Webinar Transcript: College Essay Series - The UC Personal Insight Questions
Elton Lin
This webinar was recorded on September 21, 2021. You can access the recording here. Note that details and exact prompts of the UC PIQs may have changed by the time you are reading this article, so please go to apply.universityofcalifornia.edu to get the most up to date information.
Anthony Su: Good evening, everyone. We're back here to emphasize the UC system and the essays coming up. I'm sure a lot of students are just starting, or maybe have a first draft here and there, and are trying to figure out, “Okay, what are the next steps?” Or, “How else should I tackle this?”
So today I'm really happy that we have Katie – whom everyone knows – and a new face, Ange. So Katie, do you mind introducing yourself? And then Ange, tell us a little bit about yourself as well.
Katie Young: Got it. Hi everybody. My name is Katie Young. I'm the Associate Consulting Director here at ILUMIN education. I've been working as a consultant since 2012 at various companies around the Bay Area. And the UC application is something that I do with every student every year, so I've got a lot of experience to share with you all tonight. We're really excited; hopefully, we can answer some of your questions.
Angela Torres: Hi everyone. I'm Angela – but you can just call me Ange. I am an essay specialist here with ILUMIN. I graduated from undergrad with a Bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley, so I have been through the exact process that you're going through. And I enjoy helping students and writers with everything related to the painful process of getting your thoughts out onto the page!
Anthony Su: Absolutely. And we'll leave a lot of time for questions and answers today because there's going to be a lot. With every student writing four essays, there are definitely going to be a lot of questions!
But without further ado, Katie, go ahead and start us off!
Agenda
Katie Young: So here's our agenda for today.
We're going to talk a little bit about the UC application: what to expect, and what kinds of questions they're going to ask you.
What are UC readers looking for? This is a question that we get a lot.
We're going to go into detail about the Personal Insight Questions, and how to choose which ones to write.
We're going to detail some of our best practices around what topics to avoid, and which topics to focus on.
Just some tips about how to fit your story into the word count.
And then we are actually going to go through an essay and show you the first draft and final draft and how we were able to help support that student to create a good UC essay. At the end I'll tell you where that student got in!
FAQs about the UC application
Katie Young: All right, here we go. Here are some answers to frequently asked questions about the UC application.
It's one platform. Nine campuses. You can select as many or as few campuses as you would like. The beauty of having one platform is you only have to fill out your information once, and then you are literally checking boxes for the campuses you want to apply to.
It is expensive. It's $70 per application. So don't just willy-nilly pick all of them!
The selected campuses will see the same application, but they have separate review processes. So you'll have different readers for different campuses reading your application. And they're looking for different things. The thing that looks good to Berkeley might not be what Irvine is looking for, and vice versa. So just be yourself – don't try to target anything in particular.
You can change your major campus by campus. So you could do psychology at one campus and business at another campus and it's no problem. You do get a first and a second choice. They will consider you for your first choice first, and then, if they think you're not a good fit, they will consider you for your second choice. So be strategic about which major you put where. The exception to that is UC Berkeley: one and done; you just get to pick one. They're living on the edge!
The components included in the application are:
Personal information, like where you live
Academic information, like what grades you got and what classes you took
You get to make a really long and extensive activity list: you get to fill up 20 spaces with activities, and each one has multiple sentences that you're able to write – which is contrary to most application platforms.
You get to write your four essays, which we're going to go into detail about.
And then there are actually two blank text boxes for additional information, if you need to provide more context.
One of those is in the academic section. So if you need to explain anything about a grade, great.
The other one is at the very end, and it encompasses anything you think that they should know, that you haven't had a chance to tell them yet.
Test scores. But, basically, the SAT and ACT are not being utilized at all in the admissions process this year. They're only being used for course placement after you are admitted. You will see a place to input them into the application platform, but when the readers and evaluators actually look at your application, they will not see those scores as part of their decision-making. AP scores will be considered; you're allowed to report those scores. And then, if you are an international student, you will still need to submit your TOEFL scores to be considered.
What are the UC readers looking for?
Katie Young: What are they looking for? They want to see a lot of data and numbers, and a lot of things that are quantifiable. They're reading application after application after application! So if yours has numbers, or if yours has fancy capital letters denoting a cool award or an interesting club, yours is going to stand out to them – over people who are just listing normal stuff!
