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Written Statements

The written statements of an application consist of:

• Personal statement (2-4 pages double spaced)
• Optional supplemental essays such as the diversity statement
• Addendum (optional)

Personal Statements

This statement is a critical sample of your ability to write, as well as an opportunity to tell the admissions committee about yourself. Since most schools do not conduct interviews, the statement represents an opportunity for you to present yourself as more than just a GPA and an LSAT score. With so many applicants possessing identical qualifications, the statement can be the critical factor that distinguishes you from the applicant pool. What you say in your statement can also help you offset weaknesses in your application. So, take writing the statement very seriously.

Most schools are interested in why you are choosing to pursue a legal education now and learning about the unique qualities and experiences you will contribute to their incoming class. To get started, gather information about yourself including:

• Work, school and community experiences, such as positions you have held, volunteer opportunities, and projects you have participated in
• Extracurricular activities, such as clubs, sports teams, leadership positions
• Personal challenges and experiences, including travel, disabilities, goals you have accomplished
• Unique talents or interests

Personal statement resources and samples:

• Crafting a Strong Personal Statement Narrative 
• In Their Own Words: Admissions Essays That Worked – University of Chicago Law School
• The Law School Personal Statement: A Collection – Schar School of Policy and Government

General Tips

• Write a concise narrative with one or two points. Go for quality over quantity.
• Tell a story where you are the main character and you changed, grew, or shifted your perspective.
• Write about any activity that shows off your best qualities. Review your classroom, student organization, work, and personal life for material.
• Show, don’t tell: conclusions should be self-evident. Well written statements use stories that illustrate your good qualities. You should not have to explicitly state them.
• Keep the focus on YOU, not an ill relative, remarkable client, or inner workings of an organization where you worked.
• Write several drafts and ask for feedback on early drafts.

Challenges, such as a string of low grades or a low LSAT score should be addressed in an addendum. Be brief and honest while offering a sympathetic explanation. Generally 1-2 short paragraphs is sufficient.

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, how to write a perfect uc essay for every prompt.

College Essays

If you're applying to any University of California (UC) campus as an incoming first-year student , then you have a special challenge ahead of you. Applicants need to answer four UC personal insight questions, chosen from a pool of eight unique prompts different from those on the Common App. But not to worry! This article is here to help.

In this article, I'll dissect the eight UC essay prompts in detail. What are they asking you for? What do they want to know about you? What do UC admissions officers really care about? How do you avoid boring or repulsing them with your essay?

I'll break down all of these important questions for each prompt and discuss how to pick the four prompts that are perfect for you. I'll also give you examples of how to make sure your essay fully answers the question. Finally, I'll offer step-by-step instructions on how to come up with the best ideas for your UC personal statements.

What Are the UC Personal Insight Questions?

If you think about it, your college application is mostly made up of numbers: your GPA, your SAT scores, the number of AP classes you took, how many years you spent playing volleyball. But these numbers reveal only so much. The job of admissions officers is to put together a class of interesting, compelling individuals—but a cut-and-dried achievement list makes it very hard to assess whether someone is interesting or compelling. This is where the personal insight questions come in.

The UC application essays are your way to give admissions staff a sense of your personality, your perspective on the world, and some of the experiences that have made you into who you are. The idea is to share the kinds of things that don't end up on your transcript. It's helpful to remember that you are not writing this for you. You're writing for an audience of people who do not know you but are interested to learn about you. The essay is meant to be a revealing look inside your thoughts and feelings.

These short essays—each with a 350-word limit—are different from the essays you write in school, which tend to focus on analyzing someone else's work. Really, the application essays are much closer to a short story. They rely heavily on narratives of events from your life and on your descriptions of people, places, and feelings.

If you'd like more background on college essays, check out our explainer for a very detailed breakdown of exactly how personal statements work in an application .

Now, let's dive into the eight University of California essay questions. First, I'll compare and contrast these prompts. Then I'll dig deep into each UC personal statement question individually, exploring what it's really trying to find out and how you can give the admissions officers what they're looking for.

Think of each personal insight essay as a brief story that reveals something about your personal values, interests, motivations, and goals.

Comparing the UC Essay Prompts

Before we can pull these prompts apart, let's first compare and contrast them with each other . Clearly, UC wants you to write four different essays, and they're asking you eight different questions. But what are the differences? And are there any similarities?

The 8 UC Essay Prompts

#1: Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time.

#2: Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.

#3: What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?

#4: Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

#5: Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?

#6: Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.

#7: What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?

#8: Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand out as a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?

How to Tell the UC Essay Prompts Apart

• Topics 1 and 7 are about your engagement with the people, things, and ideas around you. Consider the impact of the outside world on you and how you handled that impact.
• Topics 2 and 6 are about your inner self, what defines you, and what makes you the person that you are. Consider your interior makeup—the characteristics of the inner you.
• Topics 3, 4, 5, and 8 are about your achievements. Consider what you've accomplished in life and what you are proud of doing.

These very broad categories will help when you're brainstorming ideas and life experiences to write about for your essay. Of course, it's true that many of the stories you think of can be shaped to fit each of these prompts. Still, think about what the experience most reveals about you .

If it's an experience that shows how you have handled the people and places around you, it'll work better for questions in the first group. If it's a description of how you express yourself, it's a good match for questions in group two. If it's an experience that tells how you acted or what you did, it's probably a better fit for questions in group three.

For more help, check out our article on coming up with great ideas for your essay topic .

Reflect carefully on the eight UC prompts to decide which four questions you'll respond to.

How Is This Guide Organized?

We analyze all eight UC prompts in this guide, and for each one, we give the following information:

• The prompt itself and any accompanying instructions
• What each part of the prompt is asking for
• Why UC is using this prompt and what they hope to learn from you
• All the key points you should cover in your response so you answer the complete prompt and give UC insight into who you are

Dissecting Personal Insight Question 1

The prompt and its instructions.

Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time.

Things to consider: A leadership role can mean more than just a title. It can mean being a mentor to others, acting as the person in charge of a specific task, or taking a lead role in organizing an event or project. Think about your accomplishments and what you learned from the experience. What were your responsibilities?

Did you lead a team? How did your experience change your perspective on leading others? Did you help to resolve an important dispute at your school, church in your community or an organization? And your leadership role doesn't necessarily have to be limited to school activities. For example, do you help out or take care of your family?

What's the Question Asking?

The prompt wants you to describe how you handled a specific kind of relationship with a group of people—a time when you took the reigns and the initiative. Your answer to this prompt will consist of two parts.

Part 1: Explain the Dilemma

Before you can tell your story of leading, brokering peace, or having a lasting impact on other people, you have to give your reader a frame of reference and a context for your actions .

First, describe the group of people you interacted with. Who were and what was their relationship to you? How long were you in each others' lives?

Second, explain the issue you eventually solved. What was going on before you stepped in? What was the immediate problem? Were there potential long-term repercussions?

Leadership isn't limited to officer roles in student organizations. Think about experiences in which you've taken charge, resolved conflicts, or taken care of loved ones.

Part 2: Describe Your Solution

This is where your essay will have to explicitly talk about your own actions .

Discuss what thought process led you to your course of action. Was it a last-ditch effort or a long-planned strategy? Did you think about what might happen if you didn't step in? Did you have to choose between several courses of action?

Explain how you took the bull by the horns. Did you step into the lead role willingly, or were you pushed despite some doubts? Did you replace or supersede a more obvious leader?

Describe your solution to the problem or your contribution to resolving the ongoing issue. What did you do? How did you do it? Did your plan succeed immediately or did it take some time?

Consider how this experience has shaped the person you have now become. Do you think back on this time fondly as being the origin of some personal quality or skill? Did it make you more likely to lead in other situations?

What's UC Hoping to Learn about You?

College will be an environment unlike any of the ones you've found yourself in up to now. Sure, you will have a framework for your curriculum, and you will have advisers available to help. But for the most part, you will be on your own to deal with the situations that will inevitably arise when you mix with your diverse peers . UC wants to make sure that

• you have the maturity to deal with groups of people,
• you can solve problems with your own ingenuity and resourcefulness, and
• you don't lose your head and panic at problems.

Demonstrating your problem-solving abilities in your UC college essay will make you a stronger candidate for admission.

How Can You Give Them What They Want?

So how can you make sure those qualities come through in your essay?

Pick Your Group

The prompt very specifically wants you to talk about an interaction with a group of people. Let's say a group has to be at least three people.

Raise the Stakes

Think of the way movies ratchet up the tension of the impending catastrophe before the hero swoops in and saves the day. Keeping an audience on tenterhooks is important—and distinguishes the hero for the job well done. Similarly, when reading your essay, the admissions staff has to fundamentally understand exactly what you and the group you ended up leading were facing. Why was this an important problem to solve?

Balance You versus Them

Personal statements need to showcase you above all things . Because this essay will necessarily have to spend some time on other people, you need to find a good proportion of them-time and me-time. In general, the first (setup) section of the essay should be shorter because it will not be focused on what you were doing. The second section should take the rest of the space. So, in a 350-word essay, maybe 100–125 words go to setup whereas 225–250 words should be devoted to your leadership and solution.

Find Your Arc

Not only do you need to show how your leadership helped you meet the challenge you faced, but you also have to show how the experience changed you . In other words, the outcome was double-sided: you affected the world, and the world affected you right back.

Give your response to question 1 a compelling arc that demonstrates your personal growth.

Dissecting Personal Insight Question 2

Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.

Things to consider: What does creativity mean to you? Do you have a creative skill that is important to you? What have you been able to do with that skill? If you used creativity to solve a problem, what was your solution? What are the steps you took to solve the problem?

How does your creativity influence your decisions inside or outside the classroom? Does your creativity relate to your major or a future career?

This question is trying to probe the way you express yourself. Its broad description of "creativity" gives you the opportunity to make almost anything you create that didn't exist before fit the topic. What this essay question is really asking you to do is to examine the role your brand of creativity plays in your sense of yourself . The essay will have three parts.

Part 1: Define Your Creativity

What exactly do you produce, make, craft, create, or generate? Of course, the most obvious answer would be visual art, performance art, or music. But in reality, there is creativity in all fields. Any time you come up with an idea, thought, concept, or theory that didn't exist before, you are being creative. So your job is to explain what you spend time creating.

Part 2: Connect Your Creative Drive to Your Overall Self

Why do you do what you do? Are you doing it for external reasons—to perform for others, to demonstrate your skill, to fulfill some need in the world? Or is your creativity private and for your own use—to unwind, to distract yourself from other parts of your life, to have personal satisfaction in learning a skill? Are you good at your creative endeavor, or do you struggle with it? If you struggle, why is it important to you to keep pursuing it?

Part 3: Connect Your Creative Drive With Your Future

The most basic way to do this is by envisioning yourself actually pursuing your creative endeavor professionally. But this doesn't have to be the only way you draw this link. What have you learned from what you've made? How has it changed how you interact with other objects or with people? Does it change your appreciation for the work of others or motivate you to improve upon it?

Connecting your current creative pursuits with your chosen major or career will help UC admissions staff understand your motivations and intentions.

Nothing characterizes higher education like the need for creative thinking, unorthodox ideas in response to old topics, and the ability to synthesize something new . That is what you are going to college to learn how to do better. UC's second personal insight essay wants to know whether this mindset of out-of-the-box-ness is something you are already comfortable with. They want to see that

• you have actually created something in your life or academic career,
• you consider this an important quality within yourself,
• you have cultivated your skills, and
• you can see and have considered the impact of your creativity on yourself or on the world around you.

College admissions counselors, professors, and employers all value the skill of thinking outside the box, so being able to demonstrate that skill is crucial.

How can you really show that you are committed to being a creative person?

Be Specific and Descriptive

It's not enough to vaguely gesture at your creative field. Instead, give a detailed and lively description of a specific thing or idea that you have created . For example, I could describe a Turner painting as "a seascape," or I could call it "an attempt to capture the breathtaking power and violence of an ocean storm as it overwhelms a ship." Which painting would you rather look at?

Give a Sense of History

The question wants a little narrative of your relationship to your creative outlet . How long have you been doing it? Did someone teach you or mentor you? Have you taught it to others? Where and when do you create?

Hit a Snag; Find the Success

Anything worth doing is worth doing despite setbacks, this question argues—and it wants you to narrate one such setback. So first, figure out something that interfered with your creative expression .  Was it a lack of skill, time, or resources? Too much or not enough ambition in a project? Then, make sure this story has a happy ending that shows you off as the solver of your own problems: What did you do to fix the situation? How did you do it?

Show Insight

Your essay should include some thoughtful consideration of how this creative pursuit has shaped you , your thoughts, your opinions, your relationships with others, your understanding of creativity in general, or your dreams about your future. (Notice I said "or," not "and"—350 words is not enough to cover all of those things!)

Dissecting Personal Insight Question 3

What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?

Things to consider: If there's a talent or skill that you're proud of, this is the time to share it. You don't necessarily have to be recognized or have received awards for your talent (although if you did and you want to talk about, feel free to do so). Why is this talent or skill meaningful to you?

Does the talent come naturally or have you worked hard to develop this skill or talent? Does your talent or skill allow you opportunities in or outside the classroom? If so, what are they and how do they fit into your schedule?

Basically, what's being asked for here is a beaming rave. Whatever you write about, picture yourself talking about it with a glowing smile on your face.

Part 1: Narrative

The first part of the question really comes down to this: Tell us a story about what's amazing about you. Have you done an outstanding thing? Do you have a mind-blowing ability? Describe a place, a time, or a situation in which you were a star.

A close reading of this first case of the prompt reveals that you don't need to stress if you don't have an obvious answer. Sure, if you're playing first chair violin in the symphony orchestra, that qualifies as both a "talent" and an "accomplishment." But the word "quality" really gives you the option of writing about any one of your most meaningful traits. And the words "contribution" and "experience" open up the range of possibilities that you could write about even further. A contribution could be anything from physically helping put something together to providing moral or emotional support at a critical moment.

But the key to the first part is the phrase "important to you." Once again, what you write about is not as important as how you write about it. Being able to demonstrate the importance of the event that you're describing reveals much more about you than the specific talent or characteristic ever could.

Part 2: Insight and Personal Development

The second part of the last essay asked you to look to the future. The second part of this essay wants you to look at the present instead. The general task is similar, however. Once again, you're being asked to make connections:  How do you fit this quality you have or this achievement you accomplished into the story of who you are?

A close reading of the second part of this prompt lands on the word "proud." This is a big clue that the revelation this essay is looking for should be a very positive one. In other words, this is probably not the time to write about getting arrested for vandalism. Instead, focus on a skill that you've carefully honed, and clarify how that practice and any achievements connected with your talent have earned you concrete opportunities or, more abstractly, personal growth.

Remember to connect the talent or skill you choose to write about with your sense of personal identity and development.

What's UC Hoping to Learn About You?

Admissions officers have a very straightforward interest in learning about your accomplishments. By the end of high school, many of the experiences that you are most proud of don't tend to be the kind of things that end up on your résumé .

They want to know what makes you proud of yourself. Is it something that relates to performance, to overcoming a difficult obstacle, to keeping a cool head in a crisis, to your ability to help others in need?

At the same time, they are looking for a sense of maturity. In order to be proud of an accomplishment, it's important to be able to understand your own values and ideals. This is your chance to show that you truly understand the qualities and experiences that make you a responsible and grown-up person, someone who will thrive in the independence of college life. In other words, although you might really be proud that you managed to tag 10 highway overpasses with graffiti, that's probably not the achievement to brag about here.

Unless you were hired by the city to paint the overpasses, in which case definitely brag about it.

The trick with this prompt is how to show a lot about yourself without listing accomplishments or devolving into cliche platitudes. Let's take it step by step.

Step #1: Explain Your Field

Make sure that somewhere in your narrative (preferably closer to the beginning), you let the reader know what makes your achievement an achievement . Not all interests are mainstream, so it helps your reader to understand what you're facing if you give a quick sketch of, for example, why it's challenging to build a battle bot that can defeat another fighting robot or how the difficulties of extemporaneous debate compare with debating about a prepared topic.

Keep in mind that for some things, the explanation might be obvious. For example, do you really need to explain why finishing a marathon is a hard task?

Step #2: Zoom in on a Specific Experience

Think about your talent, quality, or accomplishment in terms of experiences that showcase it. Conversely, think about your experiences in terms of the talent, quality, or accomplishment they demonstrate. Because you're once again going to be limited to 350 words, you won't be able to fit all the ways in which you exhibit your exemplary skill into this essay. This means that you'll need to figure out how to best demonstrate your ability through one event in which you displayed it . Or if you're writing about an experience you had or a contribution you made, you'll need to also point out what personality trait or characteristic it reveals.

Step #3: Find a Conflict or a Transition

The first question asked for a description, but this one wants a story—a narrative of how you pursue your special talent or how you accomplished the skill you were so great at. The main thing about stories is that they have to have the following:

• A beginning: This is the setup, when you weren't yet the star you are now.
• An obstacle or a transition: Sometimes, a story has a conflict that needs to be resolved: something that stood in your way, a challenge that you had to figure out a way around, a block that you powered through. Other times, a story is about a change or a transformation: you used to believe, think, or be one thing, and now you are different or better.
• A resolution: When your full power, self-knowledge, ability, or future goal is revealed.

If, for example, you taught yourself to become a gifted coder, how did you first learn this skill? What challenges did you overcome in your learning? What does this ability say about your character, motivations, or goals?

Dissecting Personal Insight Question 4

Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

Things to consider: An educational opportunity can be anything that has added value to your educational experience and better prepared you for college. For example, participation in an honors or academic enrichment program, or enrollment in an academy that's geared toward an occupation or a major, or taking advanced courses that interest you—just to name a few.

If you choose to write about educational barriers you've faced, how did you overcome or strive to overcome them? What personal characteristics or skills did you call on to overcome this challenge? How did overcoming this barrier help shape who are you today?

Cue the swelling music because this essay is going to be all about your inspirational journey. You will either tell your story of overcoming adversity against all (or some) odds or of pursuing the chance of a lifetime.

If you write about triumphing over adversity, your essay will include the following:

A description of the setback that befell you: The prompt wants to know what you consider a challenge in your school life. And definitely note that this challenge should have in some significant way impacted your academics rather than your life overall.

The challenge can be a wide-reaching problem in your educational environment or something that happened specifically to you. The word "barrier" also shows that the challenge should be something that stood in your way: If only that thing weren't there, then you'd be sure to succeed.

An explanation of your success: Here, you'll talk about what you did when faced with this challenge. Notice that the prompt asks you to describe the "work" you put in to overcome the problem. So this piece of the essay should focus on your actions, thoughts, ideas, and strategies.

Although the essay doesn't specify it, this section should also at some point turn reflexive. How are you defined by this thing that happened? You could discuss the emotional fallout of having dramatically succeeded or how your maturity level, concrete skills, or understanding of the situation has increased now that you have dealt with it personally. Or you could talk about any beliefs or personal philosophy that you have had to reevaluate as a result of either the challenge itself or of the way that you had to go about solving it.

If you write about an educational opportunity, your essay will include the following:

A short, clear description of exactly what you got the chance to do: In your own words, explain what the opportunity was and why it's special.

Also, explain why you specifically got the chance to do it. Was it the culmination of years of study? An academic contest prize? An unexpected encounter that led to you seizing an unlooked-for opportunity?

How you made the best of it: It's one thing to get the opportunity to do something amazing, but it's another to really maximize what you get out of this chance for greatness. This is where you show just how much you understand the value of what you did and how you've changed and grown as a result of it.

Were you very challenged by this opportunity? Did your skills develop? Did you unearth talents you didn't know you had?

