<p>Since your admission is already guaranteed by submitting the application and completing the outlined TAG requirements, what would happen if you submitted the application without the personal statement or let's say a very short poorly-written one? </p>
<p>I ask because I know someone that has had his TAG approved to UCSD, where he intends on going, and let's just say he's taken the personal statement portion of the application really lightly. Will this adversely affect his chances of getting admitted and can they revoke his TAG even if he submits the application and completes all of the course requirements?</p>
<p>Sorry to break this to you, but UCSD hasn’t actually approved any TAGs. Everyone got the same message, UCSD actually reviews the TAG once they have the application later.</p>
<p>It would be a good idea to have a strong personal statement. I suggest your friend gets working, he has 14 hours before the deadline.</p>
<p>Typo on my part I actually meant UCSB, UC Santa Barbara not San Diego, sorry for the confusion. Yeah he wouldn’t be in a very good position if that were the case. Regardless though that still leaves the question: If your TAG is accepted to any of the UCs would it affect your admission not writing the personal statement, is it actually significant? In theory wouldn’t it not be? Because you just have to submit the application and complete the stated requirements (maintain a certain GPA and complete the necessary coursework). But of course though I’m sure it still gets read at some point, can they pull your TAG just on the basis of having an insufficient personal statement?</p>
<p>In that case, no, it doesn’t really matter.</p>
<p>Though personally, I’d still try to have the best essay possible, just in case. If there are two students with identical stats for one open seat, the personal statement can be the determining factor, if for some random reason the TAG becomes invalid and they evaluate the application without it.</p>
<p>It will help you but it’s not a must. If your GPA is good and major that you are taking isn’t impacted you have better chance of getting in than those who have impacted major. I hope this helps!</p>
<p>Actually the only school that reads the essays is UC Berkeley. The other UC’s don’t even read them. If you don’t believe me you can contact each individual university and they will tell you just this. Cal does a different process for admissions than the others. However, you must submit SOMETHING in the essay section otherwise your application will be flagged by the system as “incomplete” and it wont be processed or considered. Yet, the quality of it only matters for UCB</p>
<p>I would just wonder - why risk it? There are reasons an accepted tag can be rescinded. Even if your friend thinks all looks well, what if there is something they missed that would cause them to be ineligible? (Now I don’t know that the personal statement would save them, but you never know). </p>
<p>Really, the personal statement is not very hard to do IMO. It’s a cake walk compared to college term papers all of us are familiar with. I would suggest taking advantage of that and making it count.</p>
<p>lol how is what i said smug? I was letting the OP know that the essays DONT matter unless you are applying to UCB, however the field must have SOMETHING in it or else your application is considered incomplete and it never gets processed. How is that smug? That’s good information that a lot of applicants dont know. UC Berkeley really does use a totally different process to admit students. They use a comprehensive review process (and I could be wrong but UCSD might now too…) while the others use a different way to process applicants in which it ways more heavily on GPA. I think UCB is almost easier to get into in that respect for borderline students because they consider the “whole” student (reflected slightly in your essays) while the other universities just focus on the statistics.</p>
<p>@paniikd - i like to think of harlequin’s posts as falling into the categories of ■■■■■, truth, help. here, he is a ■■■■■. most other times, he is helpful with a smattering of brutal truth.</p>
<p>@paniikd: You are actually very wrong and dezziner is correct.</p>
<p>UCLA, UCB and UCI all read your personal statements. However, UCI does not read them if your TAG is approved but it is certainly not “ONLY Berkeley” that reads your statement.</p>
<p>They might all “read” them but they dont counter into whether you get accepted. I contacted the schools after I thought I made a grave error in my application in regards to my PS…I applied to UCB, UCLA, UCSB, UCD, UCSD, UCSC…every single school EXCEPT Cal told me that it didnt matter either way because the PS wasn’t calculated into my admissions status (luckily my essay was fine). Also, I was told this at registration for Cal as well, that at Berk your PS is 30% of your admittance and that the other universities only use it for borderline cases and that even then it only counts up to about 5%, which isn’t very much at all.</p>