So if you're a person who has the ability to say that you presented for 250 people, say that,ersus saying that “you presented.” Make sure that you're giving them some context to understand how amazing your accomplishment was. If you led a club with 20 people, great. If you led a club with 50 people, great. Say that. Say how many people you lead. Say how many people you beat in a competition. Any kind of number is going to do you well, to highlight the ways in which you feel like you stand out from other students. So look around you, think about your friends, and think about your peers.
What are some things that you can share that aren't all that common? That's what you want to be playing up because they're going to be reading your application in direct contrast with other students who are applying from your high school! Provide as much context as possible for them.
I know a lot of people are wondering, “What should I say about COVID-19?” I do think it's important to provide that context if it was extraordinary compared to what happened to the other people around you.
Otherwise, what I mean by context is something like this: if you have a learning disability, tell them that so that they can evaluate your application with the understanding that you achieved all of this despite your learning disability! If you had to take care of your seven siblings every day when you got home from school, and so you didn't have time to do your homework, tell them that so that they can consider that when they're looking at your grades. If you had to commute two hours to school, and that's why you're not on the basketball team anymore, that's important. Give them enough data to be able to understand who you are in the context of your daily life.
When it comes to the essays, you want to be really straightforward. Give them things that are quick and easy to read – clear answers to their questions. I’m going to show you this later, but you're going to want to answer the question right away in the first paragraph – so that they are very much aware of what they're about to read and they can skim it. Because they have to go fast.
You won't be able to personalize this application very much. So it really is important that you pay attention to the activity section and the essay section. That's where you really get to add your flair to this app!
About the Personal Insight Questions (PIQs)
Katie Young: We're gonna go through each prompt, but just so that you know for now, there are eight prompts to choose from. These prompts haven't changed in the last four or five years, so there are tons of examples out there. I'm sure everyone could find tons of blogs if you really need the context. Or sign up with us and we'll help you!
You will need to choose four out of the eight prompts available. It does not matter which college you're applying to within these essays because, again, they are going to all of them. So if you write your essay and at the end of it, you say, “And that's why UC Berkeley is the perfect fit for me,” and somebody from UCLA is reading that, they're not going to be too excited! So make sure that you remember that these essays are going to all of your selected campuses.
You're gonna get 350 words per prompt, which seems long to some people, and seems really short to other people. You'll see when you start writing it; it depends.
No prompt is really preferred over the others. There isn't a specific thing that you have to address. But we usually recommend leadership – making sure to highlight leadership and service. Ange will get more into it.
Select the prompts that are best fits for you, though. Don't try to pick something just because you think you should, or because your friend is doing it, or your English teacher said to. Just pick the prompts that let you tell your story; that's how you're going to make an effective application.
And then remember, as you're writing, that the prompts are going to be read in the order that they're presented on the website. You'll see the prompts numbered from one to eight. That's the order in which they will be read within your application once you submit it. So if you're starting with prompt one and you're referencing something that you talk about in prompt seven, they're not going to know what you're talking about because they haven't read prompt seven yet! Just be careful about referencing other problems.
And be careful about repeating yourself. We would really emphasize that, if you have one essay about badminton, you don't need two essays about badminton, please! Try to think of diverse topics. Cover as much ground as possible.
PIQs simplified
Katie Young: I’m not going to read the whole prompts here; they're very easy to find online. I just want to condense them into easily digestible themes:
Leadership
Creativity and problem solving
Talent or skill
An educational opportunity that you took advantage of
An educational challenge that you overcame or are overcoming
An academic interest that you have
Community service experience: a way that you better your community
And then a standout experience or quality
If you really think about it, this is pretty clear. These are the traits and values that the UCs hold and these are the students that they're looking for. They're looking for leaders. They're looking for problem solvers. They're looking for people with extraordinary talents or experiences. They're looking for people who took advantage of opportunities. People who are strong and resilient and can overcome challenges. They're looking for people who are curious and driven in one particular area of interest. And they're looking for someone who cares about their community.
If you have those things, you're a great fit for the UCs. If you're struggling to come up with ideas for three out of these four prompts, it might be difficult for you to stand out in the field. I'm not saying don't apply, but I'm saying to consider – which colleges are looking for you? When you build out your list, be really conscientious.
How do I choose which PIQs to write?
Katie Young: Here's the question that we're gonna focus on for the next part of this presentation: how do you choose which ones to write?
I would say the easiest way to start is to consider: what are your four biggest activities? If I just asked you, “Tell me the four most important things that you were involved in,” what would you say? Those are the four things that you should write about.
