YouTube Deep Summary

[00:02] Welcome, welcome, welcome to College Admissions Secrets, specifically UC Admissions Secrets. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. My name is, or actually I'm Coach Art with College Admissions Secrets. And today we are going to be talking about a very, very relevant topic, which is the UC or the UC University of California, PIQs, okay. PIQs. Now, many of you may, hopefully, [00:35] most of you know what that is, but if you don't, I'll explain that. So I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen here. And when you guys see it, can you give me a thumbs up? Give me a thumbs up, yes, thank you so much. I love it. Okay, so if you can give me a thumbs up that you can see it, excellent. [01:04] Okay, and I am just so happy and so grateful that you guys can join me tonight because you [01:12] guys have really been responsive, all those who have joined the previous sessions that [01:18] we've had. and found it very beneficial. And that's what we love because we wanna do, we wanna be very beneficial. Now, this is a couple of ground rules, okay? First of all, I'm gonna try to go ahead and answer as many questions as I can, okay? Always try to do that. But [01:35] secondly, I always love it when I see, if you guys can let me know, whenever there's something [01:41] that you like, that you see on the screen or think that I've explained, give me a heart, [01:47] okay? Give me a heart. Okay, let's just test that right now. Can you give me a heart? Can you guys give me a heart? Let's see, okay, good. I would love to see hearts for things that [01:57] I say because then that gives me indications of for future stuff as well. Okay, so I'm gonna go and get started. I love it, thank you so much. I appreciate it, I appreciate it. So here we go, you see PIQs. Now, for some of you, you may not know what PIQ is and it's funny. [02:16] because PIQ, I always say it's not prompts. I mean, sorry, it's not essays, okay? It is PIQs are personal insight questions. And I really love that acronym. I think that's the best acronym for the prompts that you have to answer. But we're gonna go through the UC PIQs. I'm [02:36] gonna break them down as well as provide insights, okay? So first of all, before I do that, okay? Over the last 15 years, We have connected with over 4,000 families on Instagram, you know, on Facebook, as well as TikTok. We've helped students gain acceptances in all UC campuses, Ivy League colleges, the top 20, top 50, 100, and on average, 98% of our coaching families have gotten into one of the top 10 colleges, or 93% have gotten to the top five. We are very proud of that, okay? You can see here some examples of just... a number of individuals [03:15] who've made it, students that we've helped with, here's one, they got their presidential scholar [03:21] at LMU, Emory College, University of Virginia, UCSD, USD, Berkeley, the BSMD program at UMKC, [03:34] USC, UCLA, again, Caltech, even internationally in Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, University [03:47] of Portland, okay, Berkeley again here, as well as Cal Poly Slow, okay, UCLA, all of the UCs, [03:56] UC Irvine, Texas Tech, Chapman University. I can keep going on and on and on, but our, you know, our record is stellar, and I'm just so incredibly. proud of our students, of the work that they've done with us and the results show, okay, the results show. So in this session, we are going to cover PIQ one-on-one basics, okay? Secondly, I'm gonna talk about how to develop your PIQ, okay, how do you get started with your PIQ, especially for those who are gonna be seniors, I see a bunch of 2020 fibers as well. I'm gonna break down the eight PIQs [04:38] that are out there. And then at the end, we're gonna go through some case studies, okay? Brief case studies, okay? Just to kind of, so you can see examples from real students and see whether they really have done a good job with those particular P.I.Qs, okay? So remember, [04:57] don't listen to strangers online, okay? I remember my parents would say, don't talk to strangers. Okay, well, so that if you have first joined us or you don't know anything about us, just wanna introduce, first of all, my partner in crime, is Coach Tony, he's the founder of College of Mission Secrets and also UC Secrets as well. He wasn't able to join me today, but I am taking the mantle here for tonight. And Coach Tony, he's amazing. He attended UC Berkeley, turned [05:29] down full rides from UCLA and UCI. He was a Berkeley Reader. He was also an Outreach Director at UCLA. He also founded his own high school in Orange, California. and has been a force in the college admission space for over 15 years, okay? I wanna introduce myself, I'm Coach Art. [05:48] I am one of the college admission coaches, but I also consider myself the parent liaison and [05:54] a student whisperer parent liaison because I have three boys. That is my claim to fame in my proudest moments because my oldest graduated from UC Berkeley, my second, my middle child. He is pursuing a biology degree, which I'm so proud of him. Gonna become a doctor. And then the third, my youngest, is going to be playing college soccer at Biola University. So, just [06:19] so proud of them. But also a student whisperer, because as a dad, I treat my students just like they're my kids, okay? So, I've been in technology for 30 years, been a sports and life coach for over 20 years, been in this college admission games for seven years, but helped. a number of students getting to the top 20 schools in the nation, okay? So with that said, are you guys ready to go? If you are, please give me a thumbs up. Give me a thumbs up. All right, [06:48] let's get going because we're gonna be moving faster this tonight, okay? So first of all, I'm gonna give you a lesson on PIQ11. Again, PIQ is personal insight questions, personal insight questions, okay? They're not prompts, they're not essays. First of all, you get to choose four out of the eight prompts. Okay, you're given eight prompts, eight questions, [07:10] and you get to choose four out of the eight. Okay, each response is 350 words, okay? What we always recommend is you want to stay above 340. So 340 plus, okay, don't go below that, okay? These are not essays, they are personal insight questions, meaning personal, it's about you, okay? insights because it's what's about in your brain, and questions because it is [07:39] a question that is asked of you and you give a direct answer. And I'm gonna go through that even more, okay? The key things about PIQs is you wanna make sure that you answer the question. I can't tell you how many times I've