What are the Requirements for Admission to UCLA? Despite the fact that there are many things in the college application you need to work on and know about, here is a couple of the most important things:

• Essay Questions
• What does College Want to See?
• Common App (yes/no)
• GPA Score Requirements for Admission
• SAT and ACT requirements

In this article, we will take a look at what you need to get into UCLA requirements and get detailed information about UCLA application essay demands.

The school is located in Los Angeles, California.

This school is also known as: UCLA, UC Los Angeles, University of California, Los Angeles.

Essay Questions

First of all – review the eight prompts and make a list with three separate categories: “yes” “maybe” and “definitely no”. “Yes” stands for the questions that you immediately know what to write about. With “maybe” you have some vague ideas in your head, which, in your opinion, can be sorted out and, perhaps, will turn into a big essay. And last but not least, “definitely no” means that you want nothing to do with these essays.

After that, write down a bullet point list of the questions that you necessarily want to write about. Then select those questions from the “maybe” pile which, in combination with your “yes” pile will produce the most well-thought essay profile, which both will highlight your key strength, and also reveal your complexities and breadth of character. At the same, time it is important to base your decision not only on your immediate liking for the topic, but also on the available substance (anecdotes). Repeat this process until you have four questions.

This is just one way to approach the choice of prompts. Since for some people, the process happens organically, do not feel bound to the above method. Just remember:

• Do not rush. Make sure that you wrote potential ideas for all, except those you want to avoid, and ultimately write about what is most suitable.
• Your answers should be able to highlight the most important information about you.

What does College Want to See?

UCLA receives applications from a much larger number of students than you can even imagine. To gain admission to UCLA, you need to provide an academic profile that is much stronger than the minimum requirements for UC admission below.

The “a-g” subject requirements are the 15 minimum academic preparatory courses freshmen candidates must have to meet the requirements of the University of California. Applicants must fill 11 of the 15 “a-g” requirements by the end of their junior year. For more information about these terms, visit the UC a-g website.

(a): History/Social Science – 2 years required.

(history/social science, world history, cultures, and geography; and/or U.S. history)

(b): English – 4 years required

(classic and modern literature reading and regular writing)

(c): Mathematics – 3 years required, 4 years recommended

(elementary and advanced algebra, course in geometry. Approved integrated math courses also may be used)

(d): Laboratory Science – 2 years required, 3 years recommended

(fundamental knowledge in biology, chemistry, and physics – at least two out of these three)

(e): Language other than English – 2 years required, 3 years recommended

(two years of the same language other than English. Emphasize on speaking and understanding, grammar check, vocabulary, reading, composition, and culture)

(f): Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) – 1 year required

(approved arts course from a single VPA discipline: dance, drama/theater, music, or visual art)

(g): College Preparatory Electives – 1 year required

(in addition to the “a-f” above, one of the following: visual and performing arts, history, social science, English, advanced mathematics, laboratory science, and a language other than English

Common App (yes/no)

The University of California has one application for all nine UC undergraduate campuses. Each campus makes its admission decision independently. The University of California does not use the Common Application.

GPA Score Requirements for Admission

Average GPA: 4.31

Many schools specify a minimum GPA requirement, but often this is only the minimum for applying without an immediate rejection. The GPA requirements, which really matters, is the GPA you need for the real opportunity to get in.

You have to be at the top of your class if you have GPA 4.31. You will need almost all A’s to be able to compete with other applicants. In addition, you must undergo heavy training – AP or IB courses, to show that college-level academics are a light breeze.

If your GPA is at or below the 4.31, you will need a higher SAT or ACT score for compensation. This will help you to compete effectively with other candidates who have higher GPA rates than you do.

SAT and ACT requirements

You must take either the SAT or ACT to submit an application to UCLA.

SAT Requirements

Average SAT: 1370 (New 1600 SAT)

UCLA has the Score Choice policy of “All Scores.”

This means that they require you to send all SAT scores you have ever taken.

ACT Requirements

Average ACT: 29

Despite the fact that UCLA most likely says that they do not have a minimum ACT requirements, if you are applying with 25 or lower, you will have less chances to get in if you do not have something else very impressive in your application. There are so many applicants who scored 29 and above that 25 will look academically weak.

When you send ACT scores to colleges, unlike SATs you do not have to knowledge all of them. You could take 15 tests, and send only your highest ones.

