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The Piedmont Highlander

The Piedmont Highlander

UC application has more questions and shorter answers

UC+application+has+more+questions+and+shorter+answers

The University of California system’s undergraduate admissions changed their personal statement essay requirement from two 1000-word essays with two prompts to four 350-word essays chosen from a list of eight questions. The change will come into effect next year for the high school class of 2017.

The UC system sent out a notification on March 24 informing counselors of the change.

The questions include topics like favorite academic subject, examples of leadership and how the applicant has made an impact on their community.

English teacher Rosie Reid, who used to teach an annual class on college essays, thought the change was positive because it helped even out the playing field for applicants without tutors.  

“I think that the college admission process is really skewed by the college admission essay,” Reid said. “Even some of my most accomplished students needed a lot of help. It makes me think the kids who are getting that help have an unfair advantage. ”

College counselor Heather O’Donnell also thought the change leveled the playing field, but also aided both students and the UC system overall.

“It helps shape the conversation,” O’Donnell said “The personal statement is so broad that the student might not be able to touch on all the topics that they feel are important. And [the student] might not understand what the UCs are looking for.”

O’Donnell believes that the new prompts guide the conversation between student and university without restricting the topics a student can write about.

“I think it helps students who struggle with writing shape the conversation and bring out parts of their personality they might not have been able to do [otherwise],” O’Donnell said.

O’Donnell also thought that the new standard essay would allow the universities to compare students more easily as well as read less generic responses. Also, as the UCs, besides UC Berkeley, do not accept letters of recommendation, O’Donnell thought the new essay was a step towards more conversation between student and university.

“It allows the school to see a broader picture of the student and it allows the student to share more information succinctly that they may not have been able to bring across in a personal statement,” O’Donnell said.

Overall, both Reid and O’Donnell thought that the change most benefitted students who do not enjoy or are not good at writing, but did not necessarily hurt the students who were good at writing.

“For students who don’t enjoy writing, they might enjoy having short tight paragraphs. At the same time, it’s really hard to put together a short, succinct essay,” O’Donnell said.

Many schools, including University of Washington-Seattle and Oregon State have developed their own questions unique to their respective applications.

Stanford University also has three 250-word essays with specific prompts on top of the standard Common Application essay of 650 words. Stanford also asks a series of short questions that are intended to give admissions officers insight into the applicant’s personality, not necessarily to evaluate them.

Reid wants to see more schools take this approach specifically to diversify their school populations.

US APP by Reilly Leet“A lot of students at socioeconomically disadvantaged schools didn’t have the same support as students at Piedmont,” Reid said. “That’s just not fair.”

However, despite the praise Reid and O’Donnell gave to the new essay format, senior Evan Hanke said that while the UCs may have done it so that students do not recycle essays, it puts unnecessary strain on the applicant’s workload.

“The college process is already such a big time commitment and having four separate questions makes it so much more of a pain,” Hanke said.

Junior Cole Bloomfield thought another downside was that multiple short essays do not allow as much space to develop a personality on paper.

“Colleges say they’re trying to make the college process easier,” Bloomfield said. “Instead of having to write an essay, which isn’t the hard part, you have to come up with [four] ideas.”

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