The University Of California (UC) Application Essays: Prompts 1-3

If you’ve gone through our last blog, you should already be familiar with the 8 UC Personal Insight questions. Now let’s break down the first three UC application essay prompts alongside the guidance already available on the UC website.

• If you’re strapped for ideas, perhaps the guidance below will help spark some obscure source of inspiration. 
• Assess the guidance carefully. Can you apply this to develop any of your ideas?
• Mull over the key words and suggested guidance. Do you think you can approach the questions from a different angle? 
• Re-check your idea-prompt combinations. Perhaps an idea you developed for a particular question, could be better suited to answer a different one?

As we go through each of the prompts, continue to update your Brainstorming tables. 

Develop your incident/anecdote column to now accommodate a bulleted essay blueprint—tentative introduction, body, and conclusion. 

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

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?

Approach:

Don’t jump at the leadership essay as an opportunity to share a long list of accomplishments. 
Instead, pick one incident where you shine as a leader and flesh it out with vivid anecdotal details.

Example – Leadership. Could your story also have an anecdotal hook like this?

1. Connect to the question:

• Address an incident where you’ve—positively influenced others, resolved conflict, or contributed to group efforts over time. 
• What happened? What did you do? What challenges did you face? 
• Remember that this is a YOU essay. Make it personal—How did you feel? What did you learn?

2. What does leadership mean to you?

• Honesty, empathy, resilience, compassion, communication, conflict resolution, quick thinking? 
• Don’t list these qualities, but don’t be too abstract or philosophical either. 
• Strike a balance between the two and highlight how you demonstrate these leadership qualities subtly within the narrative. 

3. Show instead of tell:

• Don’t use misuse adjectives to write about your qualities. 
• Empower your narration of the incident to give your qualities meaning within the narrative. 

4. Mind your tone:

• Does your idea sound like you saved the world? Do you sound arrogant or aggressive? 
• Soften and temper your narrative to humanize your accomplishments, and demonstrate your capacity for self-awareness and introspection.

Essay Example – Leadership. Have you ever faced a situation like this?

5. Think outside the box:

• Do you feel like you haven’t really had a chance to shine in a leadership role? Dig deeper. You don’t have to be Captain of a sports team, President of a school club, or a Prefect to be a leader. 
• For instance, a student like Harry Potter may craft a Leadership essay around his experience leading Dumbledore’s Army (an unofficial practical club for Defence Against the Dark Arts). Since it wasn’t an official school club, he wasn’t really a student leader, but a mentor to his peers.  
• So look closely into your background. Have you mentored anyone or solved a problem that was affecting people? Has your influence and guidance changed anyone’s perspective at home or in school?

6. Versatility:

• If you’ve already written any essays responding to the Coalition prompts 2 (Contribution) or 3 (Challenge a belief), or Common Application prompts 3 (Challenge a belief), 4 (Problem solving), 5 (Accomplishment/ event/ realization); can you adapt ideas from them to fit the UC Leadership question? 

OR

• Do you want to develop a version of this essay that you can later expand and adapt to fit these aforementioned prompts?

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

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?

Approach:

Don’t dismiss this topic out of hand as something solely relevant to applicants interested in the creative arts. Look at the different interpretations of creativity that the question offers. 
While this topic might be ideal for students interested in art, music, dance, and creative writing, it should appeal just as much to a math protegee, aspiring theoretical physicist or computer science enthusiast. 
For instance, students like Fred and George Weasley, may interpret the creative prompt to write about how their creative skills are employed conceptualizing, experimenting with, and eventually selling joke products and trick kits—a passion project that also showcases their proficiency in several academic subjects, and highlights skills like innovative thinking, an understanding of demand and supply, perseverance in the face of opposition, and so much more.

1. Connect to the question:

• Does your response demonstrate problem solving / original and innovative thinking /  artistic thought and expression? 
• Do your plot points for this topic also address the second part of the question—describe how you express your creative side?

