The way that I like to approach the UC essays is by asking my students, what are the four to six most important areas of your life? Now, everybody has these things. It can be things that you do in school, it can be things that you do outside of school, and it also doesn't have to be a thing that you do.
It could be that you want to talk about your family structure or family dynamic. Maybe something to do with your culture. Maybe there's a part of your personality that you really want to show. We want to find a way to squeeze all four to six of these things into your UC application, which is four questions.
It's going to take a little bit of puzzling and Tetrising to figure out what goes where. For me, at the time, I was really big into creative writing in general, but specifically playwriting and poetry. I was really into journalism. I had a lot of leadership experience. I went to leadership camps. I did a lot of volunteer work. I worked with kids, whether it was to collect canned goods or teaching them in Sunday school.
Some other parts of me that are important include why I am so attracted to storytelling. I also wanted to showcase a part of my personality, which is fun and that I don't take myself too seriously, and at that time, I was a really passionate fan girl. So you'll see elements of that spread throughout these four UC essays.
Here's my first essay:
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. (350 words)
"My kids are demanding.
From spilled orange juice to my homemade cookies smashed on the floor, it’s a lot to take on as the sole “adult” in the room. My kids fight a lot--Dora steals James’ toys and James pulls Dora’s hair. Edith holds grouches longer than any child I’ve ever met. Ariel is painstakingly shy because she has a lisp. I’ve taught classes as big as 20, endured circular conversations of “Why?” “Why not?” and “How come?”, and held kindergarteners as their temper tantrums left bruises for days afterwards. Kids, with their unflinching honesty and unbridled emotions, can be really mean sometimes.
So why do I do it?
When I teach Sunday School and lead cell groups, my needs don’t come first--theirs do. Whether it’s breaking up a fight or soothing a fear, it’s a responsibility that demands sensitivity. To mirror a child’s feelings, to make them feel understood--these are some of the tasks that have tested my patience. I have messed up before: I learned that kids take things at face value, and sarcasm is not in their vocabulary. Now I know once trust is broken, it takes an eternity of hugs and validation to build it back up.
I am responsible not only for their tears, but also their smiles. It’s so simple yet rewarding to elicit a child’s laugh by giving high-fives, fist bumps, stickers, homemade cupcakes, and praise. Every giggle is like winning an Oscar for my silly puppet shows of Zacchaeus climbing the tree or the whale swallowing Jonah whole. It’s an honor to play a role in their happy-go-lucky lives, acting out essential Bible stories they will encounter again and again as they grow up.
When James and Dora give each other a reconciliatory hug, when Edith learns the value and freedom of forgiveness, I am not just the teacher, but I am also learning from my students’ willingness to change. And when shy Ariel puts her arms around my waist and whispers, “I luf you,” I know I’ll never stop being their jie jie, their big sister." (350)
I think I do a really good job with laying out the challenge of teaching kids. Something that I advise my students is that whenever they're talking about working with other people, whether it is their peers or students that are younger than them, or a teacher or someone in their family, it really helps the reader to namedrop them in your essay, to emotionally anchor us. This essay of mine would be really different if I said, for example, in the second line, "My kids fight a lot. One girl steals one boy's toys and he pulls her hair." That just removes the emotional closeness that I really want to feel as a reader.
Something to aim for in every essay is setting up that struggle, and with struggle comes an element of growth. So for me, the lesson that I'm learning through this experience is that my needs don't come first. Theirs do, and I'm honest about it--it's not easy. It's a skillset that I had to build up over time. So when you read this, you understand that, oh, she put blood, sweat, and tears into becoming this big sister for these little kids.
Of course the essay ends in a positive place. What is so rewarding and why do I do it? That's the best part of the essay to me--I'm making a difference in the lives of these children, whether by cheering them up or teaching them Bible stories. I wanted to end this essay in that human connection.
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. (350 words)
"When your first play is about a boy who eats so much junk food that he turns into a literal couch potato, you know you’re on the right path to winning a Tony Award. After all, a potato is like a play.
