. These are separate from the UC Personal Insight Questions and are not covered by our UC Personal Insight Questions examples. One is listed under the Academic History section, and the second is listed under the Personal Insight section.

For additional comments under Academic History, you should address only your academic record. This includes your transcript and grades, course choices, and anything you did not have the opportunity to discuss previously in the academic section or anywhere in your UC essay prompts.

For additional comments under Personal Insight, you should  not  discuss anything to do with your academic record. Instead, use this space to elaborate on the extracurricular section of the application. This is the space for more detail on an experience that was very meaningful to you. However, be careful about how you use this space. Ask yourself if what you’re sharing is really necessary to your application. Try to use the UC PIQ prompts to say anything you would want to say here.

Both of these sections are optional. You should not feel obligated to fill these sections with additional information if everything you want to share with your readers has been discussed in your UC essay prompts. UC Berkeley offers some advice on how to utilize this section of the application  here .

UC Personal Insight Questions—Final Thoughts

Completing the UC essay prompts can seem daunting, but don’t let that discourage you from applying. The UC essay prompts are a great opportunity to demonstrate who you are beyond your grades and test scores.

We hope that this UC personal insight questions guide as well as our UC essay examples will help jumpstart your thinking! Your UC essays can boost your application if you have a lower than average GPA or  SAT score . Use this UC personal insight questions guide as a step-by-step aid when approaching the UC essay prompts. And if you want more support, don’t forget to read our UC personal insight questions examples for feedback from Admissions Officers on various UC essay examples.

UC video resources

You can also view these videos on UC PIQ prompts from the University of California:

Additionally, start earlier than you think you should when responding to the UC essay examples. It’s always important to leave yourself time to draft, and this is especially true with the UC PIQ prompts. As you can likely tell from our UC PIQ examples, strong UC essays don’t appear overnight.

Remember, the UC essay prompts are for four essays of equal length, and each of the UC PIQ prompts holds equal importance. Be considerate when selecting which of the UC PIQs to write about. Select four UC essay prompts that cater best to your lived experiences. If you find yourself struggling to come up with a compelling answer to one of your chosen UC essay prompts, go back to our UC PIQ examples or try another PIQ!

You can also read additional UC personal insight questions examples in this 2019  Insider  article. The two UC PIQ examples in the piece showcase unique backgrounds and the creative ways each author approached their essay.  Also, don’t be afraid to ask for revisions on your UC personal insight questions from a trusted adult; it’s helpful to have another set of eyes checking your UC PIQ responses for grammatical errors, tone, and clarity. Good luck!

This 2021-2022 essay guide on the University of California was written by  Laura Frustaci , Harvard ‘21. For more CollegeAdvisor.com resources on the University of California, click  here . Want help crafting your UC Personal Insight Questions? Create your free  account  or  schedule a no-cost  advising consultation by calling (844) 343-6272.

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How to Write the UC Essays 2023–2024

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The ten University of California (UC) schools are prestigious public universities scattered across the state of California. From the northern UC Davis to the southern UC San Diego, these institutions are dream schools for in-state and out-of-state students. In fact, the top 5 most popular schools to apply to in the US are all UC schools. In the fall of 2022, UCLA received 174, 914 applications . That’s greater than the population of Jackson, Mississippi!

Nine of these schools (the exception is UC San Francisco) offer undergraduate degrees. These schools share an application portal and don’t use the Common App or the Coalition App. As a result, their essay prompts are unique. At the same time, once you’ve applied to one UC school, it’s simple to apply to the rest. In this blog post, we’ll break down the UC essay prompts so that you have the tools to nail your application.

UC 2023-2024 Prompts

Personal insight questions (250-350 words).

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

General Tips

There are eight UC essay prompts , known as the Personal Insight Questions (PIQs). Although each question requires a response of 250-350 words, you don’t need to answer every question. In fact, you’re required to select four prompts to answer. The UC admissions officers understand that some prompts will resonate with some students more than others, and they consider each prompt equally.

It’s important to note that some of the prompts have overlapping qualities. For instance, you could write about an education barrier you have overcome when answering prompt 4, and that educational barrier might have been the most significant challenge you have faced, making it a great response to prompt 5 as well. Therefore, you may want to come up with a few topics that are important to you before even deciding which prompts you would like to answer. Consider the topics which make you who you are. Your background, interests, struggles, and accomplishments might all be topics on your list, with added specificity to make them your own. 

Then, once you’ve determined what you would like to write about, you can peruse the prompts to see which might best align with your listed topics. Of course, if one of the topics does not align with any of the prompts, you’ll need to take a step back and reassess what the UC admissions officers might be looking for that you weren’t prepared to deliver. Is it vulnerability? Humility? Growth? Confidence? Intellectuality? Ambition? These are all qualities admissions officers might look for in applicants. Consider whether your topics demonstrate these qualities, and if not, how you could incorporate them into your topics and/or responses, however subtly.

UC’s Personal Insight Questions

Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time. (250-350 words).

This essay prompt allows you to show the UC admissions officer your leadership style and conflict response . In addition, you can demonstrate your abilities as a leader beyond including it on an activities list or resume. Many students hold leadership positions in high school which are functionally meaningless, but others achieve important impacts through their positive influence and trailblazing energy. If you are in the latter category of students, this is a great prompt for you to describe your leadership experience.

The prompt specifically asks you to provide an example of your leadership experience. This response should not be a list. It should be ONE anecdote, narrative, concept, accomplishment, or event. If possible, you should show through this singular example how you have grown as a leader or as an individual. Lastly, try to use concrete details to flesh out your example and make it feel real and memorable to the reader, avoiding clichés when possible.

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. (250-350 words)

If your creative side is a meaningful aspect of who you are, this is a great prompt for you to choose! Many STEM-oriented students choose this prompt in order to demonstrate that they are well-rounded individuals. If the rest of your application discusses your skills in trigonometry and your summer coding internship, then shedding light on your poetry hobby will help the admissions officers see you as a whole person, full of life and dimension.

That said, creativity comes in many flavors , and this prompt encourages you to think broadly about your creative side. Maybe your creativity comes through in how you approach a chess game or compose a speech for MUN. Maybe your creativity flourishes when you’re under pressure, trying to negotiate the soccer ball away from your opponent. Or maybe you’re most creative when you’re trying to entertain your younger siblings. 

However your creativity manifests, be as authentic in your presentation of it as possible. You don’t need to be a concert pianist to discuss your musical endeavors, and you don’t need to have a portfolio to back up the joy you find in photography. As long as you provide genuine details about your life, your creative side is valid.

What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time? (250-350 words)

This essay prompt is especially tricky to tackle. Some students have a prodigal talent in a particular area, whether athletic, academic, interpersonal, or otherwise. Other students, however, excel more broadly and are more well-rounded than pointy. Even if you don’t have a special talent, you might still be able to answer this prompt. You might just answer it more creatively, focusing on “soft skills” like communication, time management, empathy, and so on—or whatever feels authentic to you. However, if it feels like a stretch, perhaps try a different prompt.

Regardless of your talent, you will need to answer this prompt with modesty —and no false modesty, either. Instead of listing your accolades, describe the struggles that have shaped you. Describe your training, your failures, your mentors, and your doubts. Painting a picture of how far you’ve come and how hard you worked will be much more memorable and inspiring than implying you woke up a genius. After all, even if you have a natural aptitude for something, no great skill comes without hard work, and this essay prompt is an opportunity for you to show that work.

Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced. (250-350 words)

This essay prompt seeks to understand how you will function as a student in a UC school. When you’re offered opportunities, how will you take advantage of them? When you face obstacles, how will you surmount them? Of course, you can’t answer these questions just yet, because whatever obstacles you might face and opportunities you might receive in college are probably going to be surprises. Still, through this essay, you can hint at your future responses to opportunities and obstacles by describing your past responses.

Note that the prompt provides two options: you could write about a significant educational opportunity OR an educational barrier. Both topics are focused on your educational history, though. Consider the most formative moments in your personal educational history, and after settling on the most formative one, you’ll want to clearly spin it in your essay as either an opportunity or an obstacle. In both cases, you should express how you grew from the experience. How did you make the most of the opportunity, and how could you have better maximized that opportunity? How did you overcome that obstacle, and what did you gain from the experience? Considering your continued areas for growth will demonstrate your maturity and continued commitment to self-development.

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? (250-350 words)

This essay prompt asks you to look back over your life experiences to date and consider your resilience within the lens of your academic achievement . If an event in your life impacted your academic achievement, then this prompt is a great opportunity for you to discuss that challenge. After you’ve identified the most significant challenge you have faced, you may want to free-write about all the steps you took to overcome this challenge. These steps could include anything—studying, forgiving, going to therapy, praying, working, asking questions, and so on.

This prompt requests vulnerability, and vulnerability demands details. Don’t be shy to share your missteps, but be purposeful in showing your current stability, strength, and achievements despite or even because of this challenge you have faced. After describing this challenge as specifically and concretely as possible, indicate how you have changed, and be sure to include at least 1-2 sentences regarding the impact (or lack thereof) which this challenge had on your academic achievement (for better or for worse).

Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom. (250-350 words)

Admissions officers often look for curiosity in applicants, and if you are a curious person, then this essay prompt is for you. In this essay, you can demonstrate how your curiosity for an academic subject has driven you to pursue research, projects, or other activities. Be sure to discuss ONE academic interest, even if you relate multiple ways you have deepened your relationship with this interest.

Don’t spread yourself too thin when discussing how you have furthered your interest. Focus on 1-3 ways you have furthered your interest, even if you choose to list a few more ways. For instance, if you’re interested in English literature, maybe you have furthered this interest by reading certain books outside of school, participating in an essay competition, and writing short stories. Perhaps each of these topics could receive one paragraph, with the essay framed by a brief introduction and conclusion. Of course, you can get more creative, but that’s a totally valid way to set up your essay if you’re feeling stuck.

What have you done to make your school or your community a better place? (250-350 words)

If you’re the kind of student for whom community service is really important, or you’ve had a big impact on your high school, then this is a great prompt for you. Similarly, if you’ve engaged in activism, youth advocacy, or similar endeavors, then you should consider answering this prompt. Clearly explain what “a better place” means to you within your response so that the reader understands your motivations.

Specificity is key here —many students will respond generically to this prompt. Less is more when it comes to discussing your accomplishments: providing deep insight regarding one initiative you pursued on behalf of your community is far better than listing all of your achievements. In your response, focus more on how you made your school or community a better place than the awards or recognition you might have received for doing so. Stay humble!

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? (250-350 words)

This prompt is a great choice for you if there are aspects of your character, history, background, academics, or otherwise which haven’t naturally fit into the rest of your application but which feel crucial to your self-representation to the UC schools. Do not use this essay response as an opportunity to list your activities, list the prizes you’ve won, or discuss your impressive grades or test scores. These factors are all extremely important, but they’ll appear elsewhere in your application, so to discuss them here would be redundant.

Instead, this essay response is a place to tie your unique qualities and/or experiences to the values and expectations of a UC admissions officer. Before answering this question, thoroughly research the admission criteria for the UC schools, and consider touching upon (subtly if possible, and definitely with humility) how you fit these criteria, highlighting aspects of yourself which are not otherwise seen in your application. And most importantly, be yourself! Admissions officers don’t want to accept robots with a 36 on their ACT. Rather, they seek nuanced, intelligent, driven individuals with three-dimensional personalities. So bring your authentic self to the page.

If you need help polishing up your UC essays, check out our College Essay Review service. You can receive detailed feedback from Ivy League consultants in as little as 24 hours.

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• How to Answer the UC Personal Insight Questions

Bonus Material:  Download 25 UC Essays That Worked

Preparing to apply to any of the University of California schools? If so, you may have already heard about the UC Personal Insight Questions or PIQs, which are just their version of the college admissions essay. 

Students who earn admission to the UC schools–especially the more selective ones like UCLA or UC Berkeley–spend countless hours perfecting their UC PIQ essays, which are a crucial factor in the admissions committee’s decisions. 

Over years of helping students gain admission to the UC schools, we’ve developed an approach designed to help you respond to these unique essays and maximize your chances of admission. This post will cover everything you need to know about the UC Personal Insight Questions, including a detailed analysis of 8 real sample essays. 

Download 25 UC Essays That Worked

Jump to section: What are the UC Personal Insight Questions? How to approach each of the 8 UC Personal Insight Questions Analysis of 8 Real Sample UC Essays Final considerations for UC essays as a whole Next steps

What are the UC Personal Insight Questions?

While many other colleges simply use the Common App as their application portal, the University of California schools have a completely different system. The primary difference is that instead of writing one long essay, you’ll choose to answer 4 out of 8 “Personal Insight Questions,” with each response between 250 and 350 words. 

The good news is that these same four essays can go to all of the UC schools: it takes no more work to apply to all the UCs than to apply to just one. 

The bad news is that even if you’ve already written your Common App essay, you’ll have to do a lot of additional work to prepare your UC application. In this post, we’ll walk you through tips for answering each prompt, discuss how to ensure all of your application essays work together, and then do an in-depth analysis of 8 real sample essays. 

You can also jump ahead to the analysis of the sample essays here Analysis of 8 Real PIQs or download our collection of real, successful responses to the UC Personal Insight Questions below. 

How to approach each of the 8 UC Personal Insight Questions

Uc personal insight question 1: describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time.  .

The first UC essay prompt is straightforward enough: you’re expected to tell a story exemplifying your leadership experience. If you can think of a concrete instance that demonstrates your leadership ability, this is a great prompt for you to answer. In particular, it can let you expand on one of your extracurricular or resume activities and really highlight what made that experience unique. 

A few suggestions and warnings before you start drafting, however. As with the majority of college admissions essays, the key here is to tell an evocative narrative story and really get the admissions committee’s attention and interest. With that in mind, here is a quick list of do s and don’t s specifically for the first prompt: 

• Do begin this particular essay with a detailed story, as if you were writing a chapter of a novel. The number one thing college essay counselors have to tell students is: “Show, don’t tell!” and that’s especially true for this personal insight question.
• Do interpret the prompt broadly. Leadership isn’t just being president of a club or captain of a sports team, and you don’t need to have an official “position” to write about a moment you influenced others. 
• Do pick an example that involves you contributing to the community or the greater good.
• Do , above all, stay self-aware and humble.

On that note, some important things to avoid: 

• Don’t brag or self-aggrandize! This is much tougher than it may seem, and is where a second set of eyes from one of our college essay experts would come in handy. Almost nothing is worse than an application essay that makes it seem like you’re full of yourself, and it’s tricky to avoid that when you’re meant to write about your own abilities. 
• Don’t pick an example of leadership without any positive social effects. This goes hand in hand with the previous Don’t. Let’s say you were part of a school club where you became president–if you can’t point to any positive outcomes for the organization or other people, it’s not worth writing about. 
• Don’t rehash your resume. This is meant to be a story of a particular moment, with a little bit of reflection on what you learned. Don’t make this a run-down of your roles and responsibilities–or you might have the admissions committee yawning. 

The following are things to consider when writing this essay, according to the UC schools themselves: 

A leadership role can mean more than just a title. It can mean being a mentor to others, acting as the person in charge of a specific task, or taking the lead role in organizing an event or project. Think about what you accomplished and what you learned from the experience. What were your responsibilities? 

Did you lead a team? How did your experience change your perspective on leading others? Did you help to resolve an important dispute at your school, church, in your community or an organization? And your leadership role doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to school activities. For example, do you help out or take care of your family?

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

The second UC Personal Insight Question lets you talk about almost anything. Do you make art, music, or literature of any kind? Do you have a unique way of looking at the world and making decisions? Do you organize your life in an unusual way? Any and all of these would make good topics for this essay prompt. 

As before, take a look at a handful of quick do s and don’t s below. Later in this blog post Real Sample Essay for UC PIQ 2 , we’ll do an in-depth analysis of a response to this prompt. 

• Do interpret the prompt, well, creatively! You get to decide what counts as “creativity,” so long as you can tell a convincing story about it. 
• This is, of course a risk, but a necessary one. We often recommend reaching out to a trusted college essay expert (like, say, one of our very own here) to make sure you’re not being a bit too risky. 
• Do use specific examples of this creative practice, as opposed to just generalities. 

Below are specific things to avoid with the second UC PIQ essay prompt:

• Don’t shoehorn something impressive from your resume into this essay if it doesn’t fit. Students too often try to cram every impressive achievement from their lives into their college admissions essays, but that won’t come off the right way here. 
• Don’t choose anything that would be a red flag for colleges. Weird is perfectly okay (even good!), but anything illegal or antisocial is a big no. They want you to be creative, but they also want you to be a good member of their college community. 

There aren’t many absolute don’t s for this essay–it’s designed to be flexible and fun. For a thorough analysis of a successful example, see the end of this post  Real Sample Essay for UC PIQ 2 . 

Here are some more drafting tips from the UC schools: 

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?

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

Here’s another great essay prompt for those of you with strange or unique skills: the more unusual, the more unexpected, the better! As with the first two prompts, see below for some advice based on the mistakes we’ve seen students make with this essay prompt. 