How does this impact your future academic ambitions or interests? Will you study this area further? Does this help you find your academic focus?

If writing about an educational obstacle you overcame, make sure to describe not just the challenge itself but also how you overcame it and how breaking down that barrier changed you for the better.

Of course, whatever you write about in this essay is probably already reflected on your résumé or in your transcript in some small way. But UC wants to go deeper, to find out how seriously you take your academic career, and to assess  how thoughtfully you've approached either its ups or its downs.

In college, there will be many amazing opportunities, but they aren't simply there for the taking. Instead, you will be responsible for seizing whatever chances will further your studies, interests, or skills.

Conversely, college will necessarily be more challenging, harder, and potentially much more full of academic obstacles than your academic experiences so far. UC wants to see that you are up to handling whatever setbacks may come your way with aplomb rather than panic.

Define the Problem or Opportunity

Not every challenge is automatically obvious. Sure, everyone can understand the drawbacks of having to miss a significant amount of school because of illness, but what if the obstacle you tackled is something a little more obscure? Likewise, winning the chance to travel to Italy to paint landscapes with a master is clearly rare and amazing, but some opportunities are more specialized and less obviously impressive. Make sure your essay explains everything the reader will need to know to understand what you were facing.

Watch Your Tone

An essay describing problems can easily slip into finger-pointing and self-pity. Make sure to avoid this by speaking positively or at least neutrally about what was wrong and what you faced . This goes double if you decide to explain who or what was at fault for creating this problem.

Likewise, an essay describing amazing opportunities can quickly become an exercise in unpleasant bragging and self-centeredness. Make sure you stay grounded: Rather than dwelling at length on your accomplishments, describe the specifics of what you learned and how.

Elaborating on how you conducted microbiology research during the summer before your senior year would make an appropriate topic for question 4.

Dissecting Personal Insight Question 5

Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?

Things to consider: A challenge could be personal, or something you have faced in your community or school. Why was the challenge significant to you? This is a good opportunity to talk about any obstacles you've faced and what you've learned from the experience. Did you have support from someone else or did you handle it alone?

If you're currently working your way through a challenge, what are you doing now, and does that affect different aspects of your life? For example, ask yourself, "How has my life changed at home, at my school, with my friends, or with my family?"

It's time to draw back the curtains and expand our field of vision because this is going to be a two-part story of overcoming adversity against all (or some) odds.

Part 1: Facing a Challenge

The first part of this essay is about problem-solving. The prompt asks you to relate something that could have derailed you if not for your strength and skill. Not only will you describe the challenge itself, but you'll also talk about what you did when faced with it.

Part 2: Looking in the Mirror

The second part of question 5 asks you to consider how this challenge has echoed through your life—and, more specifically, how what happened to you affected your education.

In life, dealing with setbacks, defeats, barriers, and conflicts is not a bug—it's a feature. And colleges want to make sure that you can handle these upsetting events without losing your overall sense of self, without being totally demoralized, and without getting completely overwhelmed. In other words, they are looking for someone who is mature enough to do well on a college campus, where disappointing results and hard challenges will be par for the course.

They are also looking for your creativity and problem-solving skills. Are you good at tackling something that needs to be fixed? Can you keep a cool head in a crisis? Do you look for solutions outside the box? These are all markers of a successful student, so it's not surprising that admissions staff want you to demonstrate these qualities.

The challenge you write about for question 5 need not be an educational barrier, which is better suited for question 4. Think broadly about the obstacles you've overcome and how they've shaped your perspective and self-confidence.

Let's explore the best ways to show off your problem-solving side.

Show Your Work

It's one thing to be able to say what's wrong, but it's another thing entirely to demonstrate how you figured out how to fix it. Even more than knowing that you were able to fix the problem, colleges want to see how you approached the situation . This is why your essay needs to explain your problem-solving methodology. Basically, they need to see you in action. What did you think would work? What did you think would not work? Did you compare this to other problems you have faced and pass? Did you do research? Describe your process.

Make Sure That You Are the Hero

This essay is supposed to demonstrate your resourcefulness and creativity . And make sure that you had to be the person responsible for overcoming the obstacle, not someone else. Your story must clarify that without you and your special brand of XYZ , people would still be lamenting the issue today. Don't worry if the resource you used to bring about a solution was the knowledge and know-how that somebody else brought to the table. Just focus on explaining what made you think of this person as the one to go to, how you convinced them to participate, and how you explained to them how they would be helpful. This will shift the attention of the story back to you and your efforts.

Find the Suspenseful Moment

The most exciting part of this essay should be watching you struggle to find a solution just in the nick of time. Think every movie cliché ever about someone defusing a bomb: Even if you know 100% that the hero is going to save the day, the movie still ratchets up the tension to make it seem like, Well, maybe... You want to do the same thing here. Bring excitement and a feeling of uncertainty to your description of your process to really pull the reader in and make them root for you to succeed.

You're the superhero!

Dissecting Personal Insight Question 6

Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.

Things to consider: Many students have a passion for one specific academic subject area, something that they just can't get enough of. If that applies to you, what have you done to further that interest? Discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experience you have had inside and outside the classroom — such as volunteer work, internships, employment, summer programs, participation in student organizations and/or clubs — and what you have gained from your involvement.

Has your interest in the subject influenced you in choosing a major and/or career? Have you been able to pursue coursework at a higher level in this subject (honors, AP, IB, college or university work)? Are you inspired to pursue this subject further at UC, and how might you do that?

This question is really asking for a glimpse of your imagined possibilities .

For some students, this will be an extremely straightforward question. For example, say you've always loved science to the point that you've spent every summer taking biology and chemistry classes. Pick a few of the most gripping moments from these experiences and discuss the overall trajectory of your interests, and your essay will be a winner.

But what if you have many academic interests? Or what if you discovered your academic passion only at the very end of high school? Let's break down what the question is really asking into two parts.

Part 1: Picking a Favorite

At first glance, it sounds as if what you should write about is the class in which you have gotten the best grades or the subject that easily fits into what you see as your future college major or maybe even your eventual career goal. There is nothing wrong with this kind of pick—especially if you really are someone who tends to excel in those classes that are right up your interest alley.

But if we look closer, we see that there is nothing in the prompt that specifically demands that you write either about a particular class or an area of study in which you perform well.

Instead, you could take the phrase "academic subject" to mean a wide field of study and explore your fascination with the different types of learning to be found there. For example, if your chosen topic is the field of literature, you could discuss your experiences with different genres or with foreign writers.

You could also write about a course or area of study that has significantly challenged you and in which you have not been as stellar a student as you want. This could be a way to focus on your personal growth as a result of struggling through a difficult class or to represent how you've learned to handle or overcome your limitations.

Part 2: Relevance

The second part of this prompt , like the first, can also be taken in a literal and direct way . There is absolutely nothing wrong with explaining that because you love engineering and want to be an engineer, you have pursued all your school's STEM courses, are also involved in a robotics club, and have taught yourself to code in order to develop apps.

However, you could focus on the more abstract, values-driven goals we just talked about instead. Then, your explanation of how your academics will help you can be rooted not in the content of what you studied but in the life lessons you drew from it.

In other words, for example, your theater class may not have stimulated your ambition to be an actor, but working on plays with your peers may have shown you how highly you value collaboration, or perhaps the experience of designing sets was an exercise in problem-solving and ingenuity. These lessons would be useful in any field you pursue and could easily be said to help you achieve your lifetime goals.

If you are on a direct path to a specific field of study or career pursuit, admissions officers definitely want to know that. Having driven, goal-oriented, and passionate students is a huge plus for a university. So if this is you, be sure that your essay conveys not just your interest but also your deep and abiding love of the subject. Maybe even include any related clubs, activities, and hobbies that you've done during high school.

Of course, college is the place to find yourself and the things that you become passionate about. So if you're not already committed to a specific course of study, don't worry. Instead, you have to realize that in this essay, like in all the other essays, the how matters much more than the what. No matter where your eventual academic, career, or other pursuits may lie, every class that you have taken up to now has taught you something. You learned about things like work ethic, mastering a skill, practice, learning from a teacher, interacting with peers, dealing with setbacks, understanding your own learning style, and perseverance.

In other words, the admissions office wants to make sure that no matter what you study, you will draw meaningful conclusions from your experiences, whether those conclusions are about the content of what you learn or about a deeper understanding of yourself and others. They want to see that you're not simply floating through life on the surface  but that you are absorbing the qualities, skills, and know-how you will need to succeed in the world—no matter what that success looks like.

Focus on a telling detail. Because personal statements are short, you simply won't have time to explain everything you have loved about a particular subject in enough detail to make it count. Instead, pick one event that crystallized your passion for a subject   or one telling moment that revealed what your working style will be , and go deep into a discussion of what it meant to you in the past and how it will affect your future.

Don't overreach. It's fine to say that you have loved your German classes so much that you have begun exploring both modern and classic German-language writers, for example, but it's a little too self-aggrandizing to claim that your four years of German have made you basically bilingual and ready to teach the language to others. Make sure that whatever class achievements you describe don't come off as unnecessary bragging rather than simple pride .

Similarly, don't underreach. Make sure that you have actual accomplishments to describe in whatever subject you pick to write about. If your favorite class turned out to be the one you mostly skipped to hang out in the gym instead, this may not be the place to share that lifetime goal. After all, you always have to remember your audience. In this case, it's college admissions officers who want to find students who are eager to learn and be exposed to new thoughts and ideas.

Dissecting Personal Insight Question 7

What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?

Things to consider: Think of community as a term that can encompass a group, team or a place— like your high school, hometown or home. You can define community as you see fit, just make sure you talk about your role in that community. Was there a problem that you wanted to fix in your community?

Why were you inspired to act? What did you learn from your effort? How did your actions benefit others, the wider community or both? Did you work alone or with others to initiate change in your community?

This topic is trying to get at how you engage with your environment. It's looking for several things:

#1: Your Sense of Place and Connection

Because the term "community" is so broad and ambiguous, this is a good essay for explaining where you feel a sense of belonging and rootedness. What or who constitutes your community? Is your connection to a place, to a group of people, or to an organization? What makes you identify as part of this community—cultural background, a sense of shared purpose, or some other quality?

#2: Your Empathy and Ability to Look at the Big Picture

Before you can solve a problem, you have to realize that the problem exists. Before you can make your community a better place, you have to find the things that can be ameliorated. No matter what your contribution ended up being, you first have to show how you saw where your skills, talent, intelligence, or hard work could do the most good. Did you put yourself in the shoes of the other people in your community? Understand some fundamental inner working of a system you could fix? Knowingly put yourself in the right place at the right time?

#3: Your Problem-Solving Skills

How did you make the difference in your community? If you resolved a tangible issue, how did you come up with your solution? Did you examine several options or act from the gut? If you made your community better in a less direct way, how did you know where to apply yourself and how to have the most impact possible?

Clarify not just what the problem and solution was but also your process of getting involved and contributing specific skills, ideas, or efforts that made a positive difference.

Community is a very important thing to colleges. You'll be involved with and encounter lots of different communities in college, including the broader student body, your extracurriculars, your classes, and the community outside the university. UC wants to make sure that you can engage with the communities around you in a positive, meaningful way .

Make it personal. Before you can explain what you did in your community, you have to define and describe this community itself—and you can only do that by focusing on what it means to you. Don't speak in generalities; instead, show the bonds between you and the group you are a part of through colorful, idiosyncratic language. Sure, they might be "my water polo team," but maybe they are more specifically "the 12 people who have seen me at my most exhausted and my most exhilarated."

Feel all the feelings. This is a chance to move your readers. As you delve deep into what makes your community one of your emotional centers, and then as you describe how you were able to improve it in a meaningful and lasting way, you should keep the roller coaster of feelings front and center. Own how you felt at each step of the process: when you found your community, when you saw that you could make a difference, and when you realized that your actions resulted in a change for the better. Did you feel unprepared for the task you undertook? Nervous to potentially let down those around you? Thrilled to get a chance to display a hidden or underused talent?

To flesh out your essay, depict the emotions you felt while making your community contribution, from frustration or disappointment to joy and fulfillment. 

Dissecting Personal Insight Question 8

Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand out as a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?

Things to consider: If there's anything you want us to know about you, but didn't find a question or place in the application to tell us, now's your chance. What have you not shared with us that will highlight a skill, talent, challenge or opportunity that you think will help us know you better?

From your point of view, what do you feel makes you an excellent choice for UC? Don't be afraid to brag a little.

If your particular experience doesn't quite fit under the rubrics of the other essay topics , or if there is something the admissions officers need to understand about your background in order to consider your application in the right context, then this is the essay for you.

Now, I'm going to say something a little counterintuitive here. The prompt for this essay clarifies that even if you don't have a "unique" story to tell, you should still feel free to pick this topic. But, honestly, I think you should  choose this topic only if you have an exceptional experience to share . Remember that E veryday challenges or successes of regular life could easily fit one of the other insight questions instead.

What this means is that evaluating whether your experiences qualify for this essay is a matter of degrees. For example, did you manage to thrive academically despite being raised by a hard-working single parent? That's a hardship that could easily be written about for Questions 1 or 5, depending on how you choose to frame what happened. Did you manage to earn a 3.7 GPA despite living in a succession of foster families only to age out of the system in the middle of your senior year of high school? That's a narrative of overcoming hardship that easily belongs to Question 8.

On the flip side, did you win a state-wide robotics competition? Well done, and feel free to tell your story under Question 4. Were you the youngest person to single-handedly win a season of BattleBots? Then feel free to write about it for Question 8.

This is pretty straightforward. They are trying to identify students that have unique and amazing stories to tell about who they are and where they come from. If you're a student like this, then the admissions people want to know the following:

• What happened to you?
• When and where did it happen?
• How did you participate, or how were you involved in the situation?
• How did it affect you as a person?
• How did it affect your schoolwork?
• How will the experience be reflected in the point of view you bring to campus?

The university wants this information because of the following:

• It gives context to applications that otherwise might seem mediocre or even subpar.
• It can help explain places in a transcript where grades significantly drop.
• It gives them the opportunity to build a lot of diversity into the incoming class.
• It's a way of finding unique talents and abilities that otherwise wouldn't show up on other application materials.

Let's run through a few tricks for making sure your essay makes the most of your particular distinctiveness.

Double-Check Your Uniqueness

Many experiences in our lives that make us feel elated, accomplished, and extremely competent are also near universal. This essay isn't trying to take the validity of your strong feelings away from you, but it would be best served by stories that are on a different scale . Wondering whether what you went through counts? This might be a good time to run your idea by a parent, school counselor, or trusted teacher. Do they think your experience is widespread? Or do they agree that you truly lived a life less ordinary?

Connect Outward

The vast majority of your answer to the prompt should be telling your story and its impact on you and your life. But the essay should also point toward how your particular experiences set you apart from your peers. One of the reasons that the admissions office wants to find out which of the applicants has been through something unlike most other people is that they are hoping to increase the number of points of view in the student body. Think about—and include in your essay—how you will impact campus life. This can be very literal: If you are a jazz singer who has released several songs on social media, then maybe you will perform on campus. Or it can be much more oblique: If you have a disability, then you will be able to offer a perspective that differs from the able-bodied majority.

Be Direct, Specific, and Honest

Nothing will make your voice sound more appealing than writing without embellishment or verbal flourishes. This is the one case in which  how you're telling the story is just as—if not more—important than what you're telling . So the best strategy is to be as straightforward in your writing as possible. This means using description to situate your reader in a place, time, or experience that they would never get to see firsthand. You can do this by picking a specific moment during your accomplishment to narrate as a small short story and not shying away from explaining your emotions throughout the experience. Your goal is to make the extraordinary into something at least somewhat relatable, and the way you do that is by bringing your writing down to earth.

Your essays should feature relatable thoughts and emotions as well as insights into how you will contribute to the campus community.

Writing Advice for Making Your UC Personal Statements Shine

No matter what personal insight questions you end up choosing to write about, here are two tips for making your writing sparkle:

#1: Be Detailed and Descriptive

Have you ever heard the expression "show; don't tell"? It's usually given as creative writing advice, and it will be your best friend when you're writing college essays. It means that any time you want to describe a person or thing as having a particular quality, it's better to illustrate with an example than to just use vague adjectives . If you stick to giving examples that paint a picture, your focus will also become narrower and more specific. You'll end up concentrating on details and concrete events rather than not-particularly-telling generalizations.

Let's say, for instance, Adnan is writing about the house that he's been helping his dad fix up. Which of these do you think gives the reader a better sense of place?

My family bought an old house that was kind of run-down. My dad likes fixing it up on the weekends, and I like helping him. Now the house is much nicer than when we bought it, and I can see all our hard work when I look at it.

My dad grinned when he saw my shocked face. Our "new" house looked like a completely run-down shed: peeling paint, rust-covered railings, shutters that looked like the crooked teeth of a jack-o-lantern. I was still staring at the spider-web crack in one broken window when my dad handed me a pair of brand-new work gloves and a paint scraper. "Today, let's just do what we can with the front wall," he said. And then I smiled too, knowing that many of my weekends would be spent here with him, working side by side.

Both versions of this story focus on the house being dilapidated and how Adnan enjoyed helping his dad do repairs. But the second does this by:

painting a picture of what the house actually looked like by adding visual details ("peeling paint," "rust-covered railings," and "broken window") and through comparisons ("shutters like a jack-o-lantern" and "spider-web crack");

showing emotions by describing facial expressions ("my dad grinned," "my shocked face," and "I smiled"); and

using specific and descriptive action verbs ("grinned," "shocked," "staring," and "handed").

The essay would probably go on to describe one day of working with his dad or a time when a repair went horribly awry. Adnan would make sure to keep adding sensory details (what things looked, sounded, smelled, tasted, and felt like), using active verbs, and illustrating feelings with dialogue and facial expressions.

If you're having trouble checking whether your description is detailed enough, read your work to someone else . Then, ask that person to describe the scene back to you. Are they able to conjure up a picture from your words? If not, you need to beef up your details.

It's a bit of a fixer-upper, but it'll make a great college essay!

#2: Show Your Feelings

All good personal essays deal with emotions. And what marks great personal essays is the author's willingness to really dig into negative feelings as well as positive ones . As you write your UC application essays, keep asking yourself questions and probing your memory. How did you feel before it happened? How did you expect to feel after, and how did you actually feel after? How did the world that you are describing feel about what happened? How do you know how your world felt?

Then write about your feelings using mostly emotion words ("I was thrilled/disappointed/proud/scared"), some comparisons ("I felt like I'd never run again/like I'd just bitten into a sour apple/like the world's greatest explorer"), and a few bits of direct speech ("'How are we going to get away with this?' my brother asked").

What's Next?

This should give you a great starting point to address the UC essay prompts and consider how you'll write your own effective UC personal statements. The hard part starts here: work hard, brainstorm broadly, and use all my suggestions above to craft a great UC application essay.

Making your way through college applications? We have advice on how to find the right college for you , how to write about your extracurricular activities , and how to ask teachers for recommendations .

Interested in taking the SAT one more time? Check out our highly detailed explainer on studying for the SAT to learn how to prepare best.

Worried about how to pay for college after you get in? Read our description of how much college really costs , our comparison of subsidized and unsubsidized loans , and our lists of the top scholarships for high school seniors and juniors .

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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Application Requirements

Students are admitted to the program by the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley, on recommendation of the Jurisprudence and Social Policy admissions committee.

Applications for entry in Fall 2024 opened on  September 15, 2023  and will close on December 15, 2023 at 8:59pm PST . ALL  application materials (including letters of recommendation for all applicants, and test scores for international applicants) must be received by the December 15 deadline.