helped students, or unfortunately I've seen students' responses after the fact where I read it, I'm like, You didn't answer the question, the actual question itself. And sometimes what they'll do is they'll maybe take some essay that they wrote somewhere else and they pop it in and they don't really revise it well, okay? Content [08:14] is important, but context is also very, very important, okay? So that's really important, I'm gonna go through that as well. The key thing and the most important thing about PIQs, and answering any prompts for any college applications is it must be about you, okay? I can't stress that enough. It must be about you. Too many times students get locked into the imagery [08:46] and the pomp and circumstance and describing things and they describe things about something [08:53] else, okay? And that is definitely what you don't want to do. No offense to any English teachers out there. I'm gonna tell you, there's no offense. I love teachers. I think that they [09:07] should be paid more and I think that they should be put on a pedestal because they're amazing. But if you write your PIQs like you write your English papers, your high school English papers, your probability of making it is very low. And the reason why... is because those papers, okay, or those essays, are geared to write about something else, okay? You're writing about a subject, a topic, an author, a time period, an event, but you're not writing about yourself. [09:42] It's very rare that you're writing about yourself, okay? You're not taught that, and I totally understand that. But the one thing is, the P.I.Qs and college application prompts in general, you have to brag about yourself. Okay, that's, I mean, that's the bottom line. It is about [09:59] you and I can't say that enough, okay? And here's another thing, grammar and spelling, they do not matter as long as it's readable. Now you might say, oh my gosh, are you kidding me? Are they gonna write? They don't have a lot of time to read these, okay? So for me, yes, [10:18] I love grammar and spelling and I will check that, okay? But it doesn't necessarily matter as long as it's readable. Okay, as long as the reader can understand the gist of what you are saying. That might be shocking to everybody out there, but I guarantee you that is the case, okay? Now, let's move on. So first of all, how do you develop your PIQs? There is [10:42] a process, oh, I love the face, I love the face. There is a process that we go through. This is what we teach our students, okay? And first, First things first, okay? You can see there's five steps here that I've outlined. There is actually a step before this, and I'm going [11:00] to put a disclaimer on for everybody on the call, especially you students out there. Do not read the prompts. Okay, I'm gonna say it again, okay? Do not read the prompts. Do not read the PIQs first. Do not do that. That is like step number zero. Don't read it. And the [11:22] reason why is because that is going to put blinders on you because you will restrict yourself. Your mind will restrict you from only answering a certain way. You don't wanna do that, okay? That is not how you want to answer any of the prompts. And this goes along with not just the PIQs, but any of the prompts you're gonna be writing for any of your common application uses. The first thing you're going to do is you're going to identify What are your passions, [11:53] your interests, events, people, activities or so? Okay, you're going to identify what are the four things that make you who fine, but we say minimum of four, okay? Think about the experiences, the people, the activities, the insights, all of the things that make up those four things. And I usually say call them the four passions, okay? Now, you wanna make sure that those passions, those interests, that they do not overlap. They are four completely different things, and that they are not generic. [12:31] You have to be very specific about it, okay? So that's the thing. So what I would say is even as simple as get up a Google doc and you write out the four things, okay? Just write them out. Now, you want to go ahead and now the next thing is you're gonna do a little bit of when you're doing the four things and identify, you're gonna write a little bit of details, just small things, high level things that are about it. So for example, I love basketball. [13:00] What is it about basketball? Okay, I was a basketball player. I played... played in many levels, trained, all that kind of stuff. So you're just at a high level. Maybe why I like it, why is [13:11] it inspiring me, I love to watch basketball, that kind of thing. Now, the second thing is match. So now this is the point where you have four of your passions or four of your identities, if you wanna call that. And what you're gonna do is you're gonna match now the PIQs. to those identities, okay? So do you see the difference here? Because what happens here is you're not [13:37] restricting yourself, okay? You're not thinking about the question, but you're thinking about something that you really are passionate about. So look at the list of PQs, match them up to the identities, make sure that the identities are all added, not neutral values. And what I mean by that is, is that they're just not. Oh, I, you know, something plain Jane, okay? [14:01] It's something where you're providing an insight about it. Okay? And I'm gonna go through that as well. But again, now, after you've done your matching, now that you know the question and you know the passion that the identity. and write a first draft. So what you're gonna do is you're just going to write. Okay, you're [14:25] gonna write, and I wouldn't even necessarily look at the question. You can kind of look at the details, but write, about that identity or passion, okay? Write, write, write. I would say is ignore the word limit. If you are writing pages, fine, write pages, okay? If you write [14:42] a thousand words, fine, write a thousand words. But I would encourage you to write 600 words or more. if that's maybe too much, maybe 500, something like that. So that you are just brainstorming. And I don't care, they don't have to be full sentences, they could be outlined, whatever it is, but just get details about the different aspects of that particular identity. Now, once [15:07] you have written the 600, this is the time when you revise. So what happens is the person who wrote it, which is the student in this case, what you're gonna do is you're gonna write your first draft. And what you're gonna do is you're gonna take a look at the question, okay, you're gonna take a look at the question