Figure out which prompt is the best prompt to discuss each idea or that topic. If I'm president of DECA, captain of the soccer team, class president, and I teach a financial literacy class on the weekends, those are the four things I want to talk about. Now I need to figure out: what is the idea that I want to associate with each of those activities? Maybe class president is associated with leadership. Maybe the financial literacy class I teach is associated with the idea of community. And so on.
Think about what each of the prompts is asking and recognize that you really could talk about the same idea in multiple contexts. I just mentioned DECA. DECA is a business club, for those of you who might not be aware; it's a business competition club. If I'm part of DECA, and I'm a leader in DECA, I might be able to talk about DECA as a leadership experience. I might be able to talk about a time when I was preparing for a competition and something went wrong, and I solved that problem. I might be able to talk about how DECA has exposed me to ideas within business that I want to pursue in the future. If I have multiple prompts or multiple ideas that could fit into the leadership prompt, I can consider, “How else can I talk about an activity?”
If you're a person who doesn't have a ton of things on your résumé, that's totally okay. There's a different way that you can go about this. Remember how all of those different prompts sort of showcased a value or a trait? Think about which ones of those are the most important to you. Are you a leader? Do you have a specific skill? Are you creative?
And then think about a story that shows that you have that trait. It doesn't have to be connected to an activity. It can just be something like, maybe, if you took on a leadership role in a group project. Or maybe, at your church; you developed a talent for knitting at home. That's all totally fine; it doesn't have to be associated with a school activity. Just think about what it's saying about you, and whether the UCs are going to value that thing.
Which topics should I avoid?
Angela Torres: Knowing which topics to avoid choosing for your prompts is definitely an art; it is not a science. There are, though, a few things that hopefully will help you as you go along. Remember: these are topics you want to avoid!
The three D’s
Number one is the three D’s: death, divorce, and depression. You can write about these if they helped you develop superpowers. Otherwise you run the risk of comparing your struggle to somebody else's.
If you approach it from the aspect of: “This helped me develop X, Y, and Z” – what it added to your life, and you're not dwelling on it – then that can be an essay. But, for the most part, it's best to avoid them.
You also only have 350 words, and it's very hard to contain those three topics in 350 words!
Anecdotes
Again, you have 350 words. I'm going to say this a few times. But the UC prompts are not to be approached from a fiction standpoint. You want these very non-fiction – very résumé-esque. Or more like a cover letter than a résumé.
But you're not going to be able to pepper in anecdotes or personal stories in 350 words. Best to just avoid them.
Prompts 5 & 8
Prompts five and eight are kind of similar to what Katie was saying about COVID. Prompt five is a significant personal challenge. Prompt eight is, “How do you stand out?” It has to be pretty exceptional.
Hard sells
And, again, you run the risk of being compared to others. For example, all of us are collectively dealing with COVID. We all had to make adjustments to our lives. So to say “Oh, it was so difficult to start learning online for me,” or what have you – we all had to do it. So what? That goes into hard sells. COVID is a hard sell especially because we all are dealing with it. We are all going through it.
Prompt 8
Sorry, back to prompt eight: “How do you stand out?” It would have to be pretty exceptional. It would have to be, at minimum, local-news-worthy for your achievement to warrant a response to, “How do you stand out? What makes you exceptional?”
So just think about that. If you have that, great! By all means, write it. But ask yourself: does it warrant that attention? If it does, yay. I'd love to see that essay!
Discussing other people
Again, 350 words. You just don't have time to discuss anybody else. And you don't want to take away from your accomplishments. Storytelling is the same. The UCs are about just facts – quantifiable. Break it all down for them. Think cover letter for a job – if you've ever written one, if you're familiar with them, or you've had any kind of interaction with them. That's more what you want to be striving for here. Think non-fiction books, not fiction.
Elementary school/junior high accomplishments
You want your experiences to be recent. You don't want to give the impression that the last cool thing that you did was in seventh grade, trust me! You have done great things in high school, and we need to hear about those!
What to highlight?
Angela Torres: You want to hit the high points of your high school accomplishments.
Résumé-worthy items
I think we got, in the chat, a question of, “What are some examples of standout experiences?” Katie gave some of them, but anything that's résumé-worthy. And the great thing about this whole process is that this is going to help you in the future with creating cover letters and with creating résumés. You need to be able to access everything you've done – write it down somewhere! My job as an essay specialist is to help people excavate them. It's very much like archaeology.
Contributions to your community
These are always going to reign supreme. You're going to be part of your campus’s community, and they want to know that you're going to contribute – that you're not going to be in your own little bubble off in the corner somewhere, not contributing to advancing the name and reputation of your campus.