All directions and requirements for applying to the PhD in Jurisprudence and Social Policy can be found in the Graduate Division Online Application

Along with the  Graduate Division forms , applicants are asked to submit:

•  transcripts of grades
•   three letters of recommendation (additional letters will not be read)
•  a statement of purpose (2-3 pages, double-spaced)
• a personal statement (2-3 pages, double-spaced)
• a sample of past written work (25-50 pages)

Beginning with the 2022-2023 application cycle (entry in Fall 2023), the GRE requirement is no longer required for the JSP Ph.D. and will not be reviewed.

International applicants will also need to fulfill the UC Berkeley Graduate Division's requirements for international students in addition to the application requirements. Information on TOEFL exemptions can be found in the link above.

If you have questions about the online application, please contact the Graduate Division at [email protected]

If you have questions about admission to the JSP Ph.D. program, please check out our FAQ then contact us at [email protected] if you have additional questions.

For admissions information regarding the J.D., contact: UC Berkeley School of Law J.D. Admissions Office 396 Simon Hall Berkeley, CA 94720-7200 Phone: (510) 642-2274  [email protected]

For admissions information regarding the LL.M. and J.S.D., contact: UC Berkeley School of Law Advanced Degree Programs 214 Boalt Hall #7200 Berkeley, CA 94720-7200 Phone: (510) 642-1476 [email protected]

Writing the Personal Statement

Helpful tips and advice for drafting a compelling personal statement when applying for graduate admission.

Make sure to check the appropriate program website to find out if your statement should include additional or specific information.

What does this statement need to accomplish?

The personal statement should give concrete evidence of your promise as a member of the academic community, giving the committee an image of you as a person.

This is also where you represent your potential to bring to your academic career a critical perspective rooted in a non-traditional educational background, or your understanding of the experiences of groups historically under-represented in higher education and your commitment to increase participation by a diverse population in higher education.

What kinds of content belongs here?

Anything that can give reviewers a sense of you as a person belongs here; you can repeat information about your experiences in your research statement, but any experiences that show your promise, initiative, and ability to persevere despite obstacles belongs here. This is also a good place to display your communication skills and discuss your ability to maximize effective collaboration with a diverse cross-section of the academic community. If you have faced any obstacles or barriers in your education, sharing those experiences serves both for the selection process, and for your nomination for fellowships. If one part of your academic record is not ideal, due to challenges you faced in that particular area, this is where you can explain that, and direct reviewers’ attention to the evidence of your promise for higher education.

The basic message: your academic achievement despite challenges

It is especially helpful for admissions committees considering nominating you for fellowships for diversity if you discuss any or all of the following:

• Demonstrated significant academic achievement by overcoming barriers such as economic, social, or educational disadvantage;
• attendance at a minority serving institution;
• ability to articulate the barriers facing women and minorities in science and engineering fields;
• participation in higher education pipeline programs such as, UC Leads, or McNair Scholars;
• Academic service advancing equitable access to higher education for women and racial minorities in fields where they are underrepresented;
• Leadership experience among students from groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education;
• research that addresses issues such as race, gender, diversity, and inclusion;
• research that addresses health disparities, educational access and achievement, political engagement, economic justice, social mobility, civil and human rights, and other questions of interest to historically underrepresented groups;
• artistic expression and cultural production that reflects culturally diverse communities or voices not well represented in the arts and humanities.

Ready to Apply

Ready to apply to our j.d. program navigate through these links to learn about the application requirements, individual components, and more. , application checklist, timeline for applying, early decision program, academic record, standardized tests, personal statement & resume, optional statements, required addenda, letters of recommendation, application fee waivers, concurrent & combined degree programs, transfer & visiting status.

The application process begins when you visit the Law School Admission Council website , where you must establish an account, register for the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), and submit an application.

The following materials are required for an application to Berkeley Law:

• $75 non-refundable application fee. The fee cannot be used for processing applications to other law schools within the University of California System.

Continue reading to learn about each component in depth.

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Consult this timeline as you prepare your application. Although the application deadline is not until February, consider applying early as we have a rolling admissions process. 

This timeline does not include steps you may wish to take in the months leading up to the opening of the application. We highly recommend taking time to prepare for the LSAT, write several drafts of your personal statement, ask your letters of recommendation, and gather all of your required transcripts.

If you have researched your law school options thoroughly and have determined that Berkeley Law is your first choice law school, then you may wish to apply through the binding early decision (BED) application. Click on the graphic below to read about the requirements, benefits, and important dates for the BED application:

BED Application Overview

Berkeley Law’s early decision program is binding . If you are admitted, this means that you must commit to enrolling at Berkeley Law the following fall and that you must submit a Statement of Intent to Register (SIR) by the date indicated in your admission notification. No deposit will be required, but you must withdraw all other law school applications and not initiate any new applications. Early decision admission offers may not be deferred.  You must be completely certain that you will begin your legal studies at Berkeley in the fall of 2024.

To apply, complete the separate early decision application available beginning September 1 on the LSAC website. There is no application fee for the early decision program. 

You may not be an early decision applicant at another law school with a binding contract. If you elect to apply to Berkeley’s binding early decision program, then ours can be the only such application you submit.

BED Scholarship and Other Financial Aid

If you are admitted, you automatically will receive a  $90,000 merit scholarship , split evenly over the three years (six semesters) while at Berkeley Law. The only requirement to renew this scholarship is to maintain good academic standing and to make satisfactory academic progress.  If admitted, you should presume that the $90,000 associated scholarship will comprise your total gift aid.

You may apply for other named or programmatic scholarships, such as the Berkeley Law Opportunity Scholarship, however decisions for these programs, which are competitive, are not typically released until mid-March or later. If you anticipate that financial aid will be a significant factor in determining where you will attend law school, then you should consider carefully whether or not to apply to a binding early decision program. 

BED Timeline and Notification

Your application must be completed and submitted by 11:59pm PST on November 15, 2023 to be considered for the program. To ensure that your application is complete by that deadline, we strongly recommend that you submit an application before November 1, 2023. The October LSAT is the last test score that we will consider for early decision. If submitting a GRE or GMAT score, it must be taken by October 31, 2023 in order to be received in our office by the application deadline.

You will receive an admissions decision by December 4, 2023. If you are admitted, you will be required to submit a Statement of Intent to Register by December 8 and to withdraw all of your other law school applications immediately. 

If you are not admitted through early decision program, then your application will be included in the applicant pool for the regular decision process and you will receive an admissions decision at a later date.  No application fee will be required in these cases.

BED Certification Form

When you apply, you also must complete and submit the electronic Early Decision Certification form to confirm that you wish to be considered for early decision and that you understand the rules that govern the program. The certification must be submitted by November 15, and ideally by November 1.  Your early decision application will not be considered complete until we receive the certification form. 

If the certification form is not received by November 15, 2023, then we will assume that you have decided to withdraw from early decision consideration. Your application will not be held for regular decision. To be considered subsequently for regular decision, you will be required to submit a separate regular application and pay the $75 application fee.

Webinar on the BED Application

Members of the Admissions Team hosted a webinar on the application process for Binding Early Decision. While the dates are specific to the 2022-23 cycle, the main points remain relevant. The webinar is available below:

Academic Record and The CAS Report

It is through CAS that we receive: Your transcripts  from all undergraduate institutions attended and graduate programs (including foreign transcripts); transcript analysis; LSAT scores and score report(s); letter(s) of recommendation; and the LSAT Writing Sample. We may also receive as part of your CAS report information that contextualizes your performance prepared by LSAC with data they are provided by applicants. We are not able to receive any of this information in any other way; CAS registration is required and cannot be waived. 

You will be able to monitor your CAS status through the LSAC website ( LSAC.org ). CAS updates (for new scores, new transcripts, new letters, etc.) are sent to us automatically once you send us a first-time report.

What are we looking for in your academic record?

We want to know that you have the ability to succeed academically in law school. When we review your CAS report, we look at your cumulative GPA, but that’s only one factor. We also consider your overall undergraduate academic record. This will include the age of the grades, exceptionally high grades, the difficulty of coursework, time commitments while attending college, grading patterns at the school attended, and grade trends or discrepancies. Graduate work will be considered a “plus factor.” We do not have a GPA cut-off, so all are welcome to apply.

Additional Resources

Credential Assembly Service 

LSAC Transcript Summarization Policy

International Transcripts

Applicants to the J.D. program are required to take a standardized test for admission. We accept the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) or the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). For a limited group of applicants, mainly those applying for a dual degree, we may accept the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT). Please review our GMAT Policy f or eligibility criteria. 

The LSAT is typically offered eight times each year and can be taken remotely or at examination centers throughout the world. Registration, disability-related accommodation requests, and all other candidate services for the LSAT are managed entirely and led solely by the Law School Admission Council; Berkeley Law has no role in any aspect of the registration process, fee waivers, eligibility, or other determinations. 

The LSAT Writing Sample is a requirement to apply to Berkeley Law. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have a valid LSAT Writing Sample available by the application deadline. LSAC requires that you have at least one valid Writing Sample on file in order to issue a CAS report to a school.

LSAT scores are valid for five years. If you took the LSAT between September 2018 and January 2024, then you are not required to take it again (you have a valid and reportable score that we can consider). However, you must ensure that your CAS registration is current so that your test score(s) and transcripts are sent to us. 

The GRE and GMAT

For information regarding the GRE or GMAT, please refer to the specific testing agency. In all cases, we require a valid and reportable score in order to review and consider your application. Generally, scores over 5 years old are no longer valid and reportable. It is each applicant’s responsibility to understand when and how a testing agency will report a score and for how long it remains valid. Some will only report a score up to 5 years to the month when the test was administered, for example. 

Applicants applying with the GRE or GMAT must also send a CAS report to Berkeley Law. No application will be complete without a CAS report received from LSAC, and the associated CAS fee will not be waived by Berkeley Law. 

For the GRE, we will primarily consider your “superscore” when evaluating your candidacy. We do not draw parallels or calculate “comparable” percentiles or raw scores on the LSAT and GRE. Both tests are different and test different things, and scores on one or both will be viewed as distinct from one another.

Applying with Multiple Test Types

 If you have a valid and reportable LSAT score it will be seen and it will be considered in our review, even if you wish to be considered with “only” a GRE score. That LSAT score will flow in automatically from LSAC through the CAS report and/or CAS updates. You may write an addendum to provide context for score and performance differences . If you have a valid and reportable GRE score, we require you to send a score report to us (from ETS). Your GRE score(s) will be seen and considered alongside your LSAT score(s), even if you wish to apply with “only” the LSAT. We may consider your application incomplete without any/all applicable test scores.

Important Deadlines

The final dates by which you should take a standardized test will depend on which application you are submitting, and whether you are applying for the Berkeley Law Opportunity Scholarship (BLOS) award.

For Binding Early Decision applicants: Complete the LSAT or GRE by October 31, 2023.

For Berkeley Law Opportunity Scholarship and Public Interest Scholars applicants: Complete the LSAT or GRE by November 30, 2023.

For Regular Decision JD applicants: Complete the LSAT or GRE by January 31, 2024.

Process for Submission

LSAT: LSAT scores are sent to us by LSAC as part of your Credential Assembly Service.

GRE: If you have taken the GRE, please submit our GRE form upon submission of your application. Request that ETS send an official score report to Berkeley Law for each GRE exam you have taken in the last five years. Please use the Berkeley Law JD program school code 4818. Unofficial or student-provided ETS score reports will not be accepted in lieu of official score reports received directly from ETS. Berkeley Law will have access to your analytical writing essays through ETS. Applicants applying with only the GRE must send a CAS report to Berkeley Law. No application will be complete without a CAS report received from LSAC, and the associated CAS fee will not be waived by Berkeley Law. 

GMAT : If you intend to apply with a GMAT score, first confirm your eligibility to do so by reviewing our GMAT policy . You must fill out the GMAT form . Then, r equest that GMAC send an official score report to Berkeley Law. This report will include all active GMAT scores. Please use the Berkeley Law JD program school code: N2V-3S-66. Unofficial or student-provided GMAC score reports will not be accepted in lieu of official score reports received directly from GMAC.  Applicants applying with only the GMAT must send a CAS report to Berkeley Law. No application will be complete without a CAS report received from LSAC, and the associated CAS fee will not be waived by Berkeley Law. 

Full GMAT Policy and Rule Clarification

GRE Supplemental Form

GMAT Supplemental Form  

Personal Statement

You are required to submit a personal statement as part of your application. It should be limited to four double-spaced pages in 11 or 12 point font that is highly legible and with normal page margins. 

The thoughts and words contained in your personal statement must be your own and no one else should assist in its creation beyond basic proofreading or critiquing. This must be your original work.

Navigate through the following slides for some tips on writing a personal statement (note that there is no audio):

In addition to a personal statement we require that you include a resume. T here is no page limit, but generally two pages is adequate. The resume should include chronological information about your work experiences, extracurricular activities, honors and awards, volunteer experience, travels, and accomplishments.

Here are some suggestions for creating a law school resume:

• The resume is distinct from a C.V.; however, you are welcome to include information about research or any publications in your resume. URLs may be added, but don’t guarantee that a reviewer will visit those links
• Do not limit yourself to strictly law-related or professional experiences. However, do only add activities from college and beyond (no high school, please)
• You should not assume that the Admissions Committee knows what a particular organization does or what an acronym means, rather, you should explain these briefly or write out the full name
• Do NOT include: a personal photograph, other image(s), graphic(s), or art within your résumé, an objective, a separate list of “Key Qualities” or a “Personal Summary,” motto, or quote
• It is helpful to include the hours and dates you worked or volunteered, as well as your responsibilities – bullet points are perfect!
• For legibility purposes, please do not include multiple colors or fonts in your résumé, and please keep the font no smaller than 10 or 11-points for all text other than your name at the top. We suggest using a highly legible font such as Times New Roman, Arial, Garamond, Calibri, Cambria, etc. 

Webinar on Parts of the Application: Personal Statement, Diversity Statement, and Why Berkeley Law Statement

Webinar on Parts of the Application: Resume and Letters of Recommendation

In addition to your personal statement, y ou may choose to attach a response to one or more of the following questions if you feel the information would be helpful to us when considering your application.

Submission Instructions: In general, optional statements should be attached with the application on LSAC.org, or you can email them to us as a PDF attachment at [email protected] if you have already submitted your application. If you are submitting an “Interest in the Legal Profession” statement, please submit your video or written submission via the Kira platform. Additional submission instructions are included below and in the application. 

Interest in Berkeley Law

Tell us more about your interest in Berkeley Law. What makes our school a good fit for you in terms of academic interests, programmatic offerings, and learning environment? 

This essay is required if you are applying to the Public Interest Scholars Program.

350 word maximum

Academic Potential Addendum

If you do not believe that your standardized test score(s) or academic record accurately reflect your ability to succeed in law school, then you may tell us why and share what you believe indicates your potential.

Y ou may attach a copy of your SAT or ACT score report(s) to this essay, and we reserve the right to request score reports to verify statements made in this optional essay.

Perspective and Experiences

How will you (your perspective, experience, Voice) contribute to diversity in our classrooms and community? Feel free to address any factors or attributes you consider important and relevant. In the past, applicants have included information about characteristics such as: race/ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic background, first generation college or professional school student, student parent, re-entry student, geographic diversity, ideological diversity, and others.

500 word maximum

Interest in the Legal Profession (Video Submission Option)

Looking beyond the four corners of your application, please share more about why you are applying to law school by answering one or more of the following questions: 

• What about you (your experiences, your values, your perspective, etc.) calls you to law school?
• How will you use your law degree with integrity, vision, creativity, and/or to innovate?
• What makes you hopeful, optimistic, or excited about entering the legal profession?
• How do you see yourself contributing to or advancing the public good as a lawyer, scholar, or advocate?

4 minutes, or 500 words maximum

For the optional statement, “Interest in the Legal Profession,” applicants are invited to complete this statement in an alternative modality: video submission. This is not an interview. It is another opportunity to share insight into your potential for study at Berkeley Law, and it gives you an additional tool (video recording) for the communication and presentation of that information. You may also choose to complete this statement in written format.

Optional video statements, as with all statements, are unscored and intended only to augment your application. While we will consider the information shared and will use it within our holistic review of your application, no value will be assigned to whether you choose the written or video format .

Candidates will submit this statement via a free, third-party platform called Kira. You will receive a custom link to the Kira platform after submitting your Berkeley Law application on LSAC. The Kira platform will allow you to respond to the prompt either via video recording or in writing and provides comprehensive support and trouble-shooting. Please only submit your response through the Kira platform; written or video “Interest in the Legal Profession” statements sent separately will not be considered.

Additional addenda or essays may be required in certain instances (e.g., if you are applying to certain scholarship programs). Required addenda are attached with the application on LSAC.org, or you can email them to us as a PDF attachment at [email protected] if you have already submitted your application. 

Character & Fitness Explanation

If you answer “Yes” to any of the character and fitness questions in the application, we require that you attach an addendum explaining the circumstances. If your answer to any of the character and fitness questions contained in this application becomes affirmative after you submit your application, you are required to notify the Admissions Office in writing. Failure to disclose and/or notify us will result in the revocation of your offer of admission. In addition to a Bar examination, there are character, fitness, and other qualifications for admission to the Bar in every U.S. jurisdiction. Applicants are encouraged to determine the requirements for any jurisdiction in which they intend to seek admission by contacting the jurisdiction. Addresses for all relevant agencies are available through the National Conference of Bar Examiners. 

Note that an affirmative answer to any of these questions does not necessarily preclude or even prejudice admission to Berkeley Law. Your answer will be reviewed on an individual basis in relation to all aspects of your experience, academic achievement, and potential. Individuals may be strong applicants and passionate contributors to classroom discussions not in spite of their past engagement with the criminal justice system, but because of those experiences. We regularly admit, enroll, and graduate law students who have responded affirmatively to questions in this section.  

Our character and fitness questions do not represent all the possible questions, topics, or considerations a state Bar might inquire about or require you to disclose, or for the law school to disclose in the course of the Bar certification process. Admission to our law school does not suggest or ensure eligibility for, nor guarantee, admission to any state, federal, or other Bar.

If you would like more information or resources for navigating these questions or attending law school as a justice-system impacted person, contact our office. We are also available for individual advising appointments.

Scholarship Essays

There are three named scholarships that candidates can apply for in the application. If you are applying for any of these scholarships, you must include the required essay(s) by the deadline.

Berkeley Law Opportunity Scholarship

You are required to submit a one to two page essay addressing the following prompt: How do you think being a first generation college student has shaped your perspective, and how will that perspective contribute to the Berkeley Law community and the broader legal profession? The essay can discuss content from your personal statement or Perspectives and Experiences statement (if included), but should be a unique, independent essay specifically addressing your identity as a first generation college graduate. You may wish to discuss any obstacles you have faced on your journey to law school, contributions to your community, history of leadership or advocacy, and what kind of impact you hope to make at Berkeley Law and in the greater legal profession. Deadline: December 15

Public Interest Scholars Program

To be considered, you must submit a “Why Berkeley Law” statement that expands upon your interest in Berkeley Law’s public interest offerings. Please be sure your application materials, such as your personal statement and resume, reflect your interest, experience, and commitment to the field.  Deadline: December 15

Hyundai-Kia Scholarship

An additional 1-2 page essay is required to be considered for the Hyundai-Kia Scholarship. The applicant should describe why they believe they are a strong candidate for the award, their relevant educational, leadership, and professional experiences, and their career goals. In addition, if the applicant is an immediate family member of an employee of Hyundai or Kia Motors they must self-identify as such in this essay. (This disclosure does not preclude their consideration for the award.)  Deadline: February 15

We recommend submitting 2 academic letters of recommendation and one from a non-academic source (work experience, volunteer, etc.). Applicants who have been out of school for a number  of years (usually 5+ years) may substitute professional letters of recommendation for academic letters.

