Please review my UC Personal Statement

College Essays
1

<p>Please read, revise, and review</p>

<p>Prompt 1: Describe the world you come from — for example, your family, community or school — and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations</p>

<p>Screaming, yelling, and arguing are the pictures that come to mind whenever I think back to my childhood. I was only four when my parents filed for divorce and at age eleven, my family was forced to move to a smaller home due to the economic downturn in 2009. This is when I saw how money ruined lives.</p>

<p>We were not always poor. I remember when we used to live in a fairly rich town called Eastlake. My parents had their own company called AceFa Systems in Mexico. However, as my parents’ love slowly grew off of them, my mom had quit and the company was solely run by my dad. My mom had no job and constantly relied on credit cards as money. As her debt increased, my father had to help her pay some of it off. Having one parent working at the time, we weren’t able to generate enough money to live in Eastlake. My mom then resorted to gambling, which she then became addicted to. Gambling with my dad’s hard earned cash damaged our income exponentially which eventually resulted us in moving out of Eastlake to a more smaller, affordable home in 2009. </p>

<p>We eventually resulted in having to control my mother’s gambling addiction by constantly watching her whereabouts. Both my older brother and sister ended up attending community college instead of a four-year university due to our financial conflicts. They also ended up getting part-time jobs to help pay off bills. Being the youngest, I still had the potential in going straight to a four-year university. My dad resigned AceFa Systems and joined a new business in selling dental implants. He brought my mom into the business, thus giving her an opportunity to apply herself. </p>

<p>We also obtained help from my grandparents savings. My grandmother was there always praying for our family and especially for my future, since I still had a fighting chance in reviving my family’s financial status. She always reminisced about my uncle and how he was very similar to me, but ended up making the wrong choices through drug addiction. My grandmother hopes that I won’t end up like my uncle and go towards the other direction. She really had a big impact on my life as I see her as my first teacher, since my parents were rarely there for me. My goal is to prove to her that I can apply myself within the real world and hopefully provide my family with a happier future.</p>

<p>However, I was also very naive; I did get good grades, but I never had any impact on my surroundings. I never did anything to help my community, but all of this changed when I entered junior year in high school. I volunteered at the public library and then at the local Petsmart. Giving back to the community increased my understanding of how work isn’t all about money. It made me realize that I should lean towards a career that the world actually needs. Most of my family members have careers in business; they only care about their own financial status. I now realize that I am the one who needs to choose a different path. After thinking long and hard for four years, I have finally decided what I want to do for my generation. Having a love for science and math, I aspire to be a chemical engineer in hope of advancing our future for the masses.</p>

<p>Poverty at a young age inspired me; I now know I should never put money ahead of my true goals. Now, I only look at whether an opportunity for work will make me a better person, instead of worrying about the financial aspects. </p>

2

<p>Each paragraph should have a clear topic. You need to be more concise and have only one idea per paragraph. </p>

3

<p>@LCL2015‌ Is that the only problem? Do you think the story is good? Is there anything else missing?</p>

4

<p>The concept of your story is great, but it just sounds as if your statement is not genuine. I would tap a little deeper into your emotions for the essay. </p>

5

<p>@LCL2015‌ can review my essay for the second UC prompt</p>

<p>Growing up I came to realize that I am inquisitive and audacious. Even when I was a kid I had the equivalent curiosity of a scientist or engineer. I always questioned how the world works and I loved working with my hands.</p>

<p>Taking AP Chemistry was a big risk for me. It challenged both my math and science skills. As my first AP class, it built my confidence in becoming a chemical engineer. At first, I was intimidated at the beginning of junior year knowing that I would be taking the hardest AP class offered at my school. However, I still kept my head up for the more positive aspect of AP chemistry. I already was comfortable with the teaching style since I had the same teacher in Honors Chemistry. AP chemistry opened my eyes of the difficulty in introductory college chemistry. Doing hands-on labs fueled my curiosity of how the world works within the subatomic level and how amazing these chemicals can be duplicated in various ways through chemical engineering.</p>

