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## Intro—What Makes UC Admissions Different [00:00] Hello everyone. Welcome. We'll get started in just a few moments. All right, welcome everyone to today's webinar training for the UC 101 insider guides to UC admissions. Today's webinar is going to be a bit special because we're going to be going a bit pretty technical actually for today and actually we'll be uh teaching all material uh where we actually use the same to train our own coaches. So, what's special about the information that we share as a company or one of our core values is just to be as accessible as possible. And one of the things that we'd like to do is we like to give you all as much free information as possible. We're not going to hold anything back. We're going to teach you what exactly works uh within the admissions office. And so, um that being said, uh just know that the information I'm about to give y'all are is the same exact material and content that we would have our coaches be rigorously trained in. uh so that y'all can get that insider uh scoop. So uh but before we get started though, quick introduction for myself and I just realized this agenda is totally off here but in ter in terms of my background um I used to work at the uh within UC Berkeley's admission office as an outreach coordinator and instructor uh going to different high schools to teach about how does college admission works and also taught a class on how to get into graduate school. And also fun fact if you didn't know about me is that I was a full ride scholar to UC Berkeley for undergrad and graduate school. So I got everything paid off for because I didn't want to take out a single loan. And if you haven't already check out one of my previous webinars I did about how I exactly did that. And also by way of background for myself I used to work in the K through2 education policy space education technology uh and also right now serving as admission adviser. That being said, really excited to be able to dive into this content with y'all, especially with all the learnings I have had. You uh you used to work in the admissions office is actually where I met Coach Tony. And for those who are joining us today or might be new or maybe you've been with us for a while, would love for you to just share your high school graduation year in the chat to be able to see who's in the room with us and also throughout our entire time with us. Uh please drop your questions in the Q&A box. We'll get to at the very end. And of course, replay and notes will always be available within 48 hours. Uh that being said, we're going to go into our uh our guide, ## Holistic Review Explained (Not Just GPA) [04:00] our UC 101 guide. And don't worry, this is going to be shared with everybody later on in the future. When it comes to this guide, you might notice there's a 50-page document here that we're going to go be going through. And so I'm going to be covering uh through the more important points. Uh I'm not going to go through page by page, but at least I'll be able to give you all a sense um by the end of this presentation, you'll understand how does UC UC admissions work and how does it compare to other systems. The reason why we focus so much on UC admissions is not just because our uh company is founded within California, but because the UC system is actually one of the most competitive state universities. That being said, if you are watching from Florida, from New York, from any other or Texas or any other state, just know that if you can get into the UC system, more than likely you can get into any other system or state college system as well. So, uh, and that also includes IV leagues, uh, too, because if you can get into UC Berkeley, UCLA, which are top competitive UC campuses, then you should be able to get into the Ivy League schools. So, um, quick kind of background in terms of UC's is that there are nine, uh, UC campuses. I'm not going to go in each individual one, but just know that each of them have their own kind of unique personality to it. whether it's Berkeley where you are very interested in social activism to the beaches uh at Santa Barbara or being able to uh experience um the kind of uh veterinarian culture or uh being able to explore agriculture and veterary science within Davis. Each of the UC's have their own very unique kind of twist to it. So something to consider is that when you are applying, don't just apply to, you know, Berkeley or UCLA just because of the name or such, right? Really get to know the campuses because each of them do have a very unique campus lifestyle. Uh, one of the things that we always stress the importance of understanding which one is good for you. Just go out to the campus, be able to explore it because you never know what the campus lifestyle might actually fit better for you. Um, because each of the campuses offer a very unique taste to it. And so, uh, that being said, um, you can feel free to read within the UC guide about what each of the campuses do offer. Something to, uh, kind of across all the UC's though to, to know is that all the applications are the same, meaning that once you apply to UC's, you only do one application and that one application go to all nine of them. Uh, you will of course have to pay different application fees for each of them. And also, they're typically due within December 2nd. Last year was the first time they did it in December 2nd. Historically, it was November 30th, but so they gave everyone a few extra days so that that way people can turn in their applications on time. Also, one of the big characteristics of how UC's do their admissions process is they do a holistic review. What a holistic review means is that they pretty much take a look at every single thing that you provide them. Uh, one of the misconceptions that a lot of people have about college admissions process is that if you don't fulfill a certain GPA and you don't fulfill a certain thing or you don't check off a box, then you're excluded right away. There is minimums in regards to what you need in order to apply to UC in regards to GPA and such, but at the same time, they're still going to look at you for everything. For example, even if you have a 3.2 GPA and you're applying from California into Berkeley or UCLA, they're still going to review your PIQs. They're still going to review your extracurriculars. They're going to look at every single thing possible because they want to make sure they're looking at you holistically. So, uh, admissions isn't about checking boxes. It's really about being able to see how do you show a comprehensive profile. So, that being said, um, don't lose hope if your GPA or your grades aren't the best, right? We actually, uh, fun fact, within Eagle Lock, we were able to actually get a student into UC Berkeley with 3.2 GPA. So, that was ## Course Rigor vs Grades—Which Matters More [07:30] something really exciting that our staff members were, uh, really, uh, excited about. And so um just know that there just because you have a B or a C or like a low grade in one course doesn't mean that it ruins your chances. So let's go into a little bit more specifics though about how does this holistic uh review process actually work. And so uh the first kind of approach that they look at is your academic achievement. When it comes to academic achievement, what they're looking for is really at your grades and your course rigor, which are the two major important things. Uh yes, they take they they ask you to fill in your GPA or UC GPA, but GPA can be a bit misleading because um it's not really about the GPA number that really matters the most. It's about the grades for the specific courses. So remember that if you are trying to apply, for example, computer science or engineering, the grades that matter the most are like your math courses, your physics courses, any other computer science or engineering courses. If you're in premed, the courses that matter the most are like mathematics and also your life sciences such as biology and chemistry. And so your GPA gives you like a um a a generic kind of number that is is associated with you, but what we care about more is about the specific courses that might relate to your major that you're trying to apply to. And also it's about the grades in those