“How strong do your UC PIQs need to be?”

We actually get this question quite often here at PenningPapers. A lot of UC applicants are unfortunately surrounded by lots of arbitrary conjecture about the UC process.

Some say the UC PIQs need to be written well to even be considered.

Others say it has no impact on one’s admissions chances.

Funnily enough, Asian-targeted social media sites like WeChat, WhatsApp, Line, and Kakao often are most known for touting false information on how the UC application process actually works.

Okay, so just how strong do your UC PIQs need to be?

Here’s the short answer: even the smartest students struggle writing strong UC PIQs. So, they should be written very well. UC PIQs are important for everyone; but, how much effort you should invest depends on your unique circumstances.

Every UC applicant has differing backgrounds, goals, and interests. This affects the importance of the UC PIQs; some students will need to write beautifully and powerfully, and others can get away with less effort.

Let’s give an example.

You are applying to UC Berkeley for their Haas business program, and you’re looking to major in business. Your friend is applying to UC Riverside as an undeclared major.

In this instance, your UC PIQs are going to be significantly more important than what your friend is writing. So, you’ll probably be putting in more hours.

Nonetheless, it doesn’t mean students applying to less competitive UC schools can skimp out on their UC PIQs. In fact, with how competitive UC applications have been for the past few years, it’s safe to say no one can skimp out on the quality of their PIQ essays. Everyone, no matter how competitive they are, still must put in a lot of work.

Yep, that’s right.

A lot.

Now, there are many other nuances that affect just how strong your UC PIQs need to be. In this article, we’ll be discussing these nuances.

Table of Contents

• How Strong Do Your UC PIQs Need To Be?
• The Common Data Set.
• Your UC PIQs Are Actually More Important Than You Think.
• The University of California’s “Holistic Admissions” Problem.
• UC Essay Editors and Consultants are Becoming More Important Now Than Ever Before.

How Strong Do Your UC PIQs Need To Be?

Now, to answer the question: how strong do your UC PIQs need to be?

We already gave our short answer: UC PIQs are important for everyone but some may need to put more effort in than others.

Here’s a bit of a longer answer: They should be VERY strong. Most students at the top of their AP Lang and Lit classes can’t write strong UC essays. Additionally, the UC PIQs are perhaps one of the most important elements in your college applications because they’re one of the few places in your application where you can actually communicate with admissions officers.

First, let’s address other people’s essay-writing skills.

We’ve worked with a lot of UC applicants before.

We’ve come across writing from students who were at the top of their classes. Many of these students had strong writing skills and scored well on their AP Lang and Lit tests. A good number were in the top 10% of their class.

Almost all of them came in with bad UC PIQ essays.

If you want to be competitive and write strong UC PIQ essays, you want to write better essays than what most students write at the top percentile of your AP Lit class.

Luckily for you, writing strong college essays is not always a matter of smarts. A large part of it is about proper introspection, self-exploration, and emotional maturity. This is actually the main focal point of a good college consultant and essay editor: they should be capable of looking at your writing, empathizing with you, and helping you write with more personal clarity.

Okay, now let’s talk about the PIQs being one of the most important elements. Take a look at the primary elements admissions officers see in your UC application.

1. Your UC GPA.
2. Extracurriculars.
3. UC PIQ Essays.
4. Recommendation Letters

That’s about it.

There are other elements to your application that may sway the admissions decision, but these are the primary four.

Notice how many of these factors are rather surface-level.

Many students earn high marks, there are a lot of soccer captains, and most recommendation letters are generic and cookie-cutter.

The UC PIQs are the only aspect where you can really show the “real you” that is beyond the surface-level resume content. It’s your moment to shine and show admissions officers that you truly are different from the other many perfect students. In other words, it’s a “make or break” part of your app.

So, whether you have a 4.0 GPA or a 3.0 GPA, whether you’re applying for UC Merced or UCLA, you’re going to need a strong essay that is creative and stands out from the rest of the admissions pool.