• Do interpret “talent or skill” as broadly as you like. Sure, if you’re a world-class pianist, you can write about that. But we’ve also seen stellar responses to this prompt that talk about students’ empathy, or their ability to speak up for others, or their ability to recite obscure facts. 
• Do show your talent or skill in action, with one or more specific stories. 
• Do connect those stories with what it actually says about you. Why should a college admissions officer care that you’re an expert woodworker or yodeler? How has it shaped how you view the world?

Like any essay prompt that asks you to talk about what you’re good at, this one can bait you into coming off as cocky. Here’s what to avoid: 

• Don’t spend the whole essay talking about how good you are at this skill or talent. It’s fine to brag a tiny bit, but you don’t want to cross the line into cockiness or egoism. 
• Don’t present the talent or skill, whatever it is, as inherently valuable or impressive. Let’s say you bench 300 pounds or are a chess grandmaster (or both): don’t just toss that fact at the admissions committee and expect them to be impressed. Explain why it matters. 
• Don’t write about something that’s only in the past unless you can connect it with your future. If you achieved something great years ago, you need to explain how it affects you now .

Here are the UC schools’ pointers: 

If there’s a talent or skill that you’re proud of, this is the time to share it. You don’t necessarily have to be recognized or have received awards for your talent (although if you did and you want to talk about it, feel free to do so). Why is this talent or skill meaningful to you?

Does the talent come naturally or have you worked hard to develop this skill or talent? Does your talent or skill allow you opportunities in or outside the classroom? If so, what are they and how do they fit into your schedule?

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

This looks like one question, but is really two very different questions bound together. 

The first asks what important or unusual educational opportunity you’ve made use of–this can be a summer class you voluntarily enrolled in, an independent research project you conducted, or some sort of international service learning experience. In other words, it should be something that goes beyond your regular schoolwork. 

The second is quite different: has there ever been something stopping you from learning or attending school? This could be trouble at home, health problems, or learning challenges. In other words, this is a “hardship” question, and the ideal place to tell the UC schools’ admissions officers what challenges you overcame to get the grades and test scores you did.

The advice below varies depending on which aspect of this prompt you’re planning to address. 

For the opportunity:

• Do convey excitement about the educational opportunity, whatever it may be. The more passionate you are about what you learned or achieved, the better. 
• Do highlight how it changed you and your perspective on learning/academics in general. 
• Do note any concrete outcomes from this experience: did you publish a paper, learn a new skill you still use, etc.? If so, here’s the place to tell the admissions committee about it. 
• Don’t just write about something you were forced to do as part of your schoolwork.
• This is a tricky one, as it’s hard to know what comes off this way to admissions officers. The best advice we can give here is to talk this over with a college admissions counselor or essay expert . 
• Don’t try to undermine or downplay the experience by saying you weren’t interested in it or didn’t get much out of it. If that’s how you feel, you should answer a different prompt. 

For the educational barrier:

• Do go into an appropriate level of detail about the barrier. It may be difficult to write about, but if there was real hardship preventing you from attending school, completing assignments, or testing well, you need to convey the severity to the admissions committee.
• Do focus more on “overcoming” than on the hardship itself. While you want to make the severity of what you faced clear, you want to highlight what you did to overcome it. 
• Don’t write about something that could be considered minor, or something that most students face. Struggling to get up early, procrastination, or problems with “bad” teachers are almost never worth discussing in an essay like this. 
• Don’t try too hard to explain away grades or other academic problems. It’s fine to touch on how the obstacles affected your academic performance, but you don’t need to make excuses. Let your story speak for itself. 

Here’s what the UC schools have to say about this prompt: 

An educational opportunity can be anything that has added value to your educational experience and better prepared you for college. For example, participation in an honors or academic enrichment program, or enrollment in an academy that’s geared toward an occupation or a major, or taking advanced courses that interest you — just to name a few. 

If you choose to write about educational barriers you’ve faced, how did you overcome or strive to overcome them? What personal characteristics or skills did you call on to overcome this challenge? How did overcoming this barrier help shape who you are today?

UC Personal Insight Question 5: Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?

This prompt is very similar to the “obstacles” element of the fourth PIQ. For that reason, it’s quite rare to see a student answer both prompt 4 and 5: there’s generally a bit too much overlap.

 What sets this prompt apart from the previous one is that the “challenge” is a bit broader. It’s not just asking for an educational barrier, but for the most significant challenge of any sort you’ve had to overcome. 

That being said, our advice for this one is generally the same as for the second half of prompt number four, and there aren’t any special rules for this one in particular. If you have a story that fits both this prompt and prompt number 4, the deciding factor should be the nature of the obstacle. 

If the hardship is more personal, choose prompt number 5; if it’s more logistical/educational, choose prompt number 4. In either case, the choice of prompt doesn’t matter nearly as much as how you tell the story. 

Here’s what the UC website advises for this prompt: 

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?”

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

If you already know what major you want to pursue, PIQ 6 is a great prompt to respond to–especially because you can largely reuse any “Why Major?” essays you may have written for other schools.

If not, you can still answer this question, so long as you’ve got some sort of academic interest or passion. But don’t forget the second part of the prompt: they don’t just want to hear what interests you, they want to hear what you’ve done about it. 

Great avenues for exploration here: research projects or papers, particularly interesting school projects, and any kind of self-directed learning. You don’t have to have published something or anything like that. So long as you’ve seriously engaged with an intellectual interest by reading and thinking, you’ll have plenty to write about. 

In general, most students would be wise to select this prompt. It lets you seriously discuss something that is otherwise unlikely to be represented in your application, and your intellectual passions are something every college admissions officer wants to hear about. 

For this essay: 

• Do think about a specific moment that exemplifies this interest, perhaps telling the story of when you first fell in love with a subject or idea. 
• Do highlight your passion and interest with evocative, almost over-the-top language–you want your love for this topic to really come across in this college essay. 
• Do feel free to go a bit into the nitty-gritty of your research or reading. Even if the UC admissions committee isn’t familiar with the terms or authors, they’ll appreciate the fact that you are. 
• Don’t just write about a class or subject in which you perform well, grades-wise. Here, passion matters more than performance. 
• Don’t forget the second part of the prompt: convey your passion, but prove that you actually pursued that passion beyond what is simply required by school. 
• Please don’t try to play this one too cool and write about how nothing taught in school is interesting/engaging/etc. If that is how you feel, pick a different prompt. 

The UC schools’ website suggests you bear this in mind: 

Many students have a passion for one specific academic subject area, something that they just can’t get enough of. If that applies to you, what have you done to further that interest? Discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experience you have had inside and outside the classroom — such as volunteer work, internships, employment, summer programs, participation in student organizations and/or clubs — and what you have gained from your involvement.

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

UC Personal Insight Question 7: What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?  

Like the previous essay prompt, this question is one that you should easily be able to recycle from one of your supplemental essays for another school, which often ask a similar question. 

This one is totally straightforward: simply give the UC admissions officers detailed information about some sort of community-oriented project you’ve been involved in. It’s also a great place for you to explore what community means to you. 

The ideal way to answer this question is with a mix of narrative and big-picture overview. Start with a scene of you in the action, actually contributing to these service efforts. Then, zoom out and talk more broadly about your involvement and what service to your community means to you. 

Specific pointers for this essay prompt include: 

• Do use at least one specific, detailed anecdote of you engaged in this community or service work. 
• Do stress your commitment to this work and talk about its importance. 
• Do , if applicable, talk about this work’s broader implications for you as a student and community member: has it changed how you view your role in the community? Will it affect how you contribute to the UC community?
• Don’t pick something that you were only involved with in the past or a handful of times. For example, if you just volunteered at a soup kitchen twice to get your NHS hours, it’ll be clear to admissions officers that this doesn’t represent a serious commitment to service. 
• Don’t pick an activity that solely involved you raising money for charitable causes. You need to have been actively involved in whatever this work was. 
• Don’t use this as an opportunity to highlight your accomplishments. It’s fine to talk about how successful (or not) you were in your efforts, but you want the focus to be on the importance of service work and how it benefited others. 

Other things to bear in mind, courtesy of the UC schools themselves: 

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?

UC Personal Insight Question 8: Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?

Like the very last prompt of the Common App personal statement, this is the catch-all question designed to let you write more or less anything. This is a real double-edged sword. 

On the one hand, with UC PIQ 8, you have tons of freedom: you can write about whatever you think is an important part of your UC admissions application. 

On the other, this prompt often baits students into trying to cram in a highlight reel of what makes them a “strong candidate,” which is not the way to go. 

If you have compelling answers to four of the other UC prompts, you should simply answer those. The only reason to tackle this prompt is if there is something fundamental to your story and who you are that cannot be made to fit one of those other prompts. In that case, this is your chance to tell that story. 

Because responses to this prompt can go so wrong so easily, we especially recommend running any ideas by one of our college essay advisors, who can ensure you don’t jeopardize your UC application by picking the wrong approach to this prompt. 

Since this one is a freeform prompt, we just have a couple things to definitely avoid:

• Don’t use this as a place to brag about achievements, grades, test scores, or broadly about how great you are. 
• Don’t use this prompt to double down on something that’s already sufficiently explored in other areas of your application (like in the other essay responses, for example). 

Analysis of 8 Real Sample UC Essays

In this section, we’ll present you with a successful sample response to each of the first 8 UC Personal Insight Questions, then explain what about each one works. Using these examples and our guide above, you should have most of what you need to start your own UC application essays. 

For more sample essays like the one below, you can check out the collection we put together of 25 real UC application essays that worked, getting students into schools like UCLA and UC Berkeley. 

Real Sample Essay for UC PIQ 1

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

Tck. Tck. Tck. The sound of my pen streaking across my notebook — marking every concern, inquiry, and supporting point in the meeting. My nonprofit was considering partnering with a local organization, and our board was meeting to discuss the ramifications of such a decision. Opposing board members were concerned that partnering with New Jersey organizations would disadvantage members in other parts of the world, but supporting members believed the partnership would grow our impact by creating more direct service opportunities.

As the meeting ended, I stared at my notes. Both “sides” had made valid points, and I knew I needed to come up with a solution that incorporated both to ensure none of our members were at a disadvantage. As I paced around my room, thinking of possible solutions —it hit me. We don’t need to limit our impact to solely New Jersians: we can offer all our members the opportunity to introduce us to local nonprofit organizations and offer virtual opportunities to support those groups, like phone-banking.

 As the leader of our organization, it’s my job to listen to the ideas of each board and community member to come up with a way forward. In the time since that board meeting, I have made it more of a priority to work with our members to figure out which issues mean most to them and tackle those head on. The outcome of this team-oriented approach has not only allowed us to create more direct-service opportunities, but it’s also allowed me to foster a collaborative and tight-knit community where everyone feels valued and heard. People work harder and are more engaged when they are fighting for issues they specifically care about, so fostering this collaborative planning environment has made our impact even stronger. 

By learning to encompass various viewpoints—even ones different from my own—I have taken a more balanced approach to leadership as I learn to meld multiple opinions into a cohesive whole. The sum of our varied perspectives is more potent than any one could be alone.

Analysis 

So, what makes this essay work? 

Beginning: First, it starts creatively, putting us directly into the middle of a narrative. The first words are slightly disorienting, but that’s a good thing–it means we want to read to find out what’s going on. Note that even though the narrative scene isn’t all that exciting (it’s a meeting, after all), the author uses strong storytelling to make it compelling anyway. 

Middle: After dropping us into the story, the essay quickly and efficiently moves on to giving us the background and setting up the stakes: there’s a problem this organization faces, and the writer, as the organization’s leader, needs to find the solution. 

End: Without giving us too many bureaucratic details (which would probably lose the admissions officers’ interest), the writer quickly conveys that they found a solution. Far more importantly, they move on to discussing why this matters and how it affected their understanding of leadership. 

The last two paragraphs are the real heart of this essay: admissions officers at elite universities want to see that you’re someone who thinks critically about what “leadership” means, and how you see yourself as a member of a larger community or project. 

The situation this essay describes isn’t life or death; it is, in fact, a pretty classic problem faced by many students holding any kind of leadership role in a school club or local organization. But what’s crucial is that the writer of this essay always frames leadership in terms of doing good for others. The writer never brags, never comes off as cocky. Instead, they focus on what positives they’ve been able to accomplish for others. 

The key elements of this essay that allow it to work: story, stakes, self-awareness. 

For more examples of responses to this and other UC Personal Insight Questions, download our collection of real sample essays below. 

Real Sample Essay for UC PIQ 2

Prompt: Describe how you express your creative side.  

When photography was first invented in 1837, most people didn’t consider it a form of art. Photography was truth, they claimed. Even now, some still see photography as the least “artsy” of the arts. I started challenging that idea when I first picked up a digital camera two years ago. My camera has taught me to use technical skills in a creative way. Not only do I have to master lighting, composition, and Photoshop, I have to envision the work that I want to produce and move towards that goal at every moment. 

For me, the artistic process is far from linear, especially when things don’t quite work out the way I’d originally wanted. The lighting is too harsh, the digital noise gets overwhelming, or the highlights are blown out. But I never give up on a photo just because something’s off about it. Although those cases are hard to work with, sometimes they’re the most interesting, because that’s when I start using my most creative post-processing techniques. With some smoke and mirrors — and a few brush strokes in Photoshop — I can transform a seemingly boring photo into something that makes my friends go, “Wow, how did you do that?” The end result often qualifies more as digital art than photography. 

I’ve found that creativity in photography is not so different from creativity in science. Humans are visual learners, so it’s much easier to deliver a message through an image than through words alone, even when that message is about math or biology. In past years, I’ve served as a tutor to students in various environments, be it debate camp or frenzied lunchtime cram sessions, and when I need to explain something abstract, I gravitate towards diagrams rather than long-winded explanations. When my initial attempts don’t get through, I think of analogies or stories to help my hardworking classmates access their abilities to learn visually. 

At college, I would expect to engage in equally challenging conversations with fellow scholars, during which we will have to use every creative resource at our disposal to truly see what we’re learning.

This is a great example of a straightforward response to the “Creative side” prompt. The writer doesn’t do any formal tricks, instead directly conveying their passion for a particular art form in detail. 

Beginning: The essay starts off with an interesting take on its subject, and very clearly articulates why it’s important to the student: photography is art, and has taught them to view the world more creatively. 

Middle: This essay really shines in its body paragraphs, precisely because of the level of detail (“The lighting is too harsh, the digital noise gets overwhelming, or the highlights are blown out”) it manages to convey about the process of photography. It doesn’t matter whether we know exactly what that all means; what matters is that the author clearly does. 

End: The writer successfully connects this creative passion with other aspects of their life (science, tutoring) and even ends by suggesting how this passion will make them a better and more capable classmate and student. 

Key elements: passion+detail+connection to academics.

Real Sample Essay for UC PIQ 3

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

The stall horn blares, and the plane sways under the control of my feet. Shoulders tense, I look outside to maintain balance: even a small tap of a foot or shift of the stick could throw the plane into a downwards roll. The plane begins to shake- my cue to recover. I pitch the nose down and push the throttle full forwards. Despite high-stress situations, piloting is my dream career. Whether airliners or navy jets, I know I will be happiest in the air.

I started out building model airplanes out of paper and pencils at Civil Air Patrol meetings, which first introduced me to basic aviation principles: pitch, roll, and yaw. From there, a presentation in my computer science class taught me about Joby Aviation, a local startup working on electric gyrocopters for everyday travel. Already knowing I wanted to fly, I felt inspired to work with aircraft as an engineer as well. I decided to enroll in flight lessons and subsequently took a job as a receptionist at my flight school.

When flying, time passes by as fast as the air around me. As warnings blare, pilots chatter over the radio and the plane’s glass bubble gets swelteringly hot. There’s a lot to be aware of, but I’ve learned to multitask and focus amidst distractions. Similarly, being at the airport quickly thrust me into the world of aviation. I found myself fascinated not only by aerodynamics but also by fuel chemistry, avionics, and materials. Sumping fuel from the fuel tanks, I wondered, how do different fuel textures affect planes’ engines? Running my hand along the propeller, I pondered: how would the aircraft fly if this were wood? Plastic? I became fascinated by the specificity and variability of aerospace materials and eager to learn more about them.

My love for aerospace is part of why I am eager to study engineering. I imagine myself designing new aircraft and optimizing the ones I fly. Whether I become a pilot or an engineer, the lessons I learn flying will be beneficial in any future paths I take.

Beginning: Like many (though not all) of the best essays, this one starts by dropping us directly into the story. It’s far less appealing or interesting to read someone say “my greatest strength is…” and far more enjoyable to see that strength in action. The story here is told with precise details, highlighting the stakes of what’s going on. 

Middle: Details, details, details–look at all those details! You should, by now, be seeing a trend in these essays. What makes this background about the students passions work are the specific details they provide about it: the models, the aviation principles, the gyrocopters. As with the example essay for the second prompt, these details serve to convey the student’s passion and their knowledge. 

