This article covers 8 successful UC Irvine transfer essay examples. Essays 1-4 belong to our first applicant, and essays 5-8 belong to our second applicant.
Here’s a bit of perspective on how difficult the transfer rate for UC Irvine is. We’ve pasted their info for the previous year’s admissions cycle.
Let’s dig further.
UCI’s transfer admits had a median GPA (for CA Community College) of 3.77.
This makes UCI very competitive for transfer. For, if you want to have a competitive chance of transfer admission, your transcript will need to be mostly As with only a few Bs.
If your GPA falls below 3.77, the UC PIQs becomes infinitely more important. It’s one of the few ways you can stand out from the rest of the admissions pool. With that said, let’s cover our 8 successful UC Irvine transfer essay examples.
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Table of Contents
- Successful UC Irvine Transfer Essay Examples
- Applicant 1
- Applicant 2
Successful UC Irvine Transfer Essay Examples
The first applicant got accepted into both UC Davis and UC Irvine. Meanwhile, the second was accepted into UC Irvine for Psychology.
Applicant 1
1. Please describe how you have prepared for your intended major, including your readiness to succeed in your upper-division courses once you enroll at the university.
“My preparation for a major in studio arts began from a young age with a growing passion for art. Aside from the courses I have taken, I have pursued both making art on my own and sharing the benefits of art with others.
Through my small business, Soul Art, I elaborate on my artistic interests and connect with others. I offer henna tattoos, custom stickers, handmade necklaces, and fun ceramic monsters. My natural enjoyment of art is demonstrated inside and outside the classroom and I will continue this drive in my upper-division courses. I have built up a strong foundational set of skills to help me succeed. In my pursuit of art, I have taken the opportunity to create without limitation by advancing upon ideas that began in the classroom as well as exploring completely new ideas.
For example, during this past summer I got a membership at a ceramic studio solely for the love of making art and yearn to learn. During my time there, I expanded upon a snake concept from my sculpture class and applied it to a new medium to embark on a new endeavor. I also discovered a more playful approach to art by making silly little monster cups. Large amounts of my free time is spent pursuing art which has prepared me beyond the classroom. I am going to enjoy my upper-division courses learning more about my passions and seeing where it will lead me. I have exercised self-disciplinary skills to prepare me in my journey by working at a pottery studio as well as interning at an art gallery to learn more about the art world and I am nothing but excited to continue learning more in my upper-division courses. My passion and intrinsic drive provides me with motivation that will allow me to flourish. I am ready and excited for the upper-division courses to uncover how my skills can further expand.”
2. What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?
“In the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, I am the Communications Officer as well as the Art Positivity Committee Leader. As the Communications Officer, I am responsible for answering any questions members may have, posting about committee events, posting meeting reminders, and sharing the opportunities that are available to eligible Sierra College students. In addition, I keep the members up to date encouraging them to be involved. This has a positive impact on the students because I ensure they are aware of the scholarship opportunities and volunteering events. The role I fulfill is very important for bringing awareness to the Honor Society because I create poster designs to place around campus for the many students that are unaware of their eligibility.
As the Art Positivity Committee Leader, I positively impact the students at Sierra College by providing a de-stress event during finals week where students are welcome to create watercolor works of art. The goal of this event is to magnify the therapeutic aspect of art during a chaotic time. In December, the Art Positivity Committee will visit a local elderly home for a holiday-themed painting lesson that I will be leading. This is an uplifting experience for the elders because they get to create something they are proud of and they have fun making it! For the society members, it is warming to see smiles on their faces. During the spring semester, we plan to do sidewalk chalk on campus welcoming all students to write their goals for the semester and other encouraging messages or quotes. This will help the participating students begin their semester with a positive mindset and will inspire other students that walk by.
The Art Positivity Committee is a new continuation of the Art From the Heart Club that I began during high school. Being President of the club provided me with foundational leadership skills that greatly helped with the leadership roles I pursued at Sierra College.”
3. Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand out as a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?
“My experiences travelling have made me stronger. Being placed in a new environment has revealed my ability to adapt and flourish. I have been fortunate enough to have gotten the opportunity to travel the world as a result of my parent’s hard work and dedication.” My experiences travelling have made me stronger. Being placed in a new environment has revealed my ability to adapt and flourish. I have been fortunate enough to have gotten the opportunity to travel the world as a result of my parent’s hard work and dedication.
