Sample 3 - UC Personal Insight Question 5

Before:

After:

When I first moved to America as a native Mandarin speaker, English seemed to be complete gibberish to me. Especially in classes, I was completely lost in my new surroundings, I couldn’t understand a thing people said to me in classes, nor did I know how to ask for help. Being unable to communicate and assimilate into its culture, I refrained from speaking English at school, I became a student without any accompanies.

I was soon placed in the English Language Development program, a place full of students like me. These students spoke with accents and stuttered severely as they read. I lent out my knowledge to correct my classmates' pronunciation mistakes, humming with flourished joy as they learned to say the correct syllables. Knowing that I was able to help my peers, I was inspired to pursue English further. Soon, I envisioned myself becoming just as good as any native English speaker. This dream fueled my desire to become further proficient. My afternoons were spent memorizing vocabulary and phrases, and I put these words into practice by talking with my colleagues during the day. The reluctance in my tone disappeared, and I became capable of holding conversations without any fear. Before completing middle school, I was already out of ELD.

As high school came around, I joined the speech and debate team at my school to prove I was on par with any native English speaker. Having prepared vigorously before going into my first debate tournament, I was ecstatic when the judge gave the win to my side. I knew I had proven to myself and others that I was capable of victory even though English was not my first language. Tasting victory, I was hungry for more. I spent countless hours practicing, honing my skills of rebuttal and counterargument. After winning a multitude of matches, I was promoted to varsity. Now my opponents ask much more difficult questions in cross-examinations, but the once perplexed expression has been replaced with a confident smile; I’m ready to take on the next competitor and any challenge that comes my way.

Prompt: 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?

Perplexion was an emotion I simply couldn’t wipe off of my face. Having just moved to America, the learning environment was absolutely overwhelming—I didn’t understand a single thing others said to me, and I had no clue how to ask for help. I accepted defeat, resigning to the idea that my English couldn’t improve much more, and tried to not speak it as much as I could manage.

But in the English Language Development (ELD) class, I found myself surrounded by students like me, speaking with stutters and heavy accents. Thanks to my English classes in China that put me relatively ahead, I felt for once that I wasn’t the weakest link, extending a helping hand to correct their pronunciation mistakes and grammar assignments, grateful that the English classes in China were able to put me relatively ahead. Eventually, their accents seemed to dissipate, and their test scores improved. I couldn’t help but smile—my efforts paid off in others’ improvement.

Knowing that I was able to help others, I figured there’s no way I couldn’t help myself. With my efforts, I soon envisioned myself becoming just as good as any native English speaker. My afternoons became filled with vocabulary memorization, and my evenings with grammar studies. Something that I never would’ve even considered, reading books, became a regular and enjoyable usage of my free time. My once-hesitant demeanor in holding conversations turned into that of confidence. To my pleasure, I was out of ELD before even completing middle school.

In my sophomore year, I eagerly joined my school’s Speech and Debate team—I hoped that my casual conversational support for watermelon being the best fruit could amount to something greater. After vigorous preparation for the first debate tournament, I was ecstatic when the judge declared my team the winner. But I knew I wasn’t done yet.

I spent countless hours practicing, honing my skills of rebuttal and counterargument, and soon found myself promoted to varsity. Whether faced with tough questions during the infamous phase of cross-examination or life in general, a confident smile triumphs over my once-perplexed expression.

This essay has potential, but is too generic while having weak storytelling. A lot of applicants share similar experiences as immigrants (being one myself), and if the applicant in question chooses a response such as this, they have to differentiate themselves more. I also thought that there could be stronger storytelling of how the applicant overcame the challenge, which means more emotional connection.

In working with the applicant, we worked a lot on polishing up word choice and further expanding on storytelling. In the first draft, there were a lot of "I did this, I did that," but here we made the story more engaging by drawing in emotional content and smoother sentence flow. We also had the "perplexion" idea come full circle, also tying it to facing on life challenges.

This anonymous applicant is now attending UC Berkeley.