rigorous courses. So it's not just about trying to get to all A's, but it's about can you get A's in more difficult courses. Uh many students and families have asked us uh should I go for the regular courses so that I get all A's or should I go for the more difficult courses and risk getting a B or like a lower grade? Well, for us, we always say rigor is the most important thing because think this way. If you go to college, right, you're going to be taking college level courses. Do you expect those courses to be harder or easier? They're going to be harder, right? And so the goal is to show that you're able to take initiative that you're willing to take those more difficult courses because those difficult courses can really uh help the admission readers understand can you actually graduate from our university on time. They want to make sure that you can graduate. And so that's why it's so important that we look at AP courses, IB courses, honor courses, and also dual enrollment, which is when you take classes at the community college. All those courses are really important because if you are not pushing yourself to study those harder subjects then why do we think that you can actually be successful within a UC campus. So at uh if in your course selection process at any point in time that you're questioning should I take this harder course or the regular course always take the harder one because that's really going to be able to push you because uh ## What Your Activities Really Say About You [10:00] take it this way if you cannot handle the harder courses then why should you even deserve to go to a prestigious universities to learn harder courses right so that's why we look at course rigor also performance over time what this means is that we look at grade trends it's not just a simple A's and B's and if you get a C even like let's say in ninth grade, you could still make it up. You could still be able to show that you increased over time. We either want to show an increase over time, that's an upward trend, or consistent trend that is remaining high. And also, uh, lastly is coursework beyond the minimum requirements. Yes, there are A throughG requirements, which we'll cover a little bit, which is like your typical years of math, English, history, and so forth. But don't just take the minimum. The minimum is just about what is it is required just to be able to get in or to even be considered for the application process. For the most part, right, people don't need to worry about whether they're going to fulfill the A3G requirements. What you should be worrying about the most is how do you go beyond those A3G requirements and take what's recommended or things that they haven't even looked at because if you're taking the minimum, imagine how many other students are taking the minimum requirements. That is who you're going to be compared to. And so, you don't want to be compared to the minimum. you want to be able to show that you can uh be ahead. Next is uh aside from academics is the personal insight questions. This is where you can think about is your consider your personal branding. Uh you will be required to submit four out of the eight personal insight questions. We'll read what those questions are and essentially think of it as what are the four different personal branding elements of yourself that you could be highlight. Maybe one is about one extracurricular, maybe second could be about your major, third is your academic interest, maybe fourth is something else. The goal was to show what are four unique aspects of yourself that connect the dots together about why exactly do you want to go into your college and career. Meaning that you're going to college or your career because you want to learn something. So the goal is to demonstrate what have you learned throughout your experiences as a student and being able to connect the dots about what is that gap in terms of what else is it that you need to learn from in your uh later uh uh stages of your college and career. also uh depth over and specificity. What that means is really being able to show um quality over quantity. It's not about all the things that you uh could be doing, but it's about showing the depth of those experiences. What did you learn from it? What did you gain from it? If you are a part of a leadership experience, let's say you're part of leadership and you were like the student body president. Guess how many other student body presidents there were. So, there are tons of student body presidents given the fact that there's tons of high schools out there. But the goal is to be able to demonstrate what did you learn from it very uniquely in comparison to the rest. And lastly, alignment with the application being able to show like reinforcing the activities and the achievement section. Later, you're going ## How to Build a “Pathway” Application Strategy [12:45] to be able to post uh down what are 20 different activities or achievements that you've had and the application reinforces that those are the things that you have been doing and that you could speak to what you learned from those experiences. Next is extracurricular activities and leadership. I think I already mentioned the quality over quantity, but the goal is to not just show um the depth, but in terms of what depth actually looks like, it's one is initiative, second is leadership, third is problem solving, um and fourth is being able to be collaborative. If you can show those four major characteristics across all your activities, then that's what is really going to be able to help you stand out. In many cases, a lot of students are really involved, but they might not necessarily be down to take any leadership positions or take roles. And you don't have to show leadership positions through your clubs or anything of that short sort, but showing leadership uh initiative uh through your community even as well. So just know that it's not just about the title, but it's about having to show like how have you influenced others, right? This is where the collaboration part comes in. What the activities or the extracurriculars are really made to do is to help readers assess whether are you a good cultural fit with our uh campus. And to be able to tell that they look at your activities to gauge like will you actually add to our lifestyle on our campus because if you're not then like and you're just going to be studying all day, you're not going to be doing anything besides just studying. Then that's not really a campus lifestyle then that uh people would want to have uh for their school. People want people the readers want people to be involved as much as possible to better the community. Next is awards and and accomplishments or achievements. The goal is to show that you know how were you able to stand out. Um what the awards really show is that it shows your dedication towards perfecting your craft. If you are the number one swimmer of your organization or the number one whatever for your particular club or or sport, the goal is to show that you have this strong dedication and commitment to excellence and that's what that displays. So, anything that you have awards for that you can be able to show, those are always great things to add. And, uh, the special talents achievement awards are all very much similar here. Uh, the goal is to just think about like what are the things that can help you stand out or what are the things that you've been able to uh, show that you worked hard for. And of course, always tie it to what did you learn from the experience about what is it that you want to do later on in the future. Of course, many people who are doing sports, it's it's possible that you're not necessarily going to be a professional athlete in the future where you're going to be playing major league sports. I mean, if you want to, then cool. By all means, you should definitely do that. But what I mean by that is maybe there's something that you learned such as like collaborating with your team or being able to to think about discipline. What did you gain from that experience that has taught you about who you are today and what and how would that um benefit the UC campus in the long term? also contextual factors and life circumstances. The UC admissions does consider uh things such as the social economic