In this article, we’ll be sharing one of our successful UC essay prompt 2 example essays that got accepted into UC San Diego. Our client in question was accepted into a rather competitive major (Engineering) even with a non-competitive academic profile.
Best of all, we’ll show how to write with their level of creativity! That way, you’re not left feeling more lost than before!
Let’s get started!
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Table of Contents
- Our Client’s Stats.
- A Few Important Rules to the UC Essay Prompt 2.
- UC Essay Prompt 2 Example: The Kung Fu Essay
- What Makes This a Good Essay?
Our Client’s Stats
Let’s take a look at their profile.
- Race: Asian.
- Gender: Male.
- Accepted School: UC San Diego.
- Major: Computer Science and Engineering.
- Unweighted GPA: 3.4.
- 3 AP courses (all related or closely connected to an engineering major.)
- No Awards.
- No Sports.
- No Extracurriculars.
In summary, our client’s profile wasn’t as impressive as other student profiles. Nonetheless, this essay was strong enough to get them accepted into UC San Diego for Engineering. Additionally, since they weren’t fully fluent in English, they required our custom college essay editing and writing services.
Okay, now let’s take a look at some of UCSD’s stats.
- UCSD had an overall acceptance rate of 24.7%
- They had an acceptance rate of 16% for their Computer Science and Engineering major.
- The middle 25%-75% of students had a GPA of 4.11-4.29.
This comes to show how a strong set of UC essays can turn the tables.
A strong set of UC PIQ essays can give less stellar students a chance at even the most competitive programs.
Again, strong essays are no guarantee of acceptance. They may compensate for weaker parts of your application; but, they’re just one of many important parts of the application.
A Few Important Rules to the UC Essay Prompt 2.
Before you get started on the UC essay prompt 2, we need to address a few important points.
- How UC PIQ 2 is different from the other PIQ prompts.
- Production vs consumption.
First, let’s talk about how UC PIQ 2 is different from the other PIQ prompts.
How UC PIQ 2 is Different From the Other PIQ Prompts.
Unlike the other UC PIQs, this one opens up opportunities to talk about just about everything. Not only that, you can also address the prompt in much more unconventional ways compared to the other PIQs.
Since the UC essay prompt 2 asks for you to demonstrate your creative side, you can answer beyond the conventional essay format. So, you can write poetically, explain things in a stream-of-consciousness form, etc.
Want to answer in the form of an allegory? Go ahead! Want to answer the prompt from the perspective of an inanimate object? The world is your oyster!
The possibilities are endless.
In fact, this rule applies to practically all essays asking for your creative side. The best example of this is the University of Chicago essays, which are most known for their unconventional forms. They want to see you answer the prompts in an unusual or creative way.
Break away from the conventional essay writing format. By doing this, you’ll stand out from the rest of the admissions pool.
Okay, now let’s talk about production vs consumption.
Production vs Consumption.
To answer the UC essay prompt 2 properly, you must understand production vs consumption.
Productive activities use the creative mind to create tangible results.
For instance, coding a short indie video game is productive because it yields a visible result: a game. Another example is sewing: the creative patterns in your head may manifest into intricate designs on a scarf.
Consuming activities are characterized by the lack of tangible results. Additionally, consuming activities are also often self-serving and only serve to provide instant gratification.
One example is daydreaming. Although a lot of creativity flows from daydreaming, there is no yield. Meanwhile, worldbuilding based on daydreams does.
As a general rule: the best essay topics for UC PIQ 2 are productive ones that have real results. For instance, writing 30 pages of fiction is better than daydreaming about 30 pages of fanfiction. Painting 10 art pieces is better than viewing 10 art pieces. So on and so forth.
Additionally, consumptive activities are often weak topics because they seem more hedonistic than creative, which reflects negatively when admissions officers read them.
Here’s another cool example!
College essays about video games “can” be bad “if” they don’t talk about your productive side. If the essay only talks about the enjoyment of the game rather than the creation of mods, the forming of an online community, or even the creation of your own game, you won’t be making the most of an otherwise fantastic topic.
So, don’t give admissions officers the impression that your creative side is just an outlet for instant gratification!
UC Essay Prompt 2 Example: The Kung Fu Essay
We’ve pasted the creativity prompt below.
“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.“
Things to consider: What does creativity mean to you? Do you have a creative skill that is important to you? What have you been able to do with that skill? If you used creativity to solve a problem, what was your solution? What are the steps you took to solve the problem?
How does your creativity influence your decisions inside or outside the classroom? Does your creativity relate to your major or a future career?
University of California PIQs Official Website
“My eyes darted at every detail in the room; though I flinched at even the slightest movements in his hands, he lunged faster than my eyes could keep up. I ducked. A bullet of air blew past my hair from the force of the jab. I struck back, but my uncle masterfully countered my palm with his.
We were stuck in each other’s locked embrace, a warrior’s embrace.
As a twelve-year-old, I practiced Kung Fu mercilessly with my uncle along with swimming, table tennis, and soccer. I was burned out when I was young. I wasn’t particularly good at any of them either: I couldn’t kick, swim, or keep up a good stamina to run across a field for long. Funnily enough, these were all vital attributes to Kung Fu. Perhaps it is the fact that Kung Fu, to me, is a balance of ideas; it is an art that is different from the rest.
