UC Admissions Essays Prompt #2 FEEDBACK!

peachbonnet
Sun, 07 Aug 2011 05:00:06 +0000

Hi all, I’m a California community college student applying for transfer this fall to UC Berkeley and UC Davis (as my backup) to major in Economics. I was hoping to get some brief feedback on this essay. PLEASE do not pay attention to any grammatical/mechanical errors. Focus on the CONTENT of the essay.

A few things to consider:

Does the essay make me seem different from others?
Would you want to go to school with me after reading this essay?
What have you learned about me after having read the essay?

Prompt 2: Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

If you look through photos of me as a kid you’ll see the typical beach, Christmas, and ballet recital shots, but what you will also see is a budding, aspiring fashionista! Fashion and personal style has always been a huge part of my identity since I was old enough to voice that I thought there was something wrong with the fact my mother wore high heels and I did not. From playing dress up, to ripping out pages from magazines in attempt to recreate a look, and nights of scouring the Internet for the best deals on a coveted item, fashion has long been my obsession and it has also taught me many lessons.

Being from a middle class family, there was not much money set aside to nurture this interest—so I had to get creative. Altering sale items that were too big and hunting through thrift stores became second nature and is something I still do. Taking great care in each purchase has taught me to cherish the value and see the potential of every item. An example of this is when I transformed a $2.00, too large men’s shirt into an inspired women’s dress.

My desire to clothe myself developed into a desire to share my exploits. I started small, with friends, then online communities, and I finally took my looks to my own website. Additionally, this is partially what fostered my fascination with economics. How do people attain their desires despite inefficiencies and constraints? Creating my own platform for expression allowed me to flourish by circumventing limitations of other sites. It also taught me the economics of online advertising. Having extensively researched the different mediums of online advertising, I am now an expert in how to optimize how many eyes see a web page versus how much each advertising service pays. I have been able to express myself creatively while making some money on the side—a situation I am so happy to have developed for myself. This site has also been something that has become integrated into my daily life. I am always looking for fun, interesting things to post, which has made me more adventurous. Now I am more willing to stop in a shop that would be fun to share or be more daring in my styling because my audience is always in the back of my mind. I do not see this website as something that would become a career, but it has definitely been a fulfilling project that I continue to work on.

My love for fashion turned into something I could share with others, better my financial situation, and myself overall. It also introduced me to the concept of working with constraints. In addition, the feeling of creating value for people has been insanely rewarding. Mentoring other aspiring site developers on different advertising services has been an achievement because what’s the point in having success if you can’t share it and enable others to flourish?