2. Show instead of tell:

• Immerse the reader in your creative process. 
• Write descriptively to share your creative passion, and offer engaging anecdotes wherever possible. But don’t get lost in the process.
• Remember the word count and ensure that the skills and accomplishments relevant to the narrative are depicted prominently and effectively.

Example – Creativity. Do you have a passion project like this that you can fit to this prompt?

3. Mind your tone:

• Do you sound pompous or pretentious? 
• Are you attempting to write about a topic you don’t understand, to impress the admissions committee? 
• Your dreams and curiosity may be infinite—you may want to ponder the mysteries of the universe and quote Stephen Hawking and Carl Segan; but temper lofty ideas and ground your narrative with tangible descriptive detail and real accomplishments.

4. Remember that there is also a Talent/Skill prompt in the UC Personal Insight questions. 

• Take a look at the ideas you’ve matched to the Creative prompt and to the Talent/Skill prompt on your Brainstorming table. Which fits better? Do you need to make any changes? 
• Though they seem similar, you could attempt both questions if you’d like to highlight more than one creative skill in your application, or if you interpret one to draw attention to your problem solving or innovating thinking skills, and the other to write about your artistic skills. 

5. Versatility

• If you’ve already written any essays responding to Coalition prompt 2 (Contribution) or Common Application prompts 1 (Talent), 4 (Problem solving), 6 (Engaging topic/ idea/ concept); can you adapt ideas from them to fit the UC Creative question? 

OR 

• Do you want to develop a version of this essay that you can later expand and adapt to fit these aforementioned prompts?

Prompt 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? 

Approach:

The Talent/ Skill prompt may be interpreted rather like the Creative essay prompt we just explored. 
If you intend to respond to both, take care to feature different skills—perhaps write about sports or music for the skill question and discuss problem solving and innovation in response to the creative question, or vice versa.

1. Connect to the question: 

• Showcase your talent/ skill, and everything you’ve done to develop and demonstrate it over time. 
• This is another YOU essay. So make it personal—Why is this your greatest talent/ skill? What does it mean to you? What other values has this helped you develop? How have you gone above and beyond to hone this particular skill/ talent?

Example – Talent. Do you have a deep personal connect to your talent?
 

2. Show instead of tell:

• Select one impactful incident to focus your response. 
• Write descriptively to immerse the reader in the anecdote. 
• For instance, imagine that a candidate like Cho Chang, the Ravenclaw House seeker, was writing a UC talent essay on the wizarding sport of Quidditch. She could begin her essay by describing what it feels like to zoom through the air on a broomstick—the exhilaration of the wind in her hair, the deafening drum of her heartbeat in her ears, as she sped across the field charging after the elusive golden snitch. 
• Don’t forget to support your anecdote with mentions of other things you’ve done or accomplished in practice of this skill/ talent.

3. Think outside the box: 

• What if you don’t play any sports, don’t dance, sing, or paint? Dig deeper. 
• Are you a quick thinker or a smooth talker? Can you talk your way out of practically every situation on the planet? Are you extremely skilled at disarming tense interpersonal situations with your odd sense of humour? Is your ability to find a silver lining in the grimmest of situations a unique skill? The options are endless! 
• If you’re stuck thinking of a single meaningful anecdote, try a new spin on the prompt.

Example – Talent. Could you come up with a unique connection like this to fit your essay?

4. Versatility: 

• If you’ve already written any essays responding to Coalition prompts 1 (Character) or 2 (Contribution), or Common Application essay prompts 1 (Identity) or 4 (Problem solving); can you adapt the ideas from these to fit the UC Talent/skill question? 

OR 

• Do you want to develop a version of this essay that you can later adapt and expand to fit these aforementioned prompts?

Keep updating your Brainstorming tables and essay blueprints. Stay tuned and we’ll return with  in-depth explorations of the next three UC Personal Insight prompts, alongside excerpts from UC college application essay examples.