Don’t skimp out on writing your UC essay. Period.

The Common Data Set.

Let’s cover a less well-known aspect of the UC application.

Many students are unaware of the Common Data Set. The Common Data Set is a collective database of information containing admissions elements and factors unique to certain universities.

The UC Common Data Set depicts how important the UC PIQ essays are to the application process. You can find the UC Common Data Set through the following instructions.

1. Open your desired search engine. (Example Google)
2. Type in the search bar (minus the quotation marks) “[UC Campus] Common Data Set”.
   • Example: UC Davis Common Data Set.
3. Click the most recent Common Data Set for the most recent year.
4. Scroll to section C7.

However, note that every UC campus has a different Common Data Set unique to its own campus.

So, UCSD has its own Common Data Set that is different from UCLA’s and UCD’s.

Below I’ve pasted the Common Data Sets for all UC schools.

UC Berkeley

UC Los Angeles

UC San Diego

UC Davis

UC Irvine

UC Santa Barbara

UC Santa Cruz

UC Riverside

UC Merced

If you look closely, you’ll notice that UCB considers recommendations while UCLA does not consider them. Each campus has small differences from one another. So, keep that in mind.

But, one thing is for certain: All UC campuses put their application essays under the “very important” category, which is often as important as the academic GPA and secondary school rigor.

It just goes to show how much of an impact your UC PIQs can have on your admissions chances.

Your UC PIQs Are Actually More Important Than You Think.

So, UC PIQs are labeled as “very important” by all the UC campuses themselves. But, that’s not where it ends.

If you look further down Section C7 of the UC Common Data Set, you’ll notice that the colleges have non-academic factors listed and their importance.

Here’s an example from UC Berkeley.

Notice how UC Berkeley has 3 factors involved named “Extracurricular activities”, “Talent/ability”, and “Character/personal qualities.” Both extracurriculars and character/personal qualities are put under the “important” category, while talent/ability is put in the “considered” category.

This is where the UC PIQ essays come into play.

All 3 of these factors are often difficult to assess and judge without the help of the UC PIQs. Although students can write about their extracurricular activities, much of the judgments UC admissions officers are making will take place in the actual essays.

How will admissions officers figure out the nitty-gritty details of your extracurriculars?

How will they know what your talents and abilities are?

How do they make an inference about your character and personal qualities?

That’s right! Although they can somewhat infer all 3 of these factors in your application, much of their judgment and assessment is made through the way you write your UC PIQs.

This is what makes the UC PIQs so important. They are responsible for 4 entire factors of the admissions process. While other admissions factors stand on their own such as Letters of Recommendation and Academic Performance, the essays have a massive effect on 3 other entire admissions factors.

Ouch.

Of course, the level of impact the non-academic factors have on the admissions process varies depending on the campus. But, the principle still stands.

The University of California’s “Holistic Admissions” Problem.

One of the things you may have heard about the UC application process is its dedication to holistic admissions.

Holistic admissions is essentially the university’s attempt at looking past your academic performance. They want to see you for who you really are beyond just the numbers and letters on your transcript.

Below you can find a full breakdown of the University of California application factors.

