How long do the uc prompts have to be

Which is the best UC school? Which is the hardest UC to get into? Which UC has the prettiest campus? Is the UC system prestigious? What is the cheapest UC school? What colleges are easy to get into in California? Does tuition cover all 4 years? How much does it cost to attend UCLA for 4 years?

What major is UCLA best known for? What is the hardest major to get into at UCLA? How did overcoming this barrier help shape who you are today? 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? Things to consider: A challenge could be personal, or something you have faced in your community or school.

Why was the challenge significant to you? Did you have support from someone else or did you handle it alone? Think about an academic subject that inspires you. If that applies to you, what have you done to further that interest?

Have you been able to pursue coursework at a higher level in this subject honors, AP, IB, college or university work? Are you inspired to pursue this subject further at UC, and how might you do that? What have you done to make your school or your community a better place? Things to consider: Think of community as a term that can encompass a group, team or a place — like your high school, hometown or home.

You can define community as you see fit, just make sure you talk about your role in that community. Was there a problem that you wanted to fix in your community? Why were you inspired to act? What did you learn from your effort?

How did your actions benefit others, the wider community or both? Did you work alone or with others to initiate change in your community?

Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand out as a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?

What have you not shared with us that will highlight a skill, talent, challenge or opportunity that you think will help us know you better? From your point of view, what do you feel makes you an excellent choice for UC? Making a list of accomplishments, activities, awards or work will lessen the impact of your words.

You could discuss the emotional fallout of having dramatically succeeded, or how your maturity level, concrete skills, or understanding of the situation has increased, now that you have dealt with it personally. Or, you could talk about any beliefs or personal philosophy that you have had to reevaluate as a result of either the challenge itself, or of the way that you had to go about solving it.

A short, clear description of exactly what you got the chance to do: In your own words, explain what the opportunity was, and why it's special. Also explain why you specifically got the chance to do it.

Was it the culmination of years of study? An academic contest prize? An unexpected encounter that led to you seizing an unlooked-for opportunity? How you made the best of it: It's one thing to get the opportunity to do something amazing, but it's another to really maximize what you get out of this chance for greatness. This is where you show just how much you understand the value of what you did, and how you've changed and grown as a result of it. Were you very challenged by this opportunity?

Did your skills develop? Did you unearth talents you didn't know you had? How does this impact your future academic ambitions or interests?

Will you study this area further? Does this help you find your academic focus? Of course, whatever you write about in this essay is probably already reflected on your resume or in your transcript in some small way. But UC wants to go deeper, to find out how seriously you take your academic career, and how thoughtfully you've approached either its ups or its downs. In college, there will be many amazing opportunities, but they aren't necessarily simply there for the taking.

Instead, you will be responsible for seizing whatever chances will further your studies, interests, or skills. Conversely, college will necessarily be more challenging, harder, and potentially much more full of academic obstacles than your academic experiences so far. UC wants to see that you are up to handling whatever setbacks may come your way with aplomb rather than panic. Not every challenge is automatically obvious. Sure, everyone can understand the drawbacks of having to miss a significant amount of school due to illness, but what if the obstacle you tackled is something a little more obscure?

Likewise, winning the chance to travel to Italy to paint landscapes with a master is clearly rare and amazing, but some opportunities are more specialized and less obviously impressive. Make sure your essay explains everything the reader will need to know to understand what you were facing. An essay describing problems can easily slip into finger-pointing and self-pity.

Make sure to avoid this by speaking positively or at least neutrally about what was wrong and what you faced.

This goes double if you decide to explain who or what was at fault for creating this problem. Likewise, an essay describing amazing opportunities can quickly become an exercise in unpleasant bragging and self-centeredness. Make sure you stay grounded—rather than dwelling at length on your accomplishments, describe the specifics of what you learned and how. Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. Things to consider : A challenge could be personal, or something you have faced in your community or school.

Why was the challenge significant to you? This is a good opportunity to talk about any obstacles you've faced and what you've learned from the experience.

Did you have support from someone else or did you handle it alone? If you're currently working your way through a challenge, what are you doing now, and does that affect different aspects of your life? For example, ask yourself, "How has my life changed at home, at my school, with my friends, or with my family? It's time to draw back the curtains and expand our field of vision, because this is going to be a two-part story of overcoming adversity against all or some odds.

