Last year's personal statement. Why do you think I wasn't accepted to Cal?

Transfer Students UC Transfers
1

<p>I applied to Cal as a transfer student last fall (2013) and didn't get in. At first, I was surprised, but after giving my personal statement a second reading, I was very disappointed with my work. My writing was not fluid, and the essays (especially prompt #1) don't have much personality/voice. What's more important is that I used too many words when listing the struggles I had dealt with throughout my life. This brings me to my next point: I was listing my struggles and did not put very much effort into explaining how those struggles shaped me into who I am as a person. </p>

<p>I would appreciate any feedback you may have to offer. Do you agree/disagree with my opinion? What should I have done differently? What should I keep the same? Are there any holes or inconsistencies in my essays? Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my post.</p>

<p>Additional information: I applied to Cal's undergraduate Statistics program with a 3.65 GPA (3.59 transferable GPA). I am currently a student at Diablo Valley College (a known "feeder school" to UC Berkeley).</p>

<p>Volunteering:
1) Unpaid Math Tutor: I tutor students in math, econ, and stats courses.
2) Masjid (Mosque) Volunteer: Teach young kids basic Islamic principles; maintain the cleanliness of the mosque; collect money for the needy on holidays</p>

<p>Extra Carriculars:
1) Photography/Baking/Music: Ocassionally photograph and bake desserts for social events. I also produce music using technology as a way of relieving stress and expressing creativity.
2) Club Member: Member of Honors Society, Rotary club, and Korean Culture Club; participate in community service, fundraising, and professional events
3) Inter Club Council Rep: Inter Club Council representative for the Muslim Student Association and alternate representative for Korean Culture Club
4) Marketing MSA: Marketing and promotion for the Muslim Student Association; unofficial position
5a) Member of Be the Change Club (back in high school):
5b) President of MSA: Newly elected president of the Muslim Student Assocuation for spring 2014. ---- I sent the university a letter in the mail informing them of this new position and that I would like to include it in place of the preceding extracurricular activity.</p>

<p>Work Experience:
Mathematics Tutor: tutor for [insert name of business here]; tutoring a wide variety of math courses
Note: I had just taken up this job a couple months prior to application season.</p>

<p>You will my response for the second prompt below. I will include my response to prompt #1 in a comment.</p>

<p>Prompt #2:
September eleventh took its toll on many people. Personally, it gave my peers justification for terrorizing my childhood. This continued as they began using social networking sites for insults and threats. The bullies carried this assault to my home with eggs tossed at the front door in the darkness of nights. All of this was because of my heritage.
Meanwhile, my family began to disintegrate. My mother was run over by a Hummer, leaving her severely injured. Being only ten years old at the time, I didn't know how to react, and I began an eating disorder that would eventually lead to my family's skepticism regarding every aspect of my life. By the time I entered high school, I was casually playing hooky, allowing my grades to suffer in the process. Later, my parents were separated during my sophomore year of high school. Within a matter of weeks, I found myself shuttled in three directions: my mother's, my father's, and my older brother's apartments. All the trauma I faced caused me to leave high school at the age of sixteen. To make matters worse, my aunt, who had raised me alongside my parents, lost a five-year struggle with cancer shortly before beginning my studies at Diablo Valley College (DVC).
I left high school with no sense of self worth. With my aforementioned circumstances clouding my brain, focusing on my studies became almost impossible. I did however have a specific goal in mind: to graduate from a prestigious university in order to reclaim my self-confidence. All that really mattered to me was status and praise. I had absolutely no appreciation for education and my plan was to exploit the system: to milk it for what it is worth. However, one day during my second semester at DVC, I experienced a change of heart; I became dissatisfied with the path I was taking toward my future. With the recognition of my feelings of selfishness and inadequacy, I decided to travel a different road.
While my academic goals remained the same, my methods of execution took a completely different turn. I joined several clubs, each with a unique background and different activities. From the Muslim Student Association to the student Rotary Club (Rotaract) to the Korean Culture Club, I began to enjoy my association and make contributions to student life on campus. DVC was no longer a catalyst in building my future; it became a community where I felt I belonged. Becoming an Inter Club Council representative didn't translate to a "beefed up" resume; it meant that I became privileged to officially represent students at the highest level of student leadership on campus. I also began to make a direct impact on policies established, not only for currently enrolled students, but incoming students as well. The more exposure I gained to clubs, the more I learned about fellow students, and how to utilize leadership skills to function in a democratic society.
In enjoying the campus life, I found myself extending my knowledge through tutoring. I strongly believe that sharing my knowledge with others not only has helped me to mature as a person, but will also ensure success of my fellow classmates and peers as well as improve the overall standing of the college.
My college experience has repaired my self-esteem, and has been an aid in rediscovering myself. I developed passions for different activities and hobbies, such as photography, baking, and music. I went from caring only about selfish and egotistical aspects of talent to a more altruistic attitude and appreciation of my activities.
Although DVC has been a major force in reshaping my personality, I am ready to take the next step in my education at the University of California, with the intention of contributing to society, especially those who have faced similar challenges.</p>