You may submit a maximum of 4 letters of recommendation total. In general, we do not complete applications with fewer than two letters of recommendation on file. If you wish for your application to be completed with fewer than two letters of recommendation, please contact us at [email protected] to make that request in writing.  We will not hold your application for review pending receipt of your recommendations provided that at least two letters are on file. If you want all of your letters to be considered in the review process, be sure that they are available with your Credential Assembly Service (CAS) report when you submit your application.

Letters of recommendation must be submitted through the LSAC Letter of Recommendation Service. Letters sent to us outside of the LSAC Letter of Recommendation Service will NOT be added to your application materials and will NOT be considered when evaluating you for admission. Do not direct recommenders to email us letters or messages regarding your application status, interest, qualifications, etc. Check out this quick video for everything you need to know about letters of recommendation:

A need-based fee waiver program is administered by the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) that includes w aivers of the LSAT registration, Credential Assembly Service (CAS), and other fees. Information and the fee waiver application form is available on the LSAC website. You should act early to obtain a waiver; we will not extend application deadlines based on the timeline for LSAC’s fee waiver review process.  If you obtain an LSAC fee waiver, our application fee will be waived automatically when you apply. 

Berkeley Law fee waivers are online application-based or may be sent to candidates directly by the school after being identified through the LSAC Candidate Referral Service (CRS). CRS is an LSAC service that is “opt-in,” and questions about that process should be directed to LSAC.

Berkeley Law offers a separate fee waiver program for applicants who participated in a program that is included in one of the three broad categories listed below. If you believe you qualify, submit a Berkeley Law Fee Waiver Request Form (opens on Sept 1) and be sure to attach proof of your participation:  

• Honors/Research ( e.g.,  Fulbright, Truman, Rhodes, Marshall)
• Public Service ( e.g.,  Teach for America, AmeriCorps, Peace Corps, current military or veteran)
• Educational/Socio-Economic Disadvantage ( e.g ., CYDL participant, Gates Scholar, Pell Grant recipient)

Details and a list of qualifying programs are found on the  form . If your request does not fall under the categories above, please see the form for further instructions.

LSAC Need-Based Fee Waiver Application

LSAC Candidate Referral Service (CRS)

Berkeley Law Fee Waiver Request Form (Opens September 1)

The deadline to submit either fee waiver application is 5pm PDT on January 1, 2024.  Applicants who do not receive a waiver or who miss the deadline must pay the fee.

Students who wish to examine the law in an interdisciplinary context may arrange to pursue a J.D. degree at Berkeley Law School and a master’s degree in certain other schools or departments within or outside of U.C. Berkeley. Dual degree seekers must apply separately and be admitted to each program. The application and review process are the same for dual degree seekers. For more information and FAQs, see our Concurrent and Combined Degrees Programs page . 

On-Campus Graduate Program Admissions

Requirements, dates and deadlines, and application instructions.

Read this important information first!

All information provided on this page is specific to on-campus graduate programs that incorporate SOPHAS in the admissions process.

The information on this page:

• Does not include the Biostatistics MA
• Does not include the Biostatistics PhD
• Does not include the Environmental Health Sciences PhD
• Does not include the Epidemiology PhD
• Does not include the Health Policy PhD
• Does not include the Infectious Diseases and Immunity PhD
• Does not include the Online MPH Program
• Does not include concurrent or joint degrees

If you are applying to an on-campus graduate program and do not see your program on the list above , proceed on the current page. Otherwise, return to the admissions landing page and select the appropriate link to access the admissions page for your intended program.

Graduate Admissions Requirements

The School of Public Health’s minimum graduate admission requirements are defined below. More information can be found on the UC Berkeley Graduate Division website :

• A bachelor’s degree or recognized equivalent from an accredited institution;
• A satisfactory scholastic average, usually a minimum B average (3.0) or equivalent (focused on work completed in the last two years of a bachelor’s degree program and in all post-baccalaureate coursework). If your undergraduate GPA does not meet the minimum, you may still submit an application. Remember to provide evidence of other academic and professional accomplishments to demonstrate your capability to be successful in an academically rigorous environment. Alternative evidence may include courses you have successfully completed as work-related training.
• Enough undergraduate training to do graduate work in your chosen area of study – see the Individual Program Requirements section below for more information
• Evidence of English Language Proficiency (only for applicants from countries / regions in which the official language is not English)
• Submission of all required application materials.

Application Requirements

• SOPHAS Application and fee ($145)
• Berkeley Graduate Application and fee ($100 – $155)
• Official Transcripts from each institution you have attended
• 3 Letters of Recommendation

Statement of Purpose

Personal history statement.

• GRE scores if applicable – view which programs require it here
• Degree Certificates (if your transcript does not contain conferral date)
• Official TOEFL or IELTS test score (test taken after June 1, 2021)
• WES ICAP course-by-course evaluation of international transcripts sent to SOPHAS ($208 + delivery fees)

Individual Program Requirements and Qualifications

All applicants to our on-campus graduate degree programs must choose a degree program ; applicants may apply to only one program and should tailor their applications to their program of choice. The coursework, application materials, and amount of work/research experience required by each program varies. Please thoroughly review the webpages for the program you are applying to for more guidance.

Recommendations for Competitive Applicants

• We recommend submitting a GRE if you have no other evidence of quantitative, verbal, or analytical abilities in your application.

Admission and Application Requirements

• Applicants must hold a master’s degree in the health sciences OR in another related field or non-US equivalent degree.
• Applicants must have a minimum of two years of professional experience post-master’s degree showing progressive responsibility and evidence of leadership potential.
• A writing sample. Writing samples should be no more than 7,000 words in length and all or mostly written by the applicant. Examples include: publications in peer-reviewed journals on which you were the sole or first author, papers written for a graduate course, media pieces, or reports written for public agencies.
• Candidates with undergraduate coursework in calculus, chemistry and biology are preferred.
• Common undergraduate majors for admitted applicants: engineering, microbiology, environmental science, biology, chemistry, other biological, natural or physical sciences fields, population sciences and biomedical fields.
• Common work experience for admitted applicants: applicants in past years have worked as lab technicians, student researchers, research scientists, environmental consultants, post-graduate fellows, toxicologists, industrial hygiene engineers, and for the Peace Corps.
• Submissions of GRE scores are optional but recommended for this program, especially if you have no other evidence of quantitative, verbal, or analytical abilities in your application.

A writing sample. There is no length requirement for the writing sample, but a sample approximately 10 pages in length is typical. The writing sample may be a final paper from a class, a popular media article, a report, a blog entry, an undergraduate thesis, etc. The purpose of the writing sample is to demonstrate your preparation for graduate-level coursework and research at Berkeley by sharing an example of your prior work that exhibits your ability to articulate and support complex ideas, solve technical problems, construct and evaluate arguments, and/or sustain a focused and coherent discussion. The writing sample should be your own work; if there were multiple authors, please describe your specific contributions to the writing and project.

Special note: The Epidemiology MS program admits about one to two students each year. Interested applicants are encouraged to also consider the Epidemiology and Biostatistics MPH program as the coursework is similar and that program admits a cohort of 20 to 25 students each year.

• Common undergraduate majors for admitted applicants: Biological, social, or mathematical sciences.
• Work experience in a public health setting.

Applicants must have a strong background in biological, social, or mathematical science, which will provide a basis for the application of epidemiological methods and principles to the study of diseases.

• Common work experience for admitted applicants: lab technicians, student researchers, research scientists, environmental organizers and advocates, program managers, engineers, post-graduate fellows, in global health programs and for the Peace Corps.

Two-Year MPH

• Ideally, applicants should have completed one undergraduate course in chemistry and one undergraduate course in biology. An undergraduate course in mathematics (e.g., calculus, linear algebra or statistics) is also desirable.
• Common undergraduate majors for admitted applicants: chemistry, biology, microbiology, molecular biology, nutrition, ecology, public health and environmental studies.
• Common work experience for admitted applicants: Work experience is not required for admission, but successful applicants in past years have worked as lab technicians, student researchers, research assistants, environmental consultants, industrial hygienists, community organizers, study coordinators and post-graduate fellows, as well as for the Peace Corps.
• A writing sample. The writing sample may be a final paper from a class, a popular media article, a report, a blog entry, an undergraduate thesis, etc. The purpose of the writing sample is to demonstrate your preparation for graduate-level coursework and research at Berkeley by sharing an example of your prior work that exhibits your ability to articulate and support complex ideas, solve technical problems, construct and evaluate arguments, and/or sustain a focused and coherent discussion. The writing sample should be your own work; if there were multiple authors, please describe your specific contributions to the writing and project.
• Common undergraduate majors for admitted applicants: Health, biological, natural, social, and cognitive sciences.
• Common work experience for admitted applicants: Volunteer work in public health, research assistant, lab technician.

GRE scores are optional. We recommend submitting a GRE if you have no other evidence of quantitative, verbal, or analytical abilities in your application.

Completed undergraduate coursework in mathematics, biological sciences and/or, social sciences.

• Ideally, applicants will have completed one undergraduate course in chemistry and one undergraduate course in biology.
• Common undergraduate majors for admitted applicants: any biological, natural or physical science; public health; environmental studies; international studies; economics; political science; anthropology; and sociology.
• Common work experience for admitted applicants: Work experience is not required for admission, but successful applicants in past years have worked as student researchers, environmental organizers and advocates, lab technicians, program managers, research scientists, engineers and post-graduate fellows, as well as for global NGOs and the Peace Corps.

A writing sample. Writing samples should be approximately 10 pages and highlight your writing and analytical skills. The writing sample may be a final paper from a class, a popular media article, a report, an undergraduate thesis, etc.

• We strongly prefer at least 2 years of full time work experience after the undergraduate degree. Can be paid or volunteer (e.g. PeaceCorp, AmeriCorp, etc). Ideally an applicant will have had relevant experience in related health policy or management areas. The program may request a short video interview for applicants who are recent graduates and/or have less than 2 years of work experience.
• Contribution to diversity of the program and the public health workforce.
• Academic excellence in undergraduate (and graduate, if applicable) studies.
• Course work in one or another of the behavioral, social, or biological sciences.
• Work experience in community, health promotion, or health-related practice or research. Most students admitted to the program have two years or more of paid work experience. We strongly urge you to apply to our program only after you have worked in a professional capacity in public health or related fields.
• A writing sample that highlights your writing and analytical skills is required. The writing sample may be a final paper from a class, a research article, a report, an undergraduate or graduate thesis chapter, or similar document. The purpose of the writing sample is to demonstrate your preparation for graduate-level coursework and research at Berkeley by sharing an example of your prior work that exhibits your ability to articulate and support complex ideas, solve technical problems, construct and evaluate arguments, and/or sustain a focused and coherent discussion. The writing sample should be your own work; if there were multiple authors, please describe your specific contributions to the writing and project.
• Hold a bachelor’s degree with a strong background in science and a demonstrated interest in public health.
• Students in their senior year are welcome to apply.
• Common undergraduate majors: any major in biological sciences or any other major with courses equivalent to those of a biological science major, e.g. microbiology, genetics, and molecular biology. The courses listed are examples of courses taken by successful applicants; however, they are not prerequisites and not having taken one or more of them does not preclude admission to our programs.
• Common work experience for admitted applicants: Work experience is not required for admission, but relevant volunteer, service and/or work experience related to infectious diseases and public health (e.g., community service, laboratory or surveillance work, and Peace Corps) is a plus. Many of our admitted applicants have some research experience.
• Common undergraduate majors for admitted applicants: biology, medicine, sociology, anthropology, global studies, political science, and public health.
• Examples of experience in the field of MCAH include: epidemiological and/or quantitative research, data analysis, program planning, implementation and/or evaluation.
• The admissions committee may occasionally consider applicants who do not meet this requirement if other measures of performance, such as research experience, are particularly strong.
• Demonstrate leadership potential.
• Demonstrate academic and professional capability to study at the graduate level in a quantitative and epidemiological focused program.
• Application materials focused on work completed after the bachelor’s degree program and in all post-baccalaureate coursework.

Completed at least one college-level mathematics or statistics course with at least a grade of B or equivalent, reflected on an official transcript.

• Generally, some coursework in the sciences underlying human nutrition (including biology, chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, physiology), and in food and nutrition sciences, with good to excellent grades in these courses.
• Cultural competence and demonstrated knowledge of and interest in other cultures and languages.
• Critical thinking ability with an analytical approach to solving current issues in nutrition and public health.
• Enthusiasm for and commitment to making a contribution to the public’s health as reflected in your Statement of Purpose.
• Relevant work experience in public health nutrition or related fields.

11-month MPH

All of our 11-month programs require that you have an advanced degree at the time of applying. For more information about our 11-month programs and what their specific requirements are, please go to the program page for the degree you are interested in.

• Common work experience for admitted applicants includes medical doctor, dentist, pharmacist, veterinarian, and/or research experience in a public health setting.

Applicants must be doctoral level health professionals (e.g. physicians, veterinarians, and dentists), have a prior doctoral degree in a related discipline (e.g. anthropology, sociology, psychology, demography, the biology sciences), or be concurrently enrolled in a doctoral level degree program in a health profession or related discipline.

• Prefer candidates to have some volunteer and/or paid experience in related health policy or management areas.

Must be doctoral-level clinical students or graduates (MD, DDS, PharmD).

• Demonstrate ability to work both independently and within a team-based structure.
• While many successful applicants are health professionals, applicants from disciplines not traditionally associated with public health are also encouraged to apply.
• The program is also appropriate for dual-degree students completing an MPH in conjunction with an MD, MSW, MPP, or other graduate degree.
• Medical students from Stanford and UCSF should consult their dual degree liaisons for details on our inter-campus collaboration.

Hold a graduate degree (Master, PhD, MD, JD, DO, DVM etc.) or its academic equivalent from an accredited institution.

• Note: We will not accept applicants who only have a bachelor’s degree, unless they are currently enrolled in medical school.
• Common master’s or doctoral degrees held for admitted applicants: medicine, nursing, social work.
• Common work experience for admitted applicants includes health professionals (e.g., pediatricians, obstetricians, gynecologists, nurses and social workers, and other qualified master- or doctoral-level trained health professions) and/or research in a public health setting.

Be a professional Registered Dietitian (RD) with at least 2 years of experience as an RD.

For information about this degree, which is available to UC Berkeley Public Health Majors and Alumni only, go to the “4+1” 11-month MPH program page.

• Declared UC Berkeley Undergraduate Public Health Major
• Required to Apply: completed PBHLTH 142 Intro to Probability and Statistics in Biology and Public Health and PBHLTH 150A Introduction to Epidemiology and Human Disease in junior/third year for a letter grade (can S/US if completed in Spring 2020)
• PB HLTH 241 Statistical Analysis of Categorical Data
• PB HLTH 250B Epidemiologic Methods II (optional, can take other 4 units of graduate coursework in final semester or proceeding summer)
• Application materials focused on work, volunteer and/or research related to maternal, child, and adolescent health.
• PB HLTH 205 Needs Assessment & Program Planning
• PB HLTH 250B Epidemiologic Methods II
• Other graduate-level PBHLTH courses depending on approval
• NST 10 and 1 upper division NST course OR PBHLTH 118

Graduate Admissions Dates and Deadlines

The dates and deadlines for the Summer/Fall 2024 on-campus application cycle are below.

For the on-campus graduate program, 11-month applicants are admitted for the summer term only. For all other on-campus programs, students are admitted for the fall term only. We do not accept applications on a rolling basis.

SOPHAS applicants do not need to resubmit application materials and documents to their Berkeley Grad applications. Once the fee for the Berkeley Grad application has been paid and submitted, all of the materials you send through SOPHAS will be relayed over to your Berkeley Grad application. Please allow 3–4 business days for processing.

The SOPHAS Application will become available August 16. Visit sophas.aspph.org to make an account. In order to submit a SOPHAS application, you will need to include a UC Berkeley Graduate Applicant ID, which won’t become available until September 15. However, you may begin your SOPHAS application and prepare your supplemental materials.

The UC Berkeley Graduate Application is required for all applicants and will open on September 15. SOPHAS applicants will only be required to complete a truncated version of the form.

Applicants who apply by the priority deadline will be given the highest priority for admissions and consideration for scholarships and assistantships. This is the recommended deadline for all applicants.

To meet this priority deadline, Berkeley Public Health’s Admissions Office recommends you request test scores be sent by early October and submit your SOPHAS application in early November. This allows time for SOPHAS to process your application.

We will not penalize you for submitting your application on the last day of the deadline. However, we highly recommend that you submit your application earlier so you can resolve any technical difficulties and/or correct any errors found by SOPHAS (e.g. transcript discrepancies) before our first batch of applications are released for review.

Applications submitted after December 4 will not be accepted, unless the program offers a secondary deadline (see below).

In the event that the following programs are not full*, applications will be accepted until March 4:

• Interdisciplinary (11-month MPH)
• Public Health Nutrition (11-month and 2-Year MPH)

If your program/degree of interest is not listed above, it is not eligible for the secondary deadline.

If you would like to apply for the secondary deadline please email [email protected] , as we will have to manually extend the deadline in our application portal for you.

*Applying for the second round does not guarantee that your application will be reviewed. It will only be reviewed in the case that the program did not fill all of its slots in the priority round.

Graduate Admissions Dates and Deadlines FAQ

No, as long as you originally submitted your application by the deadline, your application will still be eligible for review. When your application is “undelivered,” that means that the SOPHAS verification team noticed some errors in the self-reported course entry portion of your application and/or there are other parts of your application that you need to fix. Address these issues and resubmit your application to SOPHAS as soon as possible so they can complete the verification process. Just make sure you follow their instructions and complete all of the requested tasks in a very timely manner and resubmit your application to SOPHAS. This will not change your original submission date.

No. As long as you have submitted your application by the deadline, it is okay if your application is in queue for verification and gets verified shortly after the deadline. Just be sure to regularly check your application to ensure all of your supplemental materials have arrived. If all of your supplemental materials have not arrived, follow up to make sure they arrive in a timely manner so this submission process does not impact your verification period. It is your responsibility to ensure your application is complete and ready for review.

We will still review your application as long as your letters of recommendation, test scores, and transcripts or transcript evaluations are received by December 14.

Graduate Application Instructions

If you are unsure if your program is SOPHAS or non-SOPHAS, you can find out on the admissions landing page and select the appropriate link for your intended program.

You can only apply to one program per admissions cycle. All programs except for those listed in red below require two separate applications to SOPHAS and UC Berkeley. Both applications must be completed and submitted before your file is considered complete and ready for review. Incomplete application files or late applications (submitted after the December 4 deadline) will not be reviewed.

Application Checklists

• SOPHAS Application + $145 fee or fee waiver
• Supplemental UC Berkeley Graduate Application + $100 fee or fee waiver
• CV or Resume
• Three Letters of Recommendation from a combination of professional and academic recommenders
• Transcripts from each institution you have attended
• Official GRE test score, if applicable
• Submit by December 4 at 8:59pm PST
• WES ICAP ($208) course-by-course evaluation of international transcripts sent to SOPHAS
• Transcripts and/or degree certificates from each institution you have attended uploaded to Berkeley Graduate Application
• Official TOEFL or IELTS test score, if applicable
• Scroll to the bottom of this page for additional instructions about the required materials for international applicants.

