UC Personal Insight Questions Advice

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - GENERAL
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I am applying to several UC schools and am starting to brainstorm ideas for their personal insight questions. I’ve narrowed it down to 5 of the prompts, and I am wondering if anyone could provide feedback on my ideas for each of them, and which 4 you think would be best to do. All feedback, criticisms, etc, are welcome and appreciated.

Link to prompts: https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/how-to-apply/applying-as-a-freshman/personal-insight-questions.html

*These are all just brainstorming ideas at the moment; I haven’t gotten into much specificity on any yet, just the basic idea and outline. I just want to determine whether they are good ideas in general before I start going into more detail and actually writing the essays.

Prompt 2.
This one I think is my weakest prompt, as there’s almost nothing tangible about it. Essentially I want to talk about my imagination and how I am always creating new, fantastical worlds inside my mind as I often feel bored with my everyday life. Like I said, this one is probably the weakest, although I think I could be creative with this (no pun intended) in talking about the imaginary worlds I’ve created and the positive impact they’ve had throughout my life.

Prompt 3.
Since my other prompt ideas are more formal and would focus on the more serious and/or academic side of me, I am thinking of making this one a bit more informal/comedic by discussing my meticulous nature and how I often go overboard with it - especially in strategy games by spending an absurd amount of time planning each and every move. I know they are probably looking for something a bit more demonstratable, like leadership, teamwork, etc. but I feel this would show a more fun and unique view of me than talking about my drive to succeed academically or something similar.

Prompt 4.
I want to use this prompt to talk about how I discovered MOOC’s around the middle of my junior year, and have since taken over half a dozen courses in astronomy/astrophysics to help pursue my interest in the field (I intend to major in either astronomy or physics in college). My only real concern with this is that many of the examples I see are of highly selective summer programs or a unique honors program at a school, not just online classes, and that could make my ‘significant educational opportunity’ look less meaningful when compared to those opportunities.

Prompt 5.
This one is probably my second weakest, as it isn’t that big of a challenge. I’ve struggled for most of my life to balance relaxation/fun and work, although I am finally starting to find a consistent and healthy balance between the two and to not constantly feel like I could be doing more even on my most productive days. It hasn’t affected my academics yet, but it has really affected my self-esteem and I think I could explore that. This just isn’t anywhere near as significant as many of the other challenges I have seen, such as divorces, moving, etc. and I’m concerned that those instances will make this example look petty/trivial.

Prompt 6.
This one would just be me talking about my love for astronomy and how I’ve taken online courses, participated in related clubs, etc. I’d also discuss how it has impacted my life and my reasoning as to why I am drawn to that specific topic. I could also - if I have enough room - bring up how the UC’s would be fantastic for fostering my passion in that subject. I know I haven’t provided much detail on this one, but this post is getting really long, and I’m able to go into much more detail in the essay itself.

Apologies for the length of this, I just want to make sure I put all the necessary information. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and thanks in advance for any opinions, comments, etc.

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Okay in the time it took for a moderator to look over and approve this post, I have spent quite a while researching how to do these prompts.
I’ve realized how bad of an idea prompt 3 is - since it seems these are supposed to be answered like interview questions - so please ignore that idea :). Prompt 2 also is really not a good idea now that I look at it. I’m probably just gonna do a more serious and legitimate prompt 3 instead of trying to do prompt 2.

Feedback, criticisms, etc. on the other ideas are still appreciated though :slight_smile:

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My middle daughter has also just started on her questions so she is in the same mindset as you right now, trying to pick the right questions and answers to showcase who she is to the admissions officers. My oldest daughter went through this process last year, and applied to 5 UC campuses, was accepted at 4 and waitlisted at 1 so I guess her personal insight questions were pretty good!

My first thought is that looking at the changes made to the application this year, the UC’s have acknowledged (maybe inadvertently) that not everyone needs to be a ‘leader’. You can make just as worthwhile a contribution through your creative side, or your involvement with the community and team players are just as valuable as that all-important ‘leader’. It seems that way anyway, giving the students a chance to expand on other areas of their extracurricular activities instead of pushing this idea that everyone needs to show leadership in every endeavor!

Choose any of the questions but concentrate on your passions, what you do well, how you interact with others, how you will be valuable to the university as a student. As you said, Prompt 3 is not a good idea unless you turn your meticulous nature into a positive - attention to detail, making you a methodical thinker, etc., and I’m sorry to say that prompt 2 makes you sound like a daydreamer (which there is nothing wrong with, but I’m thinking admissions officers are probably not looking for). You could certainly use some of it though, to show that you are a creative person - I would just tweak it so that it shows more of your creative side and less of the ‘dreamer’.

And above all, whatever you decide to write, check, check and double-check that punctuation and spelling! Have a school counselor or other trusted adult look over your final answers before you submit them and take any suggestions to changes as positive criticism - I hope some of that helps you.