background, personal hardship or educational opportunities that you were offered. The goal is to be able to compare apples to apples. It does not mean that you need a quote unquote SAB story in order to get into these schools, which is a typical misconception because in fact, not a lot of the percentage of these campuses are ## The Best and Worst UC Essay Prompts [16:00] actually low so economic status. And um the the whole part is to make sure that you are able to compare a student from one particular school compared to the very a fairly similar school or the same school because they have the same opportunities. And so what that means is that if one school offers like 10 AP courses and one school offers only three AP courses, then obviously that's an unfair uh advantage there, right? That the school with the 10 APs would have. So, a lot of parents have asked us in the past like what would it mean or what would happen if I send my school to a uh disadvantaged school or a more privileged school. Like the end of the story is that um students will be compared to their peers at that school. So, just know that that comes with that trade-off. I mean, of course, we do always recommend for students to go to the best school as much as possible for themselves because you want to take in consideration of their education, the quality of their education, their safety, all their kinds of uh needs that need to be met for that school. But also, if it is a school that is uh typically high soio economic status and has a lot of resources, then your student is going to be compared to them as well. Uh and so that's why we uh take in consideration of that background is because we want to make sure that it's a fair comparison and that we're not just selecting the cream of the crop per se. Uh next is the contribution to campus diversity and community which is being able to show like what is your unique perspective in being able to uh like uh represent a particular background or to support a particular issue. The thing about the UC schools is that they really care about this value of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Meaning that they want people to be able to um to represent uh challenges or backgrounds that might not represent the majority. They uh of course for those who don't know the UC missions, they do not actually take in consideration of your actual like demographic background. meaning that anytime that there is race or ethnicity ever identified within the p personal insight questions that's actually raced out. Um so it would be like a imagine you're reading a personal statement and anything that says like Asian, black, white, Hispanic, those are all blacked out and so they're not taking consideration and also the names of the uh applications will be blacked out as well to avoid any implicit bias. So how do they actually take consideration of diversity, equity, inclusion? It's based off your impact. It's based off your action. what have you done to actually further this particular background or this particular community? Uh and of course like if you say that you are part of an Asian student union or some type of student union that is related to some type of demographic that is also considered blacked out as well. So uh in ways right they can't do any favoritism or any kind of uh additional um bias towards any particular uh ethnic group per se. But what they do value though is being able to show that are you an advocate for any particular cause or any kind of issue. So this doesn't necessarily have to relate to a one particular background, but it can relate to a particular issue. Think of it that way. So less about like do you need to be a advocate or representative of like a particular uh uh marginalized community, but more so are you able to show that you care about a particular uh issue that matters to you. Next is major preparation. Uh this is particularly stronger for um or more important for transfer students because when you're a transfer student, you apply directly into a major. You can't go in as a undeclared. And so one of the goals is to show like how have you taken initiative to learn more about your field. If you want to study engineering, how do you know that you actually want to do engineering? Okay, you should be able to demonstrate within your activities or the things that you've been doing have been leading up to this point. So the ma major preparation is really important because um you want to go in with a major in mind. A lot of students and families have asked us like what if like is it better to go in as undeclared? That could be strategic but for the most part we do recommend that uh students do try to find a major that is most aligned to them uh just because there is a lot of students that that do go in as undeclared. And so the goal is to show that you are purposeful in your application that you want to learn this particular field because your experience has led you to this point. When you go into the uh UC applications, you do not want to feel like a lost soul. You don't want to be like I'm not sure what I want to do with my life. I don't I have no clue. I hope that the UC's will be able to give me that idea. like you should be doing that exploration yourself already ahead of time so that you can come in very laser focused saying that I really want to learn X Y and Z because through my discovery doing A B and C I know that this is my gap of knowledge that I want to gain. Uh this does not mean that you have to stick with your major though. So just like it's almost 80% of students will tend to change their major at least once within their 4-year university. That is expected. But the goal is to at least come in with some idea. All right? And then you can always change your major when you're inside. Ideally, you could uh you want to apply into the same pathway. Uh within Eagle Lock, we ## Tips for Writing Killer PIQs (With Examples) [21:00] emphasize pathway over major. Pathway meaning that what is like kind of the overall grouping of majors that align to each other. For example, mechanical engineering, nuclear engineering, uh any type of engineering is very similar to each other. Uh meaning that that is the pathway. Engineering and computer science is a pathway. The major could be anything. And so when it comes to admissions, they don't admit based off major at times. A majority of times they don't admit by major. They usually emit by pathway. So that being said, just think about the pathway that you want to apply to and show that you're taking initiative to learn more about that field. So if you're interested in mechanical engineering, doesn't mean that all your things, all your activities need to be related to mechanical engineering. It can just be related to engineering generically, just speaking because it's not like everybody has access to those experiences. Next is test scores. Test scores. Uh UC campuses are actually camp uh uh test blind meaning that they do not actually consider SAT or ACT scores but however um out of state and international students may submit those scores which are primarily used for course placement um rather than the admissions decision. So for example like uh what courses are required will you have to take this remedial math or remedial English like what kind of level would you be placed in? So, if you are only applying to the uh UC campuses uh and not any private schools or any other schools, it might actually be worth your time to apply for the SATs or to study for the SATs or ACTs. So, I know some parents are like, but if it's if they if it's optional, does that mean that they should still do it? No. Like, they won't even look at it. So, it's not worth your time. The focus should be more so about the application and the other academics letter recommendation. So uh before UC's used to have to require this for every single applicant but now they only do it for augmented review. Augmented review is when you are put on the maybe list. So let's just say like during the uh December time frame um you hear back from the admissions office saying like hey uh we need you to submit additional personal statement or um and also letters of wreck. That is usually a good sign because that means that you're not on the no list, right? So um augmented review is sometimes a good indicator. I