and you're going to make sure did I answer the question, okay? So that's the key thing, you're gonna revise, you're going to cut down things that don't really make sense. And what we want to look at here, okay, what we want to look at is to answer the question, so what, right, so what? Why is it there? Why is that sentence [15:48] there? So what? Why does it relevant? What does it make sense? Why does it have to be there, right? What is it explaining, okay? Now, you're gonna give it to an editor. Now, I'm gonna [15:59] caution everybody here, with respect to editors, don't have a gazillion editors. That is the wrong thing to do because what happens is, too many people have too many thoughts and ideas and they pull you in so many different directions and then you get lost, okay? I would say you have one or two, and even that, maybe just one. If you want to employ college admissions secrets, we would love to help you enter in our program. And you would get, of course, the way that we write the prompts, right? Now, so the editor is going to determine if you actually answered [16:37] the question. Okay, so this is the first round, right? So the student writes, they're revising now. then the editor's gonna look at and say, okay, did they actually answer the question? Now, the student now is going to write a second draft based on the input by the editor. They're [16:55] gonna write a second draft. Now, the editor now, the second time around, is going to go line by line, okay? This is the one thing. Now they're gonna go line by line and they're going to ask the question, okay? They're gonna ask the question, all right? Does... If you remove [17:14] this sentence, okay, will the actual prompt still make sense? Okay. And if the answer is yes, then remove it. Okay. Okay, then remove it. Because what you want to be able to do [17:29] is get to the point where every single sentence in your prompt, okay, is impactful. Imagine, imagine. 350 words and every single sentence is impactful. That is what you're getting to, okay? So when you finalize now, now I know I mentioned grammar and spelling is not great, but if you have the time, then this is where now you check grammar and spelling, rearrange the sentences to make sure that they have impact and directness, okay? And so this is the... [18:11] PIQ development process that we take with all of our, with all of our students, okay? We're not hiding anything, you guys got it, okay? Can you guys hear me okay? Can you give me a thumbs up? I just wanna make sure that the audio is there. Good, okay, great, I wanna [18:29] make sure, okay. And I don't know, have you, is there any hearts out there? Does this, does this resound with you guys? Does this make sense? Okay, good, okay, cause I haven't seen, or maybe you guys are, furiously writing, so it's okay, I understand. Thank you. Okay, now, the [18:46] next thing here. Here is the secret sauce. I'm giving you the secret sauce for writing your prompts, and it comes down to just this. Finding your why, okay? There are two parts to your prompts. A and B, it's the what's and the why's. Okay, it's the what's and the why's. The what's [19:13] is what we can physically see. So if I see that you have a basketball in your hand, you're dribbling it on a team on a basketball court and you're playing a game, I can know that you are a basketball player. That is the what's, that's the context. That's okay, I know you are a basketball player, okay? But the more important thing is The important thing is the whys, what I cannot see just by looking at you. What is it that drives you to be a basketball [19:44] player? What motivates you to be a basketball player? What are the challenges, the struggles, the adversity you went through to being a basketball player and how did you overcome them? Why is it that when you wake up in the morning, all you think about is basketball? Do you guys see the difference? That's the difference between the what's and the why's. And so what we always [20:08] say is one third what's, two thirds why's, or I kind of broke it down to percentages here [20:14] for maybe you're more people that need more exact percentages, okay? You want to limit the amount of what's, okay? So if you're talking about a 350 word prompt or P-I-Q, 35 to 40% of that or 140 words approximately will be about the what's. And then the remainder, which is 210 words or 60 to 65% would be about the whys, okay? Think about it, 70, 30 or one third, two thirds. But the main bulk of it should be the what's. That is the secret sauce that is [20:51] going to allow the readers to understand who you are. Is that's all they necessarily care about. The reason why is the what's is what you show in your activity section, okay? Your activity section says, I'm a varsity basketball player. I'm a captain of the basketball player. [21:10] But the problem that students, what they do is, is they write their prompts and they just [21:15] relist everything that's in their activity section. And that is a mistake. The reason why is not only have you duplicated, okay, have you duplicated the information you're given, but more importantly, you have not told them who you are in here. and that's what they want to know, because what they're looking for is when you are a student of that university, how are you going to perform as a student? When you hit adversity and you hit struggles, are you going to fold, are you going to thrive? They're going to be able to see that in your prompts if you talk about [21:54] how you overcame adversity. When you're an alumni, okay, when you're an alumni of that particular university, are you going to be successful and give back to that university or you're not? And they're going to see that because of the kind of person you described in your PIQs. Okay, so it's really real important again, I can't tell you enough, the what's versus the y's, the a's versus the b's, one third, two thirds, okay? That's the secret sauce. I could [22:28] stop here right now but I'm not going to, okay? Do you guys want me to go forward? If you do, give me some Do you want me to move forward? Okay, all right, thank you. So this is what we're gonna do now. We are gonna go through the eight PIQs and I'm gonna break them down [22:44] between the A's and the B's. Okay, so get ready, because we're gonna move fast. We're gonna move fast here, here we go. First of all, PIQ number one, describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, help resolve disputes, or contributed to the group efforts over time? This is the leadership question, hands down. It's all about [23:09] leadership, okay? So what is the what's? What you're gonna