Quantifiable achievements
They're going to want to know that you're down to do that. And they want to see how you've done that in quantifiable achievements. I said that before. If you have things that, as Katie mentioned, stand out, write them down. Make sure that you put them in numbers. People love numbers, don't they?
Prompts 1, 6, & 7
I'm not saying that you have to do all of them, but they're very important. Prompt one is the prompt on leadership. Prompt six is on your favorite academic subject. And prop seven is on community. You can even pepper in community and leadership into other prompts; you don't have to do them.
But, honestly, probably a minimum of two of your essays are going to be one, six, or seven. They are the most impressive. Everybody wants to know how you've forged ahead for other people to follow. Everybody wants to know: why are you trying to go to our college? What do you want to achieve? And everybody wants to know, again: how are you going to contribute to our community?
How do I fit my story into 350 words???
This is intimidating maybe. If you love 500-word essays, this will be easier, but then it will also be a test to really try to put as much as you can, if you've achieved a lot!
You shouldn't be poetic. Remember, non-fictiony writing. Straight to the point. Your narrative is just to get you line by line to the next accomplishment, or the next fact that makes you great.
Always brainstorm. Always outline. ILUMIN has great resources to help you. You can also probably find them online. Just make sure. Brainstorming, outlining – I know you've done it if you've made it through high school. In junior high, you've done it. But that's going to help you, as you're writing, make sure that you're hitting those high points. If you have 20 activities that you're going to try to put into four essays, you need to be brainstorming and outlining. Rank them as most important – for those four major ones – and then pepper in the other ones to lift those up and really show what your values are and what you're doing.
Write your thesis first, and as Katie mentioned, it should include the answer to the prompt in the opening paragraph. Every sentence beyond that thesis, without exception and i cannot stress this enough must advance your thesis point.
So every sentence matters. You have 350 words. Make sure you're holding on tight to your thesis. “Does this help my thesis?” Yes – go. If it does not, or if there's a hesitancy, highlight it. Maybe you'll get rid of it.
That goes to my next point: don't get sidetracked. Every sentence needs to answer, “So what?” And every essay needs to answer that. So what about this interests you? So what about what you did? So what is the significance? If you can't answer that with that prompt, it's probably not the right one.
Let’s look at an essay before and after
Angela Torres: This is prompt two. “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 creativity.”
I'm gonna go paragraph by paragraph. There are four in each essay. Because nobody wants to be read a whole paper. But also, I really want to point out what in each paragraph doesn't work, and what does work.
Katie Young: I think you'll see some of the points that we made during our presentation highlighted here as Ange goes through it.
Angela Torres: You can tell by the words. 540 words [for the first draft]: too many! 350 was what they ultimately ended up with. So that'll tell you. Also when the writing is choppy – and this is, as a writer, one of the easiest ways that you can tell if your writing is working. When it's choppy, and when you read it out loud, you're gonna trip up, it's writing that needs to be worked on! So you're gonna hear me trip up, – and it's just because the writing is a rough draft.
I don't know how many drafts there were. But your average number of drafts is gonna be probably 10-15! So draft, draft, draft, edit, edit, edit!
Let's start out with the first paragraph. [Note: feel free to follow along with the essays and writing in our recording!]
Paragraph 1 (24:07)
So, off the top, these first few sentences don't advance the thesis. They don't pass the “So what?” test, right? “I founded it because there wasn't one and we needed one…” it's honorable, but it just doesn't advance the thesis. You have 350 words; it's really not necessary. So don't get caught up on too much of that.
I think everybody can agree that that just flows. It sounds great. It restates the prompt – which, again, is the most important thing.
Paragraph 2 (28:14)
You can hear that it's a little wordy in some places. But those are all really interesting. And that's why they made the decision to split that paragraph between the first and the third paragraph, since we took away those first two sentences. And we'll go through and point out what we took away in the third paragraph. We were able to split that up – so we could ultimately put in a better conclusion paragraph. It's good; it's just we need it elsewhere, and it just needs to be cleaned up.
In the first paragraph of the final draft, you'll recognize some of this second paragraph. It's good. It needs to be highlighted. The student is also highlighting their creativity – which, again, always stay close to your prompt and your thesis!
Let's go to the final second paragraph. That was the rough draft second paragraph; now we're at the final.
What I immediately appreciated was, yes, some of it was taken away for sure, but [highlights “One major challenge I've had to creatively overcome in this position”] this was really necessary. I really appreciated that that was added in there, and it's really important.