Application Portals

Both the SOPHAS and UC Berkeley Graduate application must be submitted by the deadline to be considered for admission and awards (no separate application process is necessary for award consideration). Late applications will not be accepted.

To avoid delays in processing, use the same email address for your SOPHAS and UC Berkeley applications if possible and make sure you apply to the same program in both systems.

Submit an online application to SOPHAS with the following items:

• CV or Resume,
• Statement of Purpose,
• Personal History Statement,
• Three Letters of Recommendation (letters of recommendation must be submitted electronically),
• One set of official transcripts from each institution you have attended,
• Official GRE test score sent to SOPHAS only, if applicable (code 4227),
• Official TOEFL test score sent to SOPHAS, if applicable (code 5688),
• Include your Berkeley Graduate Reference number in the SOPHAS application,
• SOPHAS application fee or fee waiver .

If you are applying to more than one school in SOPHAS and they have different deadlines, enter only the school(s) with the earliest deadline, and then complete and submit the application. To apply to additional schools, you may add another school designation to your existing application and fill out the program materials section for that specific program. If you have questions, please contact the SOPHAS customer support department directly.

If you have completed the application but are waiting on any supplemental materials, (e.g. letters of recommendation, GRE scores, transcripts, etc.), you can still submit your application and should do so by the application deadline. It is acceptable for supplemental materials to be submitted a few days after the deadline.

While there is a small grace period for supplemental materials to be submitted, you need to submit your application by the application deadline—otherwise your application will be considered late and ineligible for review.

Access the SOPHAS Application at sophas.aspph.org .

Once you submit your SOPHAS application, you will receive an email with instructions to create a login for the mandatory supplemental UC Berkeley Graduate Application portal. The supplemental application portal costs $100 and there are fee waivers available for individuals who meet the eligibility criteria. Completion of this step is required in order for your application to be complete and reviewed .

• Additional materials do not need to be submitted to this portal.
• Please use the same email address that you used in SOPHAS to create your UC Berkeley Graduate Application login to avoid delays in processing.
• Fee waiver information

The cost for a SOPHAS application is $145 for the first school or program to which you apply. Any additional schools or programs to which you choose to apply will cost $55 per designation, even if you submit those schools or programs later in the application cycle.

The cost for the supplemental UC Berkeley Graduate Application is $100 for all SOPHAS applicants. Payments should be submitted by credit card only.

If you would like to request a fee waiver, you must reach out to SOPHAS and the UC Berkeley Graduate Division. Please see the following links for more information.

• SOPHAS Fee Waiver Information
• Berkeley Graduate Application Fee Waiver Information

Supplemental Materials

You must submit electronic transcripts to both SOPHAS and to UC Berkeley.

International Students: Please see more information about international student transcripts in the “Additional Application Instructions for International Students” section of this page.

Submit OFFICIAL transcripts to SOPHAS

• Official U.S. transcripts of all the schools you attended for post-secondary education must be sent to SOPHAS.
• SOPHAS only accepts electronic transcripts from Credentials Solutions, Parchment, and National Student Clearinghouse.
• If your school does not offer any of these services, your transcript must be sent by mail. The mailing address can be found on the SOPHAS website; please see the SOPHAS website for a detailed set of instructions .

Submit UNOFFICIAL transcripts to UC Berkeley

For application review purposes only, include copies of transcripts for all of the post-secondary institutions you attended, including study abroad institutions in the Berkeley Graduate Application. During the online application process, you will be prompted to upload scanned documents. Uploaded transcripts should be recent and include the following:

• The institution name
• Dates of attendance
• Conferral date if applicable
• Grades/marks received and credits
• If you studied abroad, your study abroad grades must also be listed in the transcript, otherwise you will need to submit a transcript directly from the study abroad institution

Note: Official transcripts will be requested if you are admitted and then decide to attend UC Berkeley

Please do not send any paper transcripts to Berkeley Public Health—any unsolicited materials will be destroyed.

The GRE is optional for the majority of our programs. See our GRE requirement chart to see a summary of each program’s requirement.

For programs that require the GRE, the current GRE Exemption Policy for these applicants will still hold. Applications to these programs will not be considered complete and will not be reviewed by Berkeley Public Health’s Admissions Committee without the required test scores.

GRE Exemption Policy

Applicants who have completed a MD, PhD or equivalent doctoral-level degree at the time of application from an accredited institution are not required to submit GRE scores.

Students currently enrolled in medical, dental, optometry, business, or law school can submit their MCAT, DAT, OAT, GMAT, or LSAT scores, respectively, in lieu of the GRE. Other professional school exams will not be eligible as alternatives to the GRE exam.

Applicants who have completed a MBBS degree and have passed the Step 1 and Step 2 of the USMLE are not required to submit GRE scores. In order to be eligible for the GRE waiver, copies of both official USMLE scores will be required to be uploaded with your application.

Minimum GRE Scores

We do not have a minimum GRE score as we review applications holistically; however, competitive applicants tend to score in the 50th percentile and above. Many program pages include the average GRE scores of admitted students for that specific program.

How to submit scores

• While you can take your exam as late as the date of the deadline, we recommend that you plan to take your exam no later than October to allow time for scores to arrive in time for consideration for fall admission.
• At-home test scores are acceptable.
• All applicants who submit GRE test scores must send official scores through ETS directly to SOPHAS only. To send an official GRE score report to SOPHAS, please use code 4227 .
• Scores must be from within 5 years of the test date for them to be considered valid. In order to apply, you must retake the test if your scores are more than five years old.
• When completing the UC Berkeley supplemental graduate application, do not indicate that you intend to submit GRE scores even if you will, as those should be sent to SOPHAS only.

Note: Since an official GRE score report should only be submitted to SOPHAS, it will not show as received on your UC Berkeley application. You only need to confirm receipt of your GRE scores on your SOPHAS application.

The SOPHAS Application will contain a text box for you to write a short answer response to a question on your quantitative and analytical abilities. The question has a word limit of 250 words.

Please indicate your achievements in obtaining verbal, quantitative, and analytical writing skills that prepare you for the specific program to which you are applying. This can be completed coursework, such as undergraduate or post-baccalaureate math/stats or epidemiology/biostatistics courses, quantitative research, programming, data analysis, or evaluation experience, verbal/writing strengths such as professional publications and/or presentations, etc.

Note: you may also submit a writing sample, publication, or other documents that demonstrate the above skills in the “Documents” section of the application.

Berkeley Public Health’s Admissions Committee requires a minimum of three letters of recommendation be submitted electronically to SOPHAS with your SOPHAS application. We recommend that you request that your letter writers use an official letterhead.

Typically, we recommend you have at least one letter of recommendation from an academic and two from individuals who can evaluate your professional experience. However, please thoroughly look at the requirements and qualifications of the program you are applying to for more guidance. Overall, it will be in your best interest to have three individuals who can attest to your academic and/or professional ability to succeed in a public health career.

For academic references, we recommend you ask professors who you think will write the strongest recommendations. A strong quality letter attesting to your ability to succeed in the program will weigh more than a generic letter from a high-ranking professor.

Berkeley Public Health does not accept hard-copy letters sent to our offices.

Applications should include a resume or CV. Prior work experience, preferably in health sector related activities, is required for some programs.

Resumes should include:

• Educational degrees
• Experiences (especially those that are public-health related)
• Professional skills and accomplishments
• Volunteer activities (specify any leadership roles)

Word limit: 1,000 words

Your Statement of Purpose should explain why you are pursuing graduate training in public health. Your essay should also explain your eventual career goals and why you need a degree in your specific program. You can choose to explain why you are pursuing this degree now and why at Berkeley Public Health. If you are applying to a doctoral program, include your proposed research topics. Please be sure to check your program’s page, as some programs have specific questions to answer. If there are no specific program guidelines, please follow the above-mentioned general guidelines.

Here are some best practices from the DREAM Office and the UC Berkeley Graduate Division on how to write the statement of purpose .

Your Personal History Statement gives you an opportunity to add some individuality and depth to the information provided in your Statement of Purpose. Your Personal History Statement can include information about who you are as a person, your family background, cultural background, socioeconomic status, educational advantages and/or experiences growing up. It is intended to give you the opportunity to provide a narrative about your diverse personal experiences. It is important to be concise and impactful by focusing on a specific part of your life experience.

You may also use the personal history statement to describe any impacts the COVID-19 pandemic may have had on you, such as your academics, obtaining employment, or pursuing public health experiences. We understand that there may be downstream effects of the pandemic on your ability to meet criteria for admission that is beyond your control. Use this essay to provide context on your other application materials, and elaborate on anything that may be helpful for the admissions committee to be aware of.

Here are some best practices from the DREAM Office and the UC Berkeley Graduate Division on how to write the personal history statement .

Additional Application Instructions for International Students

International applicants should apply early in order to allow sufficient time for financial and visa document preparation.

If you are an international applicant who obtained a bachelor’s degree in the United States or an English-speaking Canadian institution, then you only need to submit the materials described in the previous sections.

If you are an international applicant who obtained a bachelor’s degree from a non-US or non-English-speaking Canadian institution, then please submit the additional materials below.

All applicants who attended college in a country/region in which the official language is not English are required to submit official evidence of English language proficiency via a TOEFL or IELTS score, regardless of whether or not English was the primary language of instruction at your college . This requirement applies to applicants from Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Latin America, the Middle East, Israel, the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, most European countries, and non-English-speaking countries in Africa.

We recommend that you plan to take any required exams no later than October to allow time for scores to arrive in time for consideration for fall admission.

For Summer/Fall 2023, tests taken before June 1, 2021 will not be accepted even if your score was reported to UC Berkeley.

The USMLE and other similar exams are not approved substitutes for the TOEFL.

You may be exempt from this requirement if you:

• Have a basic degree from a recognized institution in a country where the official language is English
• Have completed a basic or advanced degree at an institution, in the United States or a United States institution abroad, where the language of instruction is English and the institution is accredited by one of the United States’ regional accrediting agencies
• Have completed at least one year of full-time academic course work with a grade B or better at a regionally accredited* institution within the United States.

If you qualify for an exemption, you must upload an unofficial transcript from the recognized U.S. institution to your Berkeley Graduate Application. If you are unsure if your country of education qualifies you for a TOEFL exemption, please contact us at [email protected] .

Minimum Scores

• TOEFL: Paper: 570, Internet (iBT): 90

Scores below the minimum will require an exception request

How to submit TOEFL

Official TOEFL test scores administered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) must be submitted to UC Berkeley (code 4833). We do not accept MyBest Scores.

How to submit IELTS

Beginning for the Fall 2022 application cycle, we will no longer be accepting paper Test Report Forms. All IELTS scores must be sent electronically from the testing center, no institution code is required, directly to UC Berkeley.

Our address for identification purposes is:

University of California, Berkeley, Graduate Division Sproul Hall Rm 318, MC 5900 Berkeley, CA 94720

Please do not mail any score reports to us.

Graduates of recognized academic institutions outside the United States should hold a degree equivalent to a U.S. bachelor’s degree. Equivalency is determined by International Evaluators in the Graduate Admissions Office. If you are unsure if your degree is equivalent to a U.S. bachelor’s degree, you can email us at [email protected] .

Submitting Transcripts to SOPHAS

Official World Education Services (WES) ICAP Evaluations of international transcripts are required to be sent to SOPHAS. SOPHAS will not accept any foreign transcripts or translated foreign transcripts; only an evaluation for U.S. equivalency via WES will be accepted.

We require a WES ICAP course-by-course evaluation which costs $208 (fees subject to change). It should be sent directly to your SOPHAS application, not to Berkeley Public Health.

Please do not send any materials to Berkeley Public Health—any unsolicited materials will be destroyed.

Submitting Transcripts to Berkeley Graduate Application

Please upload copies of unofficial or official foreign transcripts and degrees to the UC Berkeley Graduate application. Academic records should:

• English translations are required for all languages except Spanish; degree names and grades should be transliterated, not converted into English words or the U.S. grades of A–F.
• If your home institution does not issue documents in English, you may submit translations prepared by certified translators for the American Translators Association.
• In general, be issued by the school and include the school’s stamp or embossed seal and the signature of the authorizing official. For more detailed information on acceptable documents, please contact us at [email protected].
• If your academic records do not include official evidence of the award of your degree, you must also submit additional documents that verify the degree conferral, such as a degree certificate.

Official transcripts or academic records for all university-level studies you have completed abroad will be required to be re-submitted directly to UC Berkeley if admitted . Although SOPHAS accepts WES evaluations, UC Berkeley does not accept WES evaluations for matriculation purposes.

We are unable to provide international applicant fee waivers for the UC Berkeley Graduate Application at this time. AB540 students may apply for the fee waiver if they meet the eligibility criteria. Please contact the Graduate Admissions Office at [email protected] for instructions.

SOPHAS offers fee waivers for international applicants from select countries. Please read more about which countries are eligible and access the International-based fee waiver form on this page . You can also request a 50% off WES evaluation coupon in the waver form.

Fees and Financial Aid

A degree in public health is an investment in your future. At Berkeley Public Health, we understand the important role funding opportunities play in the decision to pursue your degree.

For information about Berkeley Public Health’s tuition and fees, as well as residency requirements, please visit the tuition, fees and residency section of UC Berkeley’s Office of the Registrar website . Please note that all costs are subject to change.

Tuition, fees, and charges are included on the UC Berkeley’s Office of the Registrar’s website along with more details about fee definitions. To view fee rates, please scroll down to the tab labeled “Graduate: Academic” if you are an MA, MS, or PhD student, and “Graduate: Professional-School of Public Health” if you are an MPH or DrPH student. If you enroll in an MPH or DrPH program, you are required to pay professional degree supplemental tuition each semester. The total cost of your degree is based on the length of your program.

Tuition, fees, and charges are subject to change by the Regents of the University of California and could be affected by State funding reductions. Accordingly, they may differ from the amounts shown.

Your cost of attendance budget is the estimated average cost of completing an academic year at UC Berkeley. This estimate includes the cost of tuition and fees, room and board, supplies, transportation, and personal expenses.

Your budget also serves as a limit for the amount of grants, scholarships, fee remission, loans, and other forms of aid that can be offered to you. You may find the graduate student budget on UC Berkeley’s Financial Aid and Scholarships website .

Each academic year, fellowships and scholarships are awarded to eligible students by Berkeley Public Health. Awards are given out by nomination only by each program’s respective admissions committee. There is no separate application process for these awards beyond completing the SOPHAS or UC Berkeley application by the priority deadline.

Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships provide funding to students to encourage the study of critical and less commonly taught foreign languages in combination with area studies, international studies or international aspects of professional studies.

In order for incoming students to be considered for this award, the FLAS portion of their admissions application must be completed and include a ­­statement of purpose indicating the relevance the study of the language has to the preparation of their academic program, chosen career and/or future goals.

APHA KP Community Health Scholarship

The APHA Kaiser Permanente Community Health Scholarship supports students who intend on pursuing an MPH or DrPH/PhD. This scholarship is part of the APHA KP Community Health Leadership Program . Apply directly here .

• MPH Scholarship: Awardees receive a $15,000 tuition award each year over the course of two years of full-time study.
• DrPH/PhD Scholarship: Awardees receive a $20,000 tuition award per year for three years. In the third and final year, the award can be given as a stipend or as a combination of stipend/tuition.
• Be applying for a full-time MPH or a DrPH/PhD in public health at one of our partner universities (see below) for the upcoming academic year. Students do not need to be admitted by the scholarship deadline.
• Be U.S. citizens or hold a permanent residence visa (Green Card) in the U.S.

PhD candidates typically receive funding through a variety of sources such as soft-money grants, Graduate Division Fellowships , and fee remission from working as a Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) or teaching as a Graduate Student Instructor (GSI).

PhD programs are fully funded for up to 5 years. Full funding includes regular tuition, fees, SHIP, and a salary or stipend if you are in good academic standing. Please note that our funding packages do not include housing offers. Reach out to your program of interest for more details.

PhD candidates may also be AB 540 eligible for tuition purposes. Please see the University of California’s website for more information.

DrPH candidates are funded by departmental funding and are also eligible for fee remission from working as a Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) or teaching as a Graduate Student Instructor (GSI). However, they are not guaranteed funding for the duration of their program or offered a living stipend as a part of their funding package.

Students enrolled in Master’s programs typically fund their education with a combination of student loans, GSI/GSR appointments, extramural scholarships and work-study opportunities.

AB540/DACA postgraduate program students are eligible for UC Berkeley and departmental funding.

Graduate students may apply for need-based loans and work-study through the UC Berkeley Financial Aid Office . The programs are based on demonstrated financial need and require a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

Questions about Financial Aid programs may be directed to Cal Student Central . In addition, please visit the UC Berkeley Financial Aid and Scholarships website for more information. Only U.S. citizens and eligible non-citizens (those holding permanent resident cards) may apply for funds administered by the UC Berkeley Financial Aid Office.

UC’s Native American Opportunity Plan ensures that in-state systemwide Tuition and Student Services Fees are fully covered for California students who are also enrolled in federally recognized Native American, American Indian, and Alaska Native tribes. This plan applies to undergraduate and graduate students.

To learn more about the eligibility requirements visit the Native American Opportunity Plan website .

Financial aid awards from the UC Berkeley International Office consist of individual grants applied directly to tuition and fees via the UC Berkeley student records system. Award amounts vary depending on the number of applicants and levels of need per semester. Grants do not need to be repaid.

International students are eligible for a number of departmental awards. There is no separate application process for these awards beyond completing the fellowships portion of the SOPHAS or UC Berkeley application.Students who are married and/or have children living with them in the Bay Area may also apply for the Supplemental Family Grant. A family grant can be applied directly to tuition and fees or can be disbursed in the form of a taxable stipend. Award amounts vary depending on the number of applicants and level of need. Family grants do not need to be repaid. See a complete list of financial aid options on the UC Berkeley International Office website .

The University of California offers a variety of services and resources for student families. Visit the UC Berkeley Graduate Division website to learn more about campus resources that aid student families in the search for affordable housing, child care, health insurance and more.

UC Berkeley Veteran Services offers information related to the types of benefits, certification of benefits, contact information for dedicated support, and campus resources for students who have served in the military.

Eligibility for veteran’s educational benefits is determined by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), not by UC Berkeley. For more information on eligibility and to apply visit the VA’s “How to apply for the GI Bill and related benefits” page .

After you apply for benefits through the VA, please provide the following documentation to the Veterans Benefits Office at the Office of the Registrar .

Please visit the Cal Veteran Services Center website for more information.

In addition to Student Family Assistance, the UC Berkeley Financial Aid and Scholarships Office offers a variety of services and resources for student parents, disabled students, nonresidents of California and veterans.

Another resource is the ASUC Student Advocate’s Office , a student-run office that provides free and confidential advice and representation to students who experience issues or conflicts with the university. This office also offers support in completing an appeals process.

For information about the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, please visit the U.S. Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid website .

Students are also encouraged to independently seek funding from external sources. A number of scholarship search resources are available online, including:

• Berkeley Financial Aid & Scholarship search
• Basic Needs Center
• UC Berkeley Graduate Division’s Graduate Fellowships and Awards
• Cal Veterans Services Center
• Undocumented Student Program
• Berkeley International Office
• Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program
• Association for Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH)
• BestColleges.com Financial Aid Resources
• Fastweb.com

Guidelines for Applicants Writing Statements

The Contributions to Diversity Statement should describe your past experience and activities, and future plans to advance diversity, equity and inclusion, in alignment with UC Berkeley’s mission to reflect the diversity of California and to meet the educational needs and interests of its diverse population. Some faculty candidates may not have substantial past activities. If that is the case, we recommend focusing on future plans in your statement. A more developed and substantial plan is expected for senior candidates.