<p>Another example of my audacious and inquisitive behavior is when I interact with my favorite hobby, skateboarding. While school challenges me mentally, skateboarding challenges me physically. Being shorter and skinnier for my age, my ability to play team sports never interested me as much as the creative freedom that comes with skateboarding. Skating represents my image in how it challenges my physical durability and creates the friends I have today. Many people do not recognize the benefits of skateboarding. Skateboarding teaches people just how it taught me. Some lessons that this action sport has taught me is that you do not need to always rely on motor vehicles for transportation or do drugs/drink alcohol to have fun. But, the most important aspect to skateboarding is that there is plentiful knowledge within skateboarding. I’m not talking about the terminology of skate obstacles and skate tricks, but the physics and engineering behind skateboarding. The way the skate tricks are performed include many physics applications I learned in AP Physics 1 class, such as forces and momentum. The skateboard also encourages me to understand the basis of engineering that went into it to build the wheel, axle, hardware, and board. I’m always thinking about the evolution of skateboarding and how it became one of the most popular sports today with its innovative tricks.</p>

<p>With the use of my inquisitiveness and audacity to take more challenges throughout college, I hope to pursue chemical engineering because it fits all of my strengths and interests. Maybe one day in the future, I will be able to combine my knowledge in chemical engineering, chemistry, math, and physics to create a cost-effective hover board and evolutionize my favorite sport one step further.</p>

6

<p>Second essay puts too much emphasis on how “hard” AP classes are and how “much” you’ve accomplished (yes, it’s “hard”, and yes you do labs, what of it? Millions of over students go through this and then some, what is so significant about it that you even need to mention it?). They can see this in your transcripts/ self reported classes.</p>

<p>Again, your second essay jumps all over the place. Your introductory paragraph sets up the essay to tackle AP chemistry. You finish sharing this experience at the end of the first paragraph without talking about ANYTHING and jumps immediately to skateboarding - no correlation whatsoever. You are just listing things at this point. You tell more than you show. Not well written at all.</p>

<p>Your first essay is cliche and talks little about your INTERACTIONS with your “world”. You mention volunteering at a library and Petsmart. Why not focus on these two topics? You are more involved in these than you are with whatever it was you talked about in the first couple paragraphs.</p>

<p>Bigger words don’t make your essay more intelligent.</p>

7

<p>Here are my thoughts for your UC #1 essay:</p>

<p>• Focus on the theme of how your view of money changed – your family had it, your family lost it, and your realization of your desire to doing greater good over making lots of money.
• Remove most of paragraph 1 and all of 4. It doesn’t add to your essay.
• How about start with this as a standalone introductory line (taken from your essay):
Poverty at a young age inspired me.</p>

<p>Then:
• Paragraph 1 – share with admissions about you growing up in Eastlake - the good life and what that is.
• Paragraph 2 – share with admissions about how it is living poor after the economic crisis.
• Paragraph 3 – share with admissions about how the two volunteering experiencing changed your view about money. And what you realized is more important for you personally.
• Conclusion – share with admissions your aspirations to be a chemical engineer. Include any experiences you had in this field. Provide more details as to why you are passionate about this career and how you see yourself applying this career in your community and beyond.</p>

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

8

<p>Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?</p>

<p>Here are my thoughts for UC #2,</p>

<p>• Skateboarding (this experience) can be the main theme of your essay.
• Focus one paragraph describing in vivid details how skateboarding challenges you physically and the lessons learned or who you became because of it. Write it such a way so that the readers feel like they are there watching you skate.
• Focus another paragraph on showing how physics and skateboarding are related. Pick a trick or two and demonstrate in details your insightful understanding/knowledge of physics and skateboarding.
• Share with admissions why you are proud of this experience and how it has changed you.
• Share with admissions who you are today and who do you strive to be in college and beyond (somehow typing back to the influences of skateboarding).</p>

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

9

<p>@eCoachJen Please review my revised essays. It’s 1220 words, so any editing will help</p>

<p>Prompt 1</p>

<p>Poverty at a young age inspired me. I was only four when my parents filed for divorce and at age eleven, my family was forced to move to a smaller home due to the economic downturn in 2009. This is when I saw how money ruined lives.</p>

<p>We were not always poor. I remember when we used to live in a fairly rich town called Eastlake. I made trustworthy friends and school was minutes away. My parents had their own company called AceFa Systems in Mexico. However, as my parents’ love slowly grew off of them, my mom had quit her job and the company was solely run by my dad. My mom had no job and constantly relied on credit cards as money. As her debt increased, my father had to help her pay some of it off. Having one parent working at the time, we weren’t able to generate enough money to live in Eastlake. My mom then resorted to gambling, which she then became addicted to. Gambling with my dad’s hard earned cash damaged our income exponentially which eventually resulted us in moving out of Eastlake to a more affordable home in 2009. </p>

