UC: � PERSONAL � INSIGHT � QUESTIONS�

“IF I WAITED TILL I FELT LIKE WRITING,

I’D NEVER WRITE AT ALL.”

~~ Anne Tyler

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Agenda

1. What are the PIQ’s
2. What are the prompts
3. Best Strategy
4. Ideal format
5. Example

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How do the UCs evaluate applications?

All applications are read through by at least 2 independent readers; they are evaluated using the 13 comprehensive review factors

• Grade-point average
• Performance/Number of courses beyond A-G
• UC-approved honors/advanced courses
• Eligibility in the Local Context (CA residents)
• Quality of senior-year program
• Academic opportunities in CA high schools
• Outstanding performance in academic subjects
• Achievements in special projects
• Improvement in academic performance
• Special talents, achievements, and awards
• Participation in educational preparation programs
• Academic accomplishment in light of life experiences
• Geographic location

PIQs should connect to these points when you can.

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PURPOSE OF THE PERSONAL INSIGHT QUESTIONS

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• Tell your own experience – in your own words, conversation style
• Explain your engagement with people/ideas
• Provide insight into your motivation or characteristics
• Give additional and personal details so the admissions committee has more to go on than just your transcript/academic record

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• FINAL PRODUCT: Does Admissions have a broad picture of you and your interests and abilities after reading your responses?

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Your Goal with the PIQs

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Value-added responses

• Focus is on the impact on you and/or the impact you have on others
• Centers the self in the response
• Provides specific examples/anecdotes

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Missed Opportunity responses:

• flowery language
• no specifics
• not answering the question

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The 8 UC PIQ Prompts

1. Leadership: Describe leadership experience positively influencing others, resolving disputes, or contributing to group efforts.

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• Creativity: Describe how you express your creative side (problem solving, innovative thinking, artistic expression).

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• Talent/Skill: What is your greatest talent or skill? How developed/demonstrated it over time?

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• Educational Opportunity/Barrier: How have you taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or overcome a barrier?

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• Significant Challenge: Describe the most significant challenge faced, steps taken to overcome it, and how it affected academic achievement.

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• Academic Subject: Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you've furthered this interest inside/outside the classroom.

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• Community Improvement: What have you done to make your school or community a better place?

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• What Else Makes You Stand Out? Beyond what's shared, what makes you a strong candidate?

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There are many sections in the application where you will be able to fill in information about you.

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• Activities & Awards

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• Additional Info Box

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Strategy

• Most students will start by selecting the 4 prompts they want to answer and then think about what topics fit into those prompts.

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• Mentally put the prompts aside

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• First select your final 4 topics you would like to write about, then match it with a prompt that makes sense.

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Strategy cont:

Personal:

• family
• Identity
• Background
• Vulnerable
• Origin Story
• Personal Lore

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Academic

• Relationg to your academics.
• Educational experiences
• Educational challenges
• Academic interest and pursuits.
• Programs and projects.

Hobby/Passion

• Outside of the classroom interests or passions.
• How you’ve delved into non-academic pursuits.
• Athletics, Sports
• Community Service
• Family
• Problem-

Solving

Other

• Anything not covered in the other catagories

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Ideal Format

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• What

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• Response

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• Takeaway

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UC PIQ #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.

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• Can be in school, family,, club, athletics, band, Peer Resource

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Tip: Strong prompt to start your application.

Leadership isn't just formal titles (President, Founder).

Can be taking responsibility in family, identifying needs/acting in school/community.

If you've been called a leader, consider this prompt.

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SAMPLE PIQ#1

In 2020, I founded an underwater robotics team in my garage. We invited friends from school and the math circle we ran. Some members had no experience with robotics and others had lots of experience so I taught them by helping everyone build a land robot. In our second year, I reached out to more people in the community and grew our team from 10 to 22 members across 10 schools. We had seniors to middle schoolers on the team. I promoted returning members to lead the hardware, testing, and documentation teams. I led the software team where I taught Python, setting up Raspberry Pi computers, and streaming cameras. My mom knew someone whose nephew recently immigrated from Mexico and wanted to learn about robotics. I invited him to join the team and I walked him through setting up the robot. Now he teaches others how to set it up. When I give individual attention, people develop useful skills and pass those skills onto others.

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cont…..

On the competition day, we didn't tighten our electronics chamber and water shorted our entire electronics system! But we didn't mourn, we got straight to problem solving. The hardware leader unplugged and unscrewed the parts. I tested the computers and told members to grab working parts from last year's robot. My CoCEO calmed the team. In the middle of the repairs, we gave an award winning 15-minute engineering presentation to judges. We miraculously got the robot working in time for our second pool run and we placed third! I learned that to be an effective leader, I need to understand every team member's strengths and weaknesses. The hardware leader annoyed me because he started building without planning and made avoidable mistakes. But I appreciated his instant problem solving when we needed to rapidly rebuild our robot. Now that I know what he is good at, I can give him appropriate roles for his talents. I am using what I've learned to lead our team effectively by giving everyone the chance to use their best skills.

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Discussion about example

VALUE ADDED:

• Details, details, details.