End: As with the previous essay, the importance–the “so what?”–of this essay appear here. Why should we (and all those admissions committees) care that this student can fly planes? Well, because it’s taught them to “multitask and focus amidst distractions,” plus lead them to learn more about all sorts of related fields. 

Key elements: story+detail+connection to academics.

Real Sample Essay for UC PIQ 4

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

Last summer, I volunteered with a global NGO called the Paper Carton Alliance. Its focus is recycling and sustainability, and I was fortunate enough to assist them while practicing my Mandarin Chinese. While I was there, we conducted site research at recycling plants and I learned about one of the most efficient recycling systems in the world. I came to understand Chinese by speaking it daily and hearing it in different contexts. I spoke in meetings as well as in casual conversations with my coworkers.

I also learned how to address cultural barriers and discomfort. Especially in the more rural areas of Taiwan, people weren’t expecting foreigners and would ask me where I was from or why I was there. At one meeting, once the manager learned that I could understand Chinese, he instead began to speak Taiwanese so that I wouldn’t understand him because he felt uncomfortable about a foreigner participating in the meeting. I was frustrated, but I realized that this wasn’t the time to assert myself. It was more important to respect my elders. I let them continue the meeting, taking notes to learn, and appreciating that there are times to step back.

Learning this cultural “language” was as important, if not more, as learning Mandarin. It’s an experience that I wouldn’t have had in an American classroom, but saw firsthand in a foreign Country.

Throughout the trip, I also saw efficient recycling methods and how governmental economic policy creates measurable differences in how businesses operate. Taiwan’s recycling program, one of the best in the world, inspires me to create something similarly effective after I graduate, starting on a local level. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I interact with nature regularly, whether running cross-country or swimming in Aquatic Park. I’m co-president of our school’s Ocean Conservation Club because I feel it’s not only a passion, but a human obligation to consider the environment. My volunteering with the Paper Carton Alliance stimulated both my passions for multiculturalism and environmental preservation. I hope to continue to work on behalf of the global environment in college and beyond.

Beginning: This essay opens clearly and directly without much of a story. It tells us what the student was involved in, sets up the context, and helps us understand why it matters. While normally we love seeing an essay start with a story, sometimes the topic doesn’t lend itself to that. 

Middle: The little anecdote in the middle of this essay about the manager switching languages is interesting and engaging; more importantly, it allows the writer to reflect critically on a nuanced issue (respecting cultural norms vs asserting yourself). By exploring that question, the writer shows admissions officers that they’re someone who thinks deeply about real-life issues and walks away from them with lessons. 

End: At the end, the author connects this educational opportunity with their passion for sustainable change and other areas of their life. They don’t try to cram every accomplishment in–instead, they just briefly connect some relevant aspects of their life to show that this learning opportunity wasn’t just a one-off, but actually continues to shape how they view the world.

Key elements: Passion+self-awareness+stakes.

Real Sample Essay for UC PIQ 5

Prompt: Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. 

Until that moment, I hated being black. I hated my dark brown skin and wished that I was just a few shades lighter so that I was pretty. I hated my thick coily hair and wished it was straight like the other girls at school. I hated my African features and looking so different from everyone.  

But I hid it all. The older I got the harder it was to feel comfortable in my skin.

My mom held me as I cried, and for the first time in my life, I actually believed her when she called me beautiful. My wide nose and big lips make me uniquely interesting. My curly 4c hair gives me character and expression. My dark skin is exactly what makes me beautiful. For years I was blinded, but after my mom hugged me, I looked in the mirror seeing myself for the first time. I admired my dark skin that glows in the sun. I marveled at my wild hair that frames my face and fits any style of my character. I smiled at my full lips that speak my truth everyday, sharing my experiences with the world as I learn to love myself and love others. 

Every day I face life in a society that wants me to doubt myself, my abilities, and my success as an African American woman. Yet everyday when I look in the mirror I love the reflection looking back at me. The little black girl who never thought she was pretty is almost unrecognizable today. I will share my confidence with all the black girls around me. I will uplift them as my mother uplifted me. As a black woman in STEM, I have the unique opportunity to serve my sisters who are often overlooked in the healthcare industry. Not only can I set an example to young black girls of the greatness they will achieve, but I’ll also get to provide them care in a system that delegitimizes their pains. I will protect them and show them that they are beautiful and valid because they are black. 

Beginning: This essay starts with a series of incredibly powerful, vulnerable assertions. Not only does this student speak frankly about how she viewed herself, but by writing, “until that moment…” she’s also conveying to readers that there’s a story to come. 

Middle: The body of this essay tells a compact, fluid story, effectively using the “But I hid it all” for emphasis and contrast. It recounts that moment of change when the student overcame this discomfort, recounting an emotionally charged experience in bold, detailed prose. 

End: The student then connects this story more directly to the prompt, to wider social issues, and to the student’s academic calling. Note that this essay doesn’t try too hard to recount the writer’s accomplishments or to “sell” the writer as a good student or community member. It doesn’t need to. Instead, it clearly connects a moment of personal growth with the issues faced by black women, articulating how that connection has shaped what this student hopes to accomplish. 

Key elements: Vulnerability+detail+social issue+academics

Real Sample Essay for UC PIQ 6

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

After watching a video about a man with 1,000 Klein bottles under his house, I became fascinated with topological shapes, figures that cannot be broken or torn, only morphed. Inspired to research single-surfaced Klein bottles, twisted Mobius strips, and their relationship to other branches of mathematics, I turned to Google Drawings and started designing a topology infographic.

As I traversed the web for information, one search led to a million others. I tumbled down the topology rabbit hole, hopping from one definition to the next to make sense of fundamental concepts. However, I found joy in deciphering definitions and complex notation. As I learned, I imagined myself taking classes and fully comprehending what were then somewhat cryptic definitions.

My calculus teacher, Mr. K, lent me a book: “Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid”. Absorbing the information in the pages, I recognized the miraculous nature of mathematics. Godel’s logical theorems, Escher’s topological visuals, and Bach’s musical epiphanies connected and built upon each other through a vastly spreading mathematical web. An excitement stirred within me and my eyes gradually opened up to the full extent of mathematics left to learn after high school. I began to wonder if I could study advanced mathematics with an engineering degree. Later, I discovered that topology, a seemingly unrelated field to engineering, is used to construct circuits and optimize materials for aerospace engineering. Through this, I realized that I can always find a way to connect my passions to my goals.

As I wrapped up my research project, I added the finishing touches: a vector icon of a torus and an image of a Klein bottle. Conveying what I’ve learned through a creative presentation is something I excel at, and I enjoy helping others learn in a visually dynamic way. As well as being an artistic opportunity, my topology research also deepened my passion for mathematics, something I am determined to follow through as I select my college courses.

Beginning: with a quirky start (what’s a Klein bottle? Why are so many under that house? Is that where Klein bottles are supposed to go?), this essay hooks us readers and begins recounting the writer’s intellectual pursuit of “topological figures.” It’s unusual, it’s detailed, and it’s clearly from the heart. 

Middle: As is classic for these essays, the middle sketches in detail how the student pursued this interest: a specific book connecting three different figures, each of which inspired this student’s love of math. Again, the details make this work: think about how much more boring this essay would be if we didn’t get the specific names and contributions of the three figures in the book.

End: the end shows, very briefly, the outcome of this learning process: a creative research project tying back to that original Klein bottle. What’s great about this essay is that it doesn’t recount some expensive or inaccessible learning experience like an elite summer camp or trip abroad. The student’s interest was hooked by a weird fact, so they pursued that interest through books, online searches, and a project, all things that just about anyone can do if they wish to. 

Key elements: quirky intro+Details+tangible outcome. I just wish this student told us what a Klein bottle is. 

Real Sample Essay for UC PIQ 7

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

One. Two. Three. Four. I looked around the room as anxious faces filled in. An awkward silence hung over us as I turned toward my best friend. A part of me felt guilty to be here; I wondered what would happen if any of my family members found out I was bringing “shame” to them. On the other hand, a part of me was glad that there was a place where I could proudly express this part of my identity. 

Finally, I broke the ice and introduced myself, “Hey guys, I’m the co-President; thank you all for coming to the first meeting of the year.” Soon enough, other people introduced themselves, and we started discussing our goals for the year in the affinity group. 

With a plan came weekly meetings. We made posters to promote inclusivity within the school, created educational presentations highlighting LGBTQ+ figures/struggles, and spearheaded activities/discussions to foster a safe place within the Gender and Sexualities Alliance. Our conversations ranged from inspiring LGBTQ+ activists throughout history to members’ personal experiences of coming out to loved ones and what that can mean for a person based on individual circumstances. I realized that the Gender and Sexualities Alliance wasn’t, in fact, a place of shame: it was a community where we could educate, empower, and (most importantly) be ourselves. 

At the very beginning, neither my co-President nor I thought the Gender and Sexualities Alliance would become what it is today. Through all of our efforts came more people, and that group of four became a group of fifteen and only kept growing. Those previously nervous faces turned into ones of confidence and pride—ready to make a difference within our school. The GSA founded a community passionate about creating a more inclusive environment where individuals felt safe to be themselves—enabling them to be more confident in all aspects of their lives, including academic/social pursuits within the school and beyond. I’m proud to have created a space where I can feel secure in myself and encourage others to feel so, as well.

Analysis: 

Beginning: As some others, this essay starts in the middle of a story, with a catchy, slightly confusing first line. Done well, these kinds of openers just about always work: we want to know what’s happening, so we read on. That this opening also introduces something like a secret that could bring “shame” further raises the stakes and interest. 

Middle: In this essay, the body serves to provide the relevant context–like what the meeting is about and what the writer’s role is–while also continuing the important narrative of the author coming to terms with their identity. It’s that last bit, which requires vulnerability and self-awareness to write about, that is crucial to this sort of essay. 

End: As we’ve seen before with similar essays, this conclusion serves to move the focus partially away from the student and onto the larger community. The student’s identity is clearly important here, but no less important is “creating a space” where people can feel secure. This shows a commitment to diverse, open-minded communities, which is precisely what colleges are meant to be. 

Key elements: narrative intro+vulnerability+community

Real Sample Essay for UC PIQ 8

I’ve always hated Las Vegas, so I wasn’t thrilled when my dad’s family gathered there to celebrate my Grandma’s birthday one summer. Being around my Nigerian family made me nervous because I felt so -washed. Because I’m not close with my dad, I’m especially distant from my Nigerian heritage. I don’t speak our tribe’s native dialect, Ishan, like the rest of my family. I barely recognized the traditional dishes my cousins ate so comfortably. 

As my relatives lovingly reunited, I quickly felt lost in my own family. 

Nigerian parties are always spent dancing the night away. I hid in a corner, waiting desperately for the night to end before it had begun. Yet my cousins took me in with open arms, quickly erasing my fear of being the sore thumb. They didn’t see me as the outcast I envisioned myself to be. As we swayed to the motions the song progressed the strangers in the audience grew more and more familiar. We danced the night away to Nigerian hip hop, and the lively music drowned out the distance I felt from my culture. The lights of the hall illuminated the bright colors of our traditional African outfits as we jerked and jived to the beats. For the first time in my life I was fully immersed in my culture, and I felt so blessed to have a family with so much pride that leaves no one behind. They had given Vegas a new meaning: one of love, acceptance, and family. 

Being an American-born child to immigrant parents is a unique identity, one that comes with a beautiful background of cultural pride met with self-assimilation to avoid a sense of “other” we often feel. There are countless students who feel out of place in their families, out of touch from their backgrounds as I did. But that summer showed me how much you can give to others by sharing your culture. My hope is that in sharing my experiences with the UC community, we all learn from one another’s cultures and welcome each other with open arms as a family

Essays that respond well to the 8th prompt don’t tend to follow a particular pattern. All that matters is that they convey some essential element of the applicant’s background, which is precisely what this one does. 

Beginning: This essay starts with a strong assertion that immediately leads into a story, leading the reader to question why it is that the writer hated Las Vegas. At the same time, it sets the stakes of this essay: this writer doesn’t feel at home with aspects of her family’s background. 

Middle: The middle picks up and works to resolve that tension, most importantly by telling a detail-rich narrative of this writer’s experience at the family reunion. 

End: Finally, the essay directly and clearly articulates why all this matters: this student’s unique identity has shaped their understanding of community, and has helped them develop into someone who’ll be an open-minded, empathetic member of the University of California.

Key elements: narrative+detail+vulnerability+community

Final considerations for UC essays as a whole

It’s crucial to remember that, unlike in most other colleges’ admissions processes, there is no “main” essay or “personal statement” here. That means your four essays have to work together, painting a coherent but not repetitive picture of you as a college applicant. 

This leads to several important takeaways:

• Don’t double dip. Each essay needs to illuminate some new aspect of your personality. If you answer the leadership prompt by writing about your role as president of a STEM club, you shouldn’t try to talk about that same club for the community prompt. 
• Vary your style and structure . This is an often underlooked one. Because UC admissions officers will be reading your four college application essays back to back, you need to vary how you tell each story. We’ve said in this post that a great way to start is in the middle of a story, and that’s true. But you can’t do that for every single essay, or it’ll look like you only know the one trick. 
• Use each prompt tactically. What we mean here is that you need to think carefully about what you want each of your UC college admissions essays to do for your application. Are you someone whose profile is all-STEM, all the time? Then you might want to use, say, the creativity prompt to highlight something about you totally unrelated to STEM, while using the academic interest prompt to expand on a particularly impressive research project you were involved in. 
• Reuse and recycle. If you’re applying to non-UC schools, then you’ll also likely have to write a Common App personal statement and supplemental essays. The Common App essay can always be cut down and turned into one of the UC essays. Most of your supplemental essays are also going to be perfect responses (once lengthened) to many of the UC prompts. 

To check out more real-life examples of successful UC application essays, click the link below. And, if you’re ready to start drafting and want to maximize your chances of an admission to one of the more selective UC schools, contact us to get paired with an expert tutor–many of whom have gone through and succeeded in the University of California admissions process. 

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12 Great University of California Essay Examples

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

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

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

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

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

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

1400 lines of code. 6 weeks. 1 Pizza.

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

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

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

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

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

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

What the Essay Did Well

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

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

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

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

What Could Be Improved

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rewind to the present day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I love spreadsheets.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where to Get Feedback on Your UC Essays

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

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

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

2023 Ultimate Guide: 20 UC Essay Examples

by Winning Ivy Prep Team | Mar 8, 2023 | UC Admissions , UC Personal Insight Essay Examples

Additional UC essay resources:

• Official UC Personal Insight Question prompts are here.
• Read our UC Essay / UC Personal Insight Essay Tips

Table of Contents

UC Personal Insight #1 Examples

How to Write the UC Essays: Analysis, Examples, and Tips

Reviewed by:

Rohan Jotwani

Former Admissions Committee Member, Columbia University

Reviewed: 12/21/23

Stuck on your UC personal insight questions? Read on to learn how to write the UC essays!

Whether you’re an amazing essayist or dread writing them, it’s essential you put careful thought into your UC personal insight questions. After all, these essays are your opportunity to express yourself, share your most meaningful experiences and abilities, and impress the admissions committee!

Considering how important this application requirement is, you may be wondering how to write the UC supplemental essays in a compelling and memorable way. Look no further; this guide has you covered! We’ll review how to write the UC application essays , how to pick the right prompts, and provide you with sample answers to inspire you!

UC Personal Insight Questions (PIQ)

Before getting into the specifics of how to answer the UC personal insight questions (PIQ), let’s review the eight prompts you’ll choose from:

“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 a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?”

Students are required to answer four UC personal insight questions. The UC system has no preference over the prompts students choose. Be sure that your essays stay under the University of California PIQ word count of 350 words. 

Students hoping to transfer to a UC school will also have to answer some of the prompts. Here is a guide to help applicants complete their UC transfer personal statements. 

Many of these prompts are similar to the UC Common App questions, so you can even use your answers to the UC prompts to inspire your Common App essays or vice versa! 

Understanding UC Essay Prompts

The first step to writing the UC school essays is picking four prompts to respond to. These eight prompts for UC schools may seem intimidating at first glance, but your careful thought can help you choose those that will elevate your application. Selecting prompts at random isn’t the best strategy here.

If you find you’re struggling to come up with at least a 300-word response to any prompt, it could be a sign to choose another. If you choose the right UC college essay prompts, it should be hard for you to stop writing!

To aid you in the process, we’ll discuss each of the UC essay prompts in detail, providing you with tips on how to answer them.

Students often misunderstand this prompt because they believe leadership is a particular role or position, such as an executive member of a club, job supervisor, or head of a volunteer organization. 

Unless you genuinely fit in one of these categories, you should consider other ways you’ve shown leadership. Define the word in your own terms! If you led people in any way, you could write about the experience and what you accomplished. As you brainstorm ideas, ensure you write about the following:

• The skills you developed and used as a leader
• Why you assumed the role 
• The actions you took as a leader
• The impact you had through your actions

Ensure you only choose one event to describe. Don’t list all your leadership experiences, as this goes against the premise of this prompt. Part of the difficulty is choosing just one experience to share. However, the committee does this to learn what is most meaningful to you and to see if you can follow guidelines!

