UC Personal Statement Workshop

AP Language and Composition

Mrs. Hughes

Eastlake High School

Word Counts

Write the word count for each prompt at the top of the first page of EACH prompt.

The maximum word count for BOTH prompts for today is 1200.

The maximum word count for BOTH prompts for UC is 1000.

UC does not dictate how many words you use for each question, however, responding to either prompt with fewer than 400 words may be difficult.

Purpose?

On the back of prompt 1, use three words to describe each of the following:

What is your “world” like? Do you answer the question and give them an understanding of where you come from?

How do you describe your “dreams and aspirations”? You do not have to have every detail of what your life after high school will be like mapped out, but you should give an indication about your future in the most specific terms you can use.

Purpose?

On the back of prompt 2:

What did you want your reader to understand about you?

How did you prove this?

Beginnings matter

Read the first line of your essay.

If you restated the prompt, revise.

If you started with a clichéd image such as an alarm clock, revise.

If you started with exposition about a topic such as leadership, or teamwork, or running, or anything that is not about you, revise.

If you started by addressing how confusing or difficult writing a personal statement is, revise.

If you don’t know how to begin, consider beginning with an image that really captures your response (world or what you are proud of) through your eyes.

The opening line should be engaging and concrete and set the tone for the rest of the essay.

When do you get to you?

Use a highlighter and write a star in the margin to identify when you get to YOU.

The essay shouldn’t be about other people who are a part of your world, it should be about you with your world as CONTEXT.

If it takes you ten lines to start talking about yourself, evaluate those first lines and keep only what is essential to establishing the context you need to get to YOU.

Get to you!

Don’t describe Eastlake (or your family, or the school, or anything) at a distance, describe your place in it. Eastlake is a suburb of San Diego and has rows and rows of beige houses.

Most people are middle to upper middle class in terms of income. It is a part of our community culture to participate in organized sports. Nothing really exciting happens in our neighborhood. (48 words)

My corner of suburbia is surrounded by 4000 tan houses just like mine. We have an average home in an average neighborhood. My backpack and sports bag look like everyone else’s but inside my sketch book and tattered journal conceal far away thoughts and dreams. (46 words)

Use power words and results-oriented language.

Examine your details. These should be specific and they should clarify your role and contribution. Note the difference in these two examples:

During high school I was a part of Key club and we raised funds to help people in our community. (20 words)

For the last two years as an officer in our Key club with 80 members I coordinated six events that raised $8000. (22 words)

Epiphany and Reflection

Lots of students will have experiences that overlap; your reaction to these shared experiences (failure, success, effort, etc.) must reflect sincere thought and examination about these experiences.

Your analysis about what you learned or how an experience impacted you should have multiple points.

Your analysis should be integrated throughout… not just a single thin line at the end of the essay.

From failure: Not only did you learn that if you work hard you can improve, but:

DIG, DIG, DIG!

Did you learn that you still enjoy activities that you aren’t the best at?

Did you learn that you actually can tolerate failure, that before you were terrified about?

Did you learn that people treated you differently when you had failed at something and it revealed something about those relationships?

Did you learn that you do better at things you select to do for yourself instead of activities that are prescribed or expected?

Did you realize that there is value in imperfection?

Did you learn that your parents’ love is not reliant on your success in every single thing you do? An that your pride and self-acceptance is not reliant on this either?

This is the HARD part… it involves self awareness and reflection, and honesty.

“Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.” Ernest Hemingway

Read your writing to omit extra language, imagery, or figurative elements that are CLOUDING up the content about you.

Choose concrete language over airy fluff.

Use proper nouns to make images more concrete.

Spend energy describing essential parts of narrative, not EVERY part of narrative. We don’t need to know how many sets of dishes your grandmother had in her cabinet. We might need to know that she raised you for four years when your father was deployed and your mother worked the night shift.

Use syntax to emphasize important elements.

Is an important idea about you or the context of the discussion getting lost in a sentence that is thirty words long? Trim it. Use a sentence of five or fewer words to isolate the idea, or consider using a string of shorter sentences that will stand out and change the tone. EX.:

Moving around from city to city when I was little really made it hard for me to form relationships with people and feel like I could ever participate in anything and get better at it. (36 words)

We moved in 4th grade. We moved in 7th grade. We moved last year. It was hard to get good at something or commit when I knew I would leave it eventually. (33 words)

From Context to Change

What did you learn from “your family, community or school” and how are you applying the lessons or outcomes?

How does this point of view inform other aspects of your life?

Connections

Is there a thread that connects many parts of your life? If it isn’t clear, make it clear.

Are you in Medical pathways, someone in your family has a health problem, and your volunteer work is headed in that direction? Make the connections clear.

Where are YOU in the experiences you are having?

Being in charge of your educational experiences and making deliberate and purposeful choices about how you spend your time is an important part of growing up and continuing your education.