got augmented review for Berkeley and UCLA and um as I mentioned fun fact I still got a full ride uh scholarship to UC Berkeley. So that being said like augmented review is totally fine to uh have and this is where you submit letters of recommendations that provide additional context provide things that are different from what is it already stated in your application. The goal is not to be able to find letters of recommendations that like kind of validate what you've already written but to provide a different perspective. And also some programs that are more competitive such as UC Berkeley's College of Engineering may uh invite students to submit them as well um just because of how impacted they are. They might need some additional information. And lastly, uh the holistic group comprehensive review. Uh that being said, it takes in consideration of everything, right? There's not one thing that's more important. Well, actually there is kind of things that we say the application is the most important thing followed by the extracurriculars, then followed by the academics. The academics is the least important thing. Why? Why is that? Well, it's because most majority of students who do apply to schools, they already have a lot of great academics. So, don't try to compete to be the best of the best A student because there's always going to be a lot of A students. The goal is to show like how do you have your competitive advantage which is through the application and what is your personal branding. So, that is what we recommend which is uh if you were to like think about your focus about what to do for example this upcoming summer. Should I do my um take a dual enrollment course? Should I take do extracurriculars? uh what should I do? Well, the goal ever initially is both. Do both. But if you had to choose one or the other based off of like availability and opportunity, choose the extracurriculars that can give you the most unique experience because generally speaking, a lot of students are going to be taking summer classes as well. But what they might not have is that extracurricular that you've decided to get involved in. And also be creative. It's not just about do I have to do one or the other. You can do those extracurriculars for sure. And you can possibly take online courses through um uccout.org which is actually uh courses offered by the University of California which provides you AP courses. And that's one thing that a lot of people don't realize. If they take online UC uh UC courses or AP courses through the UC website, how many other students at their school are actually doing the same? Very little. Very little. And the goal is to show that you have a diversity academic rigor. It's not just about you taking the typical courses at your school, but it's about being able to show that you have a transcripts or transcripts that are uh uncomparable to the rest of your peers. Because usually in high school, you might have only one transcript. But if you have community college, you have the UC Scout, you have like three transcripts right there. That is much more transcripts than any other student probably at your school. If you can show that you have a community college transcript and a UC uh scouts transcript, you're already further ahead than the majority of peers. So that's why we always recommend taking those online courses. All right. Uh so uh let's keep ## Why Dual Enrollment Gives You a Huge Edge [26:00] on going into uh the rest of this as well. Um hope folks are enjoying this so far. Uh I'm not sure there's a good amount of people in this room, but is this use is this information useful to everybody? Love to see some uh kind of nods in the chat or the Q&A if this is insightful information. All right. See some thumbs up. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. Glad to hear that. All right. So let's go into understanding the UC application requirements. So there are minimum requirements and then we'll talk about strategy in terms of how to kind of advance in these like PIQS as well. So first off with the UC's uh there are minimum requirements 3.0 for California residents 3.4 to uh non-C California residents AG requirements which is like you know your typical math English science courses uh testing is test optional or test blind actually should be test blind. Um, and uh, personal insight questions are also there's about eight different prompts. You can be able to select four of them, which we'll actually talk about which prompts that you should be choosing. There's actually some that you should avoid, uh, which can be a little bit tricky. And then, of course, there's the activities and award sections. We'll go through some examples of what that might look like to be able to write about it. And then also transcript and documentation. So, you actually do not need to submit your transcripts right up front. You submit your transcripts when you get accepted. Uh so you have to fill in the information of like your transcript information uh one by one. You do a lot of data entry for them. I know which is ridiculous. And then you would actually have to submit your scores once you get accepted. Um and you they would use that to to prove that you actually submitted successfully. So make sure you don't lie uh when you're submitting that information. So when it comes to the uh UC requirements uh let's start with the uh this is pretty t typical right here but at least for the academics uh when it comes to the particular years in uh history there's two years English is four years math is three years whenever you see recommended you want always want to go for recommended is it required per se like there's at times where some people think they like okay let's say for example um your school selection doesn't have much to offer And let's say that you had to choose between the third year of your uh foreign language or language other than English and also maybe an AP course that is only offered at that same time. In those cases, you will want to go for the AP courses for example. The recommended is always something that you want to aim for or shoot for. But at the same time, there might be limitations based on your schedule. So just know that even if you get these, like if you don't have all the recommended, it's okay. you can always explain it in the additional comments why you did not take those particular courses. So, for example, even for myself, like my this was baby back then. Um I'll age myself like back then. I graduated in like 2011 way back in the day. But, uh during that time, like I had like Spanish 3 versus like taking um uh taking like the fourth year of engineering. And for me, like I had to take that fourth year engineering. And then I was able to explain why I ## Augmented Review and Letters of Rec Explained [29:00] didn't have the three years of of language other than English. and English is uh and and for me at least I wasn't I did not enjoy Spanish whatsoever. So I try to avoid that course. But at the very least just know that you you don't necessarily always have to go for the recommended. It's always again it's recommended is what you would want want to try to aim for. And of course for course rigor as I mentioned always try to take the most advanced courses whether it's AP, IB or honors courses. And um the goal there is to show that you have high rigor within those particular or high grades in those rigorous courses. So yes, they'll ask for GPA, but it's really they're looking at the grades for those particular courses that matter to your major and also that have high rigor. Test blind blind policy, as I mentioned, they will not consider it. Personal insight questions, they are eight questions here that you could be able to answer. Pro tip, if you uh have uh if you're trying to prepare for the application early, create flash cards for yourself. So, for example, uh write down all these props onto individual flashcards and just pull one out and just uh quiz yourself, quiz your child if you are a parent on this call and just try to have more conversations about it. The more that you have a conversation about it, the easier it's going to be for you to write about it. Also, within the PIQ's, we actually recommend even though on the UC website, it says that it doesn't matter which one that you choose. We