For this prompt, students shouldn’t limit themselves by viewing creativity as an artistic skill. You don’t necessarily have to be artistically inclined to be creative; all you have to do is demonstrate your ability to think outside the box or use your skills in an original way. 

Think about your passions, what you do in your free time, and how your creativity has influenced you.

Prompt Three

Students tend to struggle with prompt three. When learning how to write UC essays, some students struggle to choose the perfect experience. For this prompt, students can typically list several talents or skills but struggle to pinpoint just one to expand upon. They wonder which talent is best or most impressive. 

Begin by listing your top talents and skills. Choose talents you have put effort and time into developing. If you’re a natural singer and have done little to develop your falsetto except sing in the shower, choose another skill that required more intense practice to perfect.

Be honest, and don’t be afraid to brag a little! If you’re having trouble choosing a talent, ask your friends and family for assistance. 

Prompt Four

Prompt four may not apply to you, making choosing which questions to respond to easier! This prompt may be worth answering if you participated in a program, course, club, or workshop that helped you prepare for college and supplement your learning. 

Regarding educational barriers, reflect on academic roadblocks. Was there anything that made it difficult for you to attend school, do well in a course, or study effectively? For instance, not liking the teachers that taught the AP classes at your school doesn’t count as an educational barrier, but financial struggles could. 

Prompt Five

Prompt five is somewhat similar to four. This challenge can doesn’t have to be related to your education. But you should still share how it affected your academics and any barriers it created in your education. Don’t repeat the same challenge you described in prompt four.

Your response should give the admissions committee more insight into your background, experiences, life circumstances, and personality. The most important trait to demonstrate with your response is resilience. The committee wants to know you can overcome the challenges life throws at you. 

Everyone has a favorite subject, which is what prompt six focuses on. This response is popular among students because they often know exactly which subject to discuss! There’s usually an academic subject that students excel in and just can’t seem to get enough of, whether it’s science, music, or something else.

You likely have a topic in mind as you read this! Use that topic and demonstrate how you’ve developed your interest through additional courses, programs, extracurriculars, internships, or jobs. Talk about what you learned from participating in these activities and how this subject has influenced your college path.

Prompt Seven

Prompt seven is fairly straightforward, but you do have some leeway. There are several communities you’re a part of, so don’t feel obligated to focus only on your school or local community. Choose one that you’ve made the largest impact on; perhaps it’s a school club, your work community, or your family. 

Define community as you see fit and explain your role in it. Focus on one or two major ways you’ve contributed to this community and its impact. 

Prompt Eight

The final UC personal insight question gives you a chance to share anything about yourself that’s missing from your application or didn’t fit into the other essay prompts.

If, after reading through all the prompts, none of them allow you to share more about a trait, experience, or talent you feel makes you a strong UC candidate, use this response to share it. Don’t be afraid to brag a little here! You have free reign to discuss whatever you want to share with the admissions committee. 

UC Essay Prompts With Examples 

It’s often helpful to look at examples of personal statements to get your ideas flowing. Below are sample UC supplemental essays for each prompt to help inspire your writing. These essays can also be used as examples of UC transfer student essays, as they respond to the same prompts. 

Please note that these essays have been anonymized to protect the privacy of the authors.

Prompt One Example

Here’s one example showcasing a student’s experiences with responsibilities as they answer, “Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time.” 

“While I’ve participated in several clubs where I have been given leadership titles, the one I am most proud of, and has allowed me to accomplish the most, is the role I play within my family.

From an early age, it was clear I would have to take on more responsibilities than was expected of me. After my father passed away when I was twelve years old, relatives constantly reminded me I was now the head of the house and responsible for my family. 

While I do not think they expected me to take their words to heart completely, I did. I became a leader within my own family and was more than just a big brother to my younger sibling. I knew that my sibling would look up to me for guidance and that I had to be the best role model for him. 

I took the initiative to work part-time at an Arby’s nearby to help my mother with bills, and took on various other roles to ensure my sibling grew up with the same guidance and support I did. 

I was a caretaker, a teacher, a protector, a counselor, and sometimes even a chauffeur. I got my driver’s license as soon as I turned sixteen so I could take Johnathan to all of his soccer games and play recitals.

I cannot say it was easy; sometimes, it felt impossible to take on so many roles, but I persevered. I remained dedicated to my family, perfected my time management, learned how to multitask, and remained driven because I knew my hard work would result in great rewards - the success of my family. 

Jonathan is now on track to finish at the top of his freshman year. He graduated the eighth grade as valedictorian and hopes to become a pediatric nurse in the future. 

While I cannot say I am grateful for the circumstances that led me to this role, I can say I am proud of the impact I have had on my family because of it.” 

Tips on How to Write This Essay

Here are some effective tips to help you answer this prompt:

• Choose a relevant example : Choose a leadership experience that is both relevant to the prompt and significant in demonstrating your abilities. 
• Provide context : Begin by setting the stage. Offer a brief but clear introduction to the situation, including the context, the group involved, and the challenges or goals that the team faced. Help the reader understand the importance of the leadership experience.
• Highlight positive outcomes : Emphasize the positive outcomes or changes achieved through your leadership. This could include improved team dynamics, successful resolution of disputes, or the accomplishment of group goals. 

Why This Works

This essay works because it’s unique and highly personal. It explains the role this student plays within a community that has the most meaning to them. It offers valuable insight into how this role helped them grow and develop important, transferable traits such as perseverance, selflessness, dedication, time management, and multitasking.

Understanding what UC schools are looking for can also help you craft masterful essays. Learn more about what the UC system seeks in applicants here! 

Prompt Two Example

Prompt two is, “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.” Use this example for the second UC prompt to guide you:

“My friends have always responded to my love for debate with confused looks and eye rolls. In their minds, debate involves pressure, critical thinking, and conversation about uninteresting topics. But, for me, debate club has always been my greatest talent and favorite way to express my creativity.

I consider it to be a craft to take a seemingly dry topic, such as tariff imposition in developing nations, and become enthusiastic about it. During debate, we are only given half an hour to come up with our primary argument. Within this half hour, I must convince others of my opinion and examine the topic from every angle.

Once both sides have presented, it is my responsibility to then think of compelling counter-arguments on the spot. Debate is where I shine. I recognize that humans only use 10% of their brains, but it truly feels like I use 11% during these debates.

I have to carefully choose the language I use to sway the judges, disprove equally crafted opposing views, and out-think my intelligent and driven peers. Contrary to my friends’ beliefs, there is truly never a dull moment in debate—there is simply no time for one. 

It is a battle of wits in which both teams can only use their words as their weapons. If I do not think my arguments through, it can be like bringing a sword to a gunfight. 

I have participated in debate competitions throughout high school and have even helped my school’s team advance to the top rounds at national debate competitions. Through this experience, I have not only developed excellent critical thinking skills but have become a more confident and articulate speaker.

My love for debate has also influenced me to pursue a career in criminal law, where my creativity and skill can be used to uphold justice and ensure the safety of society—which even my most skeptic friends won’t call boring!” 

Here is how can you answer this prompt:

• Narrate a story : Frame your response as a narrative to make it engaging and memorable. Take the reader through a journey that illustrates how your creative side has manifested in different situations. Use descriptive language to paint a vivid picture of your creative expression.
• Reflect on the impact : Discuss the impact of your creative expression. This could involve positive outcomes, solutions to challenges, or the reception of your artistic work. Reflecting on the consequences of your creativity adds substance to your response.
• Be concise : Given the word limit, be concise and focused in your response. Avoid unnecessary details and stay on topic. Make every sentence count to effectively communicate the essence of your creative side.

This is a great example of the UC creativity prompt because this student explains their creativity in a way that doesn’t relate to artistic talent. They appropriately describe how they use their creativity to excel in their passion and use examples to make their story more genuine. They also share the success they’ve had because of their creativity, which further proves their skill and ability.

Prompt Three Example

The next prompt is, “What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?” Consider this example for inspiration:

“She lacked luster. She was plain-looking, with dull hair and unsymmetrical features. Her right eye seemed to droop lower than her left, giving her the appearance of a slight lazy eye. There was no sparkle in her eye, no life in her gaze. She barely seemed alive. 

She almost looked like a Tim Burton character gone wrong, although even that description was too considerate and failed to capture her true mediocrity. 

That’s how I would describe the first-ever portrait I made in middle school. While I always enjoyed sketching, it did not come naturally to me. That was until I enrolled in a summer art program offered by the City Art Lab.

During this program, I learned how to modify the pressure on my pencil to produce different textures. I learned how to add highlights and create shadows to give my sketches depth. But most importantly, I learned the importance of practice. 

I practiced my art skills that entire summer, and the transformation was unbelievable. I went from creating wonky, left-behind Tim Burton characters to realistic, detailed portraits that began to resemble black-and-white photos. 

I have taken visual arts classes throughout high school and even won an art competition held among all sophomore students. Through all of my practice, I have learned to take risks, trust my abilities, and be open to new techniques to improve my work. 

I have begun using different mediums, such as charcoal, oil, and even acrylic. While I haven’t perfected my skills in these mediums, I am confident I will be able to with enough practice and commitment. 

Having the right mentors is important too, which is why I plan on continuing to develop my art skills at UC Irvine through their robust visual arts program taught by talented and accomplished faculty.” 

Here are some tips to help you write this essay:

• Self-reflection : Begin by reflecting on your strengths and skills. Identify the talent you believe is your greatest and think about how you’ve developed and demonstrated that talent over time.
• Choose a specific talent : Select a talent or skill that is not only significant but also relevant to the program you’re applying to. Whether it's a technical skill, leadership ability, communication proficiency, or something else, be specific in your choice.
• Share examples : Illustrate your talent with concrete examples from your experiences. Discuss situations where you have demonstrated this skill, showcasing its impact and relevance. 

This response opens with a hook that catches the reader’s attention, influencing them to keep reading. Readers will likely be surprised to learn this student is just describing a sketch and not a real person.

They share their complete experience with art, show vulnerability by stating they struggled with their sketches, and ultimately show their dedication by explaining how they improved. They also end their essay well by explaining how they plan on continuing to develop their skills at UC Irvine. 

Learn more about writing college essays from a Brown graduate here! 

Prompt Four Examples

Prompt four asks you to “Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.” We’ll include two UC essay examples to help guide your writing: 

“It is the perfect course for any students that hope to become doctors—is what my junior year AP Biology teacher Mr. Wilson told me about an eight-week introductory biology course that was being offered to high school students at our local community college.

Mr. Wilson always told us about the best opportunities to pursue if we wanted to join the medical field. It was a dream of his as well, but he always said “life got in the way” and he never took it as seriously as he should have. He warned me not to make the same mistake. If I was serious about becoming a physician, I had to prove it.

So, I enrolled in the course and was ready for a summer full of 8 am laboratories, 20-page readings, and late-night study sessions instead of sleeping in, reading mystery novels on the beach, and staying up late with my friends playing video games. But, I was willing to make that sacrifice to better prepare myself for college.

It was clear from my first class that I was in over my head. I struggled to retain the readings and had a hard time keeping up during lectures. I felt ashamed and downright defeated. I questioned if I deserved to even be a physician and wondered why it seemed to come so easily to my peers. 

But, wondering and wallowing would do me no good. So, I picked myself up and strategized. I spoke to my professor to ask for some tips. He assured me most students struggle to adjust in the beginning, but his biggest tip was to review the readings the night before our lectures, make notes during, and review those notes again after class. 

While his suggestions were time-consuming, they helped me increase my grades and I actually began to enjoy the course! I graduated with an A and learned more than just cell biology and evolutionary ecology. I learned how to manage my time better, stay organized, persevere through challenges, and to ask for help when needed!” 

Use these tips to help you write an impactful essay: 

• Choose a relevant experience : Select a specific educational opportunity or barrier that is not only significant but also relevant to your personal and academic journey. This could include a challenging course, a unique learning experience, or overcoming obstacles to pursue education.
• Provide context : Begin by providing context for the educational opportunity or barrier. Explain the circumstances that made it significant or challenging, including any personal or external factors that influenced your experience.
• Highlight the significance : Clearly explain why the educational opportunity or barrier is significant in your academic journey. Discuss the impact it had on your learning, personal growth, or overall development.

This response works because it demonstrates how the student took advantage of an educational opportunity and their real experience. They show their drive, determination, and perseverance through their story of overcoming difficulties during the program. 

They also mentioned their reason for taking this course was to better prepare themself for college, which also allowed them to develop study habits to aid them. Both these points can convince the UC admissions committee of this student’s academic potential. 

Here’s another example: 

“After the first few tests in my geometry course my freshman year, my teacher, [NAME #1], noticed my passion for and proficiency with math. At the same time, my physics teacher, [NAME #2], noticed how I enjoyed challenging extra credit problems. I would visit him during the advisory period to review the problems so I could understand the concepts. Both of these teachers recognized my curiosity and desire to challenge myself beyond existing coursework. By the end of the first quarter, I had decided I wanted to take calculus as a sophomore, but I needed to complete Algebra 2 and precalculus first.

One day, I noticed [NAME #2] AP Calculus book on his desk and asked him if I could borrow it, even though the topic was well beyond what I had been studying. I worked with [NAME #1] and asked how I could accelerate my math courses so I could take calculus the following year. The largest obstacle standing in my way was time. I still needed to take a year’s worth of Algebra 2 and a year’s worth of precalculus before I could enroll in AP Calculus AB. 

Despite this barrier, I was determined to progress. I would ask [NAME #1] to give me practice material from Algebra 2, which I would study in addition to my freshman workload. [NAME #1] agreed that if I passed both Algebra 2 semester finals, she would give me credit for the class. My studying paid off. I passed and was able to take an accelerated precalculus course over the summer before my sophomore year. 

My initiative and my teachers’ recognition of my skills and abilities allowed me to advance in mathematics faster than what the school would normally allow. As a result, I am now taking Advanced Topics in Calculus as a senior, and I will be able to jumpstart my lower-division coursework as an Applied Mathematics major. I learned that good teachers nurture potential and that if I take initiative, I can accomplish anything. I have confidence that I can handle a heavy workload and look forward to new challenges.” 

This essay demonstrates the student’s ability to take the initiative and take charge of their education despite originally not being on track to take their desired courses. The author’s essay shares their passion for math, their ability to solve problems, and how they worked around an educational barrier to advance their learning. 

Ready to elevate your UC essays? Check out our video on writing perfect college essays here! 

Prompt Five Example

Prompt five asks you to “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?”

Gain a better understanding of how to write the UC essays from this sample response: 

“I grew up in Mumbai, where the air was always warm and welcoming and carried the scent of flowers and cardamom. Everywhere I went, I heard my beautiful language being spoken by people in my village that knew my name and always greeted me with smiles as warm as the sun that was constantly out. 

Then, I moved to America. My father received a job opportunity that would provide us with more economic stability and a chance for a better life for me and my soon-to-be younger brother who was due to be born in a few months. America was not like Mumbai. 

We traded our small, tight-knit village for the bustling, large city Denver where no one knew my name, and I rarely heard my beautiful language. Instead, I heard a foreign language that always seemed too quick to catch. I struggled to string along even the most simple sentences. I missed the warmth of the sun and the smell of the air. 

When I started school in the sixth grade, I was an easy target for bullies. I had a thick accent and mismatched clothes. I was still learning how Westerners dressed, and I stuck out like a sore thumb—an expression that always confused me as a child.

But, I took ESL classes throughout middle school. I read in my free time and joined ESL summer programs every year. Soon, I was able to string along sentences with ease and Denver started to feel more like home. I started hearing a different beautiful language that I understood more and more every day. 

By high school, English became my favorite subject. I understood even the most complex Shakespeare plays and wrote compelling essays on them. My accent still lingers on certain words, but it only reminds me of the idyllic place that I come from. 

I am no longer ashamed of my roots, in fact, I smile when I hear the remnants of my accent. I also smile when I learn new English words, and am happy to say I am now the master of two beautiful languages.” 

Here are some helpful tips on how to write this essay:

• Choose a genuine challenge : Pick a challenge that is genuinely significant in your life and has had a tangible impact on your academic journey. This could be a personal, academic, or professional challenge that has shaped your experiences and perspectives.
• Detail the steps taken : Outline the specific steps you took to overcome the challenge. Discuss any strategies, actions, or decisions you made to address the obstacles. Highlight your problem-solving skills, resilience, and determination.
• Reflect on the experience : Reflect on what you learned from overcoming the challenge. Discuss how the experience has shaped your character, influenced your approach to challenges, and contributed to your personal and academic growth.

This response shares a story that is clearly meaningful to the student. It revolves around their upbringing, a major event in their life, and the challenges they faced because of this change. They show persistence and resilience and provide concrete examples of how they overcame the odds and perfected their English.

Prompt Six Examples

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

The best way to grasp how to write the UC essays is to learn by example! Here are two UC essay examples to help you get inspired: 

“Logophile. 

