UC Transfer 2012 Personal Statement

Transfer Students UC Transfers
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<p>Hello everyone! As most of you may know, this November, Fall 2012 applicants are going to apply to the schools of their choices. Along with the application form is the 'dreaded', 'infamous' personal statement/essay that makes hundreds of students worried each year. So I'm starting this thread so everyone can share what you guys will write about in this statement. For those of you who don't know abt this essay, the below passages are taken from UC main webpage (University</a> of California - Personal statement) : </p>

<p>
[quote]
Responses to your two prompts must be a maximum of 1,000 words total.
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>Transfer applicant prompt</p>

<p>What is your intended major? Discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experience you have had in the field — such as volunteer work, internships and employment, participation in student organizations and activities — and what you have gained from your involvement. </p>

<p>General prompt
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?

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</p>

<p>Hopefully, this thread will be a place to share ideas and thoughts about your essay, and if possible, it would be great to post your essay here and ask ppl to review it and how strong it is.</p>

<p>I'll start first then:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>For the General Prompt, I am going to write about my biggest screw-job so far T____T. Basically, during my first semester at my CC, I took the ESL Assessment Test (I'm an international student), and for some weird reasons, I was placed into a beginning/ intermediate English class. It was very frustrating, but I'm glad that I got through that class and took the Placement Exam again and got to English 1A last semester. Also, because I was not able to get a 'good' registration date as a new student, and at that time, I knew nothing about 'add code', I could not get Calculus 1 my 1st semester too. In short, my 1st semester at CC was really horrid, but somehow right now I'm catching up, and hopefully will be able to complete everything as a Comp Sci major in one and a half year. </p></li>
<li><p>For the other prompt, I'm going to tell the UCs how interested I am in Comp Sci, and that I would love to get a job in Silicon Valley as a software engineer. I also joined the Computer Club at school, took part in creating its website, and that the only EC I have right now :D</p></li>
</ul>

<p>What do you think about my story? Is it good or bad? Is it self-boasting too much or do I have the rights to bring that personal screw-job into my essay? I'd love to hear your stories as well and what you intend to write about. Thanks everyone for reading through this wall of text ;)</p>

<p>Oh and by the way, I'm also looking for some advice on how to begin this statement. Do I have to start with sth boring as: "My name is blah-blah-blah, I am a student at xxx CC and I am majoring in Comp Sci. I am 20 years old and I hail from ..." ? Could you guys please suggest any ways to start the essay in an interesting and appealing way to readers? Thank you</p>

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<p>bumpppppp… any thoughts guys?</p>

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<p>Is this your actual essay or simply a summary:</p>

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<p>*I wouldn’t use informal terms as “screw-job.” If you’re aiming for hyperbole (exaggeration), stick with words like “blunder” or “misjudgment.” When I’m assigned personal essays I don’t treat it like a text message. :smiley: </p>

<p>*The summary you wrote is NOT bad because the prompt is rather ambiguous. In terms of creativity, think positive situations. Writing about a mess up community college isn’t particularly inspiring and might actually turn off a reviewer. If you had brain cancer or someone died during community college then you could piggy back off that and talk about how far you went to deal with the grieving while also finishing school.</p>

<p>I do not know how much weight they put into essays at UC. I’ve written so many of these essays I’d probably just recycle one I wrote in high school.</p>

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<p>Lol. that’s just a summary. Basically, I had a hard time but I also benefited a lot because I actually had a lot of free time in that 1st semester doing research about UCs and their requirements. As far as I know, a lot of international students rely too much on their counselors, and TBH, after meeting one at my school and see others’ posts in this forum, I found out that counselors are not THAT reliable at all. </p>

<p>

I am proud that I am doing everything on my own and I’m on the right track, and although that difficult time gave me a lot of frustration and pessimistic, I am now a better person and have much more knowledge about the transfer process, etc. and I’m also proud that I have helped 3-4 students that was in the same situation as I was. That’s basically what I am going to write in my essay :smiley: Sorry abt all those words above that make you misunderstand but of course it’s just my personal feeling, I don’t dare enough to put those words in my essay lol</p>

<p>

No one is rescinded based on the essay alone, but it will DEFINITELY improve your chance if you are short in GPA and/or EC. In my case, I had little to zero EC at all, so I’m going to give my best shot at the essay, although my English is not very good…</p>

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<p>If English is not your first language and they know it it shouldn’t be held against you. For personal essays I like to keep things tight and simple. Situations a reader could sympathize with or relate to. I like your premise and I’m sure your essay is fine. If I were you I’d reach out to a close teacher or someone you know with a high proficiency in English to proof read your essay and give you advice.</p>

