New UC Prompts Prompt Creativity and New Ideas
JACQUELYN LOI
Staff Writer
After ten years, the University of California (UC) system is changing their two personal statement prompts to eight new short answer questions for their Fall 2017 undergraduate freshman application. Students have the choice to choose four out of the eight prompts provided with each response limited to a maximum of 350 words.
The new changes allow for greater flexibility for the application and lets applicants write essays that are more creative and meaningful. Regarded as “powerful insight questions” by the UC administrators, the new questions give students a chance to write on topics that may seem more personally relevant to them. Allowing students the ability to pick and choose which prompt to write about provides originality. It gives the opportunity for students to create a more meaningful response to topics that they are more passionate about.
Furthermore, the questions are no longer generic in comparison to the previous questions asking about the world one comes from and to describe their personal quality or accomplishment. The new questions now cover an array of topics including community involvement, creativity, leadership and taking advantage of educational opportunities. By providing more specific chances, it reduces the chance that applicants have to use similar generic prompt essays they may have used for class or other universities’ application for the UC application. Beccause of this, it motivates the applicants to become more creative and develop new ideas and claims in order to effectively answer the prompts provided.
The new criteria also gives the students more of an idea of the qualities and topics that admission officers are interested in. With each question associated with at least one of the fourteen comprehensive review criterias that the UC uses to assess their applicants, students are able to highlight the attributes that they feel best express them all the while appealing to the admissions officers.
The new changes that the UC system is to implement encourage applicants to use their unique voices and express who they really are in a way that the previous prompts did not focus as strongly on. It leads to a win-win situation for the the applicants and the admission officers as it permits students to write about topics they feel more passionately toward and gives admissions officers the chance to easily highlight important qualities.
The new UC prompts are well on their way to allowing the students the ability to deliver essays that are both unique and perceptive.