Past Experience:   Describe any past experience or background that has made you aware of challenges faced by historically underrepresented populations.

Past Activities: Mentoring Activities:  If you mentored students, post-docs, staff or faculty from underrepresented groups, describe the specific context and objective of the mentoring, including your personal efforts. Include details that may be relevant, including the number of people who benefited, duration, and outcomes (i.e., success and progress of mentees during and after mentoring, including employment, educational success, etc.).

• Committee Service:  If you served on a committee or board that focused on diversity, equity, climate and/or inclusion, describe the committee’s accomplishments and your role in helping achieve them. Include your position on the committee, its duration, and other relevant details.
• Research Activities:  If any of your past research effort specifically contributed to diversity, equity and inclusion, describe the work and any impact or positive outcomes it has had on the University or broader community.
• Other Activities (e.g. recruitment/retention/teaching/community) : Describe the activity and its context (e.g. a specific conference or organization, student retention or outreach activity, course development to reach a specific group, outreach to a local school, or work with a diversity-related non-profit). What was your role and personal effort? How did these activities relate to campus needs?

Planned Activities: The first step is to gather information on activities you would like to pursue while at UC Berkeley and how they might fit into the research area, department, campus, or national context. You may consider but are not restricted to current or ongoing campus activities.

For each proposed activity you include, describe the role you envision having and what you would like to accomplish in the next two to five years. Who would you like to engage in your efforts, and how would you plan to engage them? Be as specific as possible, but realistic in terms of your effort and time commitment.

18 UC Berkeley Essay Examples that Worked (2023)

If you want to get into the University of California, Berkeley in 2022, you need to write strong Personal Insight Question essays.

In this article I've gathered 18 of the best University of California essays that worked in recent years for you to learn from and get inspired.

What is UC Berkeley's Acceptance Rate?

UC Berkeley is one of the top public universities and therefore highly competitive to get admitted into.

This past year 112,854 students applied to Berkeley and only 16,412 got accepted. Which gives UC Berkeley an overall admit rate of 14.5%.

And as of 2022, the University of California no longer uses your SAT and ACT when deciding which students to admit.

UC Berkeley Acceptance Scattergram

This means that your Personal Insight Questions are even more important to stand out in the admissions process. That is, your essays are more heavily weighed.

If you're trying to get accepted to UC Berkeley, here are 18 of the best examples of Personal Insight Questions that got into Berkeley.

What are the UC Personal Insight Question Prompts for 2022-23?

The Personal Insight Questions (PIQs) are a set of eight questions asked by the UC application, of which students must answer four of those questions in 350 words or less.

Here are the Personal Insight Question prompts for this year:

• Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time.
• Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.
• What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?
• Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.
• Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?
• Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.
• What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?
• Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand out as a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?

18 UC Berkeley Personal Insight Question Examples

Here are the 18 best Berkeley essays that worked for each Personal Insight Question prompt #1-8.

If you're also applying to UCLA, check out more unique UCLA essays from admitted students.

UC Berkeley Example Essay #1

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UC PIQ #1: Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time. (350 words max)

From an early age I became a translator for my mother anytime we went out in public. This experience forced me to have conversations with adults from a young age. It made me become a great communicator, while helping my parents overcome their language barrier.

Being a communicator has allowed me to lead. When I joined my school’s National Honor Society I was given the opportunity to lead. Applying the skills I used from being my mother’s translator I was able to do what no one else could, make the calls and start the club’s most successful event to date an annual Food Drive at a local Albertson’s, which collects over one ton of food every November. Also developing events like an egg hunt at the local elementary school, a goods drive for the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, and stabilizing a volunteer partnership with a local park. I have been able to grow as a leader, who actively communicates and brings parties together, planning events and having them run smoothly with minor issues. For instance, last year there was an issue with the homeless shelter not picking up the food for the food drive. In a spur of the moment solution I managed for club member’s parents to collectively deliver the food. My ability to communicate benefited me allowing me to find a solution to an unanticipated problem.

Throughout the four years I have been in journalism I have led; mentoring younger writers and improving the way the paper operates. Staying after hours, skyping with writers about their articles all helped establish my role as a leader, who is always supporting his team. I have done this while writing over 100 articles, editing tons of pages, and managing deadlines. I learned that while being a leader requires effort, it is the passion like I have for journalism that motivates me to lead in my community.

Being a leader so far in my life has taught me that I need to communicate, be passionate, and pass on my knowledge helping cultivate future leaders, who can expand and supersede my work.

UC PIQ #2: Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side. (350 words max)

Video games have cultivated my creative thought process. When I was a toddler I invented a game I would play with my brothers. It was nothing along the lines of Hide-and-Seek or Tag, but rather, it was meant to mimic a role-playing video game. It was called "Guy" and came with its own story, leveling system, and narrative story. While seemingly impossible to translate the mechanics of a video game into real life, the "Guy" trilogy provided hundreds of hours of fun to pass hot summer days and escape the harsh reality of our parents arguing and eventual divorce.

This thought process translated into my educational career. have always thought of a tough class or test as a video game. This mostly due to my excessive amounts of video games I played as a child through middle school (especially 7th grade). Each year comes bigger and "stronger" challenges, bigger and stronger bosses to defeat. My senior year will have me face the most powerful boss yet; full AP course load on top of heavy club involvement and community college classes.

Many thought of this "secret boss" as an impossible challenge; something that could never be beaten. No one from my school has ever attempted to take on such a challenge, let alone defeat it. That is probably what excites me about it. In a game, messing around with lower level enemies is fun for a while, but gets boring when it is too easy. The thought of a challenge so great and difficult makes the victory even more rewarding. Stormy skies, heavy rain, and epic boss battle music; I'll take that over a peaceful village any day. In the future, I seek to use this thinking to drive research. I think of abstract physics concepts like secret door and levels that need to be proven true or just a myth in the game. One day, I can make my own discovery of a secret "cheat code' that can help everyone who plays a little game called life.

UC PIQ #3: What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time? (350 words max)

I’ve always hated the feeling of clammy hands, the needless overflow of adrenaline rushing through my veins, and the piercing eyes that can see through my façade—the eyes that judge me. I felt like this debilitating anxiety that I suffered through was something I could not avoid when doing the thing I was most afraid of—public speaking. I still felt every sweat droplet run down my skin before each speech, and this anguish never completely dissipated. Fortunately, I learned to moderate my fear in high school when I decided to join the speech and debate program. My anxiety has slowly faded in intensity as I’ve gained certitude and poise with every tournament, and every chance I’m given to speak on behalf of others; this talent has allowed me to be a voice for the voiceless.

Out of all the national tournaments that I’ve competed in, the MLK invitational holds a distinct place in my heart. It was my first invitational tournament in which I competed exclusively in Lincoln Douglas debate. I only had two weeks to prepare myself since it was finals week, while my competitors had upwards of two months to prepare. I was fortunate to break into the final round, as my years of experience helped me to articulate and explain my few arguments more effectively, while also refuting my opponent’s.

I realized that the extent of one’s knowledge is useless if it cannot be made known in a way that is clear to others. I learned that preparation is necessary, but one can be so focused on what they are going to say that they don’t hear the arguments presented. I kept an open and ready mind for various claims and strategies which left me free to adapt to the opponent’s argumentative style each round. This ability to think on my feet has served me well in countless debates, speeches, and presentations. I continuously use these skills to become a better and more active listener in my daily interactions as well.

Learn the secrets of successful top-20 college essays

Join 4,000+ students and parents that already receive our 5-minute free newsletter , packed with top-20 essay examples, writing tips & tricks, and step-by-step guides.

My greatest skill is my ability to remember things really well, whether they be minute details or important information that should not be forgotten. Over time, I’ve had a knack for remembering details most people would not even bother to remember, such as old test scores, atomic masses, and other details involving numbers. My friends have always marveled at my ability to remember all these numbers. When I was in chemistry class, we used the periodic table so much that I soon began to remember the atomic mass of the more common elements, and even the molecular mass of common compounds like glucose or water. One of my best friends, who is undoubtedly the smartest person in our class, even finds it crazy that I can remember all these numbers and always tells me that my memory of numbers is amazing. I also used my memory to learn and remember how to solve the Rubik's cube, which amazes my friends, as they find it to be complex with many different, possible combinations.

This skill that I have developed, however, isn’t completely under my control, as sometimes I just remember random and irrelevant facts without really trying to do so. I recall one weekend when my eight-year-old cousin was attempting to memorize the digits of pi: I remembered them along with him, learning up to forty digits in just one day. The skill is seemingly natural and not something I have worked hard to develop, as I may be able to use my memory to my advantage, or it can be a disadvantage. It helps when I have multiple tests in one day, or a test with many questions where I have to remember a lot of information, such as finals. Sometimes, however, it is a disadvantage when I remember information during a test that is not relevant to the topic, such as random dates, names, or song lyrics, to name a few. This skill is very important to nonetheless, as it has assisted me all throughout my life in many tests and challenges involving memory.

UC PIQ #4: Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced. (350 words max)

At 10:30 pm on a hot, summer, Wednesday night, you would expect my friends and me to be having the time of our lives and going out on crazy high school adventures— but instead, we were actually stuck in a chemistry laboratory trying to map out the Lewis structure of sulfuric acid.

Over the summer of my sophomore year, my friends and I enrolled into ‘Introduction to Chemistry’, an evening course at our local community college. As a six-week summer course, I spent two hours in lecture, two hours in the laboratory, and another two hours studying on my own for four days a week for six weeks. It was evident that I struggled with adjusting to the pace of college when I received 19% on a quiz. I felt left behind, exhausted, and overall pathetic. No matter how many hours I spent studying, I couldn’t keep up. But instead of giving up, I picked up certain strategies like reading the material the night before, rewriting my notes, and joining a study group; eventually working my way up to a B.

At the end of that summer, I learned so much more than just chemistry. On top of having the raw experience of what college is like, my chemistry experience taught me that it is okay to fail. I discovered that failure is an essential part of learning. Coming to this realization inspired me to take more college courses and rigorous courses in high school. I transformed into a hungry learner, eager to fail, learn, and improve. By seizing the opportunity to take this course, I pushed myself beyond my limits. This experience and realization changed how I wanted to pursue the rest of high school, college, and life in general.

I walked into my first day of the chemistry class expecting to walk out with an A; but thankfully, I didn’t. Instead, I walked out of that class with a taste of the college experience and a principle that I now live by-- that it is okay to fail, as long as you get back up.

The relationship I cultivated with my school's college center, by simply being inquisitive, has been most significant. Over my years in high school the college center became my 2nd home, where I learned about extra opportunities and triumphed with help from counselors.

For instance, with help from my school’s college center I applied and was accepted as an LAUSD Superintendent Summer Scholar this past summer. The program selected 15 juniors out of over 450 applicants to work in one of 15 departments, and I was chosen to work for the communications department, which received over 70 applications – making me 1 of 70. Interning for LAUSD at their 29 floor high rise was very eye-opening and exposed me to working in communications alongside seasoned professionals. The opportunity gave me the chance to meet the Superintendent and school board members, who are politically in charge of my education. As part of the communications department I learned how the district operates a network of over 1,300 schools and saw how the 2nd largest school district shares info with stakeholders through universal press releases, phone calls, and the district homepage.

I wrote several articles for the district publication and worked with public information officers who taught me the principles of professionalism and how to communicate to over 1 million people. Recently, I was called from the district to become a part of their Media Advisory Council working alongside district heads, representing the students of LAUSD.

Working for LAUSD furthered my passion to pursue careers in both communication and education. I have always had a desire to be a journalist and the internship assured me of that. I want to write stories bringing student issues from areas like mine to light. Being exposed to the movers and shakers that control education in Los Angeles has heavily motivated me to become an educator and at some point become a school board member influencing the education students like me receive.

Support from the college center has spawned opportunities like a life-changing internship and set me on course for a future full of opportunity.

“Give me liberty, or give me death!”, I proudly exclaimed, finishing up a speech during my first Individual Event competition for Speech and Debate, also known as Forensics Workshop. Public speaking was always one of my shortcomings. During countless in-class presentations, I suffered from stage-fright and anxiety, and my voice always turned nervous and silent. I saw Speech and Debate as a solution to this barrier that hindered my ability to teach and learn. With excessive practice, I passed the tryout and found myself in the zero-period class. All of my teammates, however, joined because they loved chattering and arguing. I had the opposite reason: I despised public speaking.

I was definitely one of the least competitive members of the team, probably because I didn’t take the tournaments very seriously and mainly worried about being a better speaker for the future. Throughout the daily class, I engaged in impromptu competitions, speech interpretations, spontaneous arguments, etc... Throughout my two years on the team, my communication, reciting, writing, and arguing skills overall improved through participation in events such as Impromptu, Original Oratory, Oratorical Interpretation, Lincoln Douglas Debate, and Congress. I even achieved a Certificate of Excellence in my first competition for Oratorical Interpretation -- where we had to recite a historical or current speech -- for Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death.”

I decided to quit Speech and Debate because I felt as if it has completed its purpose. After this educational experience, my communications skilled soared, so I could perform better in school, especially on essays and presentations. Leaving this activity after two years gave me more time to focus on other activities, and apply communications skills to them. In fact, I even did better in interviews (which is how I got into the Torrance Youth Development Program) and even obtained leadership positions in clubs such as Math Club and Science Olympiad Through my two years in Speech and Debate, I believe I became a much better thinker, speaker, and leader. Taking advantage of this opportunity boosted my self-esteem and overall made high school a better experience.

UC PIQ #5: Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement? (350 words max)

Although many would say that hardships are the greatest hindrance on a person, my hardships are my greatest assets. The hardships I have overcome are what push and drive me forward. If I had not gone through the failures of my 7th grade year I may have been satisfied as a B or C student. It is easy for us to use our hardships as excuses for not doing work, however, this is a mistake that many people make.

Through my struggles and failure, I have realized an important truth: I am not special. The world will continue to go on and expect me to contribute no matter what I have gone through. Everyone endures some type of obstacle in their life; what makes people different is how they handle them. Some sit around and cry "boo-hoo" waiting for people to feel sorry for them. Others actually take action to improve their situation.

Through hard work, I have been able to outperform my peers, yet I know there is still room for improvement. The thought of actual geniuses in top universities excited me; I long to learn from them and eventually surpass them, or perhaps enter a never ending race for knowledge with them. I used to live an hour away from school. I would have to wake up and be dropped off at a donut shop at 4 in the morning and then walk to school at 6:30 am. After school, I would have to walk to the public library and stay for as long as it was open then wait outside and get picked up around 9:30 pm. I am reluctant to retell this story; not because I am ashamed, but because it is not important. It doesn't matter what hardships I have endured, they do not determine who I am. What matters is what I have done.

At the start of high school, I saw nothing but success. From grades to extracurricular activities, everything seemed to be going smoothly. However, as my sophomore year progressed, this wave of success was soon swamped by a wave of disillusionment. I struggled to perform in Calculus and as a Vice-President, but instead of looking for a solution, I looked for excuses. Ultimately, when I was forced to face my two F’s and my lost elections, the world came crashing down. The vision I had meticulously planned out for the future seemed to shatter before my eyes. My self-confidence plummeted to an all-time low. I thought my life was over.

However, my response to this failure was what would ultimately determine the direction my life would take. In the end, I made the right choice: instead of continuing to blind myself with a false narrative that cast all the blame off my own shoulders, I admitted to my own shortcomings and used this experience as a lesson to grow from.

In doing so, I learned to focus on the aspects of my life that I was truly passionate about instead of spreading myself too thin. I learned to face challenges head-on instead cowering at the first sign of difficulty, even if it meant asking others for help. I learned to accept and utilize my own differences to create my own unique leadership style. Most importantly, rather than letting this mistake define me, I ignited a sense of determination that would guide me back on the right path no matter how many obstacles I encounter.

Looking back, this tragic mistake was a double-edged sword. While it definitely leaves a stain on my record, it is also likely that I wouldn’t have been able to find the same success a year later without the lessons I gained from this experience. At the end of the day, while I still grimace every time I contemplate my sophomore year, I understand now that this mistake is what has allowed me to develop into the person I am today.

Throughout my childhood, I grew up in a nine-person household where the channels of our TV never left the Filipino drama station and the air always smelled of Filipino food. But the moment I left home, I would go to a typical suburban elementary school as an average American kid at the playground. I grew up in a unique position which I both love and hate: being a second-generation Filipino American.

I love being a second-generation immigrant. I have the best of both worlds. But I also hate it. It chains me to this ongoing struggle of living under the high expectations of immigrant parents. How could I hate the part of me that I loved the most?

Growing up, I lived under the constant academic stress that my parents placed on me. Their expectations were through the roof, demanding that I only bring home A’s on my report card. My entire academic career was based on my parent’s expectations. Their eyes beat down on every test score I received. I loved them so much, but I could only handle so much. The stress ate me alive, but I silently continued to work hard.

Living under this stress is the biggest ongoing challenge of my life thus far. Until last year, I never understood why my parents expected so much from me. Finally being old enough to understand my parent’s point of view, I realize that they set these high expectations in the hopes that one day, all of the pain and struggles it took to get to America will pay off. Since then, I’ve overcome the high expectations of my parents by converting their pressure into a fireball of ambition and motivation, deeply ingrained in my mentality.

This intense desire to succeed in America as a second-generation immigrant is something that has and always will fuel my academic drive. As the first person in my family to go to college in America, I’ve made it my life aspiration to succeed in academics in the honor of my family-- a decision made by me.

UC PIQ #6: Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom. (350 words max)

Understanding the past helps us make better choices in today’s society. History provides us with the views of people and politics, the ethnic origin of people, and much more. At the base of all history, there is an intensive culmination of research which hopes to address or bring light to a story.

My passion for history began while digging deep into own family’s story, researching the history of Latin America, and the origins of the city I was raised in.

For example, when I first saw my favorite show Avatar The Last Airbender, I spent hours researching the mythology of the show which in the process made me learn about the philosophy of China: daoism, Confucius, and the mandate of heaven. Anything can be put within a historical framework to understand the context; every decision, tv show, and law has a history and that is exactly what I love. History forces us to take into account the voices of the past before we can attempt to plan for the future.

History has helped me become a more effective writer for the school paper. It has made me think like a attorney, revisiting old cases, and writing up a winning argument in a mock trial. Thinking like a historian has helped me make sense of the current political climate and motivated me to help start Students For Liberty, at my school’s campus where political ideologies are shared respectfully.

Learning, about history drives my inquisitive nature — I demonstrated this desire by volunteering at a local museum to learn more about the origins of my community in Carson. Ultimately, learning about the Dominguez family who established the Harbor Area of LA.

In terms of academics and performance, I have passed both of my history AP exams in World and U.S. history — being the 2nd person in my school’s history to do so. Studying history in highschool has nurtured my love for social science, which I hope to continue in college and throughout my life.

Ever since I was little, I have possessed a unique fascination for nature and the way it interacts with itself. As I sat in the prickly seats of old tour buses and the bilingual tour guide has silenced himself for the dozens of passengers that have closed their curtains and fallen into deep slumber, I would keep my eyes glued to the window, waiting to catch a glimpse of wild animals and admiring the beautiful scenery that mother nature had pieced together. At Outdoor Science Camp, while most of my friends were fixated on socializing and games, I was obsessed with finding every organism in the book. Nothing else caught my attention quite like ecology.