It begins underground. The roots reach for nutrients and a strong grip on the earth. I am alone in my room with the seed of an idea. Lights up on news articles and personal histories collected from hours of research. I dig until I can curl my fingers around what feels like a story: conflict, check. Biting dialogue, check. Characters I want to simultaneously hug and slap, check.
Because my perspective shifts, sprouts spring from the seed’s eyes and the plant breaks the surface, announcing its presence to the world. I grasp opportunities to collaborate with artists and bring it to life. My play no longer flourishes through willpower alone—the countdown to opening night begins.
Life as a potato isn’t easy. There are powerful forces of nature to deal with and the struggle to grow, to emerge stronger than before. Every meeting with an artistic team of visionaries reshapes the play, discovers another layer, or goes off on a tangent--and those are the best conversations. Conversations that deeply move me when an actor shares his own experience about losing a parent, that reaffirm me in my moments of soul-crushing doubt, that validate the reason why I write, in hopes that my stories may resonate with even one person in the audience.
The potato is now ready to be presented to the public eye. Cue gasps, wet cheeks, and laughter. Just as the potato spreads across the globe, whether my plays are performed in a school’s church-turned-theater, a white box in New York, the Stella Adler theatre in Hollywood, or the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, we clap because we believe.
After experiencing imagination in action, I don’t think I’ll be turning into a couch potato anytime soon. After all, a potato is like a play, not a playwright, and one potato can yield an entire harvest more." (340)
If you've been following me, this is familiar to you. It's my potato-play essay, the longer version, which I used for Columbia, Harvard, and Princeton. When you take an essay that's a longer form from somewhere else and you're cutting it down for your UC schools, you're playing a game with yourself: what are the most important parts of this essay to keep? It was very important for me to keep the creative element of it, which is the tongue in cheek metaphor of how my play is like a potato. That, to me, was key to keep because this question is all about creativity.
When I was going through my longer version, it was a matter of what can go and yet the essay at its heart remains the same. Something that was really important to me to keep in this essay is, again, this element of struggle. I kept that paragraph of how my life as a potato isn't easy. I want to show the reader that through this process, through this metaphor, I'm constantly growing and changing and learning.
Another thing too that I think was important to preserve is actually that last sentence. It is the most resume-y thing within this essay. I'm listing the places where my place have been presented, but I think that was important to to preserve because it connects solidly to the things on my awards/honors/activities list without managing to sound too braggy--the evidence is there and it's up to the reader to make those connections between what's on my resume to what's in my essay. And the reason it's important to include is to back up--with tangible "facts"--the passion and the creativity that I'm presenting in this essay.
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? (350 words)
"In our house, English is not English. Not in the phonetic sense, like short a is for apple, but rather in the pronunciation — in our house, snake is snack. Words do not roll off our tongues correctly — I was pulled out of class to meet with language specialists, and my Malaysian mother pronounces film as flim.
In our house, there is no difference between cast and cash, which was why at a church retreat, people made fun of me for “cashing out demons.” Classmates laughed because I pronounced accept as except, success as sussess. I was in the Creative Writing conservatory, and yet words failed me when I needed them most.
When my mother asked me to teach her proper English so old white ladies at Target wouldn't laugh at her pronunciation, I cried. It has not been easy. There is a measure of guilt when I sew her letters together. Long vowels, double consonants — I am still learning myself. Sometimes I let the brokenness slide to spare her pride but perhaps I have hurt her more to spare mine.
As my mother’s vocabulary began to grow, I mended my own English. Through performing poetry in front of 3000, interviewing people from all walks of life, and writing stories for the stage, I stand against ignorance and become a voice for the homeless, the refugees, the ignored. With my words I fight against jeers pelted at an old Asian street performer on a New York subway. My mother’s eyes are reflected in underprivileged ESL children who have so many stories to tell but do not know how. I fill them with words as they take needle and thread to make a tapestry.