describe is basically describe an example of your leadership experience. Okay, I was the varsity basketball captain. Boom, you're done. There's your leadership experience, okay? You could describe even a little bit [23:28] of what you did. I helped run practices. I put... you know, came up with a strategy with the coach and I inspired my teammates. Boom, you're done, okay? But the whys, okay, there are three [23:43] choices. Positively, how did you positively influence your teammates or others? How did you help resolve disputes or how did you contribute to the group effort over time? Okay, so this is what's inside your brain. This is what you thought of and what you implemented, okay? [24:03] It's a little bit of what's, but more is, is that what was your consideration when doing [24:08] it? If you helped resolve disputes, why was that important to you? What happened when you do that? What was the effect that came about when you helped your teammates resolve their issues? Okay, did you learn something from it? Did you become a better leader because of it? [24:26] Okay, how did that contribute to the group average? Did you guys win? and you inspire your teammates, see all of these are relevant and that is the why's. Okay, so let's go to PIQ number two. Okay, every person has a creative side and it can be expressed in many ways. Problem solving, [24:43] original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few, describe how you express your [24:48] creative side. You guys can probably understand what this one is. This is the creativity question, right? So what is the what? What is your creative outlet? Tell them. I love to draw six foot [25:03] murals on the wall. Describe how you express your creative side. That is the why. Why is drawing or painting murals on the wall, why does that inspire you? How does it inspire others? Where does that come from? What is the motivation behind that? You see? So that is [25:26] what they want to see here in the creative question. Okay, so that's PIQ number two. So we did leadership, creativity. Third, what would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time? So the what is, and of course this is the talent or [25:45] skill. Okay, so you got creativity, you got leadership, now talent or skill. The what is, what would you say is your greatest talent or skill? It's that simple, just answer the question. My greatest talent is that I can duplicate anything that I see, okay, to exactly the way it is, right? But what is the why? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time? So [26:09] basically that is the why. And it says it right in the question. So how are you gonna describe this? What were the struggles that you went through when you were developing it, okay? What are the learnings, the insights that you learned? when you develop that talent, how [26:25] have you used that talent going forward in other areas? Okay, how has that affected others? How has it affected you? How has it made you a better person? Okay, so those are the whys of PIQ number three. Okay, let's go to PIQ number four. Ooh, did I skip number? Oh boy, I made [26:47] a mistake there. Okay, so here's number four, okay? Or number five, sorry. Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement? Okay, so this is the challenge [27:06] question. You're gonna notice that even not just with respect to the UCs, but other applications, there is a trend on these questions. There always gonna be some type of leadership question, creativity question, skill question. Here's the challenge question. So what is, there's actually three parts of this because remember I told you about the what's and the why's? [27:27] Well, there's a third part, okay? So because there is, A is the what. Describe the most significant challenge. Okay, we'll describe it, that's very easy. Before the biggest thing back then was COVID, okay? So we can't, for those who are gonna try to use COVID, don't [27:45] use it because that's, unfortunately, that's already played out, okay? They've used that, we're past it. I would not recommend it. But let's say you had a significant challenge. Let's say that you had a learning disability that affected you, right? Well, then you describe [28:05] that. And then you say, what are the steps that you've taken to overcome that? Very simple, they're telling you. So what are the steps you take? Again, but if you think about the whys. [28:16] How did you struggle? What were the struggles? How did it impact you? How did it impact your psyche? What did you get through to get past that? Okay? Those are the, and you know, how [28:29] did it make you a better person? How did it make you a stronger person? Okay? And then the third part is, how has this challenge affected your academic achievement? Some people get tripped up on this, and this is the thing. If it didn't, just say it didn't. Done, answer [28:41] the question. Straightforward, okay? If it did, then describe it. How did it affect your academic achievement? Oh, my grades went down temporarily, but then I worked with a tutor and I, for example, if you had a learning disability, I had to work with a person to help me think differently or to help me see things differently. And once I did that, then my grades went up. Very simple. [29:10] Now, let's look at PIQ number six. Think about an academic subject that inspires you, okay? Describe how you have further disinterest inside and or outside of the classroom. So now, this is something about, again, specifically the academic subject, okay? A subject. Now, a lot [29:30] of times people say an academic subject. What do you mean? It could be any subject. It doesn't necessarily mean have to be in the high school. It can just be a particular subject. So for [29:42] example, If you liked woodworking, but woodworking is not a actual class in school, that's okay, [29:51] it's still a subject that inspires you. So don't just restrict yourself. Yeah, I see that. Don't just restrict yourself, okay? You have to make sure, okay, you have to make sure that you are looking at the academic subject. It could be anything outside of that. Now, there are [30:12] three choices, okay? Pick one of these three choices. First of all, for your whys, describe how you've furthered this interest inside the classroom. Okay, so inside the classroom. Maybe you didn't, or if it's outside of your school, outside of the classroom, okay? Outside of [30:32] the classroom, okay? And then lastly, describe how you have furthered this interest inside and outside the classroom. So you could do both, okay? So if it's a subject you learned in school, but then you did further other