It doesn’t sound like a pleasant word. In fact, most people ask me to repeat myself when I describe myself as one. But, it is the only word that captures how important writing and reading is to me. Every definition of the word states logophiles are lovers of words, which is exactly what I am, no more and no less. 

English was always my favorite subject. My mother constantly reminds me of how I would pretend to write even when I couldn’t. It was only ever just scribbles, but she was convinced those scribbles held meaning to me. 

I would scribble on lined paper for hours until I began learning the alphabet and how to make those scribbles mean something to someone other than myself.

Throughout middle school, I spent all of my free time reading. You would never see me without a book, and I would read an average of three novels each week. 

I loved how words came together to create wonderful stories that I could immerse myself into. I marveled at the amazing gift authors had to be able to give life to words that had such little meaning on their own. I knew, someday, I would also be able to create worlds out of words. 

I took all of the English courses offered at my school and supplemented these classes with writing camps and workshops led by real authors during my summers. By my sophomore year, it was a notebook that I always carried around with me. I found inspiration in everything. 

I looked at the tan line where my biology teacher’s wedding ring must have been and wrote a story about their doomed love. I submitted it for a nation-wide junior writing competition and won second place.” 

This summer, I will be participating in a writing internship offered by a local news station. While I will mainly be writing investigative work, I hope to expand my writing skills and learn new techniques through it.

I plan on developing my skills even further at UC Merced through their Karen Merritt Writing Program.” 

Consider these tips when answering the above prompt:

• Choose a genuine academic interest : Select an academic subject that genuinely inspires and excites you. Your enthusiasm for the subject should be apparent in your writing, and the chosen topic should align with your academic interests.
• Connect to future goals : Tie your passion for the academic subject to your future academic and professional goals. Explain how this interest aligns with your aspirations and how it will contribute to your success in the program and beyond.
• Be concise : While expressing enthusiasm, ensure that your essay remains focused and concise. Avoid unnecessary details and tangents, and prioritize conveying a clear and impactful story about your passion for the academic subject.

This student not only describes why they love English and writing but also provides background information to demonstrate how long they’ve been honing their writing and reading skills. They explain how they’ve already developed their skills and how they plan on further enhancing them at UC Merced. 

Here’s another example answering this prompt: 

“Throughout literature, I see time. Thousands of works hundreds of years old have been lost, and yet some manage to survive longer than the authors who brought them to life. I read a Greek piece of writing and see in the sentiments expressed in the text that besides some trivial differences attributable to history, we’re still essentially the same. We’re all human, navigating the world and finding comfort in words.

Words have given humans the ability to communicate at extraordinary levels, which has only exponentiated in the digital age of technology and the Internet of Things (IoT). In an increasingly impersonal digital world, language makes experiences tangible - real - and enables us to break barriers of individuality and possibly even loneliness. Literature provides a sense of unity and perpetuity, allowing me to understand our history more personally when I read timeless works written by another author’s hand.

It wasn’t until reading and comparing multitudinous genres (ranging from fiction and [LANGUAGE] to Shakespearean sonnets) in sophomore English that I realized, although we come from different times, we still laugh at the same jokes, suffer similar tragedies, and have a collective sense of duty to maintain what was - and still is - deemed beautiful.

Thus, from sophomore year onward, I started pleasure reading, a hobby I’d long neglected. The first year, I managed to read 6 books, all simple digestible fiction works. The year after: 30 books, with a medley of genres from fantasy and classics to non-fiction. The next year: 50 books, with so many genres and topics that I began listening to debates and commentaries about books I’d finished, reading essays written on them and writing my own, and watching my favorite videos of Brandon Sanderson on writing.

Of all my hobbies, I must say reading affords me the most invaluable understanding of literature. Vicariously experiencing other authors’ thoughts and beliefs, I’m immersed in their minds, and whenever I finish their book, I’m back on my own timeline in history, unable to contain the inspiration that often strikes to use my words and languages to weave works of literature.” 

Why This Worked 

This student’s love of literature fuelled their narrative while demonstrating how they pursued their passions outside the classroom. 

The tangible numbers they provide on how many books they’ve read and their descriptions of how they’d engaged with the content shows their commitment to learning and exploring history and writing – their conclusion about unity and perpetuity is especially compelling. 

Prompt Seven Example

Prompt seven asks, “What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?” Here’s a sample answer: 

“We have a fourteen-day adoption policy. Animals that are not adopted within two weeks of entering the shelter are likely to be euthanized. We simply do not have the room or resources to keep them longer. Considering she’s a black cat, it’s highly likely she will not be adopted. 

That’s what I was told when I surrendered an injured black cat to my local animal shelter. I found Midnight cowering under my car during a hail storm. It was clear she once belonged to someone, she had a tattered collar, but she must have been abandoned recently. 

Her nails were beginning to grow out, and her fur was matted and unbrushed. After hearing about her chances of adoption, I researched the phenomena of black pet deaths.

Out of all of the other pets, black dogs and cats were not only the least likely to be adopted but were euthanized at the highest rates. By day thirteen, no one had adopted Midnight, so I did. 

But I knew just saving one cat wasn’t enough. So, I brought up the issue to the other members of our Animal Activist club at school. I was an executive member of the club, and my peers agreed we had to do more for the black pets in our community. So, we set up two bake sales and three fundraisers throughout my junior year of high school.

We raised over $20,000 that we donated to our local animal shelter for what has coined the “Black Pet Initiative”. With this money, all of the black pets at the shelter were groomed, professionally photographed, and given the best chances of being adopted. 

Any leftover funds were used to provide the shelter with more resources to keep their animals for longer before they were euthanized. 

Our initiative has had great success so far. Mandy, the adoption coordinator, told us there was a 50% increase in black pet adoptions so far and that she only expects it to grow as they receive more donations through the social media presence we created for them on TikTok and Instagram.”

Here are tips to help you write this essay:

• Choose specific examples : Pick specific examples of initiatives or projects that you have been involved in to improve your school or community. Choose instances that showcase your leadership, commitment, and impact.
• Provide context : Begin by providing context for the school or community environment. Briefly describe the challenges or opportunities that motivated your involvement. Clearly explain why you felt compelled to contribute.
• Reflect on challenges : If you faced challenges during your efforts, discuss how you overcame them. Reflect on what you learned from the experience and how it contributed to your personal and leadership development.

Above all else, there’s clear passion in this answer. Readers can feel how important the issue is to this student, and the personal anecdote of Midnight adds to this. The student also explains the role they played in their community, how they contributed to it, and the extent of their contributions!

These essay prompts present a fantastic opportunity to strategically position yourself as the ultimate UC applicant. 

Prompt Eight Example

The final UC prompt is, “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?” 

Here’s an example to help you brainstorm:

“A year ago, I decided to work at my neighbor’s new restaurant that they were struggling to keep afloat. I saw it as an opportunity to help my parents pay bills and save up for a car, which I felt I desperately needed at the time. 

I only planned to work there during the summer, but my neighbors said I was an asset to their team and could continue working reduced hours during the school year if I wanted. The money was good, and I knew I would be helping out neighbors I’ve known my whole life.

So, I continued working throughout my junior year, and still work there now in my senior year. It has been a demanding job, especially as business picked up last year. I made numerous mistakes in the beginning, like punching in take-out orders as dine-in orders, dropping plates, and overbooking our waitlist.

There were days I considered quitting, but I pushed through. Over time, I learned the ins and outs of the diner. I’ve become one of the restaurant's star waitresses and have even won employee of the month five months in a row. 

Working in this industry has made me feel like a bigger part of society. I have the ability to make a person’s day better and always offer kind conversation to people who often need it most. It has made me a better listener, communicator, and harder worker.

It has been a personally fulfilling experience--there’s just something about being part of people’s celebrations and sharing moments with strangers that’s indescribable. These special moments are what inspired me to continue working in this industry, but not as a waitress. 

I hope to become a co-manager at my neighbor’s restaurant to have an even bigger impact on my community. I know getting a degree is the next step in this aspiration.” 

• Identify unique strengths : Identify unique strengths or qualities about yourself that have not been extensively covered in your application. Consider personal characteristics, experiences, or skills that set you apart and contribute to your candidacy.
• Focus on diversity : Emphasize aspects of your background, experiences, or perspectives that contribute to the diversity and richness of the university community. Showcase how your unique qualities will enhance the overall student body.
• Connect to university values : Connect your strengths with the values and mission of the University of California. Demonstrate how your goals and values align with the university's commitment to academic excellence, diversity, and community engagement.

This student shares more about their work experience and what led them to pursue a degree at a UC school. It offers more insight into the type of person they are, what they value, and how important community is to them. 

We hope these UC personal insight questions examples help you understand what UC schools look for. 

UC Essay Examples

Here are some UC essay examples to give you a better idea of what a successful essay looks like.

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

My grandfather delights in scenic diversions while traveling, and I am his willing companion on road trips. Our journeys have taken us to trails and prime fishing spots as memorable as our final destination. Information processing in my brain resembles these scenic journeys. I have dyslexia, and one of the greatest challenges I have overcome has been to find the beauty and advantage in the way my neural pathways function–never a direct route and usually a lengthy journey. 

Learning to read was an arduous undertaking for me. While my siblings learned to read with ease, I toiled along and avoided tasks that involved reading. After I was diagnosed with dyslexia, I drudged through hours of remediation and studied twice as hard as my neurotypical peers. I had difficulty attributing my success to natural ability because I worked so hard to attain it. It wasn’t until my freshman year that my mindset shifted. A guest speaker visited my school to talk about the gifts of neurodiversity. As I listened, I began to think about my own neural pathways as roadways for information. I realized that my destination is the same as someone with an ordinary brain, but information in my brain takes the scenic route. I then started uncovering the benefits of neurodiversity. Dyslexia has helped me excel in forming creative solutions to problems, and as my classes become more advanced, the processing differences become less apparent. What’s more, I’ve spent my life working hard to spot and rectify errors, reading and re-reading passages, and intensely persevering to meet my own high expectations. This has culminated in a work ethic for which I will always have muscle memory. Above all, I now confidently own my success.

As I reflect on expeditions with my grandfather, it is clear my experience on the road could never be the same as my siblings, who rode with my parents in the “fast car”. I would never trade the memories made for the time spent. As for my neural pathways, I am content knowing that my brain will always take me where the fish are biting.

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

The test covered L’Hopital’s Rule and Related Rates–a topic I felt I had mastered but would need extra time to complete. But there I was. Waiting patiently with everyone else for [NAME] to hand out the test. As a student with a learning difference, I had a written contract for accommodations: extended time in a distraction free setting, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t the first time this happened, and I knew how this story would unfold. He placed the test on my desk. I frantically solved as many problems as I could. I flew through the first half of the test, but just as I began solving related rates, I heard a disappointing “5 Minutes Left”. I frantically jotted down anything that came to mind on the remaining portion of the test, but it didn’t matter. Time was up.

I sat quietly in class the next day, enraged. Every question I completed was correct, but it didn’t make up for the unattempted problems. “79%” engraved in dark red ink. What’s worse, he wrote, “Why didn’t you try these problems?” across the page of unanswered questions. Nearly every problem I attempted on any quiz or test in his class was mathematically correct, but I ran out of time on almost every assessment. It didn’t matter how good I truly was at Precalculus.

Until then, I had a hard time advocating for myself. That day something ignited in me and I knew I carried the responsibility to advocate for not only myself but for other students with learning differences. I wrote a letter to the school which reviewed the rights of students with learning differences set forth by the ADA. The following semester, my teacher was obligated to allow accommodations in his class, and as a result, those of use with differences were allowed “equal playing time.” The grade I received that semester did not reflect my mastery of Honors Precalculus, but it was a very impactful experience. I now understand the mental burden true discrimination can have on a person, and I carry the motivation to fight it.

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

It was her fourth honor council. I sat on the committee for her third that granted her one last chance. It was mid-April–just weeks before graduation, and she would walk across the stage with her diploma. The third honor council debated for hours about the best course of action. No student had ever been given 4 chances without separation from the school. One attendee argued for her future in retaining her college admission, while another suggested her negative impacts on the school community. After hours of debate, the honor council was split. It was left up to just a few of her peers to decide her fate. We reviewed her previous violation, and then it appeared: “Any future violations of school rules WILL result in separation from the school”. I believe strongly in seeking first to understand a person’s circumstances before drawing judgment, and I think there is great value in the second chance. Unfortunately, this student was unable to take responsibility after failing on multiple counts, and we eventually decided it would be best for the community if she separated from the school. She was given the opportunity to receive her diploma with successful completion of online classes.

Hard decisions like these have been a driving factor in shaping my character and values caring for the greater good of the community. I faced discrimination as a person with learning differences, which prompted me to solve issues of inequity through leadership positions. I give back to the community by leading school discussions about acts of hate and aggression that happen on and off campus, and I strive to create diversity and inclusion by attracting new people to [CITY]. I attempt to create a well-rounded incoming class of freshmen that will better the FVS community and help to solve issues of discrimination and a lack of diversity on campus. Together, my roles have heavily aligned with my values of creating diversity and solving a wide range of issues on campus.

What Are the UC Schools Looking For In Your Essays? 

When it comes to the essay, UC schools look for specific aspects, these include:

• Personality : The essay is a great way for UC admission to get to know their applicants. They look for an applicant's voice and want to get to know more about them. 
• Diversity of experiences :  UC schools value diversity, not only in terms of ethnicity and background but also in experiences, perspectives, and talents. They are interested in students who can bring unique viewpoints and contribute to a diverse and vibrant campus community.
• Impact and initiative : The essays should highlight instances where you took initiative or made a positive impact in your community, school, or personal life. Admissions officers are interested in applicants who demonstrate leadership, problem-solving skills, and a commitment to making a difference.
• Interest in the schools : Demonstrate a genuine interest in the UC schools you are applying to. Mention specific programs, faculty, or opportunities that attract you to each campus, showing that you've done your research.

Make sure you keep the above in mind when writing your essays. You never know, it might help you get accepted! 

Tips For Writing the UC Application Essays

Reviewing sample answers and getting inspired by them is an excellent first step when learning how to write the UC personal insight questions. Once you’ve made it past the brainstorming phase, consider these tips for your UC supplemental essays:

Use “I” Statements

Throughout your personal insight questions, you should use “I” statements. Make yourself the protagonist of all your stories, and don’t use third-person narration. This can make your answers confusing, less personal, and academic-sounding. 

Your personal insight questions give the admissions committee a glimpse into who you are outside the classroom. While your stats give them a sense of your academic potential, your essays provide a sense of who you are and what you can contribute to the school community.

Be sincere in your answers. Show your enthusiasm about the topics you’re writing about, and be honest. You don’t need to have jaw-dropping, tragic, or life-changing stories to write compelling UC essays. 

Your feelings towards these experiences, what you learned from them, and the impact they had on others make your responses unique and interesting!

Get Feedback

Your friends, family, and other members of your community who know you best can offer feedback on your essays. If they feel you’re selling yourself short or your answers don’t reflect your personal story, you can revise them to be more accurate.

At the same time, however, you do not want to lose your unique voice by accepting all of the suggestions of your peers and family members. You are still the best narrator of your own story, and it may have been a long while since they applied to college.

If you’re unsure how to write the UC supplemental essays or want expert guidance and feedback, consider scheduling a consultation with an admissions counselor to ensure your narratives stand out! 

Edit, Edit, Edit

Grammar and spelling errors can distract your readers and reduce the efficacy of your words. Ensure you proofread your work several times before you submit it so your answers are clear and powerful!

For any remaining questions about the UC application insight questions, read on!

1. How Do You Write a Good UC Essay?

Writing a good University of California insight questions involves several steps:

• Choose prompts that truly resonate with you
• Brainstorm ideas before you write your answers
• Limit your options to the experiences you feel most connected to so you can portray your best traits
• Be sincere and honest 
• Use real-life anecdotes to propel your story
• Proofread your work several times
• Ask for input from people close to you, but ensure your voice still shines through

A good UC essay is crafted with care and effort! Ensure you start early, and don’t be afraid to write multiple drafts until you’re happy with your answers.

2. Can UC Essays Be Over 350 Words?

No, your UC essays should be 350 words or fewer.

3. Do UC Essays Have to Be 250 Words?

There’s no minimum word count for the UC essays. However, you should aim for your answers to be at least 250 words so you can adequately answer the prompt. 

4. How Many UC Essays Are There?

You’ll be given the choice between eight essay prompts, of which you must answer four. 

5. What Should I Not Do When Writing UC Essays? 

When writing UC essays, you shouldn’t mention the school’s name if you’re applying to more than one in the system. Additionally, you don’t want to fudge any details, randomly select essays to write, repeat anything from your personal statement, or exceed the word limit. 

6. What Do UC Admissions Look for in Essays? 

UC schools are looking for applicants who demonstrate their personality and strong character through anecdotes and experiences. Ensure your responses show your passions, interests, values, and what makes you unique. 

Final Thoughts

After reviewing how to write the UC essays in depth, you should be able to craft compelling responses. Ensure you choose the right prompts, pick experiences that portray your most favorable traits, and prove you’ll make an excellent addition to the UC community!