<p>Thanks again!</p>

2

<p>Prompt #1:
When I was young, I used to hate math. Although I received high marks in all my math classes in grade school and praise from my parents and teachers alike, it didn’t interest me. The only use I saw for it was for people who wanted to impress their peers with their intelligence.
However, my perspective was reshaped when an eating disorder I had developed earlier on got out of hand. I was severely overweight and as I matured, grew uncomfortable with my body. Instead of sulking in my shame, I decided to begin a new healthy lifestyle. When things started out, my diet and exercise program were based on my hunger and energy on a given day. I lost a considerable amount of weight, but my results were inconsistent. Not understanding the cause of this inconsistency, I enlisted my older brother’s help. He explained to me the relationship between caloric intake and weight, using a statistical program. I began observing the correlation between my caloric input/output and the fluctuations of my weight. I was fascinated of my ability to control my weight loss using personal data about myself. It was at that time that I began to develop a keen interest in data analysis, not knowing that I had discovered a new passion in the field of statistics. More importantly, the subject I had grown bitter towards, mathematics now plays an important role in my everyday life.
My excitement for statistics led me to a greater understanding of economics, which also includes concepts based on real-world data. The quantitative and analytical skills used in statistics provide a solid foundation for the study of economics. I plan to acquire graduate degrees in economics and statistics.
I am fascinated at not only the statistical approach of gathering information, but moreover the idea of how universal it is, as it seamlessly ties itself with economics and many other disciplines. I have developed an appreciation for statistics, as it is the language of the modern world. Without it, there would be no method of measuring unemployment, the safety of neighborhoods would be left to people’s best judgments, and I could have never lost over forty pounds of weight.</p>

3

<p>Overall I think your prompts are a little “woe as me”. I don’t say that to minimize anything you’ve been through. However, I think of someone uses their essay to talk about personal struggles, those struggles should be massive, unique, and concise. Even if your struggles were those things, I didn’t get that from your essays.</p>

<p>For example, you talk about your eating disorder. IF you’re going to talk about it, you need to describe it to me. You need to show me what your disorder is. I need to feel your angst. Then you made it seem like as soon as you use math, then it’s easy breezy to get past it. I don’t know your specific situation, so please don’t talk offense, but having an eating disorder is not necessarily the same as eating too much/ too little. But because you didn’t explain and describe your situation, I really don’t know if you know that.</p>

<p>Read the paragraphs below. Obviously 1 is far more descriptive, but really think about how a deeper picture really draws you into something. IF you’re going to write about a tough time, you better sell it!</p>

<p>I had a drug problem, and cocaine was my drug of choice. I wanted to stop, but was unsure how. Some days I would use, and some days I didn’t. I didn’t know how to just stop. Then 1 day I woke up and realized I needed rehab. I began a program and within 2 months I felt much better about myself and my problem. OR</p>

