Don’t give up your dreamif you have one bad semester or year. Strive to learn from circumstances that impacted your academic studies. Remain motivated and determined to use your talents and strengths to the best of your ability.

http://reentry.berkeley.edu/prospective.htm

UC Personal Statement Tips
Understanding the Personal Statement

Tips for UC Bound Students

So you are considering transferring to the University of California?  Good for you!  As part of the application process, you will be required to submit a personal statement in your online application at www.universityofcalifornia.edu/apply.  This statement will be used by some campuses for admission selection purposes, and by all campuses for scholarship selection purposes.  Each year, specific UC campuses receive more applications from students than they can admit.  An overwhelming majority of students meet the minimum requirements for admission, and the academic records of these qualified students are usually very similar, often showing only minor differences.  To discover and evaluate the distinctions among applicants, the University looks closely at an individual’s entire application.  The personal statement helps provide insight into a student’s level of achievement and character.  It is used to learn more about you as an individual – your talents, experiences, challenges, achievements and point of view.  It is your opportunity to let the admission officers and faculty learn more about you beyond the information you provided in the other sections of the application.  The Additional Comments box on the application following the Personal Statement section may be used to address other important information, such as explaining unusual circumstances, that are not covered elsewhere in the application.

You may start to feel frustrated, afraid, and overwhelmed at some point during this process.  This is normal.  Don’t let these feelings stop you from completing this task. University Transfer Center counselors are available to guide and support you through the process of developing your personal statement.  Please let us know if you would like our assistance.

Transfer applicants should respond to the two prompts listed below using a maximum of 1,000 words total.   The word count may be allocated among the two prompts however you wish.

If you choose to respond to one prompt at greater length, your shorter answer should be no less than 250 words.

Prompt #1

What is your intended major?  Discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experiences you have in the field – such as volunteer work, internships, and employment, participation in student organizations and activities- and what you have gained from your involvement.

Prompt #2

Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution, or experience that is important to you.  What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are.

As you develop your personal statement, make sure to…

Read the instructions carefully.

Allow enough time for your first draft to sit for a while, be reflected on, be read out loud to a friend, be critiqued by individuals you trust - such as a friend, parent, teacher, and/or counselor - and be refined, revised, polished, and finished.

Develop your own ideas and write it by yourself.

Present your information and ideas in a focused, in-depth, thoughtful, and meaningful manner.

Support your ideas with specific examples.

Include information on your personal qualities such as leadership abilities, self-discipline, tenacity, maturation, commitment to others.

Show meaningful participation – not just a list– in activities that have enriched your education.

Think about and illustrate how you have demonstrated a sensitivity to and respect for difference (sustained community service).

Describe your experiences as a leader, the type of person who makes things happen, a catalyst who motivates others, who initiates something that meets a perceived need.

Write in your own voice, show what is special about you, and speak honestly – the personal statement is not solely a sample of writing skills although appropriate grammar, level of usage and spelling are expected.  Be sure your grammar is correct and your essay reads smoothly.

When appropriate, show your ability to take responsibility for your choices and behavior – what you have or have not done – and what you have learned from your mistakes.

Avoid comprising an exhaustive list of activities, honors, awards, qualities or accomplishments – explain their relevance to your life.

Stay away from exaggerating problems, manufacturing hardship, whining, and blaming others.

Be careful with humor and avoid “cute.”

Remember that no single perfect personal statement exists – there is only the one that is right for you.

When all is said and done…check to make sure your statement answers the basic question for the reader, “What have I learned about you as an individual?”

Avoid writing it specifically for one UC campus – don’t limit your options.

The essay for a college transfer application presents students with challenges that are quite different from a traditional admissions essay. The tips below can help students avoid common pitfalls.

1. Give Specific Reasons for Transferring

A good transfer essay presents a clear and specific reason for wanting to transfer. Your writing needs to show that you know well the school to which you are applying. Is there a specific program that is of interest to you? Did you develop interests at your first college that can be explored more fully at the new school? Does the new college have a curricular focus or institutional approach to teaching that is particularly appealing to you? Make sure you research the school well and provide the details in your essay. A good transfer essay works for a single college only. If you can replace the name of one college with another, you haven’t written a good transfer essay.

2. Take Responsibility for Your Record

A lot of transfer students have a few blotches on their college records. It’s tempting to try to explain away a bad grade or low GPA by putting the blame on someone else. Don’t do it. Such essays set a bad tone that is going to rub the admissions officers the wrong way. An applicant who blames a roommate or mean professor for a bad grade sounds like a grade-school kid blaming a sibling for a broken lamp. Your bad grades are your own. Take responsibility for them and, if you think it’s necessary, explain how you plan to improve your performance at your new school. The admissions folks will be much more impressed by the mature applicant who owns up to failure than the applicant who fails to take responsibility for his or her performance.

3. Don’t Badmouth Your Current College

It’s a good bet that you want to leave your current college because you are unhappy with it. Nevertheless, avoid the temptation to badmouth your current college in your essay. It’s one thing to say your current school isn’t a good match for your interests and goals; it’s going to sound whiny, however, if you go off about how terrible your college is run and how bad your professors have been. Such talk makes you sound unnecessarily critical and ungenerous. The admissions officers are looking for applicants who will make a positive contribution to their campus community. Someone who is overly negative isn’t going to impress.

