I want to go to Berkeley more than any other UC... how do I address them without insulting others?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>I really want to go to UC Berkeley, the desire is unbelievable. I love the campus, the high expectations, and I live literally minutes away. I want to write about this somehow because I'm confident I could do very well (especially if I were to write about it in one of the essays). The thing is I don't want to mention my love for Berkeley and then end up getting rejected from, say, LA, because of it. Anyone know how I can address my desire to go to Berkeley without coming off as rude?</p>

2

<p>Why would you apply to LA since you obviously only love Berkeley? Just as a backup? If you didn’t get into Berkeley would you even go to LA? If all I read in an essay was how much you loved Berkeley, I would reject you as an adcom at another university. Can you write a generic essay? There is no way to write an essay where you “dis” the other locations in order to glamorize and idolize Berkeley. </p>

3

<p>I’d try to avoid focusing on it, if you can. The point of an essay isn’t why the school is amazing, the school already knows you want to go there, they know they’re great. They want to know why <em>you</em> are amazing, who you are as a person, and what you have to offer the school. Don’t write about the campus, write about yourself.</p>

4

<p>I want to say ‘you should apply to Berkeley only’, but seeing that you are a CA resident and have decent stats to apply to Berkeley in the first place, it doesn’t make much sense to not apply to other UC’s either. It’s a tricky situation, but like the above post said, you should focus on you, not the school and perhaps that will greatly reduce the idolizing tone.
Check each sentence and verify each sentence tells me a little bit more about you, if it doesn’t, delete it. Talking about your proximity to Berkeley doesn’t mean much since that’s about the location, not you. Talking about Berkeley’s strengths doesn’t mean anything since that’s about Berkeley, not you. But if you can talk about Berkeley’s strength that is applicable to you in a descriptive manner, then you have a good sentence. And I want to give my opinion that Berkeley’s academic strength is reflective of the entire UC’s academic strength. I know the rankings are different and we are the top of the UC’s, but the way the education is done is same across all the UC’s.</p>