Recap of College Info Day at Cal

On Saturday, October 20^th ATS took a group of 12th grade students to College Information Day at UC Berkeley. The day was packed with numerous workshops ranging from discovering career paths to an overview of the UC application. Students also took advantage of the college fair on campus by talking to admission representatives from CSUs, UCs, private colleges and out-of-state schools.

ATS seniors at UC Berkeley

With ATS’s UC online application workshop just around the corner, our college-focused seniors made it their priority to attend the workshops that pertained to the UC application. The first workshop our seniors sat in was “Presenting yourself in the UC Application.”  An admissions representative from UC Berkeley walked the seniors (and advisors) through the online UC application, stopping at every slide to provide insightful advice on the type of information students should include on their college app (i.e. A-G classes, extracurricular activities and awards). He also mentioned that, despite the common notion that extracurricular activities only pertain to school clubs/ organizations and other academic related activities outside of school, this is not the case. Responsibilities students are required to uphold (and in most cases, have normalized in their everyday lives) after school at home are considered as extracurricular activities, therefore students should mention this on their college application. Most importantly, students were advised to utilize the additional comments section on the application to include information that is not otherwise found in other areas of the application. It’s imperative for students to know that any information they list in the additional comments section is viewed as neutral or added information, meaning they won’t increase or decrease their chances of getting accepted into a UC! 

High School seniors ready to learn

The second popular workshop ATS seniors attended was “Writing the Personal Insight Questions For High School Seniors Interested in applying to UC for fall 2019.” In this workshop, students learned that the personal insight questions is a way for them to introduce themselves to the admissions committee. They also learned that they’re only required to answer four out of the eight total questions listed on the UC application. In previous years, the UCs required the responses to be in the form of essays, but that is no longer the case! Responses are limited to 350 words max for each question. Another important thing to note is that there is no key question that will increase students’ chances of getting accepted to a UC, despite what some applicants and their mentors may think. Therefore, students should select the four questions that most resemble with them, their experiences and their unique circumstances. The presenters could not emphasize enough the fact that there is no special question that will increase a student’s chances of getting accepted to a UC.

Don’t write about the topic or subject you are being asked to write about, write how that topic or subject has shaped you --the applicant was a common theme the presenters tried to drill into the students’ minds. Students learned that context is key when writing their responses to the personal insight questions. The application review committee is less concerned with a background story of a student’s family experience, than they are in wanting to know how the student dealt with a challenge, and how it shaped them. Admissions officers told students they’re looking for specific examples and responses that go into depth in the student’s lived experiences. To get the point across, the presenter showed the audience examples of past students’ responses to the personal insight questions. This helped a lot because students, parents and advisors were able to read the type of context and specific examples admissions committees are looking for in an applicant’s response to the insight questions.

Khristina playing the piano

Finally, after all the workshops were over, ATS students and staff enjoyed a delicious Mexican grill delight from Chipotle while they relaxed in the restaurant’s patio. Once everyone’s tummies were satiated and full, we headed back to Sonoma State, making it back by 3:30pm to our sunny wine country hills.