ourselves um within ELOC, we say do not choose prompt five or prompt 8. The reason for that is usually for prompt five when people talk about the most significant challenges they faced or how to overcome this journey. A lot of people might typically say how like they had a low grade and they might say like oh they had a B in a particular course. And um the thing is a lot of students tend to over uh say the same type of story where they had low grade in a particular course and they had to like address it and it just becomes very redundant. And believe us, we've read thousands of applications, so we know what sounds redundant. And so, typically number five is not a good choice to talk about because majority of students will say the same exact things. Also, another one is prompt number eight. Number eight is very ambiguous. It's just being able to say like, hey, beyond what you already shared, is there anything that helps you stand out as a strong candidate? The reason for this is because majority of candidates are not that unique. Okay? uh majority of students are not that uh there's no one that's like curing cancer per se and uh I say this in a way that is just the reality there's a lot of amazing students that apply to these schools but in reality is there really students that do actually stand out not really right and I know that we talk a lot about like how can you stand out and in most cases a lot of stu the way to stand out is through your insights about how can you share your emotional maturity of what did you learn from those experiences that you had so far. But at least for prompt number eight, there's not a lot of opportunity for students to be able to show that they created some type of amazing result, amazing outcome that no one else has done. So it might be very difficult to ## Top Mistakes Families Make on the UC App [32:00] compete with prompt number eight unless you do have something that is very very very unique to you that you feel like no one else has. In most cases, a lot of students are pretty similar to each other. So that's why we recommend number seven, number six, 4 321. And uh and for those ones, again, think about what are for some four unique personal branding elements about yourself that you could be able to highlight from there. And quick writing uh tips here. Uh one thing that I forgot to add here was make sure that every single sentence has a I, me, and myself. And that's because every single sentence needs to be about you. And what I mean by that is, uh one of the things that students typically do as a main issues, they write about the parents, they write about the communities, they write about issues that don't relate to themselves. What we want to understand is what's your interests? What's your passions? What are your aspirations? Everything needs to be about you. One of those things too about some students who are typically in the engineering field or computer science field, they one of their major fallacies that they tend to do, they tend to nerd out about a particular issue or nerd out about a particular engineering kind of technical thing. And there the reason why they might go into depth about like oh my god like um all these like they talk about all these like uh big terms that are related to engineering or something technical and they think that it's a way to show their like interest in there. And the thing is they're ending up trying to teach us about the uh the subject rather than teaching us about themselves. So one thing to look out for if you're a technical student or going into a technical major don't write about technical things, right? The goal is to teach us about you. Don't teach us about something that's unrelated to you because I don't care about how uh you know knowledgeable you are about this particular field. Uh because what I care about is really what do you want to do with that information, right? So a lot of the times it's like there's a lot of students that are very smart, highly intelligent. They just don't know what to write about specifically and that's about themselves. So, that's why we say to put these onto flashcards and to just talk about aloud because that's just going to be able to help you be able to uh to react to it, to write about it later on in the future, especially if you always say the words, use the words I, me, and myself in every single response. Uh, other things to consider too, um, show don't tell, use concrete examples, be as explicit as possible. Um, but also there's a balance here. Don't try to be too explicit where like you're just wasting words on like very specific details. the the very beginning of the uh personal insight question like get to the point essentially. If you can share what did you gain from this experience within like one sentence as opposed to four long sentences about the story or the setup then just use that one sentence. The goal is to show the reason why they're called personal insight questions is because it's about the insights. What did you learn from these experiences? So don't waste your time trying to put things in contextualization. try to be able to show us what did you actually learn from it all and uh yeah that's reflection connecting here and the next the important part too is try to connect it to the values or like what you want to achieve in the future uh another tip I've told students to is think about like past present future um and most students tend to forget about the future the future meaning like what does this how does this matter to what they want to do later on the in what they want to do in their college or the career or what is it that they can be able to provide to the UC campuses later on in the future. All right. Um, activities and awards sections. Uh, so in this case, you have 20 uh, activities or awards that you could be able to list out. There's different types of activities that you can mention from educational preparation program, volunteering, work experience, awards and honors, extracurricular activities. The goal, try to, you know, diversify, try to be able to identify multiple pieces of it. Uh, don't just try to go all in about extracurriculars because you want to differentiate yourself. to differentiate yourself, you want to try to tackle all different ones. So, especially with awards and honors, too. A lot of things that a lot of students don't have on their list are awards and honors and know that there ## How to Build a UC Strategy by Grade Level [36:00] are competitions that you can participate in, whether that's within your school or within like more national or geographical like locations as well. Uh, if you don't know which awards that you could be able to participate in, well, just think of it as what are you good at and what do you think you could be able to uh compete in. uh t for listing activities be concise, be impactful and prioritize the most relevant activities uh in this case. So what this means is uh just try to be very specific uh and try to talk about what did you what was the uh situation, what was the action and what was the result or in this case it was like the SAR right situation action result being able to encapsulate all three of them will be the most effective kind of way to structure your activities there. Uh and then within the transcript I already mentioned you don't need to submit it until after um after everything uh or after you get accepted. Okay. Now let's get into the PIQ's and specifically what are some tips regarding this uh the let me just skip ahead. the thing that I would uh prioritize here. Okay, let's go into feedback process because I already mentioned some of the tips there. But when it comes to uh feedback and reviewing your your PIQs, you got to go through a lot of revisions. Okay, you don't know who your actual reader is going to be at the end of the day. So remember that when it comes to readers, right, it's possible that you're going to get like about two readers who are going to decide like whether there's a yes, no, or maybe. and to ensure that you account for the variability of each reader cuz each reader is has their own subjective biases too, right? Yes, they're trained to be able to mitigate bias, but everyone is going to have their own kind of perspective still that you can't eliminate. And so the goal there is to make sure