Surely I knew how to play stylishly during soccer games, and cook with love, and paint with feeling and emotion, but it was the balance of strength in such a violent sport along with the beauty of movement which made the artistic expression of battle worth it.I later founded the Kung-fu club when I came to the US, bringing with me the knowledge I learned from China. My first meeting was an uproar: There was a burning feeling of excitement at breaking free from the quaint delicacy of sophistication in our prim and proper school routine. It is oddly satisfying, invigorating, primal. There is nothing more awakening, albeit frightening, than coming back from a full house of classes, tests, and hours at work to the dojo.
UC Example Essay 2 –Accepted Into UC San Diego for Engineering
It is, in its own ironically artistic way, the ability to find beauty in the most terrifying parts of human nature that I express my creative side. My creative side is appreciating the art that comes with the most volatile and destructive parts of human nature; Kung Fu is my art.”
What Makes This a Good Essay?
We understand that writing a strong UC PIQ 2 is hard.
After reading existing essay examples, it’s easy to think, “I can never write like that!” Seeing the examples can make the prompt more daunting than it needs to be. That’s why we’ve compiled 3 important points to consider. These points are elements that made our UC PIQ 2 essay successful; and, we’ll give actionable steps on how to apply them to your own essay.
If you can adopt these elements into your own essay, you’ll have a significantly easier time upgrading your essay to stand out from the rest of the admissions pool.
Early Cliffhangers.
What’s an early cliffhanger?
Well, it’s exactly what it sounds like: it’s a cliffhanger, or a moment of intense suspense left unanswered, placed in the beginning of an essay.
In our UC essay prompt 2 example essay, we made sure the opening had enough info to keep readers interested. But, we abstained from being too specific.
This keeps admissions officers curious about the missing context of the applicant’s story.
Think about this in the same way you tell compelling stories to friends. Do you tell them everything that happened in the very beginning? Or, do you leave out a bit of context to incite more curiosity and intrigue?
Often, it’s the latter! The same rule goes for most storytelling, and can even be applied to the other UC PIQ prompts.
This point is rather understated. When you’re competing against thousands upon thousands of applicants to the University of California, every line of compelling writing counts. You can’t afford to make your essay uninteresting, lest your essay lose the reader’s attention. For admissions officers to accept you, they need to be paying attention when reading your content!
Think of it like this: to make the intro of your UC PIQ 2 interesting, you should start with the most compelling event or moment in your topic. Then, take out context and crucial details to obscure the story a bit.
This helps keep things unanswered while retaining your reader’s attention.
Humility.
Humility: every college application is going to need it.
Sure. This is your time to brag and your time to shine. We get it! But, humility is one of the best ways to garner trust. And, especially for the UC PIQ 2, trust is important. Admissions officers need to know that you’re not just bragging and inflating the significance of your topic. They want to see “realness” in your creativity.
That’s where being humble comes in.
Being humble lets you write about your creative outlet whilst showing the places where you may be weak. This is a more human aspect of you; and, it prevents you from just sounding like a resume.
Demonstrating you have humility in your college essay is crucial because it shows admissions officers that you have the maturity to know that you still have much to learn. It also shows them that you have the right mindset for entering university. After all, a qualified candidate needs to be open to learning and improving to belong in a university setting to begin with!
To be humble in your essays, don’t be afraid to show both the positives and at least some of the weaknesses you’ve demonstrated. So, show how you’re proud of what you’ve made in your creative field whilst opening up about the challenges.
Perhaps you found it hard to adapt to digital art as a traditionalist who draws on paper. Or, you’ve had to learn how to think multiple steps ahead in chess which was a significant mindset change from what you’re used to.
However you demonstrate humility in your essay, it will add a level of depth to your “creative side” that lets admissions officers trust your “humanness”
Strong Verbal Prowess.
This sounds obvious. But, it needs to be said.
Without a strong verbal prowess, you’ll have a hard time writing a strong UC PIQ 2 essay that stands out.
Part of what makes a strong UC creativity essay is not just the creativity of your topic. It’s also the creativity of your writing style (duh!)
So, here’s one of the best (and fastest) ways of improving your UC PIQ 2: upgrade your vocabulary, diversify your sentence structure, and use unconventional forms when stringing your clauses.
You don’t need to be Shakespearean! But, you certainly should have more compelling writing that’s more advanced than what most students have. It’s how you stand out!
Take a look at the last paragraph our client wrote…
“It is, in its own ironically artistic way, the ability to find beauty in the most terrifying parts of human nature that I express my creative side…”
You’ll notice they have a good mastery of the English language that allows them to get creative with their words. Their use of appositives and stronger vocabulary lets them communicate much more than simple sentences.
In other words, to write the UC PIQ 2 creatively, you need to use the whole breadth of the English language. Use commas, semicolons, em dashes, appositives, and colons, and don’t be afraid to mix up the order of your independent and dependent clauses! Just don’t make your essay stale with only periods!
This is crucial for all essays, but especially for the UC essay prompt 2. As a creativity essay, prompt 2 is obviously going to want strong and sophisticated linguistic artistry to complement your colorful side!
Do you have any questions about the UC Personal Insight Question 2? Are you vying to attend your dream UC school? Click here to schedule a free consultation! We’ll get back to you within 24 hours to discuss the content of your UC essays, and guide you step-by-step on how to improve your essays until they’re acceptance-ready!