I’ve heard different things about the personal statements for the UC.
My friend said UC’s consider GPA and test scores 99% of the time. So does that make writing essays pretty much useless?
From others, I’ve heard the essays are worth about 30-40%.
I think my personal statements are pretty good so it will be a bummer if they don’t really care about.
Essays are not as important as we’d like to think. Especially since UCs get TONS of applications.
@anxiousenior1 I disagree with you. Essays are sometimes the deciding factor for students who look very similar on paper (grades, test scores). UC just doesn’t want a 2400 4.0 student. The student need to have a personality and life outside of school (portrayed through essays and EC’s).
@IBGuy101 Someone on a UC Davis thread confirmed that an admissions officer confirmed that at UC Davis and a few others, the holistic review is minimal, stats are king.
pretty sure all the UCs, include Berkeley EECS would love that 2400 4.0, considering its UW and the weighted is above 4.2
publics generally care about stats more. if you were the 2400 4.0, you could probably get in with just that
I can’t speak to all of UCs or colleges, but Berkeley Haas puts 35% of an application in just the personal statements. 50% is grades. That came straight from an admissions officer today at Berkeley.
Well I think it kind of depends. The lower schools like Santa Cruz/Merced/Riverside are probably admitting on almost entirely stats alone. The middle schools like Davis/Irvine/Santa Barbara/San Diego are probably admitting on mostly stats and probably use things like EC’s/Essays to admit/deny students whose stats are very borderline. UCB/UCLA are probably very holistic, although UCLA gets so many applications I can only wonder how holistic they can even realistically be to get through all of those applications in time.
An admission officer at Irvine told us that a weak essay won’t kill you, but it certainly won’t help you. It’s probably for borderline decisions.