But also, action and facts. That's all you see here. You don't see storytelling. You don't see the student telling why they did these things, or what they were thinking when they were doing them. It's advancing this narrative because it is a narrative. But it's a nonfiction narrative, not a prosy narrative.
I love this part so much, and try it with yours: “I developed. I devised. I designed.” Very declarative statements; that is so important with writing. Notice that we don't have a lot of these in the original second paragraph!
Paragraph 3 (32:20)
Katie Young: That's a lot of words!
Angela Torres: It is very wordy. You guys did great because you removed all of this. And of course we had the beautiful paragraph that I just read before in the final.
The reason why, folks, is we have a tendency to want to explain. And you can do it sporadically, but be very selective. We don't need to know the nuts and bolts. Only if it advances your thesis should you include the nuts and bolts of any organization that you're in. We don't really need to know those.
So if there’s some amazing detail, go ahead – go into nuts and bolts: how your organization works and what have you. Otherwise, we don't need to know it.
Katie Young: And remember, they'll see your activity section, where it gives them the nuts and bolts already. You can just build on what you've put on your actual résumé with this more extended résumé.
Angela Torres: Exactly. Also, your essays are kind of like your cover letter. So remember that. You still do have your activities list – you still have that all propping you up. This is just to hit it home and really seal the deal.
This is the student signposting, and saying, “So, you know, I was doping in the first two paragraphs, but I took it even further.” That's great. “I developed a plan.” Again, these are action statements. It advances you through.
Paragraph 4 (35:03)
So we see, right? The final paragraph in the final draft is just the third. Because the student was able to compact a lot more of what they were able to accomplish early on. They’re not going through a lot of this establishing what they were doing. You can see where this is just not action right? All of this had to be removed. Why? Because this is more his mental process.
Action is gold. It's okay to tell what you're thinking, but you don't want to leave questions about, ultimately, what did you do? Were you able to pull this off? We get that you were thinking about it, but did you finish? Did you deliver? And that gets called into question when you’re sharing your thought processes.
Also there's no need to re-mention the prompt here. You're already midway through. They would have been able to do that if they had had what ultimately they had in the final, which was a conclusion. That's what a conclusion paragraph is for. They didn't have that, because they were still developing. Again, they were getting into way too many details!
And now this conclusion paragraph is beautiful, short, and to the point:
It restates the prompt. It gives a little bit of something new because now he's introduced this to you. But two close-out sentences, and we're done!
Katie Young: I think that this student knew that they were a bit wordy with their first drafts. That was definitely a hurdle to get through with these essays in particular. And as Ange mentioned, this was one of my students last year.
This student was able to clean things up and refine things over the course of five or six drafts. And, actually, the student was accepted to most of the UCs, including Berkeley and Los Angeles. And so they are starting at Berkeley, I imagine in a couple of weeks, as a political science major.
Angela Torres: I was gonna say, they better not have chosen UCLA!
Katie Young: It was close! Because UCLA had a new public policy program that they were really interested in. But yeah, Berkeley won!
So the reason I want to say that is to just say you don't have to be an amazing writer to get to a point where your essay is effective. You just need to to hit certain points so that the readers get the gist, and they understand what's valuable. Not just that you have an involvement or an accomplishment, but what's valuable about it. How did you put a unique spin on it?
I answered a couple of things in the chat about this, like, “What if I don't have a leadership position?” Regardless of whether they were in a leadership position, they could have pitched this idea [to JSAF]. You don't need to have a formal leadership role in order to write a leadership essay.
And notice this isn't even a leadership essay. This is a creativity essay! Which means that they felt that this wasn't even the best example of their leadership. They decided to take a different twist. They could have easily written this as a leadership moment, but they wrote it as a creativity and problem-solving moment. Which illustrates my point about topics being able to fit into multiple props!
Again, this will be up on the website if you guys want to take a minute to read the whole thing all the way through. But we're gonna move forward.
So how can we help? Hourly essay consulting
I know we've said a lot of things today. We want to explain how we think we can help you. As we mentioned, Ange is one of our essay specialists. We have a whole team of essay specialists who have been training very extensively – particularly on the UC essays and Common App essays.
We always take time to review our students’ work from past years and see what was effective; what worked; and what didn't, and be sure to update our best practices and our advising in accordance with those results. So that's what we've been working on all summer as a team. We all have a ton of experience and background with helping teenagers – specifically high school and college students – with their writing.