Also, UCLA requires you to take the SAT/ACT Writing section.

General Tips

• Early start. We all know that starting early is better than waiting for the last night and hoping for the best. Getting into the college is a very important step in your life, so take it seriously. Think about the topics, try writing essays and give them to somebody to check, if you want to get professional help with it, check out Robotdon website.
• Be clear, focused and organized. Make sure that your answers to questions of personal understanding follow a logical structure.
• Be careful with humor and clichés. Do not forget that people have different sense of humor and what might seem funny to you might not seem that way to somebody else. Remember that these questions are a chance to show admission officers who you really are, your personality. Don’t allow clichés to speak for you.
• Show, do not tell. Use detailed examples which will demonstrate your motivation and leadership.  You have to prove that you know who you are, what you want, why you need this exact education and how are you going to use it in the future.
• Revision, revision and revision. Even if you wrote an outstanding essay, admission officers will still pay attention to grammar rules, check punctuation, and spelling. Make sure you have no grammar mistakes, they might cost you your place in the university.

Now you know the most important information about the UCLA admission, I hope this article inspired you. And even knowing that this University is highly competitive – believe in yourself, work hard and don’t give up. Good luck!

One of the most important elements of the college application, in addition to the grades, the standardized test scores and the high school courses, is the essay. The Common Application and the Universal Application have a mandatory essay, but many colleges include their own specific school essays, which are known as writing supplements.

This kind of essays give admission officers the opportunity to get to know students, and they are also excellent indicators of your proven interest. So, how can students master the admission essays to the college and/or university? Keep reading and you will find that out.

How to Write an Awesome Supplemental Essay?

Tell Admissions Officers something that they do not already know.

Admissions Officers want to get to know their applicants. Readers of applications can find out a lot of things out of the extra-curricular activities, transcripts, tests, letters of recommendation and other application materials. The best way to get a clear idea of the goals, achievements and character of the student is to listen directly to the student himself.

Do not use this essay to repeat the information you have already told; identify what can not be found anywhere in the application. For example, if on the activity list you said that you have been a captain of the school football team, do not write an essay about the most important game of the season. The Admissions Officers already know that football is your interest, so choose a deeper theme that reveals something important.

For instance: the main activity of the student in his list was horseback riding. Instead of writing an essay on riding, he wrote about his faith and how he reconciled this with what he had learned in his courses on advanced science.

Don`t forget to check grammar and punctuation to be sure your essay is perfectly written and grammatically correct.

Approaching “extravagant” Essay Prompts.

This is the trend of college admissions, which continues to grow in popularity: a strange application essay question. From questions about “YOLO” and spiders to questions about how would students develop their own courses, many universities ask some bizarre and unusual questions. For many students, these wild and crazy application prompts can be extremely frightening. Many struggle with the balance between writing creative and witty answers and sounding cheesy and forced. If you do not know how your essay could come across to admissions officers, try writing this kind of essays at home and send them to Robotdon website, where they can check your essay and say what is wrong and what is right.

When addressing these strange questions, do not forget that the main purpose of the essay is to tell something interesting and important about you. These essays are not about what you think the university wants to hear, so keep your interests in mind!

We can say the same about the additional “short-take” questions, those that are looking for an answer in one-word or one-sentence. Go deeper, but remember that your answer does not have to be as strange as the question, it just has to reflect your character and your passions.

For example: The question is: “What is the greatest invention of all time?” A student who was fascinated by photography answered a daguerreotype, the first photographic process of wide usage.

The general essay – “Why this university?”.

One of the most common supplementary essays that students will find is the infamous essay “Why this university?”. It’s just “Why X University?” Or a more specific question about how to make a student campus better. Universities are looking for detailed and well-researched answers.

It’s not enough to say: “I want to go to the X University, because it’s an excellent school.” Or “I just like X College.” Evaluating these answers, universities want to see that the student made a research about the institution and has already thought about his life in the campus community. If supplemental essay is good to show your interest, then this question is the most important one.

Answering this essay question, use specific details. What are the courses and teachers you are interested in? Students should talk in detail about student organizations or meeting specific goals and specific aspects of the campus community. Be as detailed as possible, but do not forget to relate these details to specific goals and interests. Do not limit yourself to mentioning some of the course names and expect to surprise the admission offices.