things outside of it, then do that, right? But the key thing here is it's the whys. What inspired you about this? Okay, that's the key thing. Inspiration, [30:54] what has inspired you? Really think about the thoughts inside your brain. Why did it inspire you, okay? Why is it motivating you? Can you see a theme here? Okay, can everybody see a [31:05] theme? Okay, great. Now, let's look at number seven. What have you done to make your school or your community a better place? This is the community helping question. And it's very obvious, [31:19] of course, right? It's very obvious. Okay, so especially those who have done a lot to help their community and to help others, this is a great question to answer with, okay? Now, what is the what? The first thing you describe is what's wrong with your school or community. [31:37] And I don't say that derogatorily. What I mean by this is what was the issue? What was, there had to be some reason why you have to make it a better place, right? So what was wrong within your school or community? And then the whys are what have you done to make your school, you say, see that, your school or your community a better place, okay? What did you do? Again, [32:01] and I keep on going back to it. Why were you inspired to do that? What is it inside of you that you recognized, okay, that you recognized, okay, an issue or a wrong or something that need to be corrected and you went for it, okay? Because not a lot of people may not have the courage to do that, okay? May not have the courage to do that, okay? So this is the making a better [32:27] place, the community question, okay? Now, number eight, number eight. Okay, 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? We recommend that you avoid this question. We recommend that we avoid this question. And the reason why is it is too difficult to [32:51] answer the exact question that they're answering here. Okay, the big thing that I have to convey to you is you don't want the readers to guess or to assume or to try to reach. The most important thing is that they have a parameter and you answer that parameter. The other questions have exactly what you need to answer. Okay, and so what happens is they have a guideline of how to assess that. Here they don't because this is the catch-all question. Okay, this [33:27] is the catch-all question. Unless there is truly, truly something that is really cannot be placed, okay, that cannot be placed in one through seven, then maybe eight's the way. But we usually say avoid this because it's just too open-ended, okay? Too open-ended, all right? So, you know, avoid this question because you should be able to answer the seven, or four out of the seven, okay? Four out of the seven. But... Again, to impress you guys, or to impress upon you, the [34:06] key thing is answer the passion first. Describe the passion first. Write your passion, and then match up the prompts. Because then what happens is, your passion, okay, of the particular subject, the identity that you were talking about, is going to show through when you answer. Okay? Because the love the passion, the interest, the courage, everything, all of those things [34:35] that are involved because you are so interested and passionate about it is going to show in [34:40] your writing. And if it isn't, come to us and let us help you so that we can pull that out, okay? All right, so that's the key thing. Now, so we're, whoo, we're running out of time here. So I'm gonna go, so here's a little bit of, you may say, well gosh, Coach Art, what do we do if we do need help? Well, I'm gonna tell you. We offer a college application intensive, [35:04] okay? And what that is, it's a two day intensive workshop event. It's a small group setting, about 15 students per weekend. And we fly out our coaches, it's on site. And we cover all of the UCs, the CSUs, common applications and up to five supplements, okay? And the pre-event [35:26] homework to get your first, you know, we get your first drafts done. before you do this session and we have live hours as well. Now, here's our college application intensive, myself, Coach David, Coach Tony is one of the many coaches that we have, of course, we're the main coaches there. And we have a number of locations throughout California. You can see here, it starts in July and ends in September. Okay, now, if you want more information about this, what we want [35:58] you to do is we want you to text Weekend to 415-938-8721. Again, if you want more information about this, text weekend to 415-938-8721. One more time, 938-8721. Okay, 415, text weekend, okay? So, With that said, I'm gonna move forward, okay, and we're gonna go to the PIQ case studies, okay, really quickly, the PIQ case studies, okay? And so, [36:40] before I do that, okay, hold on for a second here, I'm going to look at something real quickly, [36:48] okay? And I did see that there's a bunch of questions, so I'm gonna try to get to those as quickly as I can, okay? as quickly as I can, but if you can hold tight for a second, because I did see, and I greatly, greatly apologize, that I missed a PIQ number four. You guys caught me there. I don't know how I missed that one, but I'm gonna go ahead and go through that really quickly. But before I do that, I just gotta bring it up just to make sure that I [37:22] have PIQ number four. see you. King do do. Okay, I apologize. Okay, so, PIQ number four, I'm gonna go ahead and give you, oh, looks like the sun is going out here. Okay, I'm going to give you a brief description for PIQ number [37:58] four. Now, PIQ number four is, describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or work to overcome an educational barrier you face, okay? So there are two options available for this. First of all, okay, the opportunity, okay, that is the what, okay? So with the opportunity, what you're going to do is, for the why, is you're gonna describe how you've taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity, okay? That's the opportunity [38:32] piece. So what you wanna do is, what are the things that you needed to pull from inside of you? to take advantage of that education opportunity. What are the things that you had to do? What are the struggles that you had to go through? What are the resources that you [38:46] had to employ? Okay? Did you even have any doubts of getting there? Okay, so that's the one thing. Or the second option is talking about, of course, again, the second option is an educational barrier, okay? That's one where, again, as I mentioned, you could have used the one where [39:05] you maybe had a learning disability, okay? Then what you wanna do is you wanna