The first part of this essay is about problem-solving. The prompt asks you to point at something that could have derailed you, if not for your strength and skill. Not only will you describe the challenge itself, but you'll talk about what you did when faced with it.

The second part of Topic B asks you to consider how this challenge has echoed through your life—and more specifically, how your education has been affected by what happened to you. In life, dealing with setbacks, defeats, barriers, and conflicts is not a bug—it's a feature.

And colleges want to make sure that you can handle these upsetting events without losing your overall sense of self, without being totally demoralized, and without getting completely overwhelmed. In other words, they are looking for someone who is mature enough to do well on a college campus, where disappointing results and hard challenges will be par for the course.

They are also looking for your creativity and problem-solving skills. Are you good at tackling something that needs to be fixed? Can you keep a cool head in a crisis? Do you look for solutions outside the box? These are all markers of a successful student, so it's not surprising that admissions people want you to demonstrate these qualities. It's one thing to be able to say what's wrong, but it's another thing entirely to demonstrate how you figured out how to fix it.

Even more than knowing that you were able to fix the problem, colleges want to see how you approached the situation. This is why your essay needs to explain your problem-solving methodology. Basically, we need to see you in action.

What did you think would work? What did you think would not work? Did you compare this to other problems you have faced and pass? Did you do research? Describe your process. This essay is supposed to demonstrate your resourcefulness and creativity.

The last thing you want is for you to not actually be the person responsible for overcoming the obstacle. Make sure that your story is clear that without you and your special brand of XYZ, people would still be lamenting the issue today. Don't worry if the resource you used to affect a good fix was the knowledge and know-how that somebody else brought to the table. Just focus on explaining what made you think of this person as the one to go to, how you convinced them to participate, and how you explained to them how they would be helpful.

This will shift the attention of the story back to you and your doings. The most exciting part of this essay should be watching you struggle to find a solution just in the nick of time. You want to do the same thing here. Bring excitement and a feeling of uncertainty to your description of your process to really pull the reader in and make them root for you to succeed. Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Things to consider : Many students have a passion for one specific academic subject area, something that they just can't get enough of.

If that applies to you, what have you done to further that interest? Have you been able to pursue coursework at a higher level in this subject honors, AP, IB, college or university work? Are you inspired to pursue this subject further at UC, and how might you do that? For some students, this will be an extremely straightforward question. For example, say you've always loved science to the point that you've spent every summer taking biology and chemistry classes.

You can just pick a few of the most gripping moments from these experiences and discuss the overall trajectory of your interests, and your essay will be a winner. But what if you have many academic interests?

Or what if you only discovered your academic passion at the very end of high school? Let's break down what the question is really asking into two parts. At first glance, it sounds as if what you should write about is the class where you have gotten the best grades, or the class that easily fits into what you see as your future college major or maybe even your eventual career goal. There is nothing wrong with this kind of pick—especially if you really are someone who tends to excel in those classes that are right up your interest alley.

But if we look closer, we see that there is nothing in the prompt that specifically demands that you write either about a particular class or an area of study where you perform well.

Instead, you could take the phrase "academic subject" to mean a wide field of study and explore your fascination with the different types of learning to be found there. For example, if your chosen topic is the field of literature, you could discuss your experiences with different genres or with foreign writers. You could also write about a course or area of study that has significantly challenged you, and where you have not been as stellar a student as you want.

This could be a way to focus on your personal growth as a result of struggling through a difficult class, or the way you've learned to handle or overcome your limitations. The second part of this prompt, like the first, can also be taken in a literal and direct way.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with explaining that because you love engineering and want to be an engineer you have pursued all your school's STEM courses, are also involved in a robotics club, and have taught yourself to code in order to develop apps. On the other hand, you could focus on the more abstract, values-driven goals we just talked about. Then, the way you explain how your academics will help you can be rooted not in the content of what you studied, but in the life lessons you drew from it.

In other words, for example, your theater class may not have created a desire to be an actor, but working on plays with your peers may have shown you how highly you value collaboration. And the experience of designing sets was an exercise in problem-solving and ingenuity.

