<p>Hello. First time parent of a UC applicant here. Elder daughter applied a few years ago to east coast LACs and wrote one philosophical “Who am I” essay and one colorful shorter essay on her unsual EC. For LACs, the main goal was to avoid writing boring essays.</p>
<p>BUT, Son will apply to UCs, probably engineering programs.</p>
<p>Has anyone seen really good UC essays and have advise?
Which one should be the long one?
Will they be more interested in facts than creativity in the essays?</p>
<p>1) academic prep (they see your transcript, so what you got out of it or why you took what you did?)
2) contribution (humbly brag? EC or personal quality? past or future focus?)
3) open ended (if no unusual personal circumstance, write a “Who am I?” type?)</p>
<p>try not to talk too much about others, the focus should be on the applicant, dont brag too much and dont make it soung like ur begging to get in, just stay true and really applicant should focus on his/herself, hope that helped </p>
<p>p.s. also edit like crazy, man i had to edit my uc essays so much</p>
<p>i went through the process last year...basically tell your kid to write about himself and tell the admissions committee as much about himself as he can..dont try any risky things...dont be too funny since everyone's sense of humour isn't alike....and uh the longer one should be the one in which he talks about his own experiences/skills/etc...well i guess it depends but basically they want to learn about the student and he has to be himself and be unique but no laundry lists of accomplishments, they hate that.</p>
<p>if your son wants to brag, make sure he does it "indirectly." don't openly say "i have won first places so many times that i'm a legend at my own high school." the admission committee will see your awards in your application. when i say indirectly, i meant slightly mention how you became a better person/leader through the program those awards were given under [ example: he was voted MVP for his sport team. probably explain what he did, such as he helped other teammates, good sportsmanship, great leadership skills, etc ]. </p>
<p>in each of the questions, make sure that your son writes about a different characteristic for each. the admission committee probably would not want to read about the same idea in all three essays because that would be boring. having humor might be risky as ilovecalifornia has mentioned that not everyone's humor is the same. just make sure each of the essay shows a different side of your son.
by the way, if your son is in a lot of extracurricular activities, don't mention all of them in his personal statements. mention the ones that actually made a difference to him. and with that, good luck to your son on his application!</p>