Complete Your Brag Sheet

I developed this brag sheet to help you think about how to write your UC personal statement. You can also use it to help you fill out the application.

Brag sheet is mandatory if you want me to work with you on your personal statement. Please visit Services for the service packages I offer.

To prepare a Ms. Sun's Special Home Made Brag Sheet for Freshman Applicants, you will need:

A list of everything you do outside of school starting from your freshman year in high school to what you project you will be doing to the end of senior year

Include things like: sports church or temple activities Sunday/Chinese/Hebrew schools clubs or student government music/dance/art lessons volunteering or community service competitions of any kind recognition by any organization jobs (even if you work "under the table") hefty chores (caring for your siblings for more than 4-5 hours per day, having to cook for the family, having to pay bills and balance household finances, etc.)

Exclude things like: sleeping brushing your teeth shopping texting

The name of your high school and the city where it is located (for CA only; this enables me to look up the UC-approved curriculum of your high school online in order to evaluate the rigor of your course schedule)

List the a-g courses you completed between 9th and 11th grade, the grades you received, and your planned 12th grade schedule (denote the UC-approved Honors, AP, IB, and/or community college courses on your list)

Scores for SAT Reasoning, ACT plus Writing Assessment, SAT Subject Tests, and/or AP exams

List and explain the two proudest things you achieved in high school and two most disappointing things that happened in high school (and not about the Homecoming Dance or your significant other)

Any medical/family/personal situations or problems you intend to discuss in your personal statement

I strongly encourage you to disclose situations such as learning disabilities, deaths in the family (during high school), divorce, working illegally (under the table) and/or abuse in your personal statement and how they impacted your academic performance and/or extracurricular participation

A list of all the colleges to which you are interested in applying

What you expect to major in college and what you want to do with that major when you graduate. If you don't know what you want to major, then what fields do you think you may be interested in pursuing and what do you think you might want to do in those fields?

What legacy do you want to leave behind? What is the one thing you want people to remember about you?

The UCSB Personal Statement Worksheet Please answer the questions on page 2 of the PDF form.

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Personal Statement Writing Guidelines

The UC personal statement prompts change every few years; if they were to change, it will usually happen by late summer, before September. Make sure you check the current personal statement prompts before starting your personal statement.

I strongly encourage you to follow some kind of writing process. While a personal statement is not your regular English paper, it should, at the very least, have a central idea, evidence to support the idea, and transition from paragraph to paragraph. Please do NOT use essays that you wrote in your English class as your personal statement. English teachers tend to dissuade students from using first-person perspective, narrating, or getting into descriptive details, and these are precisely the type of tools that help make a personal statement successful.

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Prompt 1 for Freshman Applicants

The way Prompt 1 is worded can be a bit misleading. According to what I heard from Berkeley admissions, application evaluators (or at the very least, Berkeley and Irvine - confirmed by a student who attended a workshop given by UCI) want you to discuss your dreams and aspirations, and what you have done so far to achieve those dreams and aspirations. While it is important for you to define your world, you should NOT use your personal statement to describe your family, school or community.

I recommend approaching the first prompt by figuring out what your world is, what your dreams/aspirations are, and what you have done in the context of your world to achieve those dreams/aspirations.

Your world can have physical boundaries (for example, your bedroom, the church prayer room, or the community center) or mental boundaries (for example, your upbringing or cultural tradition). Another way to think about your world is by imagining yourself as a fish; are you in a fishbowl, a stream, a pond, or an ocean?

Your dreams and aspirations can be broad or specific; perhaps you aspire to help people (broad) or maybe your dream is to be a TB specialist serving with Doctor Without Borders in Somalia (specific). Either way, you should discuss how your achievements (academic and/or extracurricular, within the context of your world) have helped you move toward achieving that dream/aspiration. You also want to consider talking about how you plan to continue these achievements in college.

Whatever you choose to discuss in this prompt, remember the main focus should be on YOU; what you have accomplished, what your goals are for the future, and why you will succeed (in life and/or in college).

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Prompt 2 for All Applicants

Prompt 2 is a way for you to showcase something about yourself that makes you stand out from your peers. You can do that by discussing a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience (pq/t/a/c/e for short). Make sure you cover 1) why this pq/t/a/c/e is important to you, 2) why you are proud of this pq/t/a/c/e, and 3) what the pq/t/a/c/e says about you as an individual. You may also consider discussing how this pq/t/a/c/e will help you succeed in college. Again, the main focus of your essay should be on YOU; what makes you different from other applicants, who you are as a person (beyond your grades and test scores), and what interests you have. You can also think of Prompt 2 as a commercial spot for yourself. What would be the theme of the commercial? What clips from your life would be featured in the commercial?

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How Do I Know If My Personal Statement Is Good?

Swap personal statement with friends or put away your personal statement draft for couple days so you can read it with fresh eyes. Then evaluate the personal statement using this rule from Collegewise founder, Kevin McMullin: pretend you are reading the personal statement to pick your college roommate.

After reading the personal statement, ask yourself if you have a good idea of what the person is like and whether you would want to be friends with that person. Revise the personal statement if anything sounds cliché, obnoxious, or intellectually-challenged. Your personal statement should leave a positive impression even if you are discussing hardships (the focus should be on how you overcame the hardships). Avoid famous quotes (one of the worst kind of clichés), racially charged comments (even

self-deprecating ones, because that's just not cool), and grandiose life lessons you didn't actually learn (yes, people can tell when you are being insincere).