This clearly describes an actual project, the number of people in the group, their role in the group, and their problem-solving response to a mistake.

• The response provides a strong sense of the student’s
• skill/knowledge
• leadership ability
• resilience (problem solving the waterlogged electronics)
• a sense of their commitment to diversity (they taught a recent immigrant about robotics).
• Also, please note the “CONVERSATIONAL TONE”

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Best Practices

• Honesty
• clarity, not exaggeration
• Personal Writing – your voice..not “big words”
• Use ‘I’ and ‘my’, not ‘you’, ‘one’ or ‘people’
• Use four different topics, not one idea throughout all four responses
• Give specific examples
• Keep it for a general audience (no crime, sarcasm, quotations, philosophical questions, drug use or profanity) or mentions of a specific campus

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UC advice on what to avoid

• Talking about one campus
• Creative writing - flowery language
• Quotations
• Asking philosophical or rhetorical questions
• Acronyms
• Plagiarism and A.I. (all essays are run through an anti-plagiarism software program)

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WRITING TIPS!!

• Answer the question! (remember, it should sound like a conversation!)
• Share YOUR voice - teen character & personality
• make it all about you
• Answer the ENTIRE prompt
• pick prompts that will offer more context for your application

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• Let others “help” by changing your voice (parents or or college counselor)
• focus so much on thoughts and beliefs more than actions and accomplishments
• focus on long ago…should stay in the present or recent past
• Use clichés
• Have spelling & punctuation errors

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DO

DON’T

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Assessing Your Topics: Are They "Right" For You

1. Various Interests Approach: What sides of yourself are represented in your chosen 4? What's missing (e.g., community service, intellectual side)?

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1. Avoid Repeating Yourself: Is a quality or activity already clear? Combine similar topics if needed to free up space for variety.

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1. Connect to Comprehensive Review: Does each topic somehow connect back to at least one of the 13 points?

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UC PIQ #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

• Creativity knows no bounds
• You each have something: ask your parents or peers if you are stumped

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Tip:

Can focus on one way (dance, coding) or multiple ways.

Shows sides beyond academics.

Creativity includes problem-solving and innovative thinking, not just art.

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UC PIQ’S #3

• #3: What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?
• Unicycle, juggling, peer relationships, community service, Marin SAR, cartooning, film, baking, making friends
• Tip 1: Avoid abstract qualities already clear (like "hard-working" if GPA shows it).
• Tip 2: Connect talent to specific actions. Can you visualize it?
• Tip 3: If using a sport, focus on a skill learned through the sport (e.g., critical thinking, looking out for others) rather than just the sport itself. Show how the sport taught you this skill and maybe how you use it elsewhere.

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UC PIQ’S #4

• #4: Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.
• Classes or programs here, COM, Internships, Independent Science Research

Tip: If the "barrier" can be explained briefly in the Additional Comments section, save your PIQ for something else.

• Opportunities could be unique programs, research, etc.
• Barriers could be lack of resources, difficult circumstances impacting education.

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UC PIQ 5

• 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? (topic similar to Common App #2)

If you’ve faced challenges, but aren’t sure if a topic will work or not, consider this three-part structure:

Stronger Topics: Racism, sexism, crime, violence, unemployment, physical disability, difficult family situations leading to responsibility.

Less Successful Topics: Relationship breakups, not making a team, difficult classes, shyness, bad grades (use Academic History section).

Consider: Does this topic effectively address the comprehensive review points compared to other prompts?

Structure Idea: ⅓ Challenge + Effects, ⅓ What I did about it, ⅓ What I Learned. Ensure you can expand on "what I did" and "what I learned."

Crucial: Address how the challenge impacted your academics (even if just to say you maintained grades despite

1. Challenges + Effects (⅓ of PIQ)
2. What I did about it (⅓ of PIQ)
3. What I learned (⅓ of PIQ)
• Make sure to address how the challenge impacted your academics, since the prompt asks about this. If you experienced big challenges but were still able to maintain good grades, you can say simply, “Despite these challenges, I was able to maintain my grades” or something similar.
• Demonstrate your maturity, humility, & resilience
• You don’t have to write about some terrible, tragic event, or even pick this PIQ

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UC PIQ’S #6 & 7

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• #6: Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this inside and/or outside of the classroom(see Letter of Rec answers for your own ideas, similar to Common App #6).
• Tip 1: Great way to show intellectual curiosity.
• Tip 2: Highly recommended if you plan to major in impacted fields like engineering or computer science.

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• #7: What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?
• Community Garden, Wellness Advisory, Peer Resource, Body Positive, the list is endless

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UC PIQ #8

• Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand out as a strong candidate for admission to the University of California?
• Identity: your fundamental nature
• Background: cultural, ethnic, medical, economic, familial
• Story: circumstance, not really fixed in time
• Make it clear & compelling

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GO FORTH & WRITE!

GETTING STARTED IS USUALLY THE HARDEST PART…

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“You can always edit a bad page.

You can’t edit a blank page.”

~~ Jodi Picoult

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Fall: Editing sessions during Tutorial in Counseling Center.

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Bring your rough drafts and an Open Mind!

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