<p>Hi everyone, I have a question about the application essays for freshman admission.</p>
<p>These are the two prompts:</p>
<p>Prompt #1 (freshman applicants)</p>
<p>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>Prompt #2 (all applicants)</p>
<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>-The UC website states that "You may allocate the word count as you wish. If you choose to respond to one prompt at greater length, we suggest your shorter answer be no less than 250 words."</p>
<p>Do they really not care how we divide the word count between the two prompts? To me, it seems like the first prompt would be weighed more heavily. Would I be penalized if I spent most of my word count describing an experience?</p>
<p>I am pretty sure the weights of both essays are the same. It is fine to spend more words on the first prompt and you won’t be penalized. Just make sure you follow the rules and have your second essay at least 250 words.</p>
<p>Yeah I don’t think it really matters too much, that’s just what people like to do generally. Also, I think it actually allows you to go a little over the max word limit, by like 100-250 or something. I’m pretty sure I went over last year, but I don’t remember the definite number, sorry.</p>
<p>I dont think one is more weighed than the other. so basically you can write a 700 worded essay on one and a 300 worded essay on another one, but you gotta make sure the 300 worded essay is AWESOME.
I wrote an essay based on personal experience for essay number one…i mean how can you not? it’s your life…everything’s a personal experience lol(but share something meaningful. like what i wrote about was the family business and how moving to america was stressfull but the MEANING behind why we moved, like financial problems and the whole bit, be more specific not general. instead of saying “Moving to America was a tough decision…” you should say, “Living in a place where the water is contaminated, the air is smogged, and the food is all imported, is not a place to be living; I left Hong Kong for a better place in America” but even more specific…
For the over the limit, i don’t think they mind if it’s like 10-20 words over the max however, if it’s starting to push 50-100…they might reconsider when they’re down to choosing between you and another dude… “oh this one is over 73 while the other is only 25” hmmmmmmmmmmmm???</p>
<p>they have a time limit (which is like maybe 20 or 40 min per application) and if they don’t finish your application by that time, then your application just doesn’t get finished. i wouldn’t push past 40 words over the limit personally.</p>
<p>i came to UCLA as a transfer student, so my prompts were different. I did write one of my prompts as a mini biography though. It’s not so bad. Most poeple have some angle to talk about whether it’s scarcity of money within the family, or lack of education within family, or even a desire to experience the world from a completely new perspective. </p>
<p>Another thing i should tell you is that i didn’t view these prompts as essays but rather as responses. It wasn’t the standard 5 paragraph intro body conclusion essay. It was more of a developmental story of how i came to choose my major (for the first response), and of how i got to the point right before applying to UCLA (second prompt)</p>
<p>I had both of my prompts checked with my school’s transfer center though (which they told me were exactly what they wanted and to leave them as-is) so if you’re looking to write prompts, and your school has a transfer center i’d advise you to do the same (or maybe even post them on here if the aforementioned option isn’t available)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t suggest to put a mini-autobiography, cause it’s just stating out what you did. But what I did was stating what I did and how I grew from many different small experiences…all in 500 words. ie) school situation of someone else cheating and how i handled that or family business and how angry i got when i wanted to go to college to explore, which shows my moral and personal goals to go to college. Stuff like that will not only show colleges who you are but let them think about who you are. If you get them to think, that’s a huge success! ;)</p>