UC essay help!!! pleeeeease

Applying to College
1

<p>hey guys, so I just got started writing my UC essays but am stuck between a couple of prompts and how they would come across to the admissions readers...</p>

<p>first of all, my UW GPA is like a 3.67, and 2180 SAT, I want to apply to UCI UCSD and maybe UCLA. Should I really be trying to make a personal statement that tips my chances or have my stats already determined what im getting rejected and accepted from?</p>

<p>I feel like I want to write about how my self built mini wooden robot powered on water sparked my passion in engineering. But recently an editor told me to write an article(in progress) for him on an engineering related problem and he would look it over for his magazine. would this be a better topic to choose about because it shows how I've expanded my interests to a different field? and if im correct, these would be better to address in the general prompt(special achievements one)?</p>

<p>for the "describe your world.." one, I am having a small case of writers block. I know this isn't any real hardship as tough as others have had to face, but would It be a good idea to talk about how my parents were away from home a lot because of work and I had to stay home to babysit my 10 yr old brother, meaning I didn't have rides to a lot of the places I wanted to go to in ninth grade(to build up extracirriculars, my weakest portion on the app), but it did help me gain responsibility???</p>

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<p>There is a specific section of the board for Essays, find it from the Discussion Home page, so you will get more replies.</p>

<p>Your first topic about the robot is good. It isn’t anything to mention if you have been asked to submit an article. Only if the article is accepted and published. Then you can put it on your application. And possibly submit a copy of it, I know one of my daughter’s recommenders sent her article in with his letter.</p>

<p>You can put babysitting for family as an activity on your application. If you want to write about it fine, But never say this is why you don’t have more EC’s. That sounds lame, and it will be understood. But the prompt is to describe your world and paint a larger picture of yourself. Just talking about that part seems a bit narrow for the prompt.</p>

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<p>Protip: Don’t b-tch about your life. Celebrate it on paper.</p>

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<p>I don’t know why you can’t combine the first two-what sparked your first interest and where you’ve gone from there sort of thing, moving from the practical and concrete to the theoretical. The personal statement should be about motivation and process, not so much about achievement.</p>

<p>I would spin the second essay maybe in terms of developing a close relationship with your brother (if it’s true). Don’t make up a hardship if you don’t have one.</p>