talk about how you overcame that educational barrier. How did you face it? Okay, what were the struggles that you had? Well, how you were inspired? Were you, and now I will make sure, make sure is [39:20] that you talk about the process that you went through. That's very, very important. Because talking about the process shows them that you had to go through not logical steps. You had to have perseverance and tenacity. You had to have courage to go through that, okay? So thank [39:36] you very much for guys for reminding me about number four. Okay, so now that we have number four, I'm gonna be going through really quickly these case studies. Are you guys ready to talk, see about these case studies here? Give me a thumbs up. All right. So I will preface this [39:55] that these are actual prompts that students submitted, okay, submitted to the UCs. Okay, and we're gonna go through this now. For the case study, this is going to be a little bit interactive because I want you guys to be a reader, okay? And I want you to tell me really quickly whether this particular prompt I'm gonna show you, were they added value or were they a missed opportunity? Okay, meaning added value, meaning that the reader was able to find out who they were or was it a missed opportunity, meaning that the reader, okay, missed the opportunity to describe who they are and what they were doing, okay? So here's really quickly, here's [40:45] the first one. The first case study, describe how you've taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or work to overcome an educational barrier you have faced. Okay, so that's number four, prompt number four, right? Okay, here we go. I know this is long, I'm gonna read this as fast as I can. I've danced along the poverty line my whole life. The soothing [41:03] melodies. from a mother to her child as they drifted to sleep were mere dreams, realities you'd only see in the movies. Life was based on survival, sink or swim, one might say. Struggling to stay afloat in this ocean of a world, I quickly recognized that a comfortable life is a luxury that stands out far out of my grasp, being forced out of touch with my infantile dreams and forced to come to grips with my reality brought along one of my greatest attributes, my fortitude. Living as a product of immigrant mother and lower class fathers, my appreciation oftentimes fell out of my reach. My tolerance for the harsh world grew involuntarily. I was born in destitution. [41:42] Facing life's hardest values was inevitable. The countless sleepless nights my parents spent in order to keep a roof over our head and demonstrate their metal to my younger self, a metal I had to endow myself with too. Just like the pale skin and singular dimple I inherited from my mother, I endeavor to grasp her strength, both in and out of the classroom. I possess a deeper spirit than a great number of my peers due to the hardships I've faced. While difficult to stray away from the fixed mindset that tells me I cannot afford a better future, I paved the way for the life I've always dreamed of through my education. My exceptional tenacity [42:17] encouraged me to take advanced placement courses that offer an advantage at a higher educational [42:22] level. The extravagance of maintaining the successful life my parents could not afford excites me. Persevering through the austerity towards a sophisticated, serene lifestyle showcases my drive. Although I learned to survive off the crumbs of society, the faith I hold for myself and my educational push me closer to the elixir of the rapturous life I plan to lead. 325 words. [42:45] Okay. Right away, can I see missed opportunity? Too much likening, okay. Missed opportunity, too flowery, missed opportunity. Okay. I think there is a resounding Resounding? Absolutely. [43:01] It is a missed opportunity and I am so glad that you guys recognize that because some people [43:07] will look at this and say, wow, that is amazing writing. But yes, absolutely. It sounds like an English paper, right? Now, it is great writing. I will tell you, it's great writing. I love [43:19] the imagery. But the problem is, what did the reader learn from this person? The only thing that I, and I highlight this is, living as a product of an immigrant mother and a lower class father and that they took advanced placement courses. The rest of it, I have no idea about this person, okay? I see maybe they have a dimple, but how does that help us make a decision about whether they should be in university or not, okay? And then yes, you guys pointed out 325 [43:50] words, okay? So great writer, you know, maybe they... would be great in writing a novel or so or a fiction writing, but not for a PIQ, for college writing. Let's go to the next one. Case number two, describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to the group efforts over time. [44:19] In 2020, I founded an underwater robotics team in my garage. We invited friends from school in the math circle we ran. Some members had no experience with robotics and others had lots of experience. So I taught them by helping everyone build a land robot. In our second year, I reached out to more people in the community and grew our team from 10 to 12. We had seniors [44:36] to middle schoolers on the team. I promoted returning members to lead the hardware testing and documentation teams. I led the software team where I taught Python, setting up Raspberry Pi computers and streaming cameras. My mom knew someone who's nephew recently immigrated from Mexico and I wanted to learn about robotics. I invited him to join the team and I walked him through setting up the robot. Now he teaches others how to set it up. When I give individual [44:59] attention, people develop useful skills and pass those skills on to others. On the competition day, we didn't tighten our electronic chambers and water shorted our entire electronic system. But we didn't mourn. We got straight to the problem solving. The hardware leader unplugged and unscrewed its parts. I tested the computers and told members to grab parts. from last year's [45:18] robot, my co-CEO, Kam, the team. In the middle of the repairs, we gave an award-winning 15-minute engineering presentations to judges. We miraculously got the robot working in time and we placed third. I learned that to be an effective leader, I need to understand every team member's strengths and weaknesses. The hardware leader annoyed me because he started building without planning and made avoidable mistakes. But I appreciated his instant problem solving when he needed [45:42] to rapidly rebuild our robot. Now that I know what he is good at, I can give