you get it reviewed by multiple people. The reason why for at least within Eagle, we have multiple coaches review your PIQS or your personal statements is because we want to make sure that you can get an approval from all the coaches. If you can go to one of our college app intensives and go to the accelerator workshop, which is where we do rapid fire back and forth essay revisions, you're going to have four coaches who are going to be able to give you uh their kind of feedback and also tell you whether if they think that is ready or not ready. And if you can get all four coaches to say like, "Yeah, this was good. This was amazing." Right? Then you pretty much have a good shot at at being able to get into these universities. Remember the application is the most important one across all three aspects across the academics and the activities. And so you don't want to uh um put low amount of effort into your application process. You want to make sure you're constantly developing uh the revisions and getting feedback as much as you can. And also know that there's different types of revisions too. Uh we kind of we usually go through like kind of three phases, right? First is the kind of ideation, right? Do you have an idea about what are the typical things that you're going to talk about within your own personal branding? Next, after you have those ideas down, the second phase is being able to create a flow. Can you have it like uh can you uh like in a narrative make sense of the situation that you're trying to uh illustrate and demonstrate what your actual insights were? And then the last piece is the copywriting or the proof reading. That's at the very end. Don't do proof reading at the very beginning for like in terms of grammar. uh check at the very beginning because it's going to be really rough, right? And so the goal is to prioritize focusing on the right things. If you're going to just focus on spelling and then like sentence structure and grammar at the very beginning, you're going to get so stuck because you're going to get so worried about how you sound as opposed to what your actual ideas are. And so, and also remember, every single sentence needs to have a I, me, or myself. And one of the things that we tell our students and families is that uh the second pro tip is like don't ever ask your English teacher to review your essays because they're just going to be reviewing for your grammar, spelling, and punctuation the most as opposed to everything else. For us, like as admission reviewers, yes, we care about that. But it just doesn't need to be distracting. That's all it that's all the goal is. Like I'm not going to go in and be like, "Oh, this person messed up on this punctuation." Like they are immediately disqualified. No, like we just need it to be readable or legible to the point where it just your grammar or your diction isn't like distracting from the rest of the story. So, just know that people are forgiving in terms of being able to see that there is some punctuation issues or something. Not to say that's not important. You should always like correct at the very end, but I'm just saying like don't focus on like make sure you're focusing on the right things. Focus on the content and the actual quality of the uh insights that you're able to demonstrate. So uh here's some examples that I promised I will be able to give you all some more concrete ideas. So this is like a like a snippet of like you know an activity or PIQ which um is of course a very smaller version. Uh where the prompt was describe a leadership experience where you have positively influence others help resolve disputes or contributed group efforts over time. So as president of my high school environmental club I organized a zero waste week initiative aiming to reduce our landfill waste by 25%. I led a team of 15% coordinating educational workshops, daily waste reductions, and schoolwide cleanup. Through collaboration, I learned the power of collective action and uh and the importance of education and promoting change. The initiative reduced waste by 30% and received positive feedback from both students and faculty, reinforcing my passion for sustainability. I hope to continue similar projects at UC engaging the campus community in environmental stewardship. Why was this effective? Well, first off, right, they set the situation fairly uh quickly, right? Saying that they were the president of the environmental club, right? And they immediately went to the action. What I really appreciate is they didn't waste so much time trying to set up the scene about like what it was like to work at the high school environmental club. So many people spend so much time on the hook that it is just so distracting that like and it's so funny because like you know the hook is supposed to be able to get you to like come in but it becomes too distracting that it's just like just get to the point right what I learned the most from here right is this person took initiative they did these things and this is what they learned right it gets really uh concise and straight to the point so what they did what that was great they used specific details they did a quantitative impact right being able to show that they had a 30% reduction I would say though of course like cuz this is example though um I would try to describe a little bit more about how did they baseline that like 25% you could say like that's like a generic like term like I could say yeah I reduce waste by 25% 50% 10% like what does that even really mean right so being able to show like what did you how did you actually calculate that would be effective and reflection connection right what did they learn from the experience and how would it contribute to the UC community so of course like you know this was a very short reduced down version, but if they can expand a little bit more on the details of what was those 25%, right? Uh what did they uh going a little bit more in depth about like how did they do these things or like showing qualities or characteristics that help them achieve these actions and also just more general things about like what did they learn from it and what does this mean for their passion for sustainability? like what do they want to do for sustainability and like is that a particular career minded for themselves or what do they want to learn uh if they want to go to UC campuses is not just about being able to engage them in environmental stewardship but also what is it that they want to gain from the content or the curriculum that they're going to get. Okay. And um quick another tip here is uh you know avoid avoid cliches. Uh I think this the cliches tend to happen within the hooks. uh I think the most because we read thousands of like essays, right? There isn't really like the the way that you stand out is by talking about the insights. It's about showing your emotional maturity because the goal isn't necessarily to wow the uh that missions reader. The point is to show your own maturity about what did you learn about yourself and that's how you stand out. because a lot of people so focus on this initial part that they forget that the whole point about these essays is to help us learn more about the student. All right. Uh all right. And then going into the academic and extracurricular sections. Uh I think I already mentioned a lot of this in terms of A throughG requirements. Uh there is the A throughg list that people need to do and also of course AP tests also work as well. Um and there's also IB test as well. Uh IB courses are only specific to some schools. IB courses are like um they're called international balorates uh program which is essentially like a advanced degree program where you can get your IB diploma. So only some schools have it. If you don't have it at your school then don't worry about it. If you do have it at your schools then then typically you might want to consider it if it is aligned to your major of interest. So this is all information. I'm not going to go through all this because this is a lot of, you know, kind of very specific things that you all can look at your own time. Uh, California residents, uh, in case you're curious about the, uh, about the requirements for here, as long as you attended a California high school for at least 3 years or you lived in California