If you write a great supplement, it will add great context and individuality to the application and will increase your chances of admission. Good research and preparation is the key to writing outstanding supplements, so do not wait until the last minute!

Tips on How to Write a Remarkable Supplements

Adapt your essays

You have to treat each and every application as if it is your top-choice school. This means that you have to equally care about each essay and adapt it to the school and the course of study that you are applying to, rather than simply copying and inserting the same generic essay in each application. Believe me, admission officers can tell from your writing whether they are really interested in attending this particular university or not, so do not rush and put some really good effort in all of your essays, no matter how simple or short they might be.

Use specific data

In the process of writing your essay you need to use specific details and examples about the school. If you are asked to tell something about the school, use your research and notes from the campus visit, just like in the essay – “Why this college?”. Tell about the specific classes and clubs that you are interested in, about the professors you would like to study with, and about the aspects of the history, traditions and campus of the school that attract you to it.

Be Creative

The rise of the popularity of the supplemental essay made schools to think outside of the box and include strange and interesting questions in order to make students think creatively. Weird essay topics and quick-take responses that require one-sentence, or one-word response, were made up with a purpose to challenge students and help admission officers see their individuality better.

For example, the question is “What’s the best thing that has ever been invented?” Do not just write about the first thing that comes to your mind and move forward. Think about what influences you in your everyday life and what has had an impact on your interests. If you answer something like “the Internet” or something like this, it will be too simple and common, so be creative!

Be yourself

Keep in mind that college admission officers want to get to know real you, not polished and unrealistic version of you. Be yourself! Get some feedback from teachers and counselors, but make sure that you transform their corrections to your own views. Avoid using difficult words and complicated sentence structures in an attempt to sound more sophisticated and smart.

So, that is all I have for you today, I hope you found out something new and something interesting from this article and now feeling more inspired. Good luck with your applications!

So you have come to the point when you want to start with the process of applying to the university. It does not matter if you are a high school student or if you have already completed your studies, this step is very important in your life. The essay can be one of the most difficult aspects of a college application. Yes, you have test scores, but now you have to put yourself on paper and this may seem almost impossible. But in fact this is the topic that you know best – just follow these recommendations and tips, which will help you with tedious steps to write and format the college application.

What is an Application Essay?

The application essay is the most memorable part out of all the documents that you provide for admission. Through the essay, the admission committee tries to see you as a person, what you really are. Thousands of applicants have the same scores for exams, grades and it is the essay that highlights you and reveals your personality. In addition, the essay shows how you can commit yourself, analyze information, communicate with other people in writing. When employees of the Admission Committee read the essays, they not only learn information about you and judge your grammatical structures and used language units, but also pay attention to what you said and what ideas were presented in your essay.

How to Format Application Essay?

Some of your formatting problems will depend on whether you cut and paste your essay into a text box in the form of an online application or attach a formatted document. If you are not sure what you need to do, check the application instructions.

Most schools also allow you to send in a paper application, which actually gives you more control over the formatting of the essay. Nevertheless, I generally do not advise sending a paper application (if you do not have another option) for several reasons:

Most schools say they prefer to receive online applications. While this usually does not affect your chances of admission, it is wise to respect institutional preferences in the college application process, where possible. This, as a rule, makes the process smoother.

Paper applications can get lost in the mail. Of course, there may be problems with online applications too, but you will be aware of the problem much sooner than if something happens to your paper application and then it gets mailed back to you. On the contrary, online applications allow you to be sure that your materials have been received.

Regardless of how you decide to submit your essay, you must create it in a text editor. This will help you to track the number of words, allow you to use spell checker, etc.

If you are going to copy and paste into the text field:

The main thing, when you copy and paste into the text field, is a double and triple confirmation that everything is correctly transmitted.

The number of words can get messed up with the unreliable formatting or can be treated differently in the text box, so keep in mind that you may need to make minor adjustments. When copying and pasting, you may lose formatting, for example, in bold or italic. Sometimes, bold and italic will simply not work in the text box, so you might be better off without them.

If you copy and paste your essay, your spacing between paragraphs may get spoiled. So make sure that all of your paragraphs are clearly delineated either through tabs or through a missing line if the tab stops working.

The font is likely to be standardized, but if it is not, select a standard font, for example Times New Roman or Arial (in any case you will have limited features) and a normal size (12 pt).

