Rising seniors, if you’re applying to any of the UC campuses (Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, UC Riverside or UC Merced), you might want to know that the UCs have updated their essay questions for the first time in a long time.

Over the next few posts, our top editors at www.topadmit.com, will be sharing their analysis of these questions and providing sample essays so you definitely want to stay tuned.

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Fall 2017 UC Essays

Directions

You will have 8 questions to choose from. You must respond to only 4 of the 8 questions.

Each response is limited to a maximum of 350 words.
Which questions you choose to answer is entirely up to you: But you should select questions that are most relevant to your experience and that best reflect your individual circumstances.
Keep in mind

All questions are equal: All are given equal consideration in the application review process, which means there is no advantage or disadvantage to choosing certain questions over others.
There is no right or wrong way to answer these questions: It’s about getting to know your personality, background, interests and achievements in your own unique voice.

1. Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time.

2. Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.

3. What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?

4. Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

5. Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?

6. Describe your favorite academic subject and explain how it has influenced you.

7. What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?

8. What is the one thing that you think sets you apart from other candidates applying to the University of California?

Confounded by that admissions essay? Don’t know where to start? Just remember that you have a story to tell, and this is your chance to shine: be a “STAR!”

S – Situation

T – Task

A – Action

R – Result

It’s all about telling a story. Remember the last dramatic movie you watched? Very likely there was an opening shot to establish what the story was going to be about–the situation. Soon after that, the hero or heroine made an appearance and it became clear exactly what kind of challenge might be confronting him or her in the course of this film–they had a task before them. And then–Action! The heroine made her moves, did her thing, and moved the story forward, until finally the original situation was resolved and there was some sort of closure. In the end, the audience knew the result.

The Situation

This is the set-up of the story, giving TIME, PLACE and CONTEXT. It could be a general setting, but it might also include the broader challenge or conflict that you or your organization faced.

For example an applicant might write: “Last year, I volunteered to chair a fundraising committee for cancer research at my company, where we were challenged to meet a fundraising goal of $10,000.”

This answers the question: What was the situation that I (or my team) faced *before* I started taking action?

The Task

This is your role in the story. It often takes the form of a GOAL, an OBJECTIVE STATEMENT, or an IMPORTANT DECISION to be resolved. It’s important to highlight your collaboration with others, but remember that for purposes of the essay, you are the star of your own story.

For example: “My main functions were to assign specific jobs to committee members, check on their progress, and help establish and meet deadlines for obtaining donations.”

This answers the question: What specific challenge did I face, given the aforementioned situation?

The Action

Here’s the heart of the story: admissions officers want to know how you work in action. Offer the highlights and don’t get bogged down in too much detail. This could be in a team context, but remember to show how your actions made a contribution.

For example: “I motivated the team by having them meet recovering cancer patients. I assigned tasks and checked in regularly, and successfully mediated team disputes. I led the team to visit 20 local businesses and ensured that deadlines were met.”

This answers the question: What actions did I take to resolve the situation and advance toward my (our) goal?

The Result

It’s very important to show that there were indeed concrete results and that your actions made a difference. Specific details count here, and you should quantify your results.

For example: “My team convinced 25 businesses and 18 individuals to make donations, directly helping to raise $15,000 for the organization and exceeding our fundraising goal by 50%.”

This answers the question: What was the impact of my actions, and what was the final resolution of the dilemma outlined at the beginning of the story?

If this is ambiguous, muddled or uncertain, then you may want to go back and re-frame the situation or pick another story to tell altogether. On the other hand, a positive outcome and happy ending will make your story more powerful and establish you as its star!

As you start out on your MBA application journey, it’s easy to overlook the importance of your professional résumé. Compared with the other lengthy essays you must complete for your applications, this simple one-page document might look like a piece of cake. But don’t be fooled! The admissions committee very likely will turn to your résumé before anything else in order to get a sense of who you are and what you want to do.