<p>Living in a more rundown section of the city increased my eagerness to go to college so I can move out of the ghetto. Hearing gunshots every week has terrified my safety and encouraged me to work even harder. We eventually resulted in having to control my mother’s gambling addiction by constantly watching her whereabouts. Both my older brother and sister ended up attending community college instead of a four-year university due to our financial conflicts. They also ended up getting part-time jobs to help pay off bills. Being the youngest, I still had the potential in going straight to a four-year university. My dad resigned AceFa Systems and joined a new business in selling dental implants. From then on, we only hoped for the best and worked as hard as we could until we were out of debt. I realized that I had to change too and help out my family by indulging myself into the community and hopefully gaining work experience.</p>

<p>However, I was very naive for the first two years of high school; I did get good grades, but I never had any impact on my surroundings. I never did anything to help my community, but all of this changed when I entered junior year in high school. Volunteering at the public library made me realize how helping out others find information was a good deed and that knowledge is free. I then expanded my love for the community by volunteering at PetSmart Charities. The feeling of helping rescued pets finding new homes was gratifying. Giving back to the community increased my understanding of how work isn’t all about money. It made me realize that I should lean towards a career that the world actually needs. </p>

<p>I now know I should never put money ahead of my true goals. Now, I only look at whether an opportunity for work will make me a better person, instead of worrying about the financial aspects. Most of my family members have careers in business; they only care about their own financial status. I now realize that I am the one who needs to choose a different path. After thinking long and hard for four years, I have finally decided what I want to do for my generation. Having a love for science and math, I aspire to be a chemical engineer in hope of advancing our future for the masses.</p>

<p>Prompt 2</p>

<p>“Playing sports is dumb. I will never become athletic.”</p>

<p>Growing up as a kid, I was always that scrawny nerd that never played any team sports. I always believed that I didn’t have enough power to be competitive. That was until I found skateboarding in fifth grade. The first time I actually started taking notice of skateboarding was when my older brother started to skate. He was the first one to give me a real skateboard and until then, I have never stopped.</p>

<p>Skateboarding represents my image in how it challenges my physical durability and creates the person I am today. The reason why skateboarding is my passion is because it’s the only sport I can actually do. Being shorter and skinnier for my age repudiated my ability to play team sports, such as football and basketball. On the other hand, skateboarding gave me that creative freedom I needed to express myself. Without skateboarding, I might have never became the person I am today. Moving from a fairly nice neighborhood to a more rundown part of the city could have dramatically influenced my daily habits, causing me to steal and do drugs. However, with skateboarding, I focused on becoming better at a sport I was capable of doing, instead of indulging myself in bad influences and possibly ruining my future. I know many people believe skaters are “punks”, but I honestly believe this is a stereotype. Looking at the friends I have today has led me to believe that we might not be the brightest in school, but we do have fun and are passionate in what we do. I’m so passionate that I can never see myself quitting my favorite hobby. Even when I am fifty years old, people will still see me cruising along the smooth pavement dodging obstacles like its nothing.</p>

<p>Another important aspect to skateboarding is that there is plentiful knowledge within skateboarding. I’m not talking about the terminology of skate obstacles and skate tricks, but the science and engineering behind skateboarding. The way the skate tricks are performed include many physics applications I learned in my AP Physics 1 class, such as forces and momentum. One example would be the most innovative trick called the “ollie”; The basic movement of jumping in the air with a skateboard. However, one may ask, “How does the skateboard stay stuck to your feet?” Well, using normal forces, energy, momentum, and torque, one side of the skateboard (tail) is pushed down with the skater’s back foot and then leveled up by the sliding motion of the front foot. The actual skateboard also encourages me to understand the basis of engineering that went into it to build the board, axle, wheel, and hardware. Having said that, I believe that the skateboard wheel is the most captivating due to its composition. The skateboard wheels are probably one of the biggest component to the skateboard, but the history of engineering and chemistry that went into it is really fascinating. At first, skateboard wheels were made of steel which posed a big issue due to its weight. It wasn’t until the 1970s when scientist Frank Nasworthy experimented with polyurethane wheels (the wheels used today) which were softer and lighter. This story has inspired me to think about the science of skateboarding and how it became one of the most popular sports today.</p>

<p>With the use of my science skills and inquisitiveness, I am more eager than ever to learn more throughout college. I hope to pursue chemical engineering because it fits all of my strengths and interests. Maybe one day in the future, I will be able to combine my knowledge in chemical engineering, chemistry, math, and physics to create a cost-effective hover board and one up the skateboard industry. </p>

