“Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.”
UC reworded this prompt after 2016. The old version asked students to describe a favorite subject and how it influenced them. The current version asks what they have DONE about it, inside and outside class. Guides that still carry the old wording will send your child in the wrong direction.
Whether your child's interest has ever left the classroom under its own power.
Three things worth noticing before you say anything — and one rule: notice them out loud as questions, not corrections.
Fill in this blank: I would go to ______ even if I did not have to. It does not have to be a class where you earned the best grade.
Then show what you did about it. Do you love history or international relations — did you intern or shadow somewhere, on a campaign, for the mayor? Do you love the idea of advertising, and you already know how to talk to a market, whether you were selling lemonade or Girl Scout cookies?
Maybe you cannot pick one subject because you see the connection between several. Look at whether the campus has an interdisciplinary major that lets you combine them — and say so.
Maybe a surgeon brought a beating heart to your sixth grade class and you never got over it. Maybe you are the next Scorsese because of the hours you have spent filming and editing and going to film camps. Maybe you are heading for social work because of a sociology class and years of community work. Any of those is a real answer.
And whatever they write: SHOW the reader, do not TELL the reader.
The example essays are the part families ask for most, and the part we keep inside the course. Every question gets at least one real student response, with Danielle’s notes on why it landed.
See the course