Do Different Types of Schools Prefer Different Essays/Showing Interest in Particular School

College Essays
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<p>My daughter is working on revising her essays this weekend, and this just occurred to me: We both write pretty factually vs. creatively, but it seems like the essays in favor are written with more of a creative writing flair (vivid descriptions of the day, event, people, accomplishments). For large school like University of California, are they also more interested in that? I guess I thought a smaller liberal arts college would prefer that vs. a 25,000+ student campus. Her essay has relevant examples and descriptions, but there is also word limitations, so she's removed a lot of "fluff," but maybe she's removing the wrong things! During at least 1 of our UC campus tours, I remember hearing about just telling them about yourself and not writing stories.</p>

<p>"Showing Interest" - in the conclusion, she left it general regarding how the accomplishment will help her in the future, but should she be calling it out specifically like, "this will help me at UC__" If so, we'll have to figure out a nice closing that will sound right since she's applying for more than one place :) I don't want her sound like she's groveling or kissing up to them... I mean in an obvious manner! :)</p>

<p>Thoughts? </p>

<p>By the way, when I mentioned in the first paragraph that "we both write..." she wrote her own essays! I wrote it that way to explain that I'm thinking her essays were on the right track because we both are more "just the facts" writers :)</p>

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<p>“this will help me at UC__” - No, your daughter doesn’t need to do this.</p>

<p>As on how to approach UC essays, here is a powerpoint pertaining to answering the UC prompts, including examples, that your daughter might benefit from:</p>

<p><a href=“http://counseling.ahs.ausd.net/modules/groups/homepagefiles/gwp/1414167/2051610/File/College%20Information%20docs/2013-2014%20Writing%20a%20Powerful%20UC%20Application%20Essay%20presentation.pdf”>http://counseling.ahs.ausd.net/modules/groups/homepagefiles/gwp/1414167/2051610/File/College%20Information%20docs/2013-2014%20Writing%20a%20Powerful%20UC%20Application%20Essay%20presentation.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Hope this helps. Best of luck! : )</p>

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<p>Thank you, Jen, for your help. Greatly appreciated especially under such stressful conditions. </p>