for the last 12 months, um, then these would qualify you as a instate resident to be able to apply. Uh, and this is some information about how to calculate your GC GPA. I'm going to skip over it because it's a little bit technical. I don't necessarily need to go over it, but just know that you do get extra points if you have any honors courses or AP courses. Uh what I'll talk about real briefly is uh statewide guarantee actually, which is pretty important. If you are the top 9% of the California statewide index, meaning that you are n top 9% of all students, you're guaranteed to get into at least one uh UC. And so, just know that um as long as you're able to do that, then you won't have any fear about getting into one of them. This is just some uh uh some steps and calculations on how to tell if you qualify for that. I'm not going to go into it uh due to time, but that's something that you can review at your own time with this calculator. And also ELC context, you will if you're the top 9% of your California high school, you will also be able to uh get that as well where you can be um uh automatic automatically guaranteed to be able to get in I believe. Yeah. uh yeah, you'll get into at least at least one spot at a UC campus if you're the top 9% of your California high school. So, just know that as long as you're able to do that, then you're fine. So, let me go down a little bit more, though. Uh skip through these ones. These are examples of AP courses. Oh, pro tip. Um so, when it comes to the uh AP courses that are offered at your school, right? Uh something to consider about how to stand out is think about what courses are offered at your school and what actual AP courses are available out there. So one thing that you could be able to look at is like go on to uccout.org and be able to like gauge like what AP courses are available there, what's not offered in my school, then take the delta. What that means is um no other students at your school will have that particular course. So, for example, if you have uh if you didn't know, there are four AP physics courses. There's AP Physics 1, AP Physics 2, and there's two types of AP physics C courses. If you uh don't have any of those AP physics courses or you have only one or two, then that means that you could take those other one or two over at the uh UC scout.org. So, that way you can be able to stand out because that is what will help you make be uncomparable to the rest of your peers, right? So with AP physics C all right here you get us physic one physics 2 and so majority of the high schools in California don't have all four of them. So if you are going down the engineering or computer science pathway this is like one of the ways that you could be able to stand out by being able to take one of these courses. All right next part is the uh let's skip through here. There's IB courses. Uh I'm not going to cover that for today. And oh, dual enrollment courses. Okay, dual enrollment courses is super important here. And the reason why I'm going to talk about dual enrollment courses as opposed to IB course courses because dual enrollment courses is available to everybody. But dual enrollment courses is when you take the uh the community college courses uh that can be used for your college admissions. And what I mean by this is there are remember there are two different types of transcripts. There's a high school transcript and there's your community college transcript. you can submit both of them for your admissions. You do not need your community college transcripts or your classes to be on your high school transcript. So, one of the things I always hear from parents saying like, "Oh, um do like I I can't get this uh our school to approve of this dual enrollment course." Well, the thing is you don't necessarily need their approval. You just need uh parent permission for students to take the community college course. The reason why the community college courses are so important is because they're already at college level, right? And remember, the goal is to stand out and to differentiate yourself and to diversify your academic rigor. If you were to take uh community college courses uh while you're in high school, not many other students are doing that. And also, you don't need to take an AP test at the end of the year. So, instead of taking calculus AB, doing all that homework, and then being able to study for the AP test, you can just take calculus one. And calculus 1 is done in one semester. So the reason why we emphasize dual enrollment here in Egolock is because it's a smarter thing to do and also it could be easier. If you go to like a website called like ratemyprofessors.com you can actually find uh professors that are uh easy to take and the goal is to be able to work smarter not harder. So uh find the easy professors, take those courses and then you can be able to get community college courses or credits on your transcript and then submit that and no other students will be able to have that on their belt. And uh so you'll save time and also you make your life easier. Uh secondly to consider is that we typically recommend to either take your general education courses or to take um math courses. We typically do not recommend uh bio or chemistry just because those tend to be very hard or even physics. So for those type of science courses, we typically recommend taking it in the uh UC scout or through your high school. And also uh just know that for every single college semester unit, you do get 3.3 uh high school credits. That's like the equivalency if you were to be considered. So what that also means is that the high the college semester units um they really do matter and and they have more weights at times. If someone were to ask me like, oh, would you consider doing the AP course or the dual enrollment course? Technically, for it to be equivalent to each other, you need to take the AP course, get a four four or five on the AP test in order to qualify for college credit, and then it will be equivalent to that one college semester unit. If you ask me, it's a lot faster and simpler just to take that one college semester. All right. Uh All right. So, um these are things I already talked about. Uh the things I mentioned, the general education requirements. So, within California, there's something called the I gety. I think it's called Calgetty now. They rebranded it, but the Calgetti are pretty much the general education courses to get your associates degree. And so, typically we recommend students to consider taking areas three and four, which is arts, humanities, and social and behavior sciences. The reason for that is because majority of students tend to do very well in these courses. And also, no matter what major you decide to go into, it's going to be beneficial. Meaning that if you are engineering major, if you are a premed major, if you are a uh communications major, doesn't matter. whatever the uh uh the major that you decide to go into, the I gety courses or the cowgetsy courses will be beneficial to you. So that's why we recommend taking courses like sociology or psychology at first just because they're easy for students to pass the first time. So definitely take those uh the very first go because that is going to be easy for you to pass and also it's always going to look good for you beneficially. Also a very helpful website is called assist.org. This is something that you want to bookmark. Assist.org org is able to tell you which courses are transferable. So the way assist.org works is that you would choose what particular uh year, choose the uh college that is next to you and then go to the UC that you want to apply to or CSU. So you can look at view agreements and then you could look at general education courses. These are the I get courses that are offered from the city of San Francisco that are work for that work for Berkeley. If you want to go into major, you can look at the specific courses that would be transferable for those major requirements. This is particularly for those that are good for like uh more for like transfer students if anything. But the general education course is where you want to go first and then you want to use that. Uh if you want if you're already advanced and you already done majority of these things, then go into major and then