And we would love to work with you. We are offering one-on-one coaching for five or ten hours, and you can add hours on top of that if you're happy. We have flexible scheduling – we want to make this work for everybody. We know people are busy! It's all gonna be remote over Zoom. And we can meet you where you are, whether you're East Coast or West Coast.
We are going to be delivering support for the whole process. So you can come in with already finished essays that we can just proofread for you. Or you can come in with just an idea and we can help you move that from idea to final draft. And we can work on as many different essays as you can fit into those five to ten hours. It's really meant to support you as you work on your essays.
And then we are also offering access to our online essay boot camp, which is something that we do internally with our students over the course of four days, live online. We're giving you the course material to access at your leisure, to kind of walk through our advising around the UC essays and the Common App main personal statement, and also a very common type of supplement called the “Why us?” essay.
So if you're interested in pursuing some hours with one of our essay specialists like Ange, you can see the website right here. And I'm looking forward to hearing from everyone!
So now we will move into the Q&A.
Q&A
Anthony Su: Perfect. Yeah, we’re covering a lot of topics. Let's go ahead and start with this idea that there seems to be a lot of overlap with the PIQs and the activities list for UCs. One of the questions was saying, given that the essays need to be factual and easy-to-read, how would you suggest differentiating which details to put in the PIQ versus which details to put into the activity list?
Katie Young: Sure. That's an excellent question. What you'll notice is that the activity sections are very… “bland” isn't the right word, but you're gonna have to put things between semicolons. You're gonna have to really summarize. You're not gonna be able to add your thoughts or opinions into the activity section; you're just gonna be able to put like “Lead team of 20 to robotics finals; designed a hand-arm thing that throws ball.” It's gonna have to be really staccato and quick.
What the essay allows you to do is to put it into the context of one of those values that we talked about, like leadership or creativity. And illustrate for them what you thought was valuable about that activity. Show them some of your thoughts, opinions, feelings, commentary. And personality.
You don't need to repeat everything that's in the résumé. Maybe just restate the really key facts, as Ange was showing, that serve to drive the story forward. And then let them go back and reference the activity if they have more questions about it.
Angela Torres: You can use the activities list as your flex. We all love to flex, right? If you have 20 activities, as you're stating your values, your activities then become your flex. That just makes you look infinitely better.
That essay that we looked at was on creativity. But the student used an example of leadership – flex, flex! – to show how they were creative. And, for lack of better expression, killed two birds, right?
Katie Young: If you don't have a leadership role, you can still write the leadership essay. If you don't have 20 activities, you can still apply to the UCs. Very few people have 20 activities – and if you do, that means you've either just won a ton of awards, or you've really split your time thin between a lot of things. Or you've quit something at the end of every year and started a new thing the next year. It's not necessarily a good thing to have 20 activities!
It's great to have four, so you can fill up these essays. If you've got four, you've got four essays. You're in good shape.
Anthony Su: A quick follow-up: the question is saying, “Clarify, should our PIQs really just talk about the top four activities on that list?” I guess another question is, when would you consider deviating from that? Or when would you consider other topics?
Katie Young: Ange, do you want to go first this time?
Angela Torres: If you can pepper them in there in a way that's brief and touches on them, then yes, always start with your top four. Just because, if they are exemplary, don't leave any money on the table, right? You cannot afford to not mention them. If you can pepper them in there, and they make sense, and they support one of those values that Katie pointed out, do it briefly.
This is, again, why we're being very brief; very concise. We're not doing anecdotes. We're not storytelling. We're not giving our reasonings. We're straight to the point.
Then, top four activities, and anything that supports them, great! Pepper them in.
Katie Young: I've had this happen before, where a student will want to talk about… I hate to keep going back to leadership, sorry, but it's just a really easy one to talk about. Let's say that your leadership skill is your ability to motivate all different kinds of people. Instead of just talking about that through one example from one key activity, you may give multiple examples from multiple instances where you exhibited that leadership quality. Maybe one of them was at your church camp. Maybe one of them was in a group project at school. And maybe one of them was at your Eagle [Scout] project. And then you can give us three examples that illustrate this larger idea – and pack more things in.
I don't necessarily advise that – because I think it's better to just really highlight the things that stand out. If you don't feel like you have a thing that stands out and you just want to talk about a quality or value, you can do that. You can structure it. But the problem is the 350 words. Everyone, how many words is a UC essay? 350. It seems long until you start writing – and then it's really not so much!
