Clarification on personal statement for TRANSFER

Hi there,

It seems there are a lot of components UW wants to see included in the transfer essay, and I’m just wondering how specific they want us to be on certain topics within the 1000 word limit. My grades aren’t stellar but they’ve improved, and my path to a degree has been very messy (high school dropout, transferred three times due to losing housing, come from a super poor family, basically struggled a lot trying to put myself through school while barely making it in life) so I feel like I have to spend a lot of words explaining the obstacles I’ve had to overcome to even get this far. I’m usually really good at essays, and so far I’ve managed to tie back my experiences directly with my interest in my major but I’m already close to 1000 words, and I haven’t been very specific about my career goals, nor have I discussed in much detail my preparation for my major (just said I’ve worked to improve my grades and have majority of my 1- and 2- levels done). I’ve already tried condensing my academic history as much as possible, so I feel like to be more specific on these topics will necessitate omitting things from my personal story completely and I’m honestly not sure if that’s going to help me redeem my academic record. I figure they have other ways of knowing what prereqs I’ve taken from my transcripts, so I’m wondering how specific I need to be in this area. Should I be listing off courses? How concrete of an idea of what I want to do in my career are they looking for? Sorry this is such a wall of text, but if you have any ideas or tips I’d love to hear them. Thanks!

Your instinct is right – they can read your courses off your transcript so there’s no reason to list them in your essay.
Write about your personal story, and weave everything else in around that. The main issue with your major/career is that they want you to be pretty sure of what you want to study. Transfers don’t get four years, so they don’t want you wandering about trying different majors.