If you are attaching a document:

If you are attaching a document, you need to take care of the overall format of the college application essay. Things such as fields and gaps become more important.

Use one-inch fields. This is standard and easy to read. Although essays with one interval are generally acceptable, your essay will be easier to read if it is 1.5 or double. Clearly outline your paragraphs. One tab in the beginning is good.

Use a font that is easy to read, for example, Times, Arial, Calibri, Cambria, etc. Avoid fonts such as Papyrus and Curlz. And use the 12 pt font .

You can specify the title of the college essay with the page number and the ID of your application. Do not enter your name unless specifically requested.

Often you need to send the college essay in a certain file format. The application can only accept standard versions of Word files (ie, only .doc files, not .docx), .rtf or .pdf files. So make sure that you have saved the file in the accepted format before you upload it! I recommend .pdf files when possible, because they are immutable and always look the same.

How to Structure Your Application Essay

The college application essay is actually a good opportunity to play around with the structure a little and get out of the five-paragraph essay. (You, of course, are not forbidden to write an essay with five paragraphs, but this does not guarantee the best structure of the essay.)

A good college essay is like a sandwich, where the introduction and conclusion are pieces of bread, and everything that comes between them is a sandwich filling. A sandwich without bread is a bad sandwich, but a good sandwich can have any number of things between pieces of bread.

Therefore, you need a clear introduction that gives you a fairly clear idea of where are you going with the essay, and a conclusion that covers everything and makes your main meaning understandable.

However, when you approach the middle part, it is all up to you. You could structure your essay more like a narrative related to an important experience of your life. You can use an extended analogy, where each paragraph is part of an analogy. You want to generally adhere to the wisdom that every paragraph should have an identifiable underlying idea, but college essays are certainly a great chance to get out of an essay with five paragraphs.

General Tips and Advise

1. Answer the questions that are asked. Never try to write a “universal” essay, suitable for all universities. Most likely, this essay will not impress anyone in the Admission Committee.
2. Be specific. For example, do not say that you are an excellent doctor, if you can not bring specific life examples to confirm this statement. If your wish to become a lawyer, an engineer, etc., you should have specific experience that is described in your essay. Your statement should be the logical conclusion of your life stories.
3. Find the “right angle”. It is very important to show your story under an interesting angle, make it unusual, find a way of describing that will help to “hook” anyone who will read your essay.
4. Pay attention to the first paragraph. The first paragraph (introductory paragraph) is extremely important. Here you either grasp attention of the reader, or you lose it. This paragraph becomes the basis for everything that follows.
5. Tell me about what you know. The “heart” of your essay is the interests and experience in the field that you want to get into, and also the knowledge about it. Extremely many people want to enter a certain specialty without any knowledge of it. Tell me what you know about the sphere you are interested in, using a professional language. Tell us about your professional experience (work, research, etc.), classes, conversations with people from the industry, the books you read, the seminars you attended, or any other resources that you used to learn more about the profession that you want to get into, and also why you are suitable for this profession.
6. Explain why you are applying to this university and this particular program. Study the specifics of the certain program and university and explain your choice. If certain geographical or cultural factors provided by the university are important to you, it would be great to mention them.
7. Pay attention to grammar and punctuation! Even if you are a foreign student, this does not give you the right to write an essay with mistakes. Most members of the admission committee note that literacy plays a decisive factor when choosing a student. Also, observe the established limit on the number of words.

What not to do

• Do not try to be someone else. You will not be able to deceive the staff of the admission committee, who saw thousands of essays and immediately see that your description of yourself does not coincide with the rest of the documents.
  

  “We often get essays written in words that you rarely use in everyday conversation and who seem to be called upon to create the impression that the speaker has a broad vocabulary,” says Curtis-Bailey.

  There is no need to use lofty words, “when all we want is to see what kind of person you are, without digging into dictionaries in search of the meaning of the used terms.”

• Do not take too complex topics and ideas for the essay. There are a lot of essays, where students are trying to show that they understand complex ideas and topics, when in fact they don’t and this is never a good thing.
• Do not use common cliches, they show that you can not express ideas on your own.
• Do not use a lot of quotes. They give the impression that you do not have your own opinion.
• Do not write an autobiography. Do not write something that can be found in other documents of your application. It is not interesting.

Good luck with your essay!