you can look up that specific major that you care about. That's how you're going to be able to stand out. take the courses that matter the most to that major and also your your general education courses and also um how dual enrollments could land you a $60,000 scholarship. Uh uh so remember that community college courses are community college are college units meaning that you can actually graduate faster. So, if you want to avoid uh taking out a lot of loans, right, the more dual enrollment courses you take, the faster you can graduate from uh college and that way you don't necessarily need to take out as many loans. So, something as a lever to use is to consider uh trying to take these courses so that way you can reduce the amount of uh depth that you would have to take for yourself. really trends I already talked about in terms of what is it that we're looking for for any dips or any issues with your grades. You're going to need to explain it uh within your additional comments. And so you just need to make sure that you demonstrate what did you learn from it. The biggest thing that I've uh is a pet peeve especially as admissions readers is that you don't want to blame the teacher. You don't want to blame other circumstances because the thing is it's likely other students were still able to get an A in that class even though they've experienced similar circumstances. So the goal is not to blame your uh your environmental circumstances. The goal is to uh think about how did you grow from that particular experience. So just be very careful in terms of how you explain it because I think a lot of students tend to mess up on this where they blame the teacher for saying that they're too hard when in reality I'm sure students got A's in that class class, right? Maybe a few, but at the same time they still got A's in that class somehow. But you didn't. So what did you do that you didn't do? All right. Uh okay. if I have not high of rigor and low grades but I want to attend top schools. So either um something to consider okay um I won't I won't go through this actually but the the the the whole point is uh like if you don't have high rigor and you have lower grades and you still want to attend like UCLA or Berkeley it's likely that you're not going to thrive in that particular campus. So, something to remind yourself is that when you're choosing the courses, you want to go to a top tier place, you got to take those hard courses, right? Uh if you are a student that wants to go to these top schools, you have to challenge yourself and you have to get good grades. That's really what's going to be able to get you into those places. Uh other things uh I think already mentioned uh when it comes to the course rigor, we already talked about what is it that you can do for there. uh extracurriculars we as we mentioned already before focus on leadership roles think about community service um realizing I'm low on time so I'm just fast forwarding right here uh to make sure there's nothing else all right um okay and maybe some other quick things as well to consider uh key uh timelines and deadlines uh December 2nd is the last day to be able to apply making sure that you get it in In March 2nd is when you start filling in your financial aid for free application for federal student aid, which is called FAFSA. That's where you'll be able to uh try to see if you qualify for any grants or any loans. And then you also have to and during March time is when you usually get notified about your admission sequences. And then by May 1st, you have to submit your uh statement of intent to register or SIR. From there, um, after you, uh, submit your, uh, statement, intent to register, each campus will have their own housing applications. Decide if you want to join for the dorms. Uh, for transfer students, uh, they open August 1st and they're due on December 2nd as well. And then, uh, in terms of if you qualify, some students can qualify for the blue and and gold opportunity plan. So, if you uh if your family earns less than 80,000 a year, uh if you're a US citizen or if you meet AB540, which means that you're permanent or or permanent resident, then you could be able to qualify for this financial aid. And usually Cal Grants uh it's based on eligibility based off your um income as well. Uh there are a bunch of scholarships. Usually you'll get scholarships when you uh first apply and then you might get in and one of your acceptance awards you might be able to receive one of those uh scholarship award notifications. Otherwise you might be requested to apply to a few additional ones after you get accepted. Okay. And the rest there's a bunch of more FI FAQs that you all can read at your own time. So definitely don't worry if you all are going to be able to access this and about this whole admission guide here. So, with our last five minutes, I'm going to rush through some uh the quick announcements and also some Q&A. If you want this particular uh recording and if you want the notes, text uh notes and replay 2949-7750865. If you want the UC guide, type UC guides to the same number there. and also college app intensive for 11th graders if you haven't already um and you need to get your personal statement started and also submitted uh make sure that you sign up for intensive or you can go to collegeappensive.com or text intensive if you're already a part of our coaching families I hope that you'all already RSVP for your day and also this is your first time being able to join this webinar then uh text coach if you want a free 15-minute coaching assessment and we'll be able to give you some insider knowledge and tips nothing is for sale on that call our goal is just to be able to give you some free information and also we have our new newsletter. Uh sign up for it to get some insider knowledge about what exact things that we are hearing and also we do provide scholarships on here as well. All right. And so that is the uh those numbers or those textes uh messages that you can send over and now I'm going to read through some rapid fire questions. All right. Do PIQS need to directly connect to your major or can it describe personal qualities that don't relate to a specific major? Yes, I would say at least one of them should relate to your major though. Uh because if you're applying to your major, at least talk about it once. Like talk about it somewhere. How'd you get a full ride scholarship? Uh there is a training. Um if you go to our YouTube channel, you should be able to look up how did Victor get a full ride scholarship to UC Berkeley. You should be able to see it. How when do you find out if you're in the top 9% of your high school? Uh there is a calculator within the guide that you can follow along to be able to see. Usually at the end at the top of your transcript, you should be able to see it if your school provides it. AG can provide it to you. Uh I'm not sure which pathway, but maybe STEM, but unsure what should I do within STEM. So, what are the possible majors I could apply to if I don't want undeclared? I would say talk to your coach about that because there's a lot of different majors. And so, it might be very difficult for me to answer through a Q&A, but I would say reflect on that with your um with your coach to be able to get that. For course selection, would you recommend between honors Spanish 3 versus orchestra, not wast not weighted? Uh should the students go with honors automatically or go with what they enjoy? Go for honors. Um, and also if they can try to enjoy as well. If there's a way to get both, that would be great. But go for the honors. Uh, and activities. How do we prove uh all the things that we did over the years? Just honor system. Yes, just honor system. All right, that was a rapid fire questions. Any last questions in the last two minutes? Okay. Wow. I'm surprised I can talk for uh 58 minutes straight like that. All right. Well, I hope you all enjoyed this uh training. Uh glad to see that a lot of people joined. And uh remember to text these words if you want any of the information that I provided. And uh talk to your coach if you need any follow-up uh questions. And remember, my office hours on Thursdays, 4 to 5:00 p.m. if you wanted to uh check in with me and talk more. All right, everyone. Have a good rest of the night and take care.