1. Academic grade point average in all completed A-G courses, including additional points for completed UC-certified honors courses.
2. Number of, content of and performance in academic courses beyond the minimum A-G requirements.
3. Number of and performance in UC-approved honors, Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate Higher Level and transferable college courses.
4. Identification by UC as being ranked in the top 9 percent of your high school class at the end of your junior year (Eligible in the Local Context, or ELC).
5. Quality of your senior-year program as measured by the type and number of academic courses in progress or planned.
6. Quality of your academic performance relative to the educational opportunities available in your high school.
7. Outstanding performance in one or more specific subject areas.
8. Outstanding work in one or more special projects in any academic field of study.
9. Recent, marked improvement in academic performance as demonstrated by academic GPA and the quality of coursework completed or in progress.
10. Special talents, achievements and awards in a particular field, such as visual and performing arts, communication or athletic endeavors; special skills, such as demonstrated written and oral proficiency in other languages; special interests, such as intensive study and exploration of other cultures; experiences that demonstrate unusual promise for leadership, such as significant community service or significant participation in student government; or other significant experiences or achievements that demonstrate the student’s promise for contributing to the intellectual vitality of a campus.
11. Completion of special projects undertaken in the context of your high school curriculum or in conjunction with special school events, projects or programs.
12. Academic accomplishments in light of your life experiences and special circumstances, including but not limited to: disabilities, low family income, first generation to attend college, need to work, disadvantaged social or educational environment, difficult personal and family situations or circumstances, refugee status or veteran status.
13. Location of your secondary school and residence.

UC Official Website: How Applications are Reviewed

Okay, sounds pretty fair. Right?

Well, there’s a bit of a problem. And that problem is population.

The University of California system is right in trying to give prospective students a more comprehensive review process. It makes things fair for everyone. But, what if that everyone includes a total of 251,179 applicants (with 210,840 being freshmen and 40,339 being transfers?)

That’s a lot of applications.

In other words, trying to look deeper into every application, all 251,179 of them, is going to be rather difficult. How many soccer captains are there? How many women interested in STEM are there? How about Chess competition winners?

At some point, providing holistic admissions to so many students is an improbable task.

That’s why the University of California weighs the PIQ essays heavily. It’s the best way for admissions officers to provide a holistic admissions process and treat every application fairly. If you can write a strong set of UC PIQs, you can cut through the many thousands of applicants —effectively increasing your acceptance rate through holistic admissions.

…which of course brings us to our next section: the importance of essay editors and consultants.

UC Essay Editors and Consultants are Becoming More Important Now Than Ever Before.

College admissions aren’t what it used to be decades ago. Even one decade ago, it was a massively different landscape. What used to get students accepted into T25 schools would be lucky to get students accepted into mid-level state schools.

This is why professional college essay editing and college consulting is becoming a growing market for tutoring and prep centers.

In addition, writing quality UC PIQ essays is one of the best ways to increase your admissions chances quickly: especially even the best students often write them poorly.

But, it’s not that easy.

Test prep centers, tutoring centers, and college consulting firms are NOT built to help students write college essays properly. They’re built on traditional academic foundations, which often parallel a Hagwon format.

Traditional academic coaching methods DON’T help students improve college essays. Instead, college essays often require A LOT of self-exploration and introspection. It’s a bit like an emotional maturity vs smarts approach, or EQ vs IQ matter.

One of the ways we found works best for coaching our clients to write solid UC PIQ essays (and all college essays in general) is to have a more therapeutic approach to consulting that mimics counseling.

This actually helps students open up A LOT about ideas that they didn’t even know about themselves. It helps them rediscover parts of their character and personal qualities that were shut away. In addition, many of our clients found our college consulting practices to have made the college essay writing process infinitely easier —inevitably helping them get accepted into schools like NYU Stern, UPenn Wharton, Cornell Dyson, and many more!

Of course, if you’re not sure how to find the right college consultant who is right for you, read section 2 of our sister article!

So, in summary: how strong do your UC PIQs need to be? It depends on everyone’s needs. But, rest assured everyone regardless of background is going to need a strong set of UC PIQs to have any hope of getting accepted. What we recommend is a good college consultant and essay editor who can approach your application expertly and effectively —such as our professional consultants here at PenningPapers!

If you’re still unsure of how to approach your UC PIQs to make them strong enough for submission, fear no longer. Our college admissions consulting methods have helped countless students get accepted into some of the most prestigious schools in the nation, including Stanford, USC, UCLA, UCB, Brown, Duke, Cornell, NYU, UPenn, and many more. Consider scheduling us for a free consultation, and we’ll provide you with free help within 24 hours!