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<p>Great job @snipehunter for getting fall 2012 transfers thinking about personal statements again, or at least me.</p>

<p>Just keep the personal statement concise, while emphasizing your strong points and why you are a better student because of your early “screw job” </p>

<p>I think that you can find something better to talk about besides the “screw job” though
Ex. Talk about how attending community college opened doors for you or how your work ethic is stronger than before because of your early pitfalls. </p>

<p>I am also having a hard time trying to start my essay but I don’t want to start with Hi I am yadadadadad</p>

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<p>My accomplishment would be getting my act together after so many downs. Raising my GPA from a 2.2 to 3.0 by attending two CC’s while I was going through Pharmacy Tech classes, so three schools.
Maybe I will mention how I was not able to get a Chemistry101/1/1A what ever you call it, which was a key class for a Biology major, because you need it to go to BIO2ndYear. And how I actually found my actual calling during that moment of slump because of late registration dates.</p>

<p>My major…? Linguistics. I would want to teach English in some Asian country preferably Korea at the moment. I was active at a Korean Club, I guess. I also did some tutoring for Spanish in HS. If you think about it… I was teaching language. Not necessarily English but it was teaching. How I shifted from a science major to a more… English/Education base.</p>

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<p>Transfer applicant prompt</p>

<p>What is your intended major? Discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experience you have had in the field — such as volunteer work, internships and employment, participation in student organizations and activities — and what you have gained from your involvement.</p>

<p>Neuroscience; got interested in psychology/brain sciences while being in out-patient rehab for drug use. Read books and such and got even more interested; didn’t do much ec’s related to my major :confused: </p>

<p>General prompt
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>talent; very good at pottery from using it as a distraction towards drugs at first. now one of my favorite hobbies. going to relate to shaping my life to what it is now compared to being lazy and apathetic towards education and minus drug use</p>

<p>tips please? need lots of help lol very bad at personal essays</p>

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<p>drugs? like illegal drugs?</p>

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<p>^

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<p>as he said</p>

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<p>yea but im not going to write about drugs haha.</p>

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<p>I’m applying to 4 different UC schools with 4 different major!! UCLA - History, CAL - Legal studies, UCR - Biz Admin, and UCSD - Economics. I don’t know how to make a connection with all four major!? I don’t have a clue how i would do the first part of the promt, any help would be highly appreciated :)</p>

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<p>Are you planning on going to a professional school after you graduate?? …Like Law School?? …if so, then you need to show that you have a broad range of interests that ecompass these areas, and that you have a passion for each one of them.</p>

<p>Then you need to make the case as to to how getting a BS in one of these areas will help you in your ultimate goal to attend law school (if that is what you intend doing).</p>

<p>It is definitely considerably more difficult to do this (compared with if you just had one particular field to deal with), but it is definitely doable with careful thought and planning.</p>

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<p>Hey guys in regards to the prompts, are we going to write the transfer prompt for each different major per school? Like I want to apply to UCLA and UCSD but I will choose different majors for those schools. I’m expected to write the “what is your intended major?” for each major I’m applying for right?</p>

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<p>^ Nope. You have to combine them into one transfer statement.</p>

<p>So if the two majors you are applying for are going to aid you in getting to the same field of work, grad school program, law school, etc. then talk about that. If not, then find a way to split the statement between the two.</p>

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<p>Are contractions a yay or nay in personal statements? I’m worried that using them may make me sound unprofessional, but then again, they can really reduce the number of words I use.</p>

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<p>Responses to your two prompts must be a maximum of 1,000 words total.
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>Transfer applicant prompt</p>

<p>What is your intended major? Discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experience you have had in the field — such as volunteer work, internships and employment, participation in student organizations and activities — and what you have gained from your involvement. </p>

<p>General prompt
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>****** what does it mean by if you choose to respond to one prompt at greater lenght, we sugeest your shorter answer be no less than 250 words? i really don’t understand…does it meant if i chose one prompt for my personal statement,it has to be more than 250 words or less than 250 words…i’m so confused! please help…</p>

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<p>The shorter of the 2 should be no less than 250 words</p>

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<p>for the general prompt i wrote about balancing a pencil on my nose :D.</p>

<p>for the transfer prompt i wrote about staring at a piece of paper and trying to determine if i could trust my memory.</p>

<p>Got in to berkeley.</p>

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<p>@absurdmike</p>

<p>OMG, post your essays. I’ll copy your general prompt but switch balancing to shooting, and pencil to ping-pong ball, and nose to… well. Definitely not nose.</p>

<p>Should get me into 'SB, right?</p>