In our house, there is beauty in the way we speak to each other. In our house, language is not broken but rather bursting with emotion. We have built a house out of words. There are friendly snakes in the cupboard and snacks in the tank. It is a crooked house. It is a little messy. But this is where we have made our home." (350)
This is where I used my common app. Let's go through what I chose to cut. I chose to cut the majority of my mom's story. In my common app, I have the room and I have the emotional space in the essay to go deeper into my mom's story. For my UC's, I was forced to almost cut that out and just really focus on me. Because at the end of the day, they're not admitting my mom, they're admitting me. She only shows up twice really, in the third and fourth paragraphs.
The rest of this essay is about how I overcame the struggle and worked doubly hard to make up for my lack. So in the struggle essay, obviously you want to lay out the obstacles that you have been facing, and then of course, how you managed to push through or persevere and overcome those elements of adversity. Something that I don't want you to get totally caught up in is whenever you are tackling a most significant challenge essay, keep in mind that everybody's challenges looks different and feels different. My challenge to you might not be a big deal, but to me it felt like something that I really had to overcome.
It's asking for the most significant in your life, not the most significant challenge to exist on Earth ever. It's all in relation to yourself and your journey. So don't press yourself to find a massive life altering challenge. If it matters to you, if it was a big roadblock for you, I want to hear about it. As long as it matters to you, that's going to give it the heart and the emotion that this essay needs.
8. What is the one thing that you think sets you apart from other candidates applying to the University of California? (350 words)
"If I describe to you my life, you’d assume I’m a spy.
After all, I was recruited when I was 11. I receive assignments via email, text, or phone and liaise with PR’s, determining time and location. My assignments require significant travel to infiltrate red carpets and junkets, relaying intel to bosses who sit atop skyscrapers.
Instead of X-Ray sunglasses, I’m equipped only with a mic and a notepad. I pore over my feature stories and rewrite movie reviews in the dead of night. Like a secret agent studying files, I spend hours researching the targets and brainstorming unique questions that will yield priceless insight.
On the job, I work erratic hours and endure weather of all kinds--come stinging rain or blustery ice-cold nights, I face the camera with my objective in mind. Competition with other agencies can get tough--I stay calm under pressure, fight to hold my ground on the carpet, and leap at opportunities to ask questions at junkets. When I get condescending looks from adults on the job, I hold up the badge around my neck to gain access to behind-the-scene areas, grit my teeth and gear up to prove that age is just a number.
Though I’m not setting traps for villains, I do talk with green monsters like the Hulk, Kermit, and Mike Wazowski. I undergo intense training to enter the Scorch Trials, study How to Train Your Dragon, and venture Into The Woods. I conduct intelligence operations with other Divergents, learn the mystical arts under the guidance of Doctor Strange, and sail across Sea of Monsters and Stranger Tides to accomplish my missions.
My content celebrates work by women, about women, and for women. The assets I pursue are those who push for diversity in Hollywood—my mission is to defeat ignorance, the biggest evil of all. It all pays off when I acquire exclusive insight into artists’ lives, revealing another facet of depth. I connect with another human, gain invaluable perspective, and widen my understanding of people.
Real spy or not--I’m happy with this job. It’s just as cool." (345)
This is my spy-journalism activity essay I used for Harvard, USC, Yale, and Amherst. On most of those applications, the limit was 150 words. So I had to expand for this UC essay.
I was able to have more fun with it and go a little bit more in depth to why I do it. I played up the struggle aspect. I talk about how it's hard to compete with other agencies. It's also difficult to be the youngest on the carpet and it's truly an unglamorous experience.
I was able to expand on why I do it and what's my angle. Every journalist's M.O. is different. I realized that I really wanted to uplift women with my work. That's why I wrote, "my content celebrates work by women about women and for women." I love journalism because of the ability to increase diversity in Hollywood, and to bring the stars a little bit closer to earth.
In expanding, I wanted to give this essay a deeper meaning. I don't just do journalism for fun, I wanted to show that I actually have a mission and I care about this societally.
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