Having gone to approximately half of the United States, parts of Europe, Asia, and more, I have gained an incredible amount of insight into how others live and it has increased my awareness, confidence, perspective, and fascination with learning about other cultures. For me, travelling has come with unforgettable experiences as well as deep reflection onto my own way of life. There are the picture perfect destination spots, but being able to live in another location allows one to grasp the whole picture. Travelling has made me grateful for things that are often overlooked: freedom of speech, napkins at restaurants, and clean drinking water to name a few. Each place I have gone has uncovered a lesson. Vietnam has shown me that happiness does not correspond to material possessions, Japan has demonstrated the value of traditions from their reverence to ancestry, Venice has inspired me by seeing the actual artwork from the masters, and California has taught me to be grateful to have a home from the recent fires and homeless epidemic.
From these experiences, I have grown a greater appreciation and longing for being in an environment that has diversity. I look forward to meeting a wide range of people at the university. My insight, cultural awareness, and celebration of diversity is what makes me a strong candidate for admission. I bring my insight back home with me from my travels and it is prevalent through my demeanor and actions. An example is the embracing of diversity through my club and committee welcoming people from all backgrounds. Furthermore, I encompass a diverse nature through my ethnicity because I am a mix of half European countries and half Taiwanese. When I transfer to a university, I look forward to being involved and leaving a positive impact on the students, faculty, and surrounding community.”
4. What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?
“Growing up, I always enjoyed art; however, my journey with art became a passion while I was in middle school. It began as a way for me to express myself where words did not speak as clearly. After a few months of practicing, I noticed a substantial amount of improvement. This sparked my curiosity to see how far I could take these skills I have been gifted. This curiosity has driven my experience with art and I believe that it will continue throughout my life. Art is my greatest talent and interest. I was self-taught for the first couple years focusing mainly on drawing until I enrolled in art courses during high school where I became more exposed to painting and a few other fine art mediums. Since then, I have branched out with other mediums and have discovered new artistic passions. For example, I began practicing jewelry making and pursuing my passion of henna tattoos by starting a small business called Soul Art.
I also have developed a drive for spontaneous adventure where I jump into the unknown, experimenting with a new medium and seeing how I can surprise myself. I demonstrated this when I was asked to be an artist for the Chalk It Up festival by a local photographer. Having never worked with chalk, for this event I was given three days to complete a piece of chalk art that filled up my allotted sidewalk space which was two large squares totaling to about six feet by ten feet. It was trial and error to figure out the medium but by conversing with other artists and experimenting, I was able to find which technique worked best for me and in the end, I was overwhelmed by the results and amount of positive responses. If I had not taken this opportunity to challenge myself, I would be unaware of this new skillset. I plan to make the most of opportunities where personal growth can be discovered.”
Applicant 2
1. Please describe how you have prepared for your intended major, including your readiness to succeed in your upper-division courses once you enroll at the university.
“Everyone has a go-to show they flip on: NBC, ESPN, or even Food Network.
Mine was Forensic Files.
It’s a crime show focusing on fingerprints, DNA samples, and, more importantly, criminal motives. Finding the gun used is interesting, but what drives someone to load, aim, and fire it? Life insurance? A fight gone wrong?
Holistically analyzing family history, childhood experiences, and current life situations, forensic psychologists —even in the context of entertainment— deconstruct the mind beyond a clinical sphere.
I’ve found this useful as an English Language and Writing tutor, since my field demands careful instruction. Most students coming in know their struggles and often even the solution but suffer deep insecurities stemming from bad experiences or negligent teachers. My job is to recognize these self-doubts, untangle their source, and reteach healthier habits to detoxify their relationship with learning. Uncovering why a student learns, gives up, and motivates themselves is deeply telling and spurs me to continue psychology.
Especially since university is so different from community college, with lectures holding up to 400 students at a time, the importance of actively participating by doing more than the required lectures and assignments cannot be understated. Going beyond my intro-level psychology courses, I created and led focus groups with my professors to discuss topics at a deeper level, examining case studies and new developments in the field. Creating a space focused on further inquiry for similarly motivated people gave us a sense of community in classes usually filled with unmotivated students. One particular case my professor brought up, that living alone raises Americans’ risk of cancer by nearly 33 percent, sparked my interest —especially during the pandemic. How do social-personal aspects correlate to our health? And how does our infrastructure then reinforce these social-personal aspects? These questions make me especially excited about exploring aging and community in upper-division courses since most of my experience thus far has been focused on developmental and early-life experiences.
This innate passion, drive, and curiosity will lead me to success in my upper-division courses.”
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.
“Look: everyone’s got their own strategy for success in school.
As a tutor myself, I’ve tried it all. From Cornell notes to Post-Its, my strategy landed on Moleskin journals and planners filled with painstakingly organized notes written in pastel pens and highlighters.