And so no matter how impressive the rest of your package may be, a bad first impression here could cut short your chances right at the start. It’s like entering a first -round interview with a white shoe investment bank or top consulting firm–and as soon as you walk in, the interviewer notices a huge stain on your tie. In short, you’ve blown it before you even began.

Here at Top Admit, we have reviewed upward of 10,000 professional résumés as part of our world-class admissions consulting service. Building on this long-standing experience, and the unrivalled expertise of our consulting team, we have distilled the essence of a successful business school application essay and are ready to share a few tips with you here!

1. Keep the format clean and simple.

You are entering the world of business, where your experience is expected to speak for itself. So typography should be traditional with nothing fancy–sorry, undergraduate design majors, but this is not the place to show off your personality. Use a single conventional font such as Times New Roman or Arial, with no more than two or three different font sizes throughout the document.

2. Keep it to just one page.

No matter how tremendous your lifelong career feats may be, running to a second page will try the patience of an admissions officer or prospective employer–and raise questions on your ability to judge what’s important. Leave in only the essentials.

3. Keep it proportional. In addition to uniform font sizes and styles, you should also avoid overcrowding in some sections or excessive blank spaces in others. In other words, your résumé should be aesthetically pleasing with well-proportioned blocks of text. Try this trick: turn your résumé upside down, and from this new perspective take note of any sections that appear “unbalanced.”

4. Use reverse chronological order and get straight to the point.

The order of your biographical narrative should be in the form of a “flashback,” in line with the logical approach followed by European and American writers. Remember that Western essay writing style usually gets straight to the point, and thus your résumé must be prioritized and place your most recent experience first.

5. Give one-line overviews of your past employers.

Unless your position was at a Fortune 500 company, the admissions committee may not be familiar with your past employers. After listing your company name and position, try inserting one line to explain its size, line of business, etc.

6. Quantify your achievements.

By how much did you increase sales during that stellar quarter? How many more widgets did your department ship as a result of your efforts? What were the before and after percentages of your customer retention rates? And most importantly of all, how much money was involved? This will give the adcom a greater appreciation of your achievements.

7. Use these sixteen action verbs!

Action verbs grab attention and generate interest. These are the most common verbs we’ve identified in successful Ivy League résumés, and you should try starting each bullet point item in your résumé with one of the following: Analyzed. Designed. Managed. Developed. Researched. Recruited. Modeled. Led. Improved. Performed. Conducted. Established. Negotiated. Assessed. Authored. Supervised.

8. Have your résumé reviewed and edited by a professional consultant.

Both for your upcoming business school applications and for subsequent recruitment, your résumé stands as the single most important document that will be used to represent yourself and open doors to a bright and lucrative career. First as an applicant and later as a newly-minted MBA, you will be in constant competition with literally the best and brightest of the business world. And many (if not most) of your peers will already have engaged professional consulting services to get a leg up–over you. Don’t you deserve to invest in yourself as well?

TopAdmit is here to help. Our experienced team of experts–all extremely well trained, and many hailing from Ivy League schools such as Harvard–are standing by ready to help you. And compared with other services, we offer this level of consulting expertise at an affordable price level you won’t find anywhere else. Investing in yourself now will bring a many-thousand-fold return over a lifetime, so call us now!

Topadmit Customer Service: service@topadmit.com

U.S.:+1-213-559-2448

Taiwan:+886-2-2763-1150

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Everyone has a story, an experience that leads to a life changing moment. Most students feel that their life is not exciting enough or lacks “fun”. Asian students especially tend to downplay personal experiences, and often feel mired in what appears to be a life spent studying and engaging in serious-minded, prescribed extracurriculars, such as English and math tutoring or intense training in a musical instrument that gives them no particular joy. Despite all of these negative distinctions, what sometimes students don’t realize is that application essays are not the place to complain. Telling yourself – or the admissions committee – that you have nothing interesting to write about will send your essay directly to the “rejection” pile. Continue reading