Common Application: Personal Statement
Please write an essay (250 words minimum 500 words maximum) on a topic of your choice or on one of the options listed below. This personal essay helps us to become acquainted with you as a person and student, apart from courses, grades, test scores, and other objective data. It will also demonstrate your ability to organize your thoughts and express yourself.
1. Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.
2. Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you.
3. Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.
4. Describe a character in fiction, a historical figure, or a creative work (as in art, music, science, etc.) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence.
5. A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.

UC-Berkeley: Respond to both prompts, using a maximum of 1,000 words total.
You may allocate the word count as you wish. If you choose to respond to one prompt at greater length, we suggest your shorter answer be no less than 250 words.
PROMPT #1: Describe the world you come from—for example, your family, community or school—and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

499-word version
...On one of my regular Tuesday afternoon rides home, right after my volunteer work at the Seoul National Hospital, I saw a drunken middle-aged man staggering about the subway as I sat on the corner of the bench uneasily, praying that he would pass me by without making an incident...

561-word version
...On one of my regular Tuesday afternoon rides home, right after my volunteer work at the Seoul National Hospital, I saw a drunken middle-aged man staggering about the subway as I sat on the corner of the bench uneasily, praying that he would pass me by without making an incident...