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College Admissions , College Info

If you're applying to one or more of the UC schools, you want to make sure you get the application right. This step-by-step guide will walk you through everything you need to know about the UC application, from the time you decide to apply to a UC school to when you submit the final piece of the application.

Keep reading to learn when the most important UC application deadline is, which documents you need to submit to complete your application, if you need a separate application for each UC school, and how you can make sure every part of your application sets you apart from the crowd.

University of California Drops SAT/ACT Requirement

In May 2020, the University of California Board of Regents voted unanimously to stop requiring the ACT and SAT as part of admissions applications. The decision was made in part due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the changes will remain permanent, even after the pandemic is over. The decision has been in the works for years, and it's being done to make the admissions process fairer to all students.

For at least through 2025, all University of California schools will be test blind. This means that, even if you submit SAT or ACT scores, they won't be considered as part of your application. ;However, test scores may still be requested for non-admissions reasons, such as determining which classes a student should enroll in. There is a UC-specific standardized test that's currently in development that may replace ACT and SAT scores after 2025, but that hasn't been confirmed. You can learn more about the decision to ignore SAT/ACT scores for admission here .

Important Info About the University of California Application

It's key to know important information about the UC application early on so that you have enough time to gather and submit all the materials you need before the deadlines.

Where to Find the UC Application: You can find the UC application here. This is the application for all University of California schools, so regardless if you're looking for a UC Berkeley application, UC Davis application, etc., they all use this same application.

How to Submit the Application: When you've completed the application, you can submit it by hitting the "Submit" button at the end of the application.

When to Submit Your Application: It's extremely important to know when the UC application deadlines are because missing one could mean your application won't be looked at. Below are the key University of California application dates.

Looking at the above chart, it's clear that the most important date is November 30th . This is the last day you can submit your UC application. UC states right on the website that they almost never accept late applications, so don't miss this deadline!

You'll learn if you've been accepted as early as March 1st, and you'll have until May 1st to decide which school to attend.

How to Apply to the UC Schools

There are four main steps to applying to UC schools. The earlier you begin your application (as early as August 1st) the more time you'll have to complete all the steps and the less pressure you'll be under to meet the deadline. The steps are the same regardless of which UC school(s) you're applying to since all UC schools use the same application (and you only need to submit one application, even if you apply to multiple UC schools).

Step 1: Create an Account

Your step to applying to UC schools is to create an applicant account. This step will only take about a few minutes since you just need to fill out basic information like your email, name, which semester you want to start school, and if you're applying as a freshman or as a transfer student.

Step 2: Complete the UC Application

After creating your account, you'll be immediately sent to the beginning of the application. The University of California application contains eight sections:

You'll answer background and demographic questions, such as your birth date and contact information, which language(s) you grew up speaking, what your family's income is, if you qualify as a resident of California.

Campuses & Majors

You choose which school(s) you want to apply to. There are nine UC schools, listed below, and you can choose to apply to as many as you want, including all nine. Be aware though that each UC school you apply to requires its own $70 application fee ($80 for international students).  If you have a fee waiver, you can apply to up to four UC schools for free.

Here are the UC schools:

• UC Berkeley
• UC Los Angeles
• UC Riverside
• UC Santa Barbara
• UC Santa Cruz
• UC San Diego

You'll next select your major. If you're applying to multiple UC schools, you'll need to do this separately for each school since they all have slightly different majors. Some schools also offer the option of selecting an "alternate major" which is your second choice of major if you can't be placed in that campus in your top major.

Academic History

This is a lengthy section where you'll need to enter in information about the high school(s) you attended, all the classes you took in high school, if they were honors or AP, and the grade you got. It's basically like entering all the information on your transcript . (You don't need to submit your official transcript until the summer, after you've been accepted and have decided to attend a UC school.)

Test Scores

Here is where you'll enter information about the standardized test(s) you've taken. Again, SAT and ACT scores won't be looked at during the admissions process, even if you submit them. However, there are other test scores you can submit.

You'll be asked about AP exams, IB exams, TOEFL exams, and IELTS exams on separate pages in the test score section of your application. According to the UC system's application website , "You’ll need to report your scores if you’ve already taken an exam or indicate if you’re planning on taking an exam in the future." None of these exams are required (unless you're an international student needing to show English proficiency), but high AP or IB scores can help strengthen your application.

Activities & Awards

In this section, you'll discuss all the activities you participated in outside of the classroom. There are six categories:

• Award or honor
• Educational preparation programs
• Extracurricular activities
• Other coursework (classes outside UC's "a-g" core subject areas )
• Volunteering/community service
• Work experience

The application explains which activities fall into which category, and there's no need to feel like you need to have activities to put in all the categories, or even most of them. For each category, you can add up to five separate classes/activities/jobs/awards/etc.

Scholarships & Programs

In this section you'll select your eligibility for different scholarship categories, such as ethnicity, career plans, and work experience. There are ten categories, each with multiple characteristics you can select. You'll only select these characteristics once, regardless of how many UC schools you're applying to. This is also the section where you can apply for the Educational Opportunity Program, which is explained in the application.

Personal Insight

This is the section where you'll answer the personal statement questions. There are eight personal statement questions, and you'll need to answer four of them. Each response should be 250-350 words. We recommend that you write your essays in a word document first to make it easier to review them, then paste each essay into the application once you're done editing it.

Below are the eight 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. Things to consider:   A leadership role can mean more than just a title. It can mean being a mentor to others, acting as the person in charge of a specific task, or taking the lead role in organizing an event or project. Think about what you accomplished and what you learned from the experience. What were your responsibilities?

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

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

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

If you choose to write about educational barriers you've faced, how did you overcome or strive to overcome them? What personal characteristics or skills did you call on to overcome this challenge? How did overcoming this barrier help shape who you are today? 5. Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement? Things to consider:   A challenge could be personal, or something you have faced in your community or school. Why was the challenge significant to you? This is a good opportunity to talk about any obstacles you've faced and what you've learned from the experience. Did you have support from someone else or did you handle it alone?

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

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

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

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

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

If you want tips on writing your personal statements, we have a guide on how to write a perfect UC essay for every prompt.

Step 3: Pay Admission Fees and Submit Your Application

Once you've finished each section your application, you can submit it, as long as it's between October 1 and November 30. When you submit your application, first you'll enter in some final demographic information as well as your state of legal residence. Then you'll review all the information you entered to make sure it's correct.

Once everything is set, you'll pay the necessary fees. The application fee is $70 ($80 if you're an international student) for each UC school you apply to. Then you'll click submit, and your application will officially be sent to the UC schools you're applying to!

Step 4: (Optional) Complete Additional Materials

Most students applying to UC schools won't need to submit additional materials, but some will. This will depend on both which schools you're applying to and what you plan on majoring in.

For example, some students planning to major in a fine arts discipline are requested to submit a portfolio. These additional materials are typically only recommended, not required, but doing these extra steps can help give your application a boost.

If you do need to complete additional materials, you will either get a notification in the application or receive an email outlining what you need to do, but it's also a good idea to research your intended major at each UC school you're applying to in order to make sure you're not missing any important recommendations.

University of California Application Checklist

To recap, below is everything you need to submit when you apply to a UC school. Your application won't be considered until the schools receive all the pieces below.

• UC Application
• Application Fee of $70 for each school you apply to
• (Optional) Supplemental Materials

5 Things UC Schools Look at in Applications and How to Impress Them

The UC schools are pretty open about what they look for in applicants and what an applicant needs to have to be accepted. They've listed the qualities they look for in every application , and we've organized those qualities into five categories. Below, we explain what you need to do to excel in each category to create a standout UC application.

#1: Classes You Took

When UC admissions officers look at the classes you took, they're looking at two things: the actual courses you took and how difficult they were.

For the first category, UC schools want to make sure you've taken the classes you need to succeed as a college student at one of their schools. Their minimum requirements are:

• History: 2 years
• English: 4 years
• Mathematics: 3 years
• Laboratory science: 2 years
• Language other than English: 2 years
• Visual and performing arts: 1 year
• College-preparatory elective: 1 year

(These courses are sometimes referred to as the "A-G subjects").

Note that this is the minimum UC schools require; most applicants will have gone well beyond these requirements. Some majors, especially those in math or science fields, require additional classes, so make sure to research the major you plan to take to make sure you're on track.

In general, it's best to take more classes in the fields you plan on majoring in. For example, if you want to major in biology, you should take four years of science and four years of math. If you want to be a history major, you should take four years of history. Doing this shows UC schools that you're committed to the subject and can handle higher-level classes on it.

UC also looks at the difficulty of the classes you took. They're specifically looking for honors, AP, or IB courses since these are more difficult than regular-level classes. If your school offers these classes, you should take as many as you can without overloading yourself and still maintaining a high GPA. Taking difficult classes shows UC schools that you're focused on your studies and can handle the challenge and workload of college classes.

Also, UC specifically mentions the "quality of your senior-year program" as one of the qualifications it looks at, so don't be tempted to slack off senior year with a bunch of easy classes!

It's not enough just to take the classes UC schools want; you also need to do well in them. Your grades and overall GPA are another critical component of your UC application. For all UC schools, you need to have at least a 3.0 GPA in your A-G classes if you're a California resident, or a 3.4 GPA if you're a non-resident. Additionally, you can't have gotten below a "C" in any of those classes.

There is no requirement for classes outside the A-G subjects, but you should still aim to do well in all your classes. UC states that "the strength of your high school record is the most important component in our review" so you want your transcript to be as strong as it can be with a high GPA and record of challenging classes.

Below is a table showing the middle 50% of weighted GPAs of accepted students for each of the UC schools during the 2023 admissions cycle:

To give yourself the best chance of getting in, you'll want to aim for the higher end of the GPA range for whichever school(s) you're applying to. For example, if you're applying to UC Davis, your goal should be to have a weighted GPA of 4.30. You can definitely still get in with a lower GPA (since that's the 75% marker, ¾ of students are getting in with a GPA lower than that), but if you reach that goal you'll have a great shot at being accepted.

#3: Standardized Test Scores

With UC schools becoming test blind, test scores are now less important than they were before. Again, even if you submit your SAT or ACT scores, they won't be reviewed, so they can't help or hurt your application. However, other test scores, such as AP or IB exams, can still give your application a boost, especially if your GPA isn't as high as you'd like it to be. Strong test scores show a mastery of course material and give UC schools further proof that you'd be a strong student.

#4: Extracurriculars

Your extracurriculars are another important part of your UC application. The key to strong extracurriculars is to emphasize your passion and leadership skills. You can do this by pursuing extracurriculars in a field related to your future major, sticking with them, and achieving leadership roles in them.

Some things UC states that are looking for in extracurriculars include:

• Special talents, awards, or achievements
• Leadership experience
• Significant experiences or achievements that demonstrate the student's promise for contributing to the intellectual vitality of a campus.

They list the following examples of "strong" extracurriculars:

• Special talent in visual and performing arts, communication or sports
• Intensive study and exploration of other cultures
• Significant community service
• Significant participation in student government

Don't feel like you need to have all or even any of these experiences; they're just given so you can get an idea of what UC schools are looking for. Basically, any extracurricular that you're passionate about, skilled in, and have shown some leadership potential for is a great extracurricular to include on your UC application.

#5: Personal Statements

Your UC essays should show three main things:

• Who you are
• Why you want to attend a UC school
• What's important to you

Maybe you're a lifelong nature lover who wants to attend UC San Diego to take advantage of all the different ecosystems nearby that biology students can study. Perhaps you've always been obsessed with space and want to attend UC Berkeley and major in aeronautical engineering.

Whatever your story is, this is the place for UC to hear it, and it's the best place in your application to show them who you really are as a person. For a more in-depth look, read our guide on how to write outstanding UC essays.

Automatic Admission for California Residents

If you're a California resident, who meets at least one of the following two requirements, you will have a guaranteed spot at a UC school.

• You rank in the top 9% of California high school students, according to the UC admissions index .
• You rank in the top 9% of your graduating class at a participating high school. This is known as "Eligible in the Local Context" ( ELC ).

Be aware that this doesn't mean you'll get into every UC school; it just means you'll get into at least one, as long as space is available (which there typically is). If you're a California resident who has met the above requirements and aren't admitted to any of the UC schools you applied to, you'll be offered a spot at another campus as long as space is available.

Summary: UC Schools Application

If you're applying to a UC school, you want to make sure you know every application step you need to complete. The most important UC application deadline to be aware of is November 30th (or December 1st if you started your application by November 30th) . This is the last day you can submit your application.

In addition to completing the application, you also need to submit your transcript and any additional materials your specific school and major require. UC schools are test blind currently, so they won't review SAT or ACT scores, even if you do submit them. You only need to submit one application regardless of how many UC schools you're applying to, but you'll need to pay a $70 application fee for every school.

Regardless of whether you're working on a UC Davis application, UC San Diego application, UC Berkeley application, etc. all UC schools look for similar qualities in students. You'll need to complete the A-G courses, take difficult classes, have good grades, participate in extracurriculars, and have strong personal statements.

Work to make your application as strong as you can across each of these areas to give yourself the best shot of getting into your dream UC school.

What's Next?

Want to learn more about the University of California schools? We have an in-depth guide to the UC schools to make it easy for you to compare the schools and see which is best for you.

Working on your UC essays? Check out our guide on how to answer every UC essay prompt to get great writing ideas.

Want to know how to make your extracurriculars stand out even more? Check out this guide to four amazing extracurricular activities and learn why they're so impressive to colleges.

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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University of California 2023-24 Essay Prompt Guide

Regular Decision: 

Regular Decision Deadline: Nov 30

You Have: 

University of California  2023-24 Application Essay Question Explanations

The Requirements: 4 out of 8 essays, 350 words each.

Supplemental Essay Type(s): Oddball , Community , Activity

The UC application sounds like a riddle. Every student must write four essays, but choose from eight prompts. The rules may be unfamiliar, but the game is the same: tell admissions something they don’t know – and then do it three more times! The instructions counsel you to “select questions that are most relevant to your experience and that best reflect your individual circumstances,” and frankly, we couldn’t agree more. A strategic applicant will choose a constellation of prompts that highlight vastly different aspects of their lives and personalities, leaving an admissions officer with a deep and complete picture of who they are. Don’t get hung up on trying to divine the questions admissions wants you to answer. In the end, they just want to get to know the real you, plus the application swears that “there is no advantage or disadvantage to choosing certain questions over others.” So follow your heart (!) and don’t let the fatigue get to you. Avoid robotically starting every answer by restating the question and be as anecdotal as possible. With each essay, your goal isn’t just to answer the question, but to tell a very short story about yourself!

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

Things to consider: a leadership role can mean more than just a title. it can mean being a mentor to others, acting as the person in charge of a specific task, or taking the lead role in organizing an event or project. think about what you accomplished and what you learned from the experience. what were your responsibilities, did you lead a team how did your experience change your perspective on leading others did you help to resolve an important dispute at your school, church, in your community or an organization and your leadership role doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to school activities. for example, do you help out or take care of your family.

When answering this question, avoid the siren song of your resume. This question isn’t asking you for a list! Remember: it’s your job, as an applicant, to use every essay as an opportunity to reveal something new about yourself. Think of a moment when you were in a position where you worked really hard to help a group of people. Maybe you are always the one helping your younger siblings with their homework, and you struggled to find ways to engage your dyslexic younger brother with math. Maybe, as a camp counselor or church volunteer, you were in charge of choreographing and instructing a number for a group of seven-year-old hip hop dancers to perform. Perhaps, on a Habitat for Humanity school trip, you became the head cook, whipping up everything from pancakes to chicken fajitas while galvanizing a team of sous chefs to pitch in.  

The point is, try to isolate a single leadership moment, and bring it to life with vivid details. Describe where you were, what was happening around you, and what you were feeling. Discuss what challenges you faced, and what you ultimately learned from the experience. Don’t shy away from challenges or even failures, since these are exactly the sorts of character-building experiences that can demonstrate resilience and quick thinking.

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.

You may think that this question was geared towards the artistically inclined, but take a closer look. The wording offers many potential definitions that veer away from traditional conceptions of creativity (and actually, it asks you for your personal definition!). Creativity lies in your outlook: seeing the opportunity to use one of your skills in a novel situation; looking at a problem from a new angle to find the solution that no one else could see. This question is, in reality, ideal for the more scientifically oriented to create a more well-rounded profile. Creative types, on the other hand, might want to proceed with caution since, really, every question is an opportunity to show off your talents and describe your artistic endeavors.

No matter who you are, though, remember this classic writing advice: show don’t tell. So, you claim that gardening, or Calculus, or painting is how you show your creative side. Okay. So, then immerse the reader in this activity with you . If you enjoy gardening, describe the plants, their qualities, and how you make your horticultural choices; are you drawn to the aesthetics or are you botanically inquisitive? Similarly, if your subject is Calculus, show the reader how you sat in your dad’s office for six hours straight trying to calculate Pi on a three dozen sheets of paper using red crayon.  If you love to paint, show the reader where you paint, what you paint, and why you paint, describing the colors, textures, materials—the essential process behind your art. Write descriptively so that the reader can feel as if he or she were experiencing your creative passion with you.