These lessons would be useful in any field you pursue and could easily be said to help you achieve your lifetime goals. If you are on a direct path to a specific field of study or career pursuit, admissions officers definitely want to know that. Having driven, goal oriented, and passionate students is a huge plus for a university. So if this is you, be sure that your essay conveys not just your interest but also your deep and abiding love of the subject, and maybe even include any related clubs, activities, and hobbies that you've done during high school.

But of course, more traditionally, college is the place to find yourself and the things that you become passionate about. So if you're not already committed to a specific course of study, don't worry. Instead, you have to realize that in this essay, like in all the other essays, the how matters much more than the what. No matter where your eventual academic, career, or other pursuits may lie, every class that you have taken up to now has taught you something.

You learned about things like work ethic, mastering a skill, practice, learning from a teacher, interacting with peers, dealing with setbacks, understanding your own learning style, and perseverance.

In other words, the admissions office wants to make sure that no matter what you study you will draw meaningful conclusions from your experiences, whether those conclusions are about the content of what you learn or about a deeper understanding of yourself and others. They want to see that you're not simply floating through life on the surface, but that you are absorbing the qualities, skills, and know-how you will need to succeed in the world—no matter what that success looks like.

Focus on a telling detail. Because personal statements are short, you simply won't have time to explain everything you have loved about a particular subject in enough detail to make it count.

Instead, pick one event that crystallized your passion for a subject, or one telling moment that revealed what your working style will be, and go deep into a discussion of what it meant to you in the past and how it will affect your future.

Don't overreach. It's fine to say that you have loved your German classes so much that you have begun exploring both modern and classic German-language writers, for example, but it's a little too self-aggrandizing to claim that your 4 years of German have made you basically bilingual and ready to teach the language to others. Make sure that whatever class achievements you describe don't come off as unnecessary bragging rather than simple pride. Don't underreach.

At the same time, make sure that you have actual accomplishments to describe in whatever subject you pick to write about.

If your favorite class turned out to be the one you mostly skipped to hang out in the gym instead, this may not be the place to share that lifetime goal. After all, you always have to remember your audience. In this case, it's college admissions officers who want to find students who are eager to learn and be exposed to new thoughts and ideas. Things to consider : Think of community as a term that can encompass a group, team or a place — like your high school, hometown or home.

You can define community as you see fit, just make sure you talk about your role in that community. Was there a problem that you wanted to fix in your community? Why were you inspired to act? What did you learn from your effort? How did your actions benefit others, the wider community or both?

How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time? If you are really proud of one of your abilities, now is the time to show it. The UC schools want students who bring a variety of backgrounds and interests, and choosing to write this essay is a good opportunity to show a new side of yourself. Neither is it required that you have received an award for this talent! You can write about an internal characteristic such as an easy facility for making friends with new people.

Or it can be something quirky like being a phenomenal cartoonist. In fact, it is better if the skill you mention is unique because your UC essays need to establish you as a memorable candidate.

We can assure you that many of your peers are going to be talented writers, musicians, and singers. You need to bring your own exceptional spin. As for personal characteristics, asserting that a trait like kindness is your greatest asset is frankly boring and vague. Think about what differentiates you. The main point of your essay should emphasize why this talent or skill is meaningful to you.

Why are you particularly proud of this talent? Is it a natural skill, or did it take time to develop? Will you continue to use this talent in your future goals and career? What have you learned about yourself while pursuing this skill?

Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced. Maybe you took online classes or did outside research. Anything where you went beyond regular curriculum to find ways to expand your knowledge on a topic of interest counts for this prompt among the UC essays. If your school presented you with ample academic opportunities, you can tackle the other half of the question.

Show how your intellectual curiosity has driven you to do more than just your assigned schoolwork. Have you taken courses at a community college? Have you done a summer academic program? The UC schools want to see that you have challenged yourself academically and have an innate desire to expand yourself intellectually. Admissions officers want to know what motivated the initiative, what you learned in the process, and how it might have prepared you for college.

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? This is an adversity question, so be careful here. Before you choose this topic, it is important to think about how your situation compares to your peers.