Anthony Su: Transitioning to writing and the actual process, there's a question: “Approximately how many hours do you think it takes to finalize an essay?” And then another question, “When do you think students should really start working on these drafts, and trying to make an effort into this process?”
Katie Young: So I'm gonna give everybody's least favorite answer, which is, “It depends.” On the conservative side, if you're gonna develop a really good essay, you need to work on it for probably five or six hours, If you're thinking, “How many hours do I buy with ILUMIN?” what we're trying to do is give you some really important action items and tips in each meeting, so that you can go and work on it alone and come back to us, so we're not wasting a bunch of time in the meeting.
We're cutting straight to the point. You can send us drafts in between meetings that we can review. We're trying to expedite. We're trying to go as fast as possible and cut to the chase. So if you're only working on UCs, I would say probably five hours with us is enough to accomplish that. But on your own, five hours per essay.
And then the second question was what? I'm sorry.
Anthony Su: When do you think students should start working on these essays?
Katie Young: Yesterday!
Angela Torres: We’re a little behind… but it’s doable.
Katie Young: It depends on the volume. If you're only applying to the UCs, you're in great shape! If you're trying to also apply to ten other schools, you need to get started as soon as possible!
I would recommend, if you're starting now, really map out your deadlines and which prompts you have to do. And see which ones can overlap, or sub in for each other. So you're not writing twenty unique essays; you're writing five essays that you're then adapting into other prompts. Be strategic about it.
But, yeah, you need to start today.
Anthony Su: A question about taking a more creative approach to the PIQs. This question effectively is saying, “I've heard stories about other students trying to weave a common theme between the prompts.” Or maybe they're a particularly skilled artist or cook and they want to tell a story related to that. The question is asking, is it even possible to emphasize a more storytelling-based style, maybe more like the Common App story that's shorter for PIQs? What would you think about that?
Angela Torres: If you're an incredible writer, then feel free to try. But, again, 350 words. How are you going to share? I feel like it's redundant at this point – we just need a big sign! It's going to be really hard to share what you've accomplished, and it's going to take away a little bit from you.
And you have to understand, your reader is also reading a ton of these essays. If you veer off course… sure, somebody could just love your story. But it could also go the opposite way – where they're like, “Do they understand the assignment?”
So just make sure. If you're an amazing writer, and you want to try to be prosey, feel free. But I really want you to get into your school!
Katie Young: At the end of the day, the readers are going fast, and they're trained to look for certain things. If you're not giving them those points: those numbers, the data, and the straightforward answers – you're almost hindering your own review.
And the other downside for you? You're gonna spend six hours on this already, writing this, and they're going to read it in about a minute and a half. So if you're going to spend all this time creating a theme, and developing out this beautiful stuff, I would so much rather you spend that time working on your applications to the Ivy League or the liberal arts colleges – the Common App. And just let this go.
And I will have students every year who are just really uncomfortable sending out writing like this. They don't want to be straightforward. They want to show something creative and cool. And that's fine – if they really want to do that, I'll let them do that. But I want to make sure that they understand where they should invest their time.
Anthony Su: Another point of context: most UC readers will spend between three to five minutes on an application.
Katie Young: Right. They're instructed, basically.
Anthony Su: So they’re going through quick, and they're trying to get that info out.
A quick recap, because also we were talking about things to avoid and prompts to avoid. We mentioned 5 and 8. Just a quick reminder on why we always say you should probably avoid those?
Angela Torres: Yeah. Prompt 5 is a significant personal challenge. And the reason to avoid that is just because you're making a pretty bold case, right? These readers have read hundreds of essays. And we're all selling ourselves here. You're trying to sell your experience. And running the risk of being compared to other people who have, frankly, maybe struggled in a way that’s, maye, just more. I hate to quantify that, though. You can't really quantify struggle, and so I hate saying that. But it's just the world that we live in.
Prompt 8 is: “How do you stand out?” Again, is it worthy of, at minimum, local news? You're, again, comparing yourself to other people. So just keep that in mind. I'm not saying don’t do it; I tell all my students I will try to sell any essay you give me, and I will help you through it. But we’ve gotta sell it well if it's 5 or 8; we just do!
Katie Young: I would just add to that: remember that you have the “additional information” section. So if you do want to provide some context about a challenge that you went through, you don't have to use the challenge essay. You can just write a couple of sentences about what you went through in one of the “additional information” sections – and let them understand that about you without taking away an opportunity to talk about an achievement or accomplishment instead.