him appropriate rules for this talent. I'm using what I've learned to lead our team effectively by giving everyone the chance to use their best skills. Okay, is this, again, as you can see, it's a value add. Reason why, and I love everyone saying, first of all, did you notice? There's no intro, there's [46:06] no conclusion, there's no imagery, okay? You don't need it, okay? Lots of details, specific with details. Examples that show his knowledge base and his willingness to help others and the community. Okay, it wasn't just ideas they talked about, but you know, if you ask the question, so what, he described that. Okay, he did not have, okay, he did not have readers [46:34] assume, he told them like it is exactly what he learned and who he's all about. Okay, he didn't leave the readers with any questions. what the student wants to communicate and what leadership this student has, okay? 340 words, okay? And so again, you see here, it may seem a little bit, disjoint in the sense of, oh, he went here and there, but it didn't need that structure because he was showing along the way his journey, how he helped others, how he helped himself, right? So that again was a very effective, very effective. case [47:17] study and just to let you know this person made it in. Okay, now the last case study, same thing. Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time. I'm gonna talk to you about this one here, okay? Now, for most of my life, I dreamed of being a professional dancer. I spent thousands of hours at dance studios and competitions constantly striving [47:41] to be the best. And while I won numerous scholarships and awards, The thrill of competing eventually faded. Although I didn't quit dancing entirely, I decided to switch my focus and use what I learned while competing to mentor younger students. My freshman year, I volunteered to choreograph a number for the junior dance team to complete. At first, I struggled choreographing the dance, but I was used to learning moves, not teaching them. But once I let my ideas run free, the [48:07] dance started to come together. After a year of creating and teaching, My choreography made it to the competition stage. I became the youngest person in my studio to choreograph a multi-award winning dance. Since then, I've choreographed two or more award winning dances, collaborated with studio directors in creating several productions, and taught over a dozen classes across multiple genres. It wasn't easy switching from being in the spotlight to working behind the scenes, but once I did, I became as passionate about choreography as I ever was about competing. [48:36] Winning the competition as a solo dancer is fun. but seeing my students' faces light up when their names are called out in front of their peers is so much more rewarding. Knowing I help my students grow as dancers feels great, but even more meaningful to me is knowing I help them grow as people. To me, dance isn't about impressing judges or winning awards. It's about pushing my boundaries and finding my voice. It took me a decade to learn this, [49:01] but I strive to make sure my students understand this and use dance to become more competent [49:05] and appreciate their uniqueness. Value add. value, absolutely. I love this prompt. And the reason why is because it was, it stepped us through her thought process. And what I [49:20] love the most is how she ended up being, of course she was a solo dancer and she dreamed [49:28] of being a professional dancer, but even more so she loved, became, she found something brand [49:34] new, which is choreography. It showed her the struggle that she went through. But then at the end, she found out something that she was passionate about. Okay, now I will tell you, even with this, if she described to me that this was a failure at the end, that's okay too. Okay, you don't have to end up with a happy, you know, go lucky story that, oh, everything worked out well. Maybe it doesn't, but what you do is you can describe that and say, hey, [50:03] this is what I learned from the failure, right? So. But what I love about this again, it was concise. I learned exactly who she is. I know that she's a fighter. I know that she can go [50:16] through struggles and overcome. I learned that she's creative. I learned that she helps others, that she has perseverance, that she has compassion, okay? That she's competitive. So you see all of that in literally one passage, I can see exactly the kind of person she is. And that's [50:33] the type of prompts that you want to write. Okay? Was that helpful, everybody? Was that helpful? Give me a thumbs up. Okay, I love it. Okay, these are the kind of things that we [50:47] do when we go through prompts with your students, okay? In our intensive and also in our program, okay? So, how many of you would like a freebie? I put all of the stuff that I talked about in a PIQ 101, how to write your PIQs. Okay, so if you do, okay, if you want it, okay, if you want it, write P-I-Q, okay, P-I-Q, write P-I-Q in the prompt, okay, and we'll get that out to you, okay? I'm so happy that you guys got a lot of value out of this. Okay, now, [51:25] before I go ahead and try to get to the questions because we have a little time for questions. If you want, as I mentioned, this is one of the things I love to do with our students is write prompts, okay, write PIQs. If you want to book your free 15 minute assessment with us, with one of our college admission advisors, then I want you to go ahead 415-938-8721, you know, write in book, okay? Also what I'll do is, is I'm gonna put a link, okay, in the chat here. where if you want to have a link, here is the link, here is the link, you can go ahead and click that link and set up, okay, set up, okay, set up a time to meet with us. [52:11] Or you can go ahead and book a call with us, 415-938-8721, [52:19] book, okay, type in book. If you are interested in our college application intensive, which is exactly what you, I just showed you what we do here. type in, or sorry, text WEEKEND at 415-938-8721. Okay, so with that said now, I'm gonna go ahead and I'm going to leave that up so you guys can see that. Okay, again, I'm gonna put in the chat again, our link, if you wanna book a call with us. Now I'm gonna go ahead and go through the questions. Okay, so let's go here. [52:55] So first of all, What if your PIQ topics are very similar because they're all geared towards [53:00] a particular, oh, okay, good question. So the question was, what if your PIQ topics are very similar because they are all geared towards that particular passion major? First of all, we encourage that the four different