<p>Cocaine was my drug of choice, but i would really use anything I could get my hands on. At first it was just a weekend thing, but within a few weeks, my life was no longer my own. Cocaine went from being a casual acquaintance to being my BFF. She wasn’t a cheap date, and I had to do some questionable things to keep her in my life. Morning noon and night she and I were together. I didn’t care about my family, school, or anything. My grades plummeted, I lost my part time job, my parents were either yelling or crying, and none of it bothered me a bit. I had cocaine, and she was all I needed.</p>

<p>One morning I remember waking up in a strange place, having no idea how I got there. I saw my Mom standing over me crying. My sister was off in the distance, and I was surrounded by strange men and women. I soon realized that I was in the hospital after having an overdose. Apparently one of my new druggy friends was nice enough to call 911 before abandoning me in one of our using spots. Real classy. I knew my life had spiraled to new lows, and I needed to do something different.</p>

<p>(Neither of these have anything to do with my life- just fiction)</p>

4

<p>I’ll take a stab at this, but first: attending a “feeder” school does not equate to guaranteed admissions; and do you have the requisite number of credits/pre-reqs/courses for transfer?</p>

<p>As for your essays, I would consider both as drafts, not final products. </p>

<p>In prompt #2, the essay rambles with no clear point. An introduction is a guide post for the reader to understand what you’re writing about. Your intro talks about the effects of 9/11 on you, but the essay body has nothing to do with it. It also doesn’t help you stated you want to attend a prestigious university for it’s name recognition, and because you never corrected this position, you implicitly still maintain that view. </p>

<p>In regards to prompt #1, it’s more coherent that essay #2, but it can be organized much better. Although the introduction, again, isn’t clear, the essay body is not all over the place. </p>

<p>In both instances, due to unfocused introductions, the “conclusions” don’t quite wrap up well. </p>

<p>If you’re having difficulties with intros, a suggestion is to use your draft conclusion as your introduction. This may help with focusing the essay content.</p>

5

<p>I agree with the above posters on most of their points especially 2016Candles on how you describe things, but you do spend more time on your persoanl issues than how you have grown from it.</p>

<p>The line " I did however have a specific goal in mind: to graduate from a prestigious university in order to reclaim my self-confidence. All that really mattered to me was status and praise. I had absolutely no appreciation for education and my plan was to exploit the system: to milk it for what it is worth."</p>

<p>comes off as a HUGE red flag. Even as someone that has said he/she has changed (which I think you could do a better job of showing how your perspectives changed), if I were an admissions officer, I would be wary of admitting anyone who once had that mindset. Again, I don’t mean to judge your past experiences, but I think how you wrote about them could be handled more delicately.</p>

<p>I do hope this feedback has helped some and I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.</p>

6

<p>Your personal statements aren’t strong and I felt that the second one was rambling a lot about different events that it was too unfocused. I agree with the other posters above. </p>

<p>Statistics is a restricted major and it’s selective to get admitted to it at Cal. Your personal statement is an important factor in your admissions when you’re applying to such selective majors. </p>

7

<p>Honestly, I think you should just scrap both essays, and start fresh. Take some of this feedback, and make your next essays more focused. If you’re going to talk about a difficult time in your life, pick 1 thing and focus on that. Don’t make it sound like your whole life has been 1 bad thing after another- even if that’s what it is or how you feel. Your essay should be about you, but it’s mostly about the readers’ perceptions of you. Remember that the reader knows nothing about your life except what you say there. If after reading your essay, the reader doesn’t want to get to know you further, then you haven’t done your job. </p>

8

<p>As Shawnspencer pointed out, the line about exploiting the system is really, really…bad. I know you’re going for complete honesty, but I think that line alone is enough to get your application tossed. Why would they want to admit someone who has ever thought about education in that way, and how do they really know you don’t still feel like that, at least partially? I’m not knocking you for having those feelings, but you don’t have to tell them everything.</p>