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 it, feel free to do so). why is this talent or skill meaningful to you, does the talent come naturally or have you worked hard to develop this skill or talent does your talent or skill allow you opportunities in or outside the classroom if so, what are they and how do they fit into your schedule.

If question 3 reminds you of question 2, you’re not alone. Often, when we talk about a talent or skill that we have honed over the course of a lifetime, we’re inclined to describe it as an art — a creative extension of who we are. So if you choose to respond to both of these questions, make sure to highlight distinct skills in each. 

The good news is: finding your subject should be easy! You just need to answer this question: what makes you proud? Think about the stories that your friends and family like to share about you. Think about moments when your hard work paid off. When you can zero in on an experience that makes your heart swell, you’ll be able to pinpoint your essential subject. If the memory of your first swim meet victory still makes you smile, draw us into your rigorous training schedule; describe the aspects of the sport that motivate you to wake up early and push yourself. What were your challenges? What has this experience taught you? This narrative should have a clear timeline that traces your growth from the past to the present and into the future. How do you plan to further develop your talent in college and/or after college? Show not only that you have grown, but that you will continue to grow as you take your first steps into adulthood.

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.

This question is tricky because it has two parts. So first break the question down: You can write about either A.) How you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity OR B.) How you have worked to overcome an educational barrier. The “or” is key. You are not being asked to write about both parts of this question. Just write about one.

If you have participated in an afterschool program, internship, honors program, or a special class that was meaningful or inspiring to you, you will want to think about choosing option A.  Maybe it was an afterschool program for young, aspiring lawyers, or an advanced history class that you took at your local community college. This is an opportunity for you to showcase your ambition and highlight the kinds of challenges that engage and excite you. Beyond underscoring an academic interest, reflect on the personal qualities required for you to succeed. And remember to show, not tell! It will save you from accidentally humble-bragging your way through this assignment. 

Now, for option B. If you have worked to overcome a disability, struggled in school because you have a different background than your peers, suffered financial hardship, or something along those lines, you can choose to write about option B. To nail this tricky task, you will need to highlight not only the ways you struggled, but also the qualities that helped you succeed. How would you define yourself? Resilient? Hardworking? Brave? Zero in on a quality that resonates with you, and write targeted descriptions that bring it to life. (No one is going to believe you if you just write, “I am resilient,” and leave it at that.) Lastly, reflect on how this barrier shaped who you are today, and what skills you gained through facing this educational barrier.

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”.

If you skipped question 4 or chose to write about option A, this question is a gift: a second chance to showcase your resilience in the face of obstacles. On the other hand, if you chose to write about option B in question 4, this might feel redundant. You are free to write about both, but again, proceed with caution and be sure to select a totally different challenge.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: questions that ask you to describe a struggle or failure are really probing for stories about success. What pro-active steps did you take to address the problem at hand? Even if your solution didn’t work out perfectly, what did you learn? In facing this challenge, did you discover a courageous, creative, or hard-working side of yourself? Did you learn something valuable about yourself or others? Highlight the upside. How did this challenge shape who you are today? And how will the skills that you gained dealing with this challenge will help you in college and beyond?

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

Things to consider: many students have a passion for one specific academic subject area, something that they just can’t get enough of. if that applies to you, what have you done to further that interest discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experience you have had inside and outside the classroom — such as volunteer work, internships, employment, summer programs, participation in student organizations and/or clubs — and what you have gained from your involvement., has your interest in the subject influenced you in choosing a major and/or future career have you been able to pursue coursework at a higher level in this subject (honors, ap, ib, college or university work) are you inspired to pursue this subject further at uc, and how might you do that.

If you’ve ever referred to yourself as a “nerd” or “geek”, this question is probably for you. To nail down a topic for this bad boy, you can work in two directions: (1) think about how your favorite academic subject has impacted your extracurricular pursuits, or (2) trace one of your favorite hobbies back to its origins in the classroom. Maybe your love of languages led you to take a job at a coffee shop frequented by multilingual tourists. Or perhaps your now-extensive coin collection was resurrected when you did a research project on ancient Roman currency. Whichever way you go about it, building a bridge between the scholarly and the personal lies at the heart of answering this prompt.

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.

Some backwards advice: When writing about community service, you should always start with yourself. Community service essays are cliché minefields. To avoid drifting into platitudes, you need to ground your writing in the specificity of your life. Don’t start with the action and end with what you learned. Instead, dig into your motivations. If you spent weeks petitioning your school community to raise the hourly wage for custodial staff, what prompted you to act? What assumptions did you have about income inequality and what did you learn about your community in the process? Or, maybe you weren’t too enthused about your community service. Maybe you participated in a soccer-team-mandated day of coaching a pee-wee team. What caused your skepticism? How did you turn the experience around?

Also, don’t just choose a topic that sounds impressive. “This year I acted as the co-chair of the Honors Society, presiding over twenty different cases.” If you didn’t, in fact, really enjoy Honors Society, write about a topic that means something to you instead. Think of a moment where you felt like you made a change in your local community. It can be something small; it does not have to be monumental, but it should mean a great deal to you. Describe the moment, using detail to bring it to life, and then reflect on what that experience taught you, and how you hope to continue these activities in the future.

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 change. 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..

This question is really just what it says it is—an open-ended, choose-your-own-adventure question.  Is there something that you really, really want to tell the UC admissions team that you feel makes you a strong and unique candidate that is not showcased in the other three personal insight questions? As with the other questions, whatever topic you choose, please use detail and description to bring this topic to life for the reader, and include thoughtful reflection on why this topic matters to you. Also, be sure to explain why your chosen topic makes you stand out as a strong candidate for the UC schools, since the question specifically asks you to do that!

About Kat Stubing

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Get ready to start your journey to the best public university system in the world—with just one application.

Apply to more than one UC campus.

This will significantly increase your chances of being admitted to the UC system. While you may not receive an offer of admission from your first-choice campus, all of our campuses—without exception—provide outstanding opportunities for you to learn and grow.

Submit only one application per term.

Submitting multiple applications will cause a processing delay. Duplicate applications will be canceled. 

Apply on time.

You can fill out the application in as many sessions as you want. Just remember to submit it by November 30 (for the fall term).

The UC application

Here is a quick overview of the application. 

Starting the application

Create an account.

An email address and password are required in order to create an account. You should use the email account you use for all applications, just to make it easier to remember. We also recommend you use a non-school issued email account (e.g. Gmail, Yahoo). Campuses send important, time-sensitive correspondence to applicants, so you should check your email regularly (including your spam folders).

Selecting term & level

After you create an account, you’ll need to select the term you’re applying for (when you hope to start at UC) and your applicant level (e.g. freshman, transfer, etc.).

Please note: You're a freshman applicant if you're currently in high school OR have graduated from high school, but have not enrolled in a regular session (fall, winter or spring) at a college or university. (If you've completed college courses during high school, through the summer after graduation, you're still considered a freshman applicant.)

Saving information

You should click “Save & continue” at the bottom of each page to save any entered information (there is a 20-minute inactivity period after which the application will automatically sign you out). If you’ve successfully completed a page (answered all required questions), the page will be marked with a checkmark in the navigation bar on the right-hand side.

This first section has several pages asking for information about you and your family. You may need to ask your parents or legal guardians for help on these questions—that’s OK! 

Campuses & majors

This is where you’ll select which campuses you’re applying to and the majors you’re interested in. If you aren’t sure what you want to major in yet, you can choose “Undecided” or “Undeclared.”

Academic history

Here you'll enter the courses and grades from all schools you've attended while in high school. If you took high school-level math or language other than English in middle school (7th and 8th grades), you will have a chance to report those courses and grades in this section.

Make sure you refer to your transcripts (or academic records) as you fill out any information—don't enter information from your memory. It's important to report all of your schools, courses and grades exactly as they would appear on official transcripts or academic records.

Test scores

ACT & SAT: UC will not consider SAT or ACT test scores when making admissions decisions or awarding scholarships. They may be used as an alternative method of fulfilling minimum requirements for eligibility or for course placement after you enroll. Note: SAT and ACT scores may only be reported in your application post-submission. 

SAT Subject Tests:   These tests have been discontinued as of 2021. If you have Subject Test scores from previous years, they maybe be used as an alternative method of fulfilling minimum requirements for eligibility. Note: SAT Subject Test scores may only be reported in your application post-submission. 

AP, IB , English proficiency and International exams: You will be asked about each of these exams on separate pages in the test score section. You’ll need to report your scores if you’ve already taken an exam or indicate if you’re planning on taking an exam in the future.

Activities & awards

This is your opportunity to tell us about what you're most proud of outside the classroom. We're looking for quality, not quantity—so make sure to focus on the activities and awards that are most important to you.

You’ll need to classify each activity/award as one of six categories: Award or honor, Educational preparation programs (any programs that have enriched your academic experiences or helped you prepare for college), Extracurricular activity, Other coursework (courses other than those required for UC admission/courses that do not fit in UC’s A-G subject areas), Volunteering/Community service and Work Experience.

Scholarships & programs

You should select any and all scholarship categories that apply to you (there’s no limit on the number of scholarships you can select). You can also indicate if you’re interested in the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), which provides support services when you’re at UC.

Personal insight

This is the section where you’ll need to answer the personal insight questions. You’ll have 8 questions to choose from, and you must respond to only 4 of your choosing.

Learn more about the personal insight questions

Use the additional comments field if there are issues you'd like to address that you didn't have the opportunity to discuss elsewhere on the application. This shouldn't be an essay, but rather a place to note unusual circumstances or anything that might be unclear in other parts of the application. You're welcome to use this section to note extraordinary circumstances related to COVID-19, if necessary. 

Review & submit

This is the last page you’ll visit before you start submitting the application. If you have remaining items to complete, you will see a “To Do” next to that section. Don't forget to make sure your application is complete before you submit it; very few changes can be made after submission. 

Submitting the application 

You’ll go through a few pages asking you to confirm your academic information and whether you’d like to share your application information with certain people or groups (e.g. scholarship agencies, parents/guardians, counselors, etc.). You'll also need to pay your application fees (either by check/mail or credit card) and can apply for a fee waiver if you didn’t automatically qualify for one earlier in the application. The fee waiver will cover your application fees for up to four campuses. 

Confirmation

Once you’ve submitted your application, you’ll see a confirmation page with important reminders and your UC Application ID Number which is used to access the various campus student portals and, in many cases, to access your admission decisions. You can choose to print a receipt of your application fees or view and print the entire application.

Other student resources

Visit these other UC sites for more application tips:

• Undocumented student resource site
• Veterans resources site

Have a question about the application?

See options for contacting us »

University of California Riverside (UCR) Secondary Application – Autobiography Tips & Essay Prompts

• Cracking Med School Admissions Team

UCR School of Medicine is located in Riverside, California and serves the broader Inland Empire of Southern California. The medical school is well known for having excellent primary care, and it’s one of the best hospitals in the Inland Empire. The UCR secondary isn’t too long, but the admissions committee suggest a  one week turnaround time for this school once you receive its secondary.  Therefore, if you live in the Inland Empire, we highly suggest that you pre-write this secondary so it’s ready to submit once you receive the official secondary application. 

Dr. Rachel Rizal and Dr. Rishi Mediratta have helped several students get admitted to UCR School of Medicine! We can definitely help answer any questions or work with you on your secondary essays – feel free to contact us down below!

• Personally Tailored Essays
• Edits by Stanford & Harvard-trained Doctors
• We study your application strengths to see what unique attributes we’ll bring to the medical school

UC Riverside Secondary Application Essay Prompts: 2023 – 2024

• The mission of the UCR School of Medicine is to improve the health of the people of California and, especially, to serve Inland Southern California by training a diverse workforce of physicians and by developing innovative research and health care delivery programs that will improve the health of the medically underserved in the region and become models to be emulated throughout the state and nation. What experiences, skills, and abilities will you bring to the class to fulfill this mission?  (250 words max)
• The values of the UCR SOM are integrity, innovation, inclusion, excellence, accountability and respect. Please choose one of these values and tell us about a time that you demonstrated it. (250 words max)
• In what medical specialty or specialties are you interested? What experiences have created the foundation for this interest? (250 words max)
• Tell us about a personal challenge you have faced in your life thus far and how you demonstrated resilience and grit to overcome it. [Please do not write about studying for or taking the MCAT.]  (250 words max)
• (Optional) If there is anything you would like the committee to consider about your candidacy that is not explained elsewhere in your application, please use this space to tell us. (250 words max)
• If you are a non-California resident, please explain your connection to Inland Southern California and the mission of the UC Riverside School of Medicine. (250 words max)

Tips to Answer UCR Secondaries

UCR Secondaries Pre-Writing Guidance: UCR typically has a one week turnaround time. Given that these essays haven’t changed each year, if you are from the Inland Empire of California, you might want to consider pre-writing this secondary.

• Download our  Cracking Med Secondary Essay Workbook and Examples .

  UCR Secondary Application Tip #1: The UC Riverside School of Medicine Admissions Committee is looking for medical students who are committed to the Inland Empire and the issues the Inland Empire population faces. For example, what we’ve seen from our medical school students’ essays is that writing about healthcare disparities, LatinX population, immigrant health, and migrant health are “winning” topics for UCR secondaries. Contact us if you have questions about what you should write. 

UCR Secondary Application Tip #2:  The best response for the UCR secondaries question, “ The values of the UCR SOM are integrity, innovation, inclusion, excellence, accountability and respect. Please choose one of the values and tell us how you have personally experienced it or have seen it emulated in a clinical setting, ” include a patient story. Ideally, you should discuss direct patient care through including a story in which you have helped with a patient’s clinical care rather than discussing a time when you watched a doctor portray those values.

UCR Secondary Application Tip #3: For the UCR secondaries question about a challenge, “ Tell us about a personal challenge you have faced in your life thus far and how you demonstrated resilience and grit to overcome i t , ” make sure to explain the following:

• What was the challenge. Make sure to give clear, concise context of the situation.
• How did you overcome the challenge?
• What did you learn from this experience? And how did the obstacle define you?
• What will you do differently in the future?

Dr. Rizal and Dr. Mediratta would  strongly advise you to NOT write about studying for the MCAT or getting a B- or lower in a course. 

UCR Secondary Application Tip #4: Answer ALL applicable optional questions, especially the UCR secondary essay prompt, “If there is anything you would like the committee to consider about your candidacy that is not explained elsewhere in your application, please use this space to tell us.”

• This open-ended question is like a diversity essay. Read our helpful blog post:  How To Write Medical School Diversity Essay Examples and Tips

UCR Secondary Application Tip #5: For the UCR secondaries question, “ In what type of healthcare setting do you see yourself practicing medicine ” you don’t have to commit to a specific field of medicine if you are unsure. However, UCR medical school greatly emphasizes primary care. So, we would write a primary care field or even more generally, you can say “I want to be a primary care doctor” for this question.

UCR Secondary Application Tip #6: Getting a UCR School of Medicine interview is all about whether you portray yourself as having the right fit for UCR to the admissions committee. This can be tricky and we can definitely help you submit a strong secondary in a one-week time period through  secondary essay packages . 

[Read More Secondary Essay Tips:  University of California – Los Angeles ( UCLA ); University of Southern California ( USC ); University of California – Irvine ( UCI ); University of California – San Francisco ( UCSF ) ]

Your medical school application Coaches, Mentors, & Cheerleaders

We Personally Advise Every Student We Work With.

Rachel Rizal, M.D.

Changing the trajectory of people’s lives.

Undergraduate Princeton University, cum laude

Medical School Stanford School of Medicine

Residency Harvard, Emergency Medicine

Awards & Scholarships Fulbright Scholar USA Today Academic First Team Tylenol Scholarship

Rishi Mediratta, M.D., M.Sc., M.A.

Advising students to attend their dream schools.

Undergraduate Johns Hopkins University, Phi Beta Kappa

Residency Stanford, Pediatrics

Awards & Scholarships Marshall Scholar Tylenol Scholarship Global Health Scholar

stand out from other applicants with our secondary essay edit packages

Download your secondary essay guide.

Use this essay guide and workbook to write standout secondaries.

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UC Riverside Secondary Application Essay Prompts: 2022 – 2023

Our students successfully receive interviews at their reach schools.

Stand Out From Other Applicants

School Secondary Editing Packages

Why choose us.

Your acceptance can be just one essay away…

UC Riverside Secondary Application Essay Prompts: 2021 – 2022

Uc riverside secondary application essay prompts: 2020 – 2021.