4. Don’t Present the Wrong Reasons for Transferring

If the college you are transferring to requires an essay as part of the application, it must be at least somewhat selective. You’ll want to present reasons for transferring that are grounded in the meaningful academic and non-academic opportunities afforded by the new college. You don’t want to focus on any of the more questionable reasons to transfer: you miss your girlfriend; you’re homesick; you hate your roommate; your professors are jerks; you’re bored; your college is too hard; and so on. Transferring should be about your academic and professional goals, not your personal convenience or your desire to run away from your current school.

5. Attend to Style, Mechanics and Tone

Often you’re writing your transfer application in the thick of a college semester. It’s often hard to carve out enough time to revise and polish your transfer application. Also, it’s often awkward asking for help on your essay from your professors, peers or tutors. After all, you’re considering leaving their school. Nevertheless, a sloppy essay that’s riddled with errors is not going to impress anyone. The best transfer essays always go through multiple rounds of revision, and your peers and professors will want to help you with the process if you have good reasons to transfer.
taken from about.com

Individual Qualities

• Shows initiative, takes charge, sets priorities. 
• Displays intelligence, good judgment, confidence and self-knowledge. 
• Accepts responsibilities willingly and eagerly. 
• Demonstrates courage, resolution, and steadiness. 
• Manages, decides, and sets priorities. 
• Exhibits perseverance, ingenuity, creativity, and dynamism in solving problems. 
• Seeks opportunities and surmounts obstacles, including challenging the status quo.

• Sets an example thru commitment and action. 
• Works collaboratively with others. 
• Guides changes and improvements. 
• Makes plans, motivates, follows thru and guides the participation of others so that all will benefit. 
• Delegates, trains and shares the responsibility and the credit. 
• Demonstrates selflessness and consideration of others. 
• Assesses potential in others. 
• Shows understanding of followers/constituents, and their needs. 
• Skilled in dealing with people, shows social perceptiveness. 
• Able to win and hold trust. 
• Exhibits adaptability and flexibility in approach.

Source: Mrs. Sun

http://www.accepted.com/Ecommerce/college/applicationessay.aspx

When our campuses receive applications from more prospective transfer students than they can admit, they draw on the eight criteria below to select among qualified applicants. This process is called comprehensive review.

Comprehensive review factors for transfer applicants

1. Completion of a specified pattern or number of courses that meet breadth or general education requirements.

2. Completion of a specified pattern or number of courses that provide continuity with upper division courses in the student’s major.

3. Your grade point average in all transferable courses.

4. Participation in academically selective honors courses or programs.

5. Special talents, achievements and awards in a particular field, such as visual and performing arts, communication or athletic endeavors; special skills, such as demonstrated written and oral proficiency in other languages; special interests, such as intensive study and exploration of other cultures; experiences that demonstrate unusual promise for leadership, such as significant community service or significant participation in student government; or other significant experiences or achievements that demonstrate your promise for contributing to the intellectual vitality of a campus.

6. Completion of special projects undertaken in the context of your college curriculum or in conjunction with special school events, projects or programs.

7. Academic accomplishments in light of your life experiences and special circumstances.

8. Location of the college and your residence.

According to U.S. News the ranking of the UCs is:

 Berkeley - admit rate 23.1%

 Los Angeles - admit rate 23.3%

San Diego - admit rate 41.1%

Davis - admit rate 58.2%

Santa Barbara - admit rate 54.2%

Irvine - admit rate 55.4%

Santa Cruz - admit rate 81.6%

Riverside - admit rate 75.9%

“All you can do is divide people into two groups, the not good enough’s, and the good enough’s. The application process is not put in place to find the highest scoring students, it’s put in place to predict which students will succeed at that school and beyond. Achievement and standardized scoring have zero correlation. So up to a certain point, grades start mattering less and other aspects more. High scores will not get you into the best school because colleges know that high scores do not correlate with future achievement. This is why the personal statement even exists. I think if you just show that you are obsessively interested in something, anything, it says a lot about you. If the college has the resources to feed your obsession, then they are producing someone who can achieve something. At least they hope.”vintlj

vague idea: Linguistics, Different behavior between spanish speakers and english speakers. Culture Clash.

“That’s exactly right. Just having a passion, literally any passion, shows the adcoms that your not just wondering around school aimlessly. It shows that you have a foundation. Eventually they want you to find your passion and pursue it with their resources. So many studies have shown that higher GPA and higher test scores do NOT correlate with future success in life. Adcoms know this, and that’s what they have in mind when making admission decisions. As Gladwell said, “finding the top boy is tough when you have a room full of clever boys” or something along those lines. He meant that accepting the top 20% of the top 20% of a pool is useless when everyone in a particular pool is equally capable of the same success. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and now runs Microsoft, Einstein failed exams and hardly went to class, the man with the highest IQ in the nation (forgot his name) is a bouncer in a trailer park town. Two of the three had the passion, the last had the brain nimbleness, but no passion.” vlntj