10

<p>@serevicfrode‌ - Congratulations! These are really good. The tone in the first one is positive - excellent! The second one shows off your passion AND knowledge. I don’t have time today to give you further feedback but will definitely make the time to do so tomorrow. Stay tuned. : )</p>

11

<p>@Lucky2012‌ Please review my revised essays. It’s 1220 words, so any editing will help</p>

<p>Prompt 1</p>

<p>Poverty at a young age inspired me. I was only four when my parents filed for divorce and at age eleven, my family was forced to move to a smaller home due to the economic downturn in 2009. This is when I saw how money ruined lives.</p>

<p>We were not always poor. I remember when we used to live in a fairly rich town called Eastlake. I made trustworthy friends and school was minutes away. My parents had their own company called AceFa Systems in Mexico. However, as my parents’ love slowly grew off of them, my mom had quit her job and the company was solely run by my dad. My mom had no job and constantly relied on credit cards as money. As her debt increased, my father had to help her pay some of it off. Having one parent working at the time, we weren’t able to generate enough money to live in Eastlake. My mom then resorted to gambling, which she then became addicted to. Gambling with my dad’s hard earned cash damaged our income exponentially which eventually resulted us in moving out of Eastlake to a more affordable home in 2009.</p>

<p>Living in a more rundown section of the city increased my eagerness to go to college so I can move out of the ghetto. Hearing gunshots every week has terrified my safety and encouraged me to work even harder. We eventually resulted in having to control my mother’s gambling addiction by constantly watching her whereabouts. Both my older brother and sister ended up attending community college instead of a four-year university due to our financial conflicts. They also ended up getting part-time jobs to help pay off bills. Being the youngest, I still had the potential in going straight to a four-year university. My dad resigned AceFa Systems and joined a new business in selling dental implants. From then on, we only hoped for the best and worked as hard as we could until we were out of debt. I realized that I had to change too and help out my family by indulging myself into the community and hopefully gaining work experience.</p>

<p>However, I was very naive for the first two years of high school; I did get good grades, but I never had any impact on my surroundings. I never did anything to help my community, but all of this changed when I entered junior year in high school. Volunteering at the public library made me realize how helping out others find information was a good deed and that knowledge is free. I then expanded my love for the community by volunteering at PetSmart Charities. The feeling of helping rescued pets finding new homes was gratifying. Giving back to the community increased my understanding of how work isn’t all about money. It made me realize that I should lean towards a career that the world actually needs.</p>

<p>I now know I should never put money ahead of my true goals. Now, I only look at whether an opportunity for work will make me a better person, instead of worrying about the financial aspects. Most of my family members have careers in business; they only care about their own financial status. I now realize that I am the one who needs to choose a different path. After thinking long and hard for four years, I have finally decided what I want to do for my generation. Having a love for science and math, I aspire to be a chemical engineer in hope of advancing our future for the masses.</p>

<p>Prompt 2</p>

<p>“Playing sports is dumb. I will never become athletic.”</p>

<p>Growing up as a kid, I was always that scrawny nerd that never played any team sports. I always believed that I didn’t have enough power to be competitive. That was until I found skateboarding in fifth grade. The first time I actually started taking notice of skateboarding was when my older brother started to skate. He was the first one to give me a real skateboard and until then, I have never stopped.</p>

<p>Skateboarding represents my image in how it challenges my physical durability and creates the person I am today. The reason why skateboarding is my passion is because it’s the only sport I can actually do. Being shorter and skinnier for my age repudiated my ability to play team sports, such as football and basketball. On the other hand, skateboarding gave me that creative freedom I needed to express myself. Without skateboarding, I might have never became the person I am today. Moving from a fairly nice neighborhood to a more rundown part of the city could have dramatically influenced my daily habits, causing me to steal and do drugs. However, with skateboarding, I focused on becoming better at a sport I was capable of doing, instead of indulging myself in bad influences and possibly ruining my future. I know many people believe skaters are “punks”, but I honestly believe this is a stereotype. Looking at the friends I have today has led me to believe that we might not be the brightest in school, but we do have fun and are passionate in what we do. I’m so passionate that I can never see myself quitting my favorite hobby. Even when I am fifty years old, people will still see me cruising along the smooth pavement dodging obstacles like its nothing.</p>