UCR secondaries changed a lot from last year

UC Riverside Secondary Application Essay Prompts: 2019 – 2020

• Describe the single MOST important event or non-academic activity in your life and explain why it’s significant.  (250 words max)
• What activity or accomplishment are you MOST proud of? (250 words max)
• What experiences or activities have prepared you to work with medically underserved communities? (250 words max)
• Please list any Scholastic Activities that you have been involved with (including honors and awards)  (250 words max)
• Describe a major problem you have had to deal with at some time in your life. Include how you dealt with it and how it influenced your growth. (250 words max)
• Is there any specific hardship to which you would like the committee to give special attention in evaluating your application? Please briefly explain below. (Include any geographic, language, economic, academic, physical, or mental factors.) (250 words max)
• What kind of health care setting do you envision yourself working in? (250 words max)
• How do you see yourself contributing to the mission of the UCR School of Medicine? (250 words max)
• PERSONAL STATEMENT: Your personal statement from the AMCAS application will be used in our admissions process. You do not need to duplicate it here. At your option, you may use this space to provide any further information you may want us to consider in addition to the AMCAS personal statement. THIS IS NOT MANDATORY.

UC Riverside Secondary Application Essay Prompts: 2018 – 2019

Uc riverside secondary application essay prompts: 2017 – 2018, uc riverside secondary application essay prompts: 2016 – 2017, contact us with questions, we'll answer any and all your questions about medical school we typically respond within 1 business day..

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Home » Campus Life » Career Education » Get Experience » Undergraduate Research » Undergraduate Scholarly Showcase » 2024 Presentations

2024 Showcase Presentations

At the 2024 Showcase, more than 420 students will present nearly 275 research projects, including 203 posters, 29 live podium presentations and 44 video presentations.

Students who choose this format present their research in an original five-minute video in one of the following categories:

• Chemical and Cellular Frontiers (#A-01 to #A-03)
• Experiential Learning (#B-01 to #B-04)
• Green Cincinnati (#C-01 to #C-18)
• Music and Culture (#D-01 to #D-04)
• Substance Use, Mental and Behavioral Heath, and Sociology (#E-01 to #E-10)
• The Social Safety Net (#F-01 to #F-05)

As individuals or small teams, students create posters that convey the purpose, process, and outcome of their project with aesthetic appeal. Each student delivers a five-minute overview of their project to reviewers in person on Tuesday, April 16, 2024.

• View or download the Morning Poster Guide
• View or download the Afternoon Poster Guide

Podium Presentations

Students individually develop and deliver an eight-minute presentation live in person on Tuesday, April 16, 2024. View podium presentation details

We can improve your MBA profile and boost your candidacy. Gain insight into the review process and eliminate weaknesses from your MBA application.

Note: You must have javascript enabled to submit the form.

US News MBA Rankings Best Business Schools in 2024

After two years perched at the top of the heap, the Chicago Booth School of Business slipped slightly in the latest US News MBA rankings of the best business schools in 2024 . This year, Stanford Graduate School of Business and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School share the top spot in a throwback to their 2021 positions. Meanwhile, the Kellogg School of Management and Chicago Booth have tied for third place, and the MIT Sloan School of Management nabbed fifth place.

If anyone is wondering what happened to powerhouse Harvard Business School , US News knocked it down to number six this year. US News revealed that a change in the methodology–assessing post-graduate salaries by profession–created some rank changes.

“Schools may have improved or declined a bit in this edition’s ranking depending on how well their graduates’ salaries, especially when controlling for profession, compared with the graduates of other schools,” they explained.

What are your chances of getting into a top business school? Contact us to talk strategy with a  free 15-minute advising session  with an SBC Principal Consultant.

US News MBA Rankings for the Top 20 Schools

Source: US News & World Report

Methodology

The methodology used by US News to rank full-time MBA programs focuses on career placement success, student excellence, and qualitative assessments. Half of the ranking formula considers placement and earnings outcomes, while the other half assesses academic metrics and opinions from experts.

There’s a shift towards emphasizing outcome measures like employment and earnings, with a new factor added to assess post-graduate earnings by profession. This change reflects the importance of advanced earnings and better career opportunities for business school graduates. The ranking may fluctuate based on how well graduates’ salaries compare with those of other schools, with emphasis placed on salaries relative to employment.

In response to these latest rankings, Poets & Quants remarked , “Harvard Business School needs to boost pay (or produce a large sample) since it ranks among the very best in nearly every other measure. HBS may be a victim of methodology, but (as the saying goes), no one remembers the score…just the result.”

Stacy Blackman Consulting offers multiple services to meet your MBA application needs, from our  All-In Partnership  and  Interview Prep  to  hourly help  with essay editing, resume review, and much more! Contact us today for a  free 15-minute advising session  to talk strategy with a Principal SBC consultant.

Here’s a snapshot of the caliber of expertise on our SBC team .

HBS Admissions Board at Harvard Business School HBS MBA

HBS Admissions Board at Harvard Business School Kellogg MBA

Director HBS Admissions at Harvard Business School MBA, the Wharton School

HBS Admissions Board at Harvard Business School

Director HBS Admissions at Harvard Business School HBS MBA

Admissions Officer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB) MBA, Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB)

Asst Director MBA Admissions at Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB) Director MBA Admissions at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business

MBA, Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB) Minority Admissions, the GSB Diversity Programs, the GSB

Associate Director MBA Admissions at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania

Associate Director MBA Admissions and Marketing at the Wharton MBA’s Lauder Institute

Director, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania Professional Writer

Assistant Director MBA Admissions at Columbia Business School (CBS) NYU Admissions

Assistant Director MBA Admissions at Columbia Business School (CBS) M.S.Ed, Higher Education, U of Pennsylvania

Associate Director MBA Admissions at Columbia Business School (CBS)

Ashley is a former MBA Admissions Board Member for Harvard Business School (HBS), where she interviewed and evaluated thousands of business school applicants for over a six year tenure.  Ashley  holds an MBA from HBS. During her HBS years,  Ashley  was the Sports Editor for the Harbus and a member of the B-School Blades Ice Hockey Team. After HBS, she worked in Marketing at the Gillette Company on Male and Female shaving ...

Kerry is a former member of the Admissions Board at Harvard Business School (HBS). During her 5+ year tenure at HBS, she read and evaluated hundreds of applications and interviewed MBA candidates from a wide range of backgrounds across the globe. She also led marketing and outreach efforts focused on increasing diversity and inclusion, ran the Summer Venture in Management Program (SVMP), and launched the 2+2 Program during her time in Admissions. Kerry holds a B.A. from Bates College and  ...

A former associate director of admissions at Harvard Business School, Pauline served on the HBS MBA Admissions Board full-time for four years. She evaluated and interviewed HBS applicants, both on-campus and globally.  Pauline's career has included sales and marketing management roles with Coca-Cola, Gillette, Procter & Gamble, and IBM.  For over 10 years, Pauline has expertly guided MBA applicants, and her clients h ...

Geri is a former member of the Admissions Board at Harvard Business School (HBS).  In her 7 year tenure in HBS Admissions, she read and evaluated hundreds of applications and interviewed MBA candidates from a diverse set of academic, geographic, and employment backgrounds.  Geri also traveled globally representing the school at outreach events in order to raise awareness for women and international students.  In additio ...

Laura comes from the MBA Admissions Board at Harvard Business School (HBS) and is an HBS MBA alumnus. In her HBS Admissions role, she evaluated and interviewed hundreds of business school candidates, including internationals, women, military and other applicant pools, for five years.  Prior to her time as a student at HBS, Laura began her career in advertising and marketing in Chicago at Leo Burnett where she worked on th ...

Andrea served as the Associate Director of MBA Admissions at Harvard Business School (HBS) for over five years.  In this role, she provided strategic direction for student yield-management activities and also served as a full member of the admissions committee. In 2007, Andrea launched the new 2+2 Program at Harvard Business School – a program targeted at college junior applicants to Harvard Business School.  Andrea has also served as a Career Coach for Harvard Business School for both cu ...

Jennifer served as Admissions Officer at the Stanford (GSB) for five years. She holds an MBA from Stanford (GSB) and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Jennifer has over 15 years experience in guiding applicants through the increasingly competitive admissions process into top MBA programs. Having read thousands and thousands of essays and applications while at Stanford (GSB) Admiss ...

Erin served in key roles in MBA Admissions--as Director at Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and Assistant Director at Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB). Erin served on the admissions committee at each school and has read thousands of applications in her career. At Haas, she served for seven years in roles that encompassed evaluation, outreach, and diversity and inclusion. During her tenure in Admissions at GSB, she was responsible for candidate evaluation, applicant outreach, ...

Susie comes from the Admissions Office of the Stanford Graduate School of Business where she reviewed and evaluated hundreds of prospective students’ applications.  She holds an MBA from Stanford’s GSB and a BA from Stanford in Economics. Prior to advising MBA applicants, Susie held a variety of roles over a 15-year period in capital markets, finance, and real estate, including as partner in one of the nation’s most innovative finance and real estate investment organizations. In that r ...

Dione holds an MBA degree from Stanford Business School (GSB) and a BA degree from Stanford University, where she double majored in Economics and Communication with concentrations in journalism and sociology. Dione has served as an Admissions reader and member of the Minority Admissions Advisory Committee at Stanford.   Dione is an accomplished and respected advocate and thought leader on education and diversity. She is ...

Anthony served as the Associate Director of MBA Admissions at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he dedicated over 10 years of expertise. During his time as a Wharton Admissions Officer, he read and reviewed thousands of applications and helped bring in a class of 800+ students a year.   Anthony has traveled both domestically and internationally to recruit a ...

Meghan served as the Associate Director of Admissions and Marketing at the Wharton MBA’s Lauder Institute, a joint degree program combining the Wharton MBA with an MA in International Studies. In her role on the Wharton MBA admissions committee, Meghan advised domestic and international applicants; conducted interviews and information sessions domestically and overseas in Asia, Central and South America, and Europe; and evaluated applicants for admission to the program. Meghan also managed ...

Amy comes from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where she was Associate Director. Amy devoted 12 years at the Wharton School, working closely with MBA students and supporting the admissions team.  During her tenure at Wharton, Amy served as a trusted adviser to prospective applicants as well as admitted and matriculated students.  She conducted admissions chats with applicants early in the admissions ...

Ally brings six years of admissions experience to the SBC team, most recently as an Assistant Director of Admission for the full-time MBA program at Columbia Business School (CBS).  During her time at Columbia, Ally was responsible for reviewing applications, planning recruitment events, and interviewing candidates for both the full-time MBA program and the Executive MBA program. She traveled both internationally and dome ...

Erin has over seven years of experience working across major institutions, including University of Pennsylvania, Columbia Business School, and NYU's Stern School of Business. At Columbia Business School, Erin was an Assistant Director of Admissions where she evaluated applications for both the full time and executive MBA programs, sat on the admissions and merit scholarship committees and advised applicants on which program might be the best fit for them based on their work experience and pro ...

Emma comes from the MBA Admissions Office at Columbia Business School (CBS), where she was Associate Director.  Emma conducted dozens of interviews each cycle for the MBA and EMBA programs, as well as coordinating the alumni ambassador interview program. She read and evaluated hundreds of applications each cycle, delivered information sessions to audiences across the globe, and advised countless waitlisted applicants.

SBC’s star-studded consultant team is unparalleled. Our clients benefit from current intelligence that we receive from the former MBA Admissions Officers from Harvard HBS, Stanford GSB and every elite business program in the US and Europe.  These MBA Admissions Officers have chosen to work exclusively with SBC.

Just two of the many superstars on the SBC team: Meet Erin , who was Assistant Director of MBA Admissions at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB) and Director of MBA Admissions at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

Meet Andrea , who served as the Associate Director of MBA Admissions at Harvard Business School (HBS) for over five years.

Tap into this inside knowledge for your MBA applications by requesting a consultation .

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Learn about our all-in service, meet the sbc consulting team.

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After two years perched at the top of the heap, the Chicago Booth School of Business slipped slightly in the latest US News MBA rankings of the best business schools in 2024. This year, ... →

Articles Blog

The ethical consumer: how your choices can make the business world more sustainable .

In a world where every purchase can be a statement, understanding the impact of our consumer choices has never been more crucial. It’s not just about buying what we need or want anymore; it’s about knowing where it comes from, how it’s made, and what values it represents. This shift towards ethical consumerism is reshaping the business landscape, compelling companies to prioritize sustainability and ethical practices over mere profit. 

As individuals, our buying decisions hold the power to influence corporate behaviors, pushing the market toward a more sustainable future. For example, as a student, you can choose to collaborate with the best essay writing services a “write my essay” request, which stands for plagiarism-free and original work, maintaining academic standards. This applies to all industries. Making informed consumer choices can contribute to a more ethical and sustainable business world. Let’s explore how your decisions as a consumer can drive change, encouraging businesses to adopt practices that are not only beneficial to the environment but also to society at large.

Image: https://unsplash.com/photos/woman-selecting-packed-food-on-gondola-YNaSz-E7Qss  

Understanding Ethical Consumerism

Ethical consumerism is a movement toward making purchasing decisions that are aligned with moral, ethical, and environmental values. It’s about being aware of the impact your buying habits have on the world, from the labor conditions of workers to the environmental footprint of production processes. This awareness leads to a shift in consumer behavior, favoring products and companies that prioritize sustainability, fair trade, and ethical business practices.

This concept translates into everyday choices. Whether it’s choosing a coffee brand that supports fair trade practices or opting for clothing made from sustainable materials, each decision contributes to a greater demand for ethical business operations. By supporting companies that align with these values, people can help push the market towards more sustainable practices, proving that even small choices can have a big impact.

The Power of Your Dollar

Whenever you buy something, you make a statement about the business practices you support. Here are a few ways your spending can make a difference:

• Supporting local businesses reduces carbon footprints and bolsters the local economy.
• Choosing eco-friendly products encourages companies to invest in sustainable practices.
• Opting for fair-trade-certified goods supports equitable treatment and fair pay for workers.
• Avoiding single-use plastics pushes for innovation in packaging.
• Investing in durable goods reduces waste.

By being mindful of these aspects, consumers can drive companies to reconsider their practices and policies. 

The Ripple Effect of Ethical Choices

When consumers consistently support ethical brands, it creates a ripple effect throughout the business world. Companies take notice of shifting consumer preferences and adjust their practices accordingly. This can lead to widespread changes in industry standards as businesses strive to meet the new demands of their customers. Moreover, this shift often prompts companies to innovate, finding new, more sustainable ways to produce, package, and distribute their products.

This transformation is not limited to niche markets or luxury goods; it spans all sectors of the economy. Ethical consumerism has the potential to influence every aspect of business. As more people make conscious choices, the business world is compelled to evolve, paving the way for a future where ethical and sustainable practices are the norm, not the exception.

Educating Yourself and Others

Educating yourself about the companies you support involves reading labels carefully, researching companies’ ethical policies, and staying informed about environmental and social issues. However, education doesn’t stop with personal knowledge; it’s equally important to share what you’ve learned with others.

Discussing ethical consumerism empowers others to make informed choices. This collective effort can amplify the impact of ethical consumerism, making it a powerful force for change in the business world.

Image: https://unsplash.com/photos/person-holding-black-and-white-electronic-device-HNPrWOH2Z8U  

Challenges and Criticisms

Despite its potential for positive impact, ethical consumerism faces several challenges and criticisms:

• Accessibility and affordability can be barriers for many people.
• Greenwashing, the practice of companies making misleading or unsubstantiated environmental claims.
• Complex supply chains make it difficult to evaluate the influence of a product.
• Lack of transparency in business practices can hinder informed decision-making.
• Consumer skepticism towards corporate motives can reduce trust in ethical labels.

Addressing these challenges requires ongoing vigilance from consumers and a commitment from businesses to increase transparency and genuinely commit to ethical practices. As awareness grows and demand for transparency increases, it becomes harder for companies to hide or misrepresent their practices.

The Role of Technology in Ethical Consumerism

From apps to online platforms, technology shines a light on ethical practices. Consumers are empowered to choose wisely, thanks to instant access to information on company ethics, product origins, and environmental impact.

Just as technology aids in promoting sustainable choices, it also supports students in their academic pursuits. The best paper writing service , for instance, offers invaluable assistance, allowing students to manage their time more effectively while providing access to ethically made learning materials and research findings. This parallel underscores the broader impact of technology in facilitating responsible and informed decision-making.

Social media amplifies the call for accountability. Consumers unite on these platforms to expose greenwashing and demand ethical practices. Campaigns and discussions on these platforms can go viral, putting pressure on businesses to uphold ethical standards and respond to consumer demands. In this way, technology not only facilitates ethical consumerism but also accelerates the pace of change in the business world. 

Final Thoughts

Ethical consumerism represents a powerful shift towards sustainability and fairness in the business world. By choosing ethical businesses, you cast your ballot for a sustainable and equitable future, shaping market trends and inspiring corporations to do better. The journey towards ethical consumerism is facilitated by technology, which provides the tools needed to make informed decisions and hold companies accountable. As this movement grows, it underscores the significant impact our choices have on shaping a more responsible business landscape for future generations.

Author Profile

Content writer Nicole Hardy is celebrated for her detailed and thoughtful journalism within the realms of education and the arts, with a special emphasis on performing arts education. Over the course of her decade-long career, Hardy has earned a reputation as a trusted expert in her field. Her writing is marked by thorough analysis and a captivating style of storytelling. She earned her Master’s degree in Journalism from the University of Arts, with a focus on arts and culture journalism.

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