The Personal Statement

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The Personal Statement

• Manuel Nunez
• UC Santa Cruz Educational Partnership Center

2
OVERVIEW

• Purpose of the personal statement
• Case Study (two parts)
• Instructions and Prompts
• Writing Strategies for Students

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Purpose of the Personal Statement

• Part of the UCs Comprehensive review process
• Opportunity to provide information that supports
  and augments the review process
• Helps readers know and understand applicants
• Adds clarity, depth and meaning to information in
  others parts of the UC application
• Completes the application for admission
• An admission decisions will never be based on the
  content of a personal statement alone

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Message from UC Faculty

• While its acceptable to receive feedback or
  helpful suggestions, applicants personal
  statement should reflect their own ideas and be
  written by them alone.

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Case Study Part 1

• Read the personal statement
• Think about these questions
• Whats important to this applicant?
• What qualities/characteristics define this
  applicant?
• Which of these qualities/characteristics is most
  prominent?
• Do these qualities appeal to you? Why?

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INSTRUCTION

• Two Questions
• Students respond to both questions
• A maximum of 1000 words total
• Students should stay within the word limit as
  closely as they can. A little over 1012 words,
  for example is fine.
• Students choose length of each response
• If they choose to respond to one prompt at
  greater length, we suggest the shorter answer be
  no less than 250 words (1/4 of a page)

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Prompt 1

• Describe the world you come from, for example,
  your family, community or school and tell us how
  your world has shaped your dreams and
  aspirations.

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Prompt 2

• Tell us about a personal quality, talent,
  accomplishment, contributions or experience that
  is important to you. What about this quality or
  accomplishment makes you proud and how does it
  relate to the person you are?

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ADDITIONAL COMMENT

• Use additional comments box for clarification,
  expansion on important details
• Additional Names
• Visa Issues
• Additional IB Exams
• Asking for admission by exception
• Use this to describe anything else that you have
  not had the opportunity to include elsewhere in
  your application

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4 Steps to the Personal Statement

• Gather information
• Read critically
• Develop Topic and Thesis
• Draft, Get Feedback, Revise

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Personal Statement Writing For College

• College
• Unknown Audience
• students write for a community of
  scholars
• Writer-Determined Topics students choose the
  topics
• Dig Deep Analysis and reflection are key

• Personal Statement
• Unknown audience
• Writer-determined topics
• Analytical and Reflective response

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Important Strategies

• Students are encouraged to write about special
  circumstances that have influenced their
  educational experience
• Re-entry
• Small or alternative learning environments, home
  school
• Learning and/or physical challenges that have
  influenced who they are
• Veterans
• Read critically and write analytically
• Use a writing process
• Get good feedback

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Think Like an Admissions Reader

• All readers have expectations of writers,
  revealed in readers questions, observations and
  interpretations of the application.
• Writers fulfill readerss expectations by
  addressing these questions, observations and
  interpretations in the personal statement.
• Writers can anticipate readers expectations by
  completing and critically reading their
  application prior to writing a personal statement

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Critical Reading and Analytical Writing

• Level one Facts
• Level Two Interpretation
• Level Three Meaning and Significance

• Answers to L 1 questions provide details in
  paragraphs
• Answers to L2 questions are topic sentences of
  paragraphs
• Answers to L3 questions are thesis statements of
  essays

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Case Study Part II

• Student Profile Use the Levels of Questions
  strategy with this profile
• What data do you find?
• What patterns do you see?
• What questions would you ask?
• What inferences would you draw?
• How well does the essay align with the profile?
• How would you advise this student to proceed?

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Writing Process

• Read the application critically using levels of
  questions
• Draft
• Get feedback- give readers at least a week to
  respond
• Revise for organization, clarity and meaning
• Proofread