<p>So I just wrote my personal statements today and profread them and finished my uc application. The whole process probably took 5 hours. Why is everyone so worried/ stressing over the essays. They werent even that hard.</p>
<p>I think any time someone comes up against a deadline they stress, its human nature.</p>
<p>While I’m sure you “profread” your essays thoroughly, many experts on writing recommend waiting a few days before looking over your own work. Furthermore, most of us had others review our papers before we submitted them.</p>
<p>Because some people don’t want to regret not being meticulous with their application. When that day comes and you get rejected and you tell yourself, “Oh I should’ve done this…”, people don’t want that to happen so they take more time now when it is actually important.</p>
<p>I can’t generalize here b/c we’re all on a different boat. If you have a 3.20, then you probably should spend more time on it. If you have a 3.8 for a non-impacted major, you have room to take it easy. Either way, if you look at what the prompts are asking, they shouldn’t be that hard. It’s one of those things where I’d spend the least amount of time I could, given my situation (GPA, major, etc).</p>
<p>I’m applying for Haas, which means that 35% of the decision is based on personal statements:</p>
<p>[Application</a> and Selection Calendar, Undergraduate Program - Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley](<a href=“Admission FAQ - Undergraduate Program - Berkeley Haas”>Admission FAQ - Undergraduate Program - Berkeley Haas)</p>
<p>Admission committee members i’ve talked to at Berkeley have claimed that the ratio is somewhat similar for L&S majors. If you applied to Berkeley and spent 5 hours on your personal statements (ECs/WE/etc.), then that would be like taking a 100 minute test and spending 99.9999 minutes on 65% of the test (grades and resume) and .0001 minutes on the other 35%. </p>
<p>In addition, if your major is competitive, then you’re not only trying to write a good statement, you are trying to write a better statement than the thousands of other people competing for your admission spot. The statements start to seem “hard” once you read other people’s statements and realize that theirs are better.</p>
<p>There’s a limit to how much time you can spend on an essay, but 5 hours seems a little low unless the rest of your app is strong enough to make you a lock without it.</p>
<p>Everything relate to your future = nervous :)</p>
<p>you don’t know if you’re going to be accepted or not. the anxiety is killer!</p>
<p>I’m applying for Haas, which means that 35% of the decision is based on personal statements:</p>
<p>[Application</a> and Selection Calendar, Undergraduate Program - Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley](<a href=“Admission FAQ - Undergraduate Program - Berkeley Haas”>Admission FAQ - Undergraduate Program - Berkeley Haas)</p>
<p>Admission committee members i’ve talked to at Berkeley have claimed that the ratio is somewhat similar for L&S majors. If you applied to Berkeley and spent 5 hours on your personal statements (ECs/WE/etc.), then that would be liked taking a 100 minute test and spending 99.9999 minutes on 65% of the test (grades and resume) and .0001 minutes on the other 35%. </p>
<p>In addition, if your major is competitive, then you’re not only trying to write a good statement, you are trying to write a better statement than the thousands of other people competing for your admission spot. The statements start to seem “hard” once you read other people’s statements and realize that theirs are better.</p>
<p>There’s a limit to how much time you can spend on an essay, but 5 hours seems a little low unless the rest of your app is strong enough to make you a lock without it.</p>
<p>Because we don’t want to make any mistakes when we “profread” our essays. Adcoms could usually tell if you did your personal statements the last minute or didn’t really put time into it.</p>