As high school dragged on and the relentless responsibilities, assignments, and tests washed away the thrill of learning, ecology was one interest that withstood the turmoil. At the end of a draining day, I would always enjoy relaxing to articles detailing newly discovered species or relationships between species.

This past summer, I was able to further this interest when a unique opportunity to volunteer abroad caught my eye. Flying over to the beautiful tropical shorelines of the Dominican Republic, I was able to dive into the frontlines of the battle against climate change, dwindling populations, and habitat destruction brought about by mankind, and I enjoyed every moment of it.

While everyone was obviously ecstatic about snorkeling in the crystal blue waters, only I was able to retain that same excitement about trekking through knee thick mud and mosquito infested forests to replant mangrove trees. While tracking animal populations, my heart leaped at the sight of every new species that swam right in front of my eyes. Even when it came to the dirty work of building structures to rebuild coral and picking up trash along the beach, I always found myself leading the pack, eager to start and do the most.

From this experience, I realized that pursuing the field of ecology was what I could picture myself doing far into the future, and this was how I was going to impact the world.

UC PIQ #7: What have you done to make your school or your community a better place? (350 words max)

Originally I saw volunteer work as a nuisance. I felt that it was an unnecessary "requirement" for college. I felt that someone decided to do volunteer work while in high school and now it has become the norm and is essentially required for college. Once I began to get involved, however, I found a true appreciation for the work I was doing.

I loved helping people and, as always, wanted to challenge myself. I worked at the Bellflower Volunteer center and tutored kids every day available, as well as helping out with large special events put on by the city. I then joined Key Club and made it my mission to attend every single event no matter what; even going to the lengths to walk for 4 hours starting at 5 in the morning (it was still dark outside) for a 2-hour beach clean up. I then became Service Event Coordinator and also made it my mission to have an event every week, while attending all of them, while still working at the Volunteer Center. I also started a tutoring program in math at my school as I really enjoy helping my peers academically.

It always warmed my heart to see fellow ninjas( our division mascot) at events I had planned, friends and neighbors at Bellflower events, and CSF members at tutoring.I am always willing to help people with anything. If someone needs my help I will stop whatever I am doing to help in any way that I can. Lending a helping hand is an important part of our society; however, a helping hand cannot do anything if the other hand does not reach for it as well. We need to be able to help ourselves first before others can help us. I tried to create a community where I could help people, but also people could help themselves so that there is no reason for anyone to not be able to achieve their goals and aspirations.

Throughout my childhood, the phrases “get good grades” and “make money” constantly harassed my every waking moment. Life seemed pointless, a never-ending cycle of trying to make more money to create artificial happiness. However, through partaking in my middle school’s ASB, I discovered my love for helping others, and I realized that I wanted to make my life about changing the world and leaving behind a better future for the generations to come.

In an attempt to live up to this philosophy, I have performed hundreds of hours of community service. From volunteering at a senior home to distributing food to the homeless, there is no doubt that I have made a substantial impact on those around me.

Despite all this, my most significant contributions are the ones that take place every day and are often undocumented. Picking up trash, staying long after my job is complete to help other groups, or even saying, “Thank you. Have a nice day,” to anyone who has provided a service for me are just a few examples. While they seem insignificant, these small actions add up.

However, above all, my biggest contribution is building meaningful connections with the people around me and making sure they realize how special and important they are to me and everyone else. In nurturing those who are less experienced, assisting those who are struggling with their emotions or their studies, and inspiring those who have untapped potential, I am not merely applying a band-aid on a wound, but elevating a whole community around me to tackle and prevent ailments the next decades will bring.

Years from now, I will likely have forgotten about my modest academic achievements. However, the memories of seeing someone I had mentored blossom into a strong leader and the smiles and laughter of someone I’ve helped battle through depression will forever be ingrained in my mind.

Serving food at school carnivals, embellishing the local marsh, tutoring students after school, and discharging patients at my local hospital were some of the ways I actively supported my city. However, a distinct way of being engaged in my community involved being selected for the Youth Development Program last summer. This organization works with the Torrance Refinery and selects thirty out of hundreds of applicants. The first week of this program involved activities that trained students for college and eventually their careers by making them adept in communication, leadership, and teamwork skills. For the next four weeks, students were assigned a specific job around the City of Torrance and Torrance Unified School District (TUSD).

I was placed in the TUSD Information Technology Department, along with six other students, and we essentially helped deal with technology-based issues around the district. Even though my professional desire incorporates biology and chemistry, I had a compelling interest and math and technology. I gave back to my community by utilizing the technological skills I gained at work. My colleagues and I traveled daily to several schools around the district and assisted in technological advancements: testing network ports and preparing schools for newer phones, imaging and updating new laptops and desktops, and arranging and setting up new computer labs and Chrome book carts.

Today, many people globally use technological and visual aids to assist their education. My summer job also allowed me to make a difference in the education of others. With the faster internet, newer telephones and computers, teachers could instruct more efficiently and students can be educated more effectively, thus improving their academic performance in the future. This program helped me a lot by boosting my teamwork and leadership skills, which will be extremely valuable as I will be pursuing many president/vice-president positions in my senior year. However, this program has allowed me to make a stronger impact on other people rather than myself; I feel delighted that my work in summer will be beneficial to twenty-thousand students across Torrance.

UC PIQ #8: Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand out as a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California? (350 words max)

In 2011, I started at a newly built school spanning sixth to twelfth grade. The school’s inception was not the greatest with gang culture and issues plaguing the school and nearby community. From this moment I knew wanted to make a change, improving the school and local community.

For example, two years ago a bicyclist was crushed by a container truck across the street from my school, several peers of mine and I advocated for a bike lane to get installed on the street to protect cyclists from the busy traffic. I worked day and night for three weeks using my connection with the city’s public works director to meet with city officials and make a change. I looked for solutions and ways to improve my community and lead the charge to better our street. When we met with city officials they agreed and ultimately approved our bike lane proposal. This civic action started with a group of three concerned high school students, in which I helped facilitate the conversations resulting into a bike lane project, that will be built the summer of 2018 after I graduate high school. Ultimately helping solve an issue in my community.

Using my influence as part of the Associated Student Body I advocated for a new medical academy on my school’s campus to address the growing interest in medicine and health careers of many students at my school. While I am not personally interested in a health related field, I recognized that many students at my school did and teachers agreed. I came in as an intermediary, who because of my position in ASB was also a member of my School’s Shared Leadership Council (SLC), through these means I motivated other ASB officers to support the academy’s inception and after a grueling amount of meetings in which we went through logistics the academy was approved for the benefit of students.

I am a student who will attend a UC pursuing my passions in journalism, education, and history; while being an involved student making the campus a better place than when I first arrived.

Rather than relying on pure intellect, I choose to excel through continual self-improvement, my ability to overpower obstacles, and an unrelenting force of determination. There are thousands of students smarter than me, students with better test scores, students with more volunteer hours, and quite possibly, a more socially acceptable sense of humor. I can assert, however, that my determination and ambition is hard to match.

I am willing to look in the face of the impossible without fear; in fact, the only emotion flowing through my body would be excitement. There are thousands of intelligent students, however many are unable or are unwilling to utilize their full potential. Although not a genius, I have shown my ability to improve drastically in capability over time.

At some point in my middle school career I was not technically supposed to still be enrolled because my grades were too low; now I'm on track to be valedictorian of my class. I am willing to do whatever it takes to meet my goal; if there were a service event across the country I would be willing to walk the entire way; if I could take a million AP's I would. I understand that it is a big jump to go from Bellflower High School to a UC in terms of academic difficulty; however, that is part of the excitement. I am not afraid of failure, it does nothing but make me stronger. Am I capable of making a jump of such a magnitude? It is not my judgment to make; I am only here to try.

The spin-the-wheel slows down and eventually stops at ‘try again next time’. That is, until I secretly push it one slot over to ‘princess tiara’. As the child hurries away to the next carnival game with the tiara in her hair, her mom turns back at me with a warm smile and mouths the words “thank you”. Seeing genuine happiness in the people of my community while volunteering at events such as my school carnival always remind me why I love my community so much.

I hold a lot of pride in how I’ve become a prominent figure in my community. From volunteering at festivals for my local elementary school to becoming employed by the City of American Canyon Parks and Recreation Department, I relish being in the hub of the community. I love our annual Fourth of July parades and Easter egg hunts, where I am stopped every 15 minutes to catch up with the crazy kids I worked with at summer camp or even just with the staff I’ve met from school. Growing up and connecting with such a diverse community is and will always be a large part of who I am. From kindergarten up until my senior year of high school, both my small community and I as an individual have grown immensely. By volunteering at local events, connecting with the people of my community, and finally getting employed by my city, I know that I have contributed to the successful growth of my community.

Although I really love my community here in the small town of American Canyon, I cannot help but think of the other great communities that I can potentially be a part of as well. I believe that by going to the University of California, I will be able to thrive in the liveliness of the communities that the campuses are well-known for. A major contribution I believe that I can bring to the University of California is integrating, being involved in, and building the school’s community so that both I and the school can grow together for each other.

What can you learn from these UC Berkeley essays?

If you want to get into UC Berkeley in 2022, you need to write great essays that help make you stand out. From these 18 Berkeley essays that worked, here are some takeaways:

• Use specific examples of places and events (name them) ( #8 , #17 )
• Tell a story ( #6 , #18 , #7 )
• Demonstrate your background, identity, or culture ( #3 , #15 , #4 )

If you enjoyed these UC Berkeley essays, you'll also like reading our top UCLA essays that worked. They answer the same PIQ prompts, but quite differently.

Applying to other public universities? Check out these awesome University of Michigan essays.

Let me know, which UC Berkeley essay was your favorite and why?

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See the table below to determine criteria that needs to be met based on class level in order to change colleges into L&S. An X means the criterion is required for your class level. This table is included in the petition packet, which can be found on our Forms & Petitions page. 

*Deduct units in progress and units earned in high school (including exam units and units earned at other institutions) when determining class level

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Confrontation erupts at dinner for law students at UC Berkeley dean’s home

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A celebratory dinner for law students at the home of UC Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and his wife, law professor Catherine Fisk, this week was disrupted by a student who chose to use the event to bring attention to Palestinians being killed in the war in Gaza. 

During the dinner hosted by Chemerinsky on Tuesday, Malak Afaneh, co-president of Berkeley Law Students for Palestine, stood to make a speech about the growing deaths. 

The speech, which was not part of the dinner, was cut off when Fisk tried to take the mic away from Afaneh. 

A video posted on Instagram shows Fisk putting one arm around Afaneh and trying to remove the mic from her hand. At this point, Fisk and Chemerinsky ask her and a group of student protesters to leave their house. 

This was the latest in a string of tensions at Cal as some students protested the war that broke out after a Hamas attack on Oct. 7 killed more than 1,100 people and kidnapped 250 in Israel. Over 33,000 people have been killed in Gaza in the ensuing war, according to the Gaza-based Ministry of Health. 

The student organization announced on April 1 that it would boycott Chemerinsky’s annual dinners, planned for three days this week. Caricatures of him holding a bloody knife and fork with the caption “No dinner with Zionist Chem while Gaza Starves!” were circulated on bulletin boards and social media and posted around campus and at the law school. The group said the professor is an outspoken critic of pro-Palestinian organizers on campus.

In a statement on the Berkeley Law website Wednesday, Chemerinsky said the organizers informed him through student government leaders that if he didn’t cancel the dinners, they would attend in protest. He said he went forward with the dinners in hopes that the protests would be peaceful. He said he believed he was being targeted for being Jewish.

“I am appalled and deeply disturbed by what occurred at Dean Chemerinsky’s home last night,” UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ said in a statement Wednesday. “I have been in touch with him to offer my support and sympathy. While our support for Free Speech is unwavering, we cannot condone using a social occasion at a person’s private residence as a platform for protest.”

Protesters attend dinner

Muki Barkan, a UC Berkeley graduate law student, attended the dinner as part of a protest group of about 10 students. They said all the students who participated in the gathering were invited to Chemerinsky and Fisk’s home and RSVP’d before the event. About 60 students attended Tuesday, according to Chemerinsky.

Barkan said the group of 10 were seated in the garden but refrained from eating as part of their protest when Afaneh donned a keffiyeh and walked to the back to make her speech. Barkan said multiple people began filming the ensuing altercation.

In the videos , Afaneh begins explaining the significance of fasting for Ramadan, culminating in Eid celebrations on Tuesday, when Fisk appears behind her and attempts to grab the mic from her hand. Fisk wraps her right arm around Afaneh’s shoulder and pulls her back, saying, “Leave. This is not your house; this is my house.” 

Standing near Afaneh and Fisk, Chemerinsky asks the group, “Please leave our house; you are guests at our house.” 

Afaneh repeatedly says that the group has an attorney and that it is her First Amendment right to speak at the gathering. Chemerinsky replies that she cannot exercise those rights at their private home. 

Shortly after being told to leave, Barkan said the group left the home. Barkan said they consulted with the National Lawyers Guild, which told them they would risk trespassing charges if they remained in the house after being told to leave. 

The protesters believed they were protected by the First Amendment to make the speech because the Office of the Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean of Students posted the Eventbrite listing for the dinner.

In his statement, Chemerinsky said he has spent his career defending freedom of speech, but the students’ actions were disruptive and rude at his private home. He said he was offended by posters of the event showing him holding a bloody knife and fork, invoking antisemitic tropes of “blood libel.” 

One version of the flyer, circulating on social media , shows a drawn caricature of Chemerinsky holding a knife and fork with crumbs on his face.

“Although many complained to me about the posters and how they deeply offended them, I felt that though deeply offensive, they were speech protected by the First Amendment. But I was upset that those in our community had to see this disturbing, antisemitic poster around the law school,” Chemerinsky wrote in a statement.

Chemerinsky said he would continue his dinners on Wednesday and Thursday and that security would be present. He said any students who disrupt the gatherings “will be reported to student conduct and a violation of the student conduct code is reported to the Bar.” 

Barkan said Chemerinsky voiced the same consequences to the protest group as they left his home on Tuesday, but there’s no indication that he’s moved forward with the disciplinary reports. 

Neither Chemerinsky nor Afaneh returned calls for comments from Berkeleyside.  

Student says she was traumatized by incident

In a statement on her social media site, Afaneh said she was traumatized and humiliated by a professor putting their hands on her. She said she had barely spoken past the customary Muslim greeting, “Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,” or “Peace and blessings to you all,” when the speech was forcibly stopped. She demanded that Fisk and Chemerinsky resign. 

The San Francisco-based office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA) condemned what they called the “alleged assault” on Afaneh. 

“Students at UC Berkeley have reported being targeted and harassed for their Palestine advocacy for many months now, not just by fellow students but also faculty and administrators. Dean Chemerinsky has unfortunately perpetuated an atmosphere of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism for too long,” CAIR-SFBA Executive Director Zahra Billoo said in a statement Thursday. 

Berkeley Law Jews for Palestine said in a statement Thursday that they condemn Fisk’s actions and firmly stand with Afaneh and the students who protested the dinner.

“It is only a couple of weeks before Passover, when we, as Jews, are meant to open our homes to strangers and commemorate our own oppression before sitting down to a meal, so that we remember not to be complacent in the oppression of others,” the statement reads, adding that Chemerinsky violated that spirit.

The university did not confirm whether there is an open UCPD investigation following the events at Chemerinsky and Fisk’s home.

Tensions rising on campus

On Feb. 26, about 200 protesters disrupted a talk by Ran Bar-Yoshafat , deputy director of the Kohelet Policy Forum, at the Zellerbach Playhouse that evening. They broke down a door and smashed a window, according to the university. 

UC Berkeley police and anti-discrimination officials are investigating possible hate crimes due to allegations of “overtly antisemitic expression” at the protest. Congressional groups also launched a federal investigation into antisemitism on the campus following the protest. 

In response to a weekslong protest blockade at Sather Gate calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, Christ is also considering changing the university’s “time, place, and manner regulations” to limit the action.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed a statement by UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ to university spokesperson Dan Mogulof, and indicated an incorrect date for the statement.

This story was updated on April 17 with changes to the lead paragraph.

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96 replies on “Confrontation erupts at dinner for law students at UC Berkeley dean’s home”

Its not our problem if Fisk is hypocritical (i dont think so actually) And taking someone’s microphone away is for sure not an attack.

From the L.A. Times:

This is not the first conflict in recent months involving the law school. In the fall, a professor ignited controversy when he published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal titled, Don’t Hire My Anti-Semitic Law Students. Students and alumni petitioned Chemerinsky to take action in response. Chemerinsky stood up for the professor, saying he was defending free speech even if people find it deeply offensive.

My comment: Isn’t Chemerinsky being hypocritical? The student hadn’t said anything political before she was attacked by Fisk. The wise thing would have been to let her speak.

That speech belongs in a public space like Sproul, and not a private home.

Nor the First Amendment, apparently.

“For Chemerinsky to hold a dinner during Ramadan seems inconsiderate and dismissive. especially so this year.”

Nope. Your religious observances are your business, and your problem. You wouldn’t have said boo about this if he’d held the dinner during Lent.

clearly you do not know what you are writing about.

How about not. Its their house they can do as they please.

Touching someone is not an assault. Taking someone’s microphone away is not an assault no matter what an imaginary friend tells you.

The protesters jsut want to alienate people so they feel good about themself. Attention is what they want.

God forbid they (Palestinians) take responsibility and do the work it takes to create a livable country in Gaza. Instead 60 years of handouts, 60 years of pore me pore me, 60 years of whining about a lost battel they brought onto themselves int eh first place.

Don’t try that in a small town…

This behavior changed the outcome of absolutely nothing…..

Look at the bright side at this time. At least the miscreants did what they did (again) before the Iranian attack on Israel, so we weren’t treated to cheers for Iran and related sentiment as was expressed in Chicago, for example.

He also didn’t read the part that says there own lawyer told the students to leave to avoid charges of trespassing.

Seriously? Hilarious that you ask Stanford to apologize. What’s a semi-official forum?

How is this comment relevant?

“This is not the first conflict in recent months involving the law school. In the fall, a professor ignited controversy when he published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal titled, “Don’t Hire My Anti-Semitic Law Students.” Students and alumni petitioned Chemerinsky to take action in response. Chemerinsky stood up for the professor, saying he was defending free speech even if people find it “deeply offensive.”

Isn’t Chemerinsky being hypocritical? The student hadn’t said anything political before she was attacked by Fisk. The wise thing would have been to let her speak.

For the few being upset that someone meant No and meant someone should stop , what will be their reaction if at a later event security physically ensures that someone leaves after being told to leave, but doesn’t?

The Los Angeles Times account, referred to earlier by Chris Hoofnagle , and others only reduce what possible sympathy some could struggle to invent for these troublemakers.

Berkeley law school shouldn’t be admitting illiberal fanatics. Time to reexamine the admissions criteria.

The clip is in the article, now I see it.

The protestors’ perspective was developed prior to critical race theory, which is not relevant to this incident.

I don’t know about poison, but certainly allowing immigration from both sides of intractable conflicts is a gross mistake. Well, Jews were here a long time ago, so bringing nemeses that can use Jewish Americans as stand-ins for their foreign enemies is dumb.

Yes, probably not the wisest action from Fisk. However, the protester was REPEATEDLY asked to stop by both homeowners and refused, as well as refused to leave, before Fisk touched her. One could argue she had a right to expel the person after she was repeatedly asked to leave and to stop. We’ll see. You’ve got to be especially clueless if the protester thought this was going to change anyone’s minds about her cause. Wrong time. Wrong place.