But, as my courses got more sophisticated, I started noticing the workload and difficulty increasing. Sure. I got by just putting in extra elbow grease. However, I was curious to know whether I could maximize efficiency and change my learning style.
This is where things took a turn.
I stopped writing.
It’s a weird process —albeit, quite risky too— but, I was unusually compelled to think of letting go of my writing from my experience as a barista. By memorizing multiple orders at a time, my memorization skills became like a catalog I would check off as I completed drinks. Rather than the older couple who ordered two extra-dry cappuccinos, one decaf and the other extra hot, it became my English class with a paper due in three weeks on a Tuesday and two discussions before then. So for just a few weeks, I stopped taking notes and writing in my journals completely.
Normally, this would be chaotic.
Yet, it wasn’t. I trained my mind to not only visualize the multi-colored planners and journals but also the biology and calculus textbooks complete with terms and formulas. In fact, by writing less in class, I had more mental real estate to engage and wrestle with the class content. I find myself not only atomizing my work and study time but enjoying the class itself, removed from the work associated with it. Developing this new method of mental compartmentalization is my creativity, and –while unconventional– is what has spurred my success.
So, while I still take into account the advice given to me, I don’t regard it as rules to abide by. After all, aren’t rules meant to be broken?”
3. What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?
““Oh my god, you wrote that?”
I’ve always had good handwriting, practicing hours before school when I was younger repeating the swirls of the A and perfecting my T’s until it became habit. I was always asked to pen congratulations cards for pregnant teachers and posters for group projects.
This notion of perfection gradually crept from my handwriting into my work as a student as I grew older, always striving to live up to the idea of perfection I thought people wanted from me. Two of those people included my immigrant parents, whom I always admired for their success despite all odds —a fact that spurred me to succeed. I thought I owed it to them to achieve nothing other than perfection.
However, college classes were much denser and expectations were much higher. Along with juggling jobs and extracurriculars, I was paralyzed with responsibilities. I developed perfectionism procrastination: a pathological process of delaying assignments, and the negative emotions accompanying them, for fear of submitting anything less than perfection.
My grades slowly dropped and I realized I had to immediately change or my second chance at community college would be wasted by my inability to adapt to new circumstances. But, rather than instinctively labeling my weakness as bad and trying to completely change my thinking, psychology has taught me to deconstruct my thought processes.
So, I was real with myself: what was perfectionism truly accomplishing?
This was my ah-ha moment; it once was a strength, getting me through AP courses and keeping me competitive, but now left me paralyzed with a fear of making mistakes. By setting my target as perfection, being “good enough to start” was impossible.
So, I had to let go of the perfectionism that characterized my identity for so long. No more Ms. Never Wrong. No more Ms. Swirly Letter As and Ts.
Suspending the perfectionism that constituted my life and success for so long was devastating; I was essentially starting a new life, once again a beginner. Thus, adapting to this new identity has certainly been my hardest, most taxing skill —and certainly my greatest.”
7. Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?
“Everyone has felt it at least once in their lives, the fire in their stomach fueling a passion with nowhere to go but one, single, crucial direction: the goal. It’s that natural fire, one before the birth of civilization itself, an abstract fire, that pushes our limits to unimaginable levels; and, for a moment, we suspend our belief in human limitation.
But, that’s the thing: passion fades. Fires lose their spark. And, no one —not even humans in our limitless imagination— is immune to the deteriorating effects of entropy.
In my case, I sometimes lose my spark in piano.
That’s not to say I easily quit though. After all, I’ve been playing the piano for 11 years. Sometimes boredom is the highest mark of determination. One of the questions I’ve asked myself for the longest time is how to continue a passion when the easiest way out is to quit. What do I do when my spark fades? What can I do when entropy demands disorder?
Well, the answer was simple: accept boredom as a natural component of success.
That’s how I’ve come to continue playing the piano. Embracing the ugly and uninteresting as a part of the process: drilling yet another set of scales became practicing my technique to play a piece I want better. I developed a thinking strategy that hacked “needing motivation”. Motivation is fleeting, and the pain and sacrifice was just something I had to get through rather than something that made me question fundamentally if I should quit. Let’s be frank: motivation doesn’t lift as much weight as perseverance.
Life is a marathon, and to succeed you must keep going, even when times are tough. My goal is the University of California, which is why I’ll make an excellent choice at your campus. Even after the honeymoon phase ends, I’ll stick to my goals until the bitter end —all the way to the finish line.”
Wondering if you have what it takes to transfer to UCI? Have any questions about our successful UC Irvine transfer essay examples? Contact us for a free consultation! We’ll answer any of your questions and help you get accepted into your dream school!