For my UC personal statement should I what should I write about?

Can somebody give me some tips on what to write about in my uc personal statement? before the 30th please?

• i really dont know where to start on it. i have an idea about what i want to write about but i dont know how to make it grab their attention. any suggestions would be helpful :)

• Answer:

  You need 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. By the way, please do NOT use essays you wrote in your English class as your personal statement. Every admissions rep I spoke to advised against doing that. The way the first prompt is worded is a bit misleading. According to what I heard at the Berkeley training session, admissions (or at the very least, Berkeley and Irvine - confirmed by a student who attended a seminar at UCI) wants to hear you talk about your dreams and aspirations, and what you have done so far to achieve those dreams and aspirations. My guess is the family/background thing got thrown in there to give students with hardships/special circumstances the chance to use that prompt to discuss them. I imagine the best way to approach the first prompt is to figure out what your dreams and aspirations are, and what you have done so far to achieve them, only plug something in your background for support if appropriate. But whether you choose to describe your background (family, friends, school, community, etc.) or something else, the description should take up no more than a 1/3 of your essay and the remaining 2/3 should be about YOU (see here for an explanation of the 1/3-2/3 guideline, which I would like to take credit for inventing; altho now it has been labeled as a rumor); what you want to do and what you have done so far to get there. The second prompt is a way for your 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). How does that pq/t/a/c/e make you proud and what does that pq/t/a/c/e say about you as a person. Does the pq/t/a/c/e demonstrate that you are a hardworking individual who perseveres? Does that pq/t/a/c/e illustrate how you come thru for your team no matter what? And how will that pq/t/a/c/e help you succeed in college? Again, describe the pq/t/a/c/e using about 1/3 of your essay and really get into talking about YOURSELF in the remaining 2/3.