<p>Also, I know you want to emphasize the pain you have gone through, but a lot of the essay for prompt #1 sounds like you are trying to shock the reader into feeling sympathy. Your path sounds like it has been very difficult, so there is no need to dramatize that. </p>

<p>Another thing I would do is have something resembling a thesis in the beginning of the essay. The whole first half is so negative, that by the time it gets positive the admissions officer might already be tuned out. Somewhere in the first paragraph, put a thesis about how you overcame everything, so the reader has something to look forward to and knows the essay is about perseverance.</p>

9

<p>Real talk: </p>

<p>Can you really say that you’ve changed when you’re spending another year at your CCC to try to get into Berkeley? Your essays are very disingenuous and the PS readers/admissions officers saw through your BS.</p>

10

<p>Thanks for the honest feedback everyone. I must say that I couldn’t agree more with your opinions, with the exception of calbro’s. </p>

<p>2016Candles: I appreciate you taking the time to provide me with an example; you’re too kind. I will take your advice and write and entirely new essay with more focus.</p>

11

<p>I only read the essay in the original post. You would do much better to choose 1 obstacle in your life. Discuss how it came about, how it affected you initially, how you overcame it, and how it has changed you. This essay is an opportunity to say: this is the kind of person I am, and this is how I became this way. </p>

<p>It’s the difference between saying, “I was poor growing up so I did badly in school” and saying something like " my friends sometimes tease me about taking such immaculate care of my clothing. I know that it stems from my impoverished childhood, and that I value all the things I have because I’m grateful to have them. My clothes, my family, my education are all things I have learned to appreciate in my adulthood. This was not always the case…"</p>

<p>One of these is an excuse. One is an explanation of the circumstances of previous poor performance, and an insight into you as an individual. If you want to discuss adversity in your life, you darn well had better explain the what, who, how, why of the changes it caused and the outcome, not just the circumstance itself. </p>

<p>I agree with the back to the drawing board approach. On this essay look at what makes you different from everyone else, and what adversity in your life made you this way. </p>

12

<p>Well the most important factor in writing an essay is making them “feel” for you, that is to say pull on their emotion heart strings. I would recommend focusing on two things. First is helping other people: Delivering Pizza to the homeless, being an alcoholic who is now helping other’s during AA meetings, being an like an adopted son to a couple who can’t have children, working at a blood bank in some third world country; all those stories worked. So refocus your life in a context of helping others. Secondly try to talk about how much you love being a scholar, this is a school you are applying to you. From what I have read very few people write essays explicitly starting how much they love learning, and the reasons they choose their program. Lastly try to reduce the content, use small words, make it very light and easy to read. </p>

13

<p>Okay, everyone keeps critiquing your essays, which is great - it helps you write better. However, I think we can all agree that GPA comes first and foremost. In my opinion, Cal is 70% GPA, 15% ECs, and 15% personal statements. Your GPA is not bad, but it’s low compared to other applicants, so the admission readers will either look to your personal statements to make a decision or lean towards rejecting you. I say, get your GPA up to a 3.8 and your chances will increase greatly. Your ECs are good </p>

<p>I think prompt 2 is talking about too many of your misfortunes and too many of your extracurriculars. You talk about too many of your ECs and say short little things that don’t really mean much. For example, “From the Muslim Student Association to the student Rotary Club (Rotaract) to the Korean Culture Club, I began to enjoy my association and make contributions to student life on campus,” is really vague.I say focus on one misfortune and the extracurricular that made you change your perspective on that misfortune. That way it’s more concise.</p>

<p>I like the overall message of prompt 1. :slight_smile: I love how you used stats to control your weight loss and segued into your love for the subject itself. The EXECUTION of the prompt, however, can be improved. You should add more detail about why you like statistics. You do a good job on describing how stats and weight relate, but talked very briefly on what you plan to do with stats academically and career wise. Also, polish the ending. </p>