What classes have you taken because YOU wanted to take them?

What organizations are you a part of that are important to YOU?

There is a given amount of experiences that are required, but what have you done that demonstrates your initiative?

Leadership is not about a title…

Leadership is an attractive quality in candidates, but not every person that has an official title is a great leader, and not every person that doesn’t have a title is incapable of leading.

Have there been instances when you took initiative to make something happen that wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t step up?

Have you been decisive in occasions where a decision needed to be made and no one wanted to make it?

Did you put a lot of work into an activity that had tangible results?

No lists…

The university will see your “lists” in another section of the application. Do not list anything in the essays that is already there. (classes, sports, awards, volunteer work)

The essays are to clarify WHY anything you did mattered or its significance in your personal and academic development.

I vs. We

The essays should be about you.

If you are talking about a team experience, frame it from your point of view and clarify your contribution to the outcome. Ex:

Focus on your contribution, not general team POV

My Colorguard team has always been a competitor at the World Championships in Ohio. We prepare for this competition for months and months. Our trip last season really proved how working as a team and putting in the extra hours of rehearsal can pay off. When our team was announced as being in the top twenty, all of us cried and knew that we would never forget this moment. (70 words)

I have been in Varsity Colorguard for two years and proudly represented my school as the solo lead in our competition routine for World Championships in Ohio where we placed in the top twenty. As a captain of the team I put in two extra hours per week rehearsing and planning with my advisor. I was also responsible for making travel arrangements and managing our team’s social media. (69 words)

No redundancy or overlap!

Check your two essays to make sure that none of the content overlaps.

If in your first essay you talked about your family has a long line of medical professionals and this is what interested you in volunteering at the hospital, don’t spend the second essay describing how proud you are of volunteering in the hospital.

Prove it!

Do not tell the reader you are a leader prove it with details and evidence about the results of your leadership.

Do not tell the reader that you are an artist, prove it with descriptions of your portfolio and the media you use in your work and any professional experience you have selling or showing your work to the public.

Do not tell the reader that you are someone who is curious, prove it with titles of books you have read outside of class, or classes you have taken on line to learn about something interesting, or lectures you have attended.

This is really an ARGUMENT. Telling us something is true, doesn’t make us believe it.

Endings matter!

Some generic strategies to avoid:

Do not address the university, “So if you give me the chance, I will prove that you made the right choice.”

Do not repeat language from the prompt: “So that is how my world shaped my dream to become a doctor.”

Do not use clichés: “I know the world is my oyster and…”, “I know that if I keep working hard, I will reach my goals.”

Do not address the act of writing the essay: “Well, it was hard to think about how to capture myself in these essays that you are reading, but…”

Do not end or begin with a famous quote. EVER.

BRAG ALERT!

Avoid saying how wonderful you are. It’s tempting because you really want them to know how wonderful you are, but it is annoying and immature.

Instead prove it. Don’t say you are a great leader, share results. Don’t say you are an exceptional athlete, share results. Don’t say you are so artistic, prove it.

Details are proof!

I have always been a great leader. From elementary school to high school I have always been ready to show my leadership. Leading people to be their best is really important to me. Being a great leader makes people understand that you can be counted on and relied upon. Taking the time to lead people in my club makes me proud. I know that being a great leader is going to help me in college to make a difference. (80 words)

I was elected as ASB Vice President by my peers in a school with over 3000 students. As ASB Vice president, I have chaired three pep assemblies, managed a blood drive that collected two hundred pints of blood, a developed a mentor program at a nearby elementary school. Being a model of punctuality, professionalism, and collaboration with my team of 45 ASB students has had positive results for my school. (71 words)

But Mrs. Hughes…I DON’T DO HIGH SCHOOL STUFF…???

You don’t have to have a long list of high school activities to be an interesting person.

Share activities from outside of school… part time job, church related, sports outside of school, family responsibilities, travel.

Reflect about what makes you happy, what makes you “tick”, what inspires you, what are you curious about.

Fantasy vs. Dream/Goal

I often meet students who say they want to become (fill in the blank career) and when I ask them what they are doing to learn about it or experience it… NOTHING.

I want to be a fashion designer, oh really? What do you sew? Can I see some sketches? Whose line do you follow? Answer ZERO.

I want to be a chef… What is your signature dish? Whose cookbooks have you read? What is your favorite ingredient to work with? Answer ZERO.

It’s ok not to know exactly what you want to do, but if you say something… then you MUST PROVE IT!

Now the work begins…

Final drafts are due October 8 and 9, 2015. You must attach your rough drafts that we work-

shopped to your final. Final word counts must be listed on each essay

and cannot exceed 1000 words for BOTH essays. Be sure to use rubric to understand how they will

be graded. Visit teacherweb for other resources.