PIQs, the prompts that you do, should be four different topics, as if four different people answered each question. and then you put them together and they're like a superhuman. That is really, really important. Now, I understand some of [53:32] the students out there really have focused on certain things that's great, but what you wanna [53:36] do, that's the reason why we don't want you to read the questions. We want you to talk about your passions and you wanna write out four distinct passions. That's really, really important, okay? It's really important. Do not let it flow into, okay? into other ones and [53:55] don't reference other ones, okay? Because then the problem here is, is that they're not looking to see if you are a diverse type of individual, okay? They want individuals that are original, that have also passions outside of what they're doing. And students do, they do. I mean, I had a student that thought, oh, okay, all they wanna do is just computer science, computer science. And then when I started asking them, and things that they did, they're like, oh, [54:25] well, I throw knives. Like what, you throw knives? Okay, great. Talked about that. And I think I explained this. And then all of a sudden I find out that why did they throw knives? Because [54:36] not only was it the skill, but then it was also the making of the knives and the, you know, [54:41] the, how it's the composite of the knife. So there are other things that you can talk about. Okay, I know there is, as long as you really search deep for your passions. Next thing. So what about... more or less ordinary student, not a basketball captain. Okay, I don't think [54:57] there ever is an ordinary student. I think, again, I know. So first of all, you don't necessarily, you don't have to have the title, okay, captain or vice president or president, no. You just have to describe yourself. That's the key thing is a PIQ. Everybody has gone through a struggle, [55:16] has some type of creative side, has gone through a challenge, an educational challenge. is creative in something, okay? Everybody does. I don't believe that there, I have not met yet a student that I've helped that has not been able to give me four things, okay? So I don't believe that there are ordinary students out there, okay? I just think that, I think they think they're [55:40] ordinary because of the things that they do, and what you have to do is to pull out the [55:44] originality, creativity, and all the things that they've done because of those particular [55:48] four, okay, options. Okay. Are these APIQs the same every year? Okay, good question. The PIQs that I showed, they haven't changed in a very, very long time, and I don't think they're gonna change this year. Now, we are not gonna actually know until the summertime the PIQs when they [56:07] release them, but I can pretty much guarantee you that those are not gonna change. When we went to the conference during the summertime, just last summer, they already told us that for the 2024 batch that just finished, that those are gonna change and most likely they're not gonna change because they're very good questions. If the challenge was not academic, then do you answer there was no academic impact? Yes. So I mentioned that if the challenge was not academic, if there was no academic impact, just say there was no academic impact. Now, if this [56:45] was a health challenge or something that didn't impact, or are they looking for challenges [56:48] that are, okay. Yeah, so again, the academic challenge is just, if there's not an impact on academics, you just say, I didn't get impacted, okay? Sorry, guys, I know I missed number four, but I talked about it again, so forgive me. Will it hurt the student to answer the subject expiration prompt, but not declare that major? like if you are declaring CS major but talking about math exploration. No, no, no. Your prompts don't have to be about, the answers to your [57:19] prompts don't have to be, okay, about the major, okay? I'm gonna give you an example, and this is a personal to, and I don't know if he's gonna kill me here, but my son who, okay, he went to Berkeley, he wrote about four things, okay? He went to mechanical engineering, but he wrote about four things. He wrote about... beatboxing, anime, hurdling, and refurbishing computers for less fortunate families. Those four things had nothing to do at all with mechanical engineering, [57:55] okay? What they're trying to assess is the kind of person you are. All the things that you've done is in your activity section and you can talk about the leadership and all things that you've done in your activity section. What you wanna talk about is about you, what is inside your brain. Okay, how your feelings are, your inspirations, all of that, okay? So it doesn't [58:15] have to be about your major. Now, if it is, great, but don't make every single prompt about that the same subject, okay? Do they read the PIQs by prompt numerical order? Is that how is it presented to them? It does, so they are, they're given in whatever order that the student, and normally they're in that order, but it doesn't really matter, okay? Because if they're four [58:36] individual ones, they should not be connected. So it shouldn't matter about the order of the PIQs, okay? Does the same reader read all four PIQs? Yes, so the readers, okay, remember, I talked about this before, there are two readers and they read all four prompts. And then the second reader reads all four prompts. Oh my gosh, I totally forgot. It is seven o'clock. [59:03] And I can't believe that I did not get through all of these. What I will go ahead and do is, is I will go and we'll make sure to answer those in our next session and get these questions out there. But I do wanna be respectful for everyone's time. So I wanna say thank you so much for joining me. I hope this was beneficial to you guys. If it is, again, thank you for [59:26] the hearts and the claps. Thank you so much. You know we're so very passionate about this. Again, if you want to book a free time to talk about your particular student and how we can help, please, you know, Text book at 415-938-8721, or if you wanna join our application intensive, type in weekend. It has been so much of a pleasure joining, being with you tonight. I love having [59:52] this, I can't believe how many, oh my gosh. We are over 250 people joined today, tonight. So thanks so much for being here. And I look forward to talking to you guys next week. And we will talk to you. you know, again, in the upcoming weeks, have a wonderful, wonderful [60:12] evening. Talk to you later and take it easy. Bye bye.