And then for prompt 8, you're pitching why you deserve a place at the UC campuses. So it's important that it's not a reason a thousand other students can give. If everybody can say they won, like, DECA nationals, therefore they belong there, then it's not really gonna help you very much. So context is really what we're talking about here. Just think of yourself and what you're saying in the context of the 80,000 other students who are applying for these spots!
Anthony Su: I was not paying attention to the time, so we've got three minutes left. We're gonna speed run a couple of these questions!
A question on, “What if I don't have stellar extracurriculars, but I have good grades?” Any suggestions there?
Katie Young: Your grades are going to make it into the application. They're going to be a key component of your application. Especially this year [and every future year for the UCs], without the ACT or SAT score.
I wouldn't focus your essays on grades. I would try to focus your essays on, like, let's say you write the academic interest essay. Just write it about what you're interested in studying, and use some things you learned in your classes as examples of that. That's fine.
I guess what I want to say is that these are a system of schools that are looking for students who have done things. And I know that that has been really hard with COVID going on and staying at home. So they are adjusting for that as well. They understand – you've been in your home. They understand things were shut down. Competitions didn't happen. Et cetera. They get that. So don't feel bad if that's why you haven't done anything.
If there's a personal reason why you haven't done too much, please highlight that in “additional information” and just do your best to answer the questions in a way that is honest and true to you. It would be great if you could come in and talk to us; we can give you some specific advice. We do do free consultations.
Anthony Su: Next one, really quick again: “should sports in general be avoided in PIQs, as a blanket statement?”
Katie Young: No. Do not avoid your accomplishments.
Angela Torres: Just no. Don't avoid it. But also, we're still creating narratives even though we're not doing fiction, prosey, poetic writing. We're still going to create a story. So plug it into, maybe, leadership or community, right? Unless you're playing tennis… or even in tennis you have a team so that's community!
Anthony Su: Perfect. Awesome. I should start doing these more – these speed round questions at the end!
Just a final few. I'm gonna try to stick with the essays one. I do see a couple résumé questions, but…
Here’s one: “Can the UC essays be used for any other applications? How would I adapt these?”
Katie Young: Absolutely! I'll give you an example right off the top of my head. There are a whole bunch of essays that ask about why you picked your major. The academic interest essay plugs in very nicely to those. There are a lot of essays that ask about a way in which you've engaged or bettered your community. So you'll be able to use that one [about community] a lot. And then the leadership story is usually something around an accomplishment or an activity that you're really proud of. There are a ton of open-ended prompts like that.
So, yeah, you'll be able to adapt everything.
Anthony Su: Sorry, there are still a lot of questions. I just put the free consultation link.
Angela Torres: I addressed the ADHD question, and just to recap: it falls under those three D's: depression, death, and divorce. However, if you develop some type of superpower, approach it from that angle – that it added to your life. Don't dwell. You can just swiftly state it. Also you can add it to your supplemental information.
But you can [write about it in the PIQs] if it's going to come across as an accomplishment and as an advancement – if it advances and enhances.
Anthony Su: There's also another question about the UC system being special – that there's one application to multiple schools. Are you guys aware of any other state programs or schools that are similar to that? Keep in mind you can also apply to a lot of private schools with just your Common App essay – so that's also pretty similar.
Katie Young: Yeah. I see somebody asked about USC in particular. That's the school where they have an essay where you can just write about an interest of yours. So you can easily use anything from the UCs for that. Was that the question?
Anthony Su: No worries. Again, a lot of private schools might ask for no supplements. We did an Instagram post and blog post about schools without supplements, which includes places like Case Western, and if I remember correctly, Northeastern. Although they might have added a supplement, or might be talking about it because I seem to remember that from the webinar we did with them.
But there are going to be a lot of schools where you can reuse essays, and maybe just make some minor tweaks.
Katie Young: For sure. There are a lot of schools that don't have any extra stuff, for sure. And you can easily find that out by adding the school to your Common Application and looking for the essay prompts. There's also a website. You can type in the name of any Common App school right there and see what their writing prompts are. If it says there is no writing prompt for this school, there's no writing prompt for that school.
But I would always double-check, because sometimes it's wrong.
Anthony Su: Always good to double-check!
Angela Torres: Again, [double-check] everything for your submissions, folks. You would be surprised what you miss.
Katie Young: Triple-check!
Anthony Su: All right. Thanks everyone for joining me. Katie, Ange, appreciate you staying a little bit late. And of course, thanks everyone for joining us.
We'll be back soon. We do have Brandeis University coming soon, and a webinar with University of Chicago students.
Thanks so much. Have a good night, guys.