<p>Good Luck :slight_smile: Feel free to PM me</p>

14

<p>I would follow @bomerr’s advice. He’s pretty right that you want to talk about your passion for learning itself and why a university like Cal would challenge you and guide you to your future goals. </p>

15

<p>Try not to throw so many negative things into the essay, trust me that’s what I was doing when I was working on them last year, but thankfully my counselor was able to advise me before it was too late. Instead, mention it and talk about what you learn from it and how it has impacted you as a person/student etc. They want to see that even though you’ve been through a lot you can still overtake any other obstacle (in this case Cal’s tough academic environment). For one of my essays I mentioned some personal things, but I also explained why those events helped me realize my passions/dreams etc. For the essay about your major, again I mentioned some pretty personal things, but I also talked about relevant work/classes to my major and why I truly wanted to pursue that career etc. They want to see that you’re passionate about your major (without sounding like you’re desperate for their sympathy or even mentioning the word passionate), and they also want to know that despite all of those obstacles you have what it takes for Cal and that you have a unique story to contribute to Cal (make yourself stand out from the rest). Talk to your counselor or adviser, that’s what I did and thanks to their help I was able to get in at Cal. I wish you the best :slight_smile: </p>

16

<p>Thanks for the advice everyone. I agree that I should provide the reader with more information on how I dealt with my personal issues, how they affected me, and how I changed, instead of trying to cram as much information into the essay as I can. </p>

<p>And to randombookie: I sent you PM.</p>

17

<p>*I sent you a PM</p>

18

<p>A bit late to the party, and I’m not sure if my advice is worthwhile to listen to since I didn’t get into Berkeley.</p>

<p>Prompt #1: Answered the question, but overall the experience had doesn’t seem too relatable to your major. Though I would assume trying to explain your interest in statistics to be very difficult.</p>

<p>Prompt #2: I think you have missed question in this point. The first half doesn’t seem to relate to person you’ve become in the later in the half. I think you’re correct in believing that you were listing your struggles instead of showing how those struggles shaped you. Often times one singular experience doesn’t shape who we are, nor could we adequately explain our growth in the length given. For me I focused on 2~3 qualities I want to best show to UC admissions, and focused on one particular experience on how it shaped me in gaining those two qualities. I would personally either stick with family story or a single influential club, but not both.</p>

<p>I would like to comment that I wouldn’t be brave enough to post my personal prompts for critique, so good on you to taking steps to making your application look better for next time. This video is a bit old, but it helped me out a lot trying to gain a sense of what admissions office was looking for <a href=“Applying to UC: The Personal Statement 2007 - YouTube”>Applying to UC: The Personal Statement 2007 - YouTube; .</p>

19

<p>Try to avoid these blunders:</p>

<p><a href=“http://students.berkeley.edu/apa/personalstatement/blunders.html”>http://students.berkeley.edu/apa/personalstatement/blunders.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

20

<p>" I should provide the reader with more information on how I dealt with my personal issues"</p>

<p>I would only put in 1 hardship, your biggest hardship and then talk about how you managed to keep going to school and help other people through your ECs. </p>

<p>I know people say the PS is a chance for the admission people to get to know you but. with only 1000 words how much can they get to know? What they want to hear specifically is 1) How much you help the community you are part of or the people around you and 2) why you chose this major, why it’s important to you, how you will be better because of the major, etc. In short don’t write about your life story, cherry pick the content that will help you get in, I’d put in 1 hardship because that’ll diversify you as a person but spend the rest of the time talking about the stuff above. </p>

<p>P.S. be weary about getting specific advice about your essays because once you tell people that you were not accepted, once they start reading your essay, they will look for reasons and try to rationalize your rejected; What I am saying is you will get a very skewed replay that won’t focus on things you did correctly. Remember you don’t know exactly how close you were to getting in, you could have been rejected on a whim. </p>