It has always been about Israel fighting back and “worse,” winning, specifically, and about Israel more generally with this being the latest excuse for related lightweight, poorly behaved activism using the old phrase the old fascists loved to use, “direct action.”

If they’re like others such as the worst cranks and cult members among the climate activists such as the Rebellion groups, they dishonestly describe with gentle phrases and euphemism for what they are doing to avoid criticism of what they know is harmful or wrong, such as saying “speaking their mind” when disrupting events or other activities (and First Amendment references), while a number of them also will say they “had to resort to” or were “forced to” engage in disruption or worse, “had no choice,” and so on. “Direct action,” Martin Luther King or in this student’s case, Rosa Parks references are more evasive language.

How about no? You don’t get to go to someone’s home and do what you want. It’s remarkable how entitled these people are.

From the Quran, Surah An-Nur 24:27:

“O believers! Do not enter any house other than your own until you have asked for permission and greeted its occupants. This is best for you, so perhaps you will be mindful. …

And if you are asked to leave, then leave. That is purer for you. And Allah has ‘perfect’ knowledge of what you do.”

source: https://quran.com/24?startingVerse=27

Naturally — it’s true to form.

That makes no sense, much less is an “obligation.”

They don’t care that this was rude, and behavior inappropriate as a guest as well as in someone else’s home, on someone else’s property. Their limit to how low they go still has not been reached; they went lower.

Bill – That is a truly gross generalization. It reminds me that Jews were not allowed into the USA during the Holocaust. I read a book in high school – “While Six Million Died”. I live in northern Israel and have Muslim and Christian Arab friends, students and neighbors. Life is reasonably good.

Why doesn’t Berkeleyside show the video clip?????

He didn’t read the article very closely.

DISRUPTION!

that’s the issue here, not “free speech”

Lefties have been going nuts with disruptive behavior, and if Trump wins, I guarantee you that this Lefty behavior will be a major reason

In all the protests, there is never a word about Palestinian responsibility for their own well-being. It is if they are children without any agency. Historically, this doesn’t make sense. They are somewhat (decide the amount) responsible for where they are. I suggest these students try to come up with a workable solution. Because, so far, Palestinian leaders have rejected all proposals.

“It is only a couple of weeks before Passover, when we, as Jews, are meant to open our homes to strangers and commemorate our own oppression before sitting down to a meal, so that we remember not to be complacent in the oppression of others,” the statement reads, adding that Chemerinsky violated that spirit.” This is such an old and tired trope used by Jews against other Jews. Or as I like to refer to users of this BS, Jews who hate Judaism.

We’ve heard it all before. It’s not new, and it remains horribly anti-semitic. And, these groups always include a few Jews to imply that they understand Jewish opinion on the subject. “How can we be anti semitic, we have Jews who are members?” It’s like pretending the Clarence Thomas speaks for the entire African American community.

You don’t go to someone’s house invited or not, and crap on the carpet. Period.

That is a pertinent question, as is the definition and applicability of assault.

This is exactly why BSides’ reporting is so problematic—Fisk made no such mistake. The reporter linked to the short video that affirms the protestors’ narrative. The full video contains a repeated demand to leave before the short clip that was posted to Instagram. Reporters have to be smarter than to just trust a video that only shows the information that an activist wants to be true.

I doubt she told them what she wanted to talk about. Nice try though. lol

They should have tossed them out on their keesters. I am in abject horror of Netanyahu’s government policies but that was not the place or time to force others to hear her personal political views.

In what way did she assault Fisk?

This person is just plain rude. That is not okay to offend your host in that way. Have some manners.

And who would be the arbiter of time if they didn’t stop at ten minutes? This would just embolden them. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

I find it galling that the protester chose this event as the place to voice her protest. Not only was it disrespectful, she alienated the people most likely to have supported her position if she had expressed it in a more respectful manner. The first amendment applies in public. It does not apply when in someone’s private home. First year law students, heck, high school students, should know this. The protester has alienated rather than drawn listeners to her cause. Choose your audience carefully. This national coverage has only managed to hurt you.

I don’t believe she or anyone was “asked” to speak.

I don’t know about reporting them to the bar, but they absolutely appear to not understand the First Amendment. Did they not pass American Government class in high school?

What does critical race theory have to do with religion centers had white cards until recently and Israel was a big supporter of a apartheid government in South Africa so what does critical race theory have to do with religion? Explain

Hi, I apologize for the ambiguity. As a secular Jew who loves Jewish Israeli culture, I need a Jewish state in which there is no need for me to be religious and attend synagogue. It is for that reason that I left the US around 45 years ago. I cannot thrive in a Christian or Muslim society. I am for a two state solution and gladly live with my Israeli Palestinian Arab neigbors who, like myself, are Semitic and speak Arabic and Hebrew.

An unscheduled speech to acknowledge Palestinians killed in the war in Gaza? How about first acknowledging Hamas’s murderous rampage of October 7th and the Jewish folks still being held hostage? The deaths in Gaza are entirely the responsibility of Hamas. Period.

“STANFORD needs to apologize”?????

I will never cease to marvel at the capacity of human beings to believe that they are right and others are wrong. Humble beings we are not.

Don’t forget their student misconduct and how it might appropriately be punished at UC.

What do they want a Berkeley professor to do about the war in the Middle East?

Wrong: The Law School paid for the dinner at the Dean’s private residence, as it does for all the student dinners. There is not a First Amendment right to use private property for speech. Even if the event had been held on the legal equivalent of government property, it still would be what is known as a “limited public forum,” where there are allowable limits on who can attend the event, and what can be expressed. The source of funding for the event has no bearing on either.

For Chemerinsky to hold a dinner during Ramadan seems inconsiderate and dismissive. especially so this year.

In October, he opined that we could not talk about solutions. Now 6 months later, he still does not want to talk or even hear about solutions.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-10-29/antisemitism-college-campus-israel-hamas-palestine

https://ca.cair.com/sfba/news/cair-sfba-condemns-uc-berkeley-professor-alleged-assault-on-palestinian-muslim-law-student/

Agreed, and if they came from other lands, they should go back and take the citizen test as well. Remove them from the Bar. They can work for their foreign respective countries of interest and support efforts there.

Proving once again Trump was right. We’ve let poison into the country.

Like most reasonable people I’m both horrified by the October 7th terrorist attacks and the general behavior of the Israeli government. It’s a tragic situation all around. The behavior of Palestinian activists in the US, however, is completely turning off sympathetic moderates like me. The magic of non violent protest is achieved when you act reasonably and the unreasonable actions of your counterparts leads to you gaining more sympathy. Non violent protest doesn’t mean you do whatever you want. If YOU act unreasonably you weaken your own message. This was the wrong venue for this. Reasonable people see someone interrupting a peaceful dinner at a private home and think how furious they’d be if someone did this at their home. You don’t mess with someone’s home. What’s more, the simple act of trying to grab the microphone away from the young woman is now being called “assault” by the loonies. Reasonable people see that and know that is not assault. This is a pr disaster for the activists. They look unreasonable and hyperbolic. Just my 2 cents as someone without a dog in the race and who thinks the entire tragedy is awful for all.

I am so horrified by this story and by what it says about what has happened to our educational system. These are two professors who have devoted their lives to educating the next generations of legal minds, who have opened their home and hearts to their students. These self-righteous students chose to spit in their faces. Protest Netanyahu all you like in a public space, but attacking educators in their home when you are their guest is unacceptable behavior. These students should be ashamed of themselves, but they have learned to. have no shame because they childishly and self-righteously believe they have license to behave however they see fit – and then claim to be the victim. We have allowed our children to run amuck and that does not bode well for our collective future. Or perhaps the dream of a peaceful multicultural society was always an illusion…

No one was assaulted in this instance.

“She should sue for assault”. Get a grip. You sound ridiculous

Fisk shouldn’t have touched the student. That was unwise in terms of the PR from all of this.

It is an interesting legal question about whether the first amendment applies here.

Sad for all involved. Hard to see how any of this helps the people in Gaza.

Just because you are not Jewish does not mean you are not supporting the cause of taking out terrorists.

Gaza brought that up themselves back in fall.

If this actually goes to trial somehow nobody will get found guilty of anything. Fisk made the mistake of putting a hand on the protester first, before disinviting her. If she had told the guest to stop, stated clearly that she was disinvited and/or trespassing and needed to leave, and THEN put hands on her it would have been less ambiguous.

Why on earth should Stanford apologize to this student? Stanford had nothing whatsoever to do with this event in the home of a Cal Law professor!

She was not invited to speak at a protest.

It’s not assault in the colloquial sense, but Fisk should have known better than to put hands on this type of woke social media slacktivist. They weren’t actually interested in spreading the message of the speech to the assembled audience, the goal was to cause a scene and get Fisk and Chemerinsky yelling at them and demanding that they leave so they could post it on social media.

Stanford!? LMAO you can’t even get the college right.

It was a private event at a private residence. The hosts were absolutely correct in stopping a guest from giving an unrequested and unvetted speech about a sensitive topic.

The fact that these pro-Palestinian law school students think they have a right to “free speech” at a private event held on private property is a sad testament to how worthless higher education has become, and how thoroughly activist ideologies can blind otherwise intelligent people to reality.

I strongly oppose the USA’s support for all the continuing overseas wars in which we are involved, but this behavior from protesters is unacceptable and I cannot in good faith support the Palestinian cause as long as a terrorist organization like Hamas continues to hold power in their government.

Not an official event. Chemerinsky regularly holds a welcoming dinner for 1Ls at his home each year; the class who are currently 3L, however, were skipped because of the lockdown. This is an extension of personal hospitality to them (at the Chemerinskys’ expense, I might add).

Not a protest she was invited in and asked to speak. Wrong topic obviously.

Well said – no two state solution one state one people will only bring peace.

Perhaps you should interview them and find out.

How about letting them speak for 5-10 minutes — thank you for your opinion and then move on. An opened mind is not a defensive mind.

These students should all be reported to the CA Bar, not because of the reprehensible behavior, but because of the apparent complete misunderstanding of the First Amendment in practice and law.

Did you actually watch the video? I didn’t find anything and anyone being assaulted.

Chermerinsky and his wife are completely in the WRONG. This is not about Israel/Palestine. This could have been a protest about the price of tomatoes in Bulgaria.

The MOMENT they hosted that event at their home, it became a semi-official forum and the student had the right to say what she wanted. She should sue for assault.

Freedom of speech is more important to me than Israel/Palestine or the price of tomatoes.

Chemerinsky should know better. He must stop hosting semi-official events at his home. Stanford needs to apologize to this student.

Are they also showing up and harassing non-Jewish professors who object to their style of protest and to the actions of Hamas?

Just because you’re a Jew doesn’t mean you’re a Zionist

Fisk actually has a much stronger case against this activist for assault than the other way around. Report her to the CA Bar, and boot her out of Cal. Assaulting a professor in their own home is grounds for dismissal from the university.

Weak tea, Afaneh. You’re very lucky to escape charges.

The chickens always come home to roost. These students have been educated in an academic environment that is entirely free from challenge to liberal orthodoxy. They have never been asked to consider as legitimate or understandable any worldview that doesn’t align perfectly with their own. The methodology of CRT has infused all of higher education and has completely shut down the ability of students to participate in debate. This methodology teaches that the world is divided neatly into two classes, “oppressor” and “oppressed”. You are part of one class or the other. It’s a simplistic world view that is easy to digest and appeals to young people’s desire to feel righteous. They will find an “oppressed” class to identify with, be it race-based, sexual-orientation based, religion-based etc. Once you have positioned yourself as a victim and a member of the “oppressed” class, it’s easy to label anyone who disagrees with you as a monster and a member of the “oppressor” class. You don’t need to listen to their ideas because you have dehumanized them and made their ideas without value. This is the insidious nature of CRT. It is a faith dogma. Anyone who questions the dogma is essentially an infidel and their ideas are dismissed without consideration. In this way the CRT culture maintains a clean ecosystem, free from outside ideas and debate. Thus, we have the world we see now, where students at one of the greatest law schools in the country can’t seem to hold two opposing ideas in their heads without losing their minds. How do they hope to practice in the real world where they won’t be in a safe little echo chamber all the time?

First, i find the student protests pretty awful. The ones who do commit the crime here are the Palestinians. If you read what genocide is its the Hamas that commits it not the other way around.

However, the legal question is actually a quite interesting question. If you host an official event that is announced at a work place at your home and you make it an event space does the trespassing etc.. law still apply? I am really curious.

A member of a group that won’t let invited speakers appear in public on campus have no problem disrupting a private party.

In California, landowners/occupiers have a privilege to use violence to eject a trespasser, after a warning is given, and the force used must be reasonable.

I understand that American Jews did not rock the boat during the Holocaust. My father boxed with a Magen David on his shorts and refused to remove it when requested to do so. I adnire these Pro-Palestinians’ adamancy. They are right (at the moment!) But, as an American Israeli Jew, who lives in Israel, I know that we are also right (at the moment!). And as an Arabic speaking Jewish Israeli who teaches Arabic speaking Muslim Israelis/Palestinians Hebrew, I know that there is indeed another way, which only the moderates among us can lead. Respect and love, not only tolerance, are essential for Jewish-Muslim co-existence in the Middle East. The radicals on both sides must eventually cease to exist or atleast prepare for compromise. Both Israel and Palestine must be Free.

1. this is incredibly disrespectful and targeted towards someone who isn’t Israeli. 2. many of the protests against Israel seem to harm non-Israeli’s and work against the protesters cause. 3. why do Palestinians go onto other’s property, do damage (in this case disruption, but on Oct 7 more horrific acts) and then play the victim ? 4. I feel very badly for the poor people of Gaza who have suffered because of Hamas. I pray they find a better government and can make peace with Israel like Egypt and many other countries have.

They choose to be even more lowly, with no depth limit yet, and if anything provide inspiration to squatters now, too.

BSide has linked to the short video. The LA Times provides the full video, which contradicts the facts asserted here, and provides much more context: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-10/uc-berkeley-law-school-dean-clashes-with-pro-palestinian-activists

I’d argue that you can’t actually assault a trespasser, but this is California so who knows…

There is something not working at the school if these law students don’t even understand how and where the first amendment applies. Coming to the deans house to protest is in pretty poor taste regardless. Doing that while announcing the prior preparation of having attorneys only further demonstrates this. And then posting a video bemoaning ‘an assault’ by an elderly woman just makes these protestors really unsympathetic.

Berkeley’s a pretty liberal place. When you attend a dinner as a guest you give up your rights to form a protest group at the gathering. If you want to protest, you must decline the dinner invitation as a guest.

Comments are closed.

A UC Berkeley law professor confronts a pro-Palestinian student during a backyard dinner

A dinner for graduating law students at the University of California, Berkeley, has become the latest flashpoint over free speech and concerns about Islamophobia and antisemitism on college campuses as the war in Gaza rages on. 

Video shot by a law student and shared with NBC News shows law professor Catherine Fisk trying to grab a microphone out of the hands of a Palestinian student during a protest at an invitation-only event this week.

Fisk and her spouse, law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky, hosted the event at a dinner in their home’s backyard Tuesday.

Malak Afaneh was one of 60 students invited to what was supposed to be a quiet evening before graduation next month. But it took a turn when Afaneh stood up and started delivering an unsanctioned speech through a cordless microphone she had brought with her.

“Peace and blessings upon you all,” she began. “Tonight we are gathered here in the name of commemorating our final few weeks as law students.”

The video shows Chemerinsky immediately interjecting and asking Afaneh to leave.

“Please leave. No. Please leave. Please leave,” he says.

Afaneh continues, and Fisk walks down the steps toward her. Fisk puts an arm around Afaneh’s shoulder and grabs the microphone with her other hand. The two appear to briefly jostle for the microphone before Fisk releases her grip.

Afaneh, the leader of Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine, and a group of nine other protesters eventually left. She said the interaction was an “assault” and discrimination against Palestinian students. She did not file a police report, she said, because she is considering all her legal options.

“It was clear Islamophobia,” she said Thursday. “Assault is assault. No way should a law professor have put their hands on a student, period.”

Chemerinsky, who is Jewish, called the disruption “ugly and divisive.”

“I am enormously sad that we have students who are so rude as to come into my home, in my backyard, and use this social occasion for their political agenda,” he said in a statement.

At the end of a different video, Fisk says, “We agree with you about what’s going on in Palestine.”

Fisk did not respond to a request for comment.

Asked whether legal or disciplinary action would be taken against Afaneh, Chemerinsky or Fisk, Dan Mogulof, a spokesman for the university, said he could not comment on matters pertaining to students and personnel.

In an emailed statement, university Chancellor Carol Christ said she has been in touch with Chemerinsky to offer her “support and sympathy.”

“I am appalled and deeply disturbed by what occurred at Dean Chemerinsky’s home last night,” the statement read in part. “While our support for Free Speech is unwavering, we cannot condone using a social occasion at a person’s private residence as a platform for protest.”

Afaneh said the chancellor has not contacted her.

Afaneh, a law clerk at the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Bay Area office, had encouraged students to boycott the dinner because the university has investments in companies with ties to Israel.

Chemerinsky said in his statement that students had circulated a poster on campus and social media with a caricature of him holding a bloody knife and fork, with the words “No dinner with Zionist Chem while Gaza starves.”

“I never thought I would see such blatant antisemitism, with an image that invokes the horrible antisemitic trope of blood libel and that attacks me for no apparent reason other than I am Jewish,” he said.

Afaneh said the boycott targeted Chemerinsky because he is a representative of the university and has influence with school officials.

She and the nine other students agreed about two weeks ago to disrupt the dinner by giving a speech and then walking out, Afaneh said. They consulted attorneys beforehand to understand their free speech rights and what legal fallout they could expect, she said.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a watchdog group, said on X : “Peaceful protest on public campuses is protected speech. Disruptive protest and trespassing on private property is not. 

“The First Amendment doesn’t protect seriously disrupting events on public college campuses, much less at someone’s backyard dinner party.”

The UC Berkeley School of Law said in a statement Thursday that it paid for the dinner at the private residence, “as it does for all the student dinners.”

“There is not a First Amendment right to use private property for speech,” it said. “Even if the event had been held on the legal equivalent of government property, it still would be what is known as a ‘limited public forum,’ where there are allowable limits on who can attend the event, and what can be expressed.

“The source of funding for the event has no bearing on either,” it said.

UC Berkeley, the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement in the 1960s, adopted guidelines in 1966 to help students and administrators navigate First Amendment issues, which included creating “time, place and manner” policies.

Some students have recently been ignoring the guidelines, insisting they are being used as a tool to suppress their free speech, said law student Maryam Alhakim, a protester who attended the dinner.

“It’s being used against us in a way to curtail our activism,” Alhakim said.

Zahra Billoo, executive director of CAIR Bay Area, said she was more concerned about how a student was treated by a faculty member.

“It says something deeper about the racist way in which they perceive Palestinian students and those who stand in solidarity with them,” she said. “How would it have hurt for her to have made her speech?”

The confrontation is the latest in a spate of heated exchanges on college campuses across the county since the Israel-Hamas war started on Oct. 7.

UC Berkeley graduate students have spent months protesting beneath the school’s iconic Sather Gate, sometimes clashing with pro-Israel student groups. In February, a protest turned violent at an event featuring a former member of the Israeli army.

Last Friday, 20 students at Pomona College in Southern California were arrested after they stormed and occupied the college president’s office.

Several students were suspended from Columbia University in New York this month after they hosted an unsanctioned event on campus featuring a speaker linked to a terrorist organization.

Alicia Victoria Lozano is a California-based reporter for NBC News focusing on climate change, wildfires and the changing politics of drug laws.