<p>Another important aspect to skateboarding is that there is plentiful knowledge within skateboarding. I’m not talking about the terminology of skate obstacles and skate tricks, but the science and engineering behind skateboarding. The way the skate tricks are performed include many physics applications I learned in my AP Physics 1 class, such as forces and momentum. One example would be the most innovative trick called the “ollie”; The basic movement of jumping in the air with a skateboard. However, one may ask, “How does the skateboard stay stuck to your feet?” Well, using normal forces, energy, momentum, and torque, one side of the skateboard (tail) is pushed down with the skater’s back foot and then leveled up by the sliding motion of the front foot. The actual skateboard also encourages me to understand the basis of engineering that went into it to build the board, axle, wheel, and hardware. Having said that, I believe that the skateboard wheel is the most captivating due to its composition. The skateboard wheels are probably one of the biggest component to the skateboard, but the history of engineering and chemistry that went into it is really fascinating. At first, skateboard wheels were made of steel which posed a big issue due to its weight. It wasn’t until the 1970s when scientist Frank Nasworthy experimented with polyurethane wheels (the wheels used today) which were softer and lighter. This story has inspired me to think about the science of skateboarding and how it became one of the most popular sports today.</p>

<p>With the use of my science skills and inquisitiveness, I am more eager than ever to learn more throughout college. I hope to pursue chemical engineering because it fits all of my strengths and interests. Maybe one day in the future, I will be able to combine my knowledge in chemical engineering, chemistry, math, and physics to create a cost-effective hover board and one up the skateboard industry.</p>

12

<p>I’m very bored today so I’ll do a more in depth analysis of your essays. Long post ahead!</p>

<p>PS 1:
I think that for such a topic that you’ve chosen, elegant sentence structure will match the tone of the essay better. If you were writing an action packed essay about say, sports or a competition, then using short, concise sentences work well. However, since you’re writing about a rather tragic, inspiring event, I suggest you beef up your language and structure. </p>

<p>For example, this part here “We were not always poor. I remember when we used to live in a fairly rich town called Eastlake. I made trustworthy friends and school was minutes away. My parents had their own company called AceFa Systems in Mexico.” sounds very matter-of-fact. The emotion it elicits from me is “meh, ok” instead of “oh yeah, your life has really changed”. If it were me (and here I’ll spoonfeed you a bit but by no means am I the best writer around), I’d write something like, “We weren’t always poor. I remember a time when we used to live in a fairly rich town, when I went to a school just minutes away from home and made trustworthy friends. My parents even had their own company back then.” By inserting words like “even” and alternating sentence structure, your can sound more sincere.</p>

<p>You have a great story to tell so what you should do now is to experiment with how best to convey your story and your emotions to the reader. Details like the name of your parent’s company imo is rather redundant. If you’re extremely attached to those names, I think it’s ok to put them in but I feel that for now, they seem only to serve the purpose of taking up word count.</p>

<p>PS 2:
I like this one a lot more. Skateboarding is an activity I’ve always admired and wanted to learn haha but anyway, I think writing about a more mundane event like this and then branching it out to your intellectual interest for engineering is brilliant. </p>

<p>I’d advise you to tidy up your essay. As of now, it’s very clunky and the third paragraph is extremely technical. As a humanities student, I feel my heart sinking when I see words like “torque” “physics” and “axle”. You can talk a bit about the structure and composition of a skateboard but be careful not to go overboard. </p>

<p>I think it would be nice if you could insert a little anecdote about your skateboarding days. Like a particular event that occurred when you were skateboarding or how you love making turns and riding the wind…things like that. It will not only spice up your essay but make it feel more personal. Do you have ideas for skateboards? If you’ve thought of any engineering ideas to make skateboards faster or more user-friendly, then you should definitely display them in your essay.</p>

<p>One last thing, DO NOT mention stealing or doing drugs, even if you’ve never actually done them. These are superfluous details and your essay will be much better off without such references.</p>

<p>Hope that helped and good luck!</p>

13

<p>I agree that your choice in words and sentence structure will benefit your essays greatly. You have many sentences starting like this (sound weird): “Being from…” that can be rewritten to flow better with your statement. Some words sound out of place and too complex (inquisitiveness). </p>

<p>You have have a very interesting topic connecting skateboarding and chemical engineering, but I feel like the second essay still needs a lot of work. It does not cover any one event or meaningful activity (a trick, or maybe competition?) that shows how skateboarding has changed your life. Read over paragraph 2.
It very vaguely mentions how it has changed your life, but it feels like you are listing things rather than showing sincerely how the activity has Iinfluenced you (emphasis on showing; you are telling 90% in essay 2, paragraph 2)</p>