Expert Admissions hosted a webinar with Jake Jerzy, Senior Associate Director of Undergraduate Admissions at UC Berkeley. We discussed the differences between the UC application and the Common App, how Berkeley approaches holistic review, tips for tackling the Personal Insight Questions, and more.
Overview of UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley is the flagship campus of the nine-campus University of California system. In state, you’ll often hear it called Cal, a nickname that comes from its athletics program.
Berkeley is also a large public research institution, home to more than 33,000 undergraduates and over 120 majors spread across seven colleges. It’s best known for its strength in STEM fields like computer science, engineering, and chemistry, though its humanities and social science programs are every bit as respected. Research is baked into the culture there, and Berkeley makes a real effort to bring undergraduates into that work alongside its graduate students.
Beyond the classroom, Berkeley offers a classic campus experience: Division I athletics, more than 1,200 student organizations, and a location just a short train ride from San Francisco and Silicon Valley, putting internships and hands-on opportunities across the Bay Area within easy reach. It’s a school that blends serious academics with genuine community and school spirit.
It’s worth remembering that the UC system is a public system with a mandate to enroll the large majority of its class—82 percent—from California residents. That mandate shapes selectivity and GPA thresholds differently for in-state residents versus out-of-state and international applicants.
Holistic Review at Berkeley
Berkeley receives more than 150,000 undergraduate applications a year. Despite this volume, it is committed to a genuinely holistic review process. Every first-year applicant gets a minimum of two full reads by separate admissions readers, regardless of a student’s transcript. Average read times of 10-12 minutes per application are well above what’s typical at many other schools.
The UC application is the same across all the campuses, but Berkeley readers don’t see which other campuses a student has applied to, or whether they have been admitted elsewhere. Readers are trained and assigned by region, which lets them evaluate each student in the context of their specific school and community, rather than comparing students across very different circumstances.
A student’s intended major can also shape how an application is read. Programs like Chemistry, Engineering, and Computer Science expect stronger math preparation, including calculus. But the guiding philosophy is simple: in the words of Vice Chancellor of Enrollment Femi Ogundele, Berkeley is looking for “excellence, not perfection.”
How the UC Application Differs from the Common App
The UC application looks and feels different from the Common App in a number of ways.
Most notably, the UC system is test-free, not just test-optional. SAT and ACT scores aren’t considered at all, though AP, IB, and A-Level exam scores are still accepted and can support a student’s academic profile.
Letters of recommendation aren’t part of their review process, either. The vast majority of students aren’t even able to submit them; Berkeley only occasionally invites them from students at select partner high schools. Self-reporting of grades and activities is another aspect setting the UC system apart; it’s a deliberate choice that helps level the playing field for students and schools with fewer resources to lean on. Because the system relies so heavily on what students report themselves, the UC system also conducts periodic verification, so applicants should take any request to confirm their information seriously and respond promptly.
The UC application’s extracurricular activities section is also more expansive. Students can list up to 20 activities, rather than the 10 the Common App allows, which invites a fuller, more personal picture of who a student is, rather than a tightly curated highlight reel. Admissions officers want to see genuine interests and hobbies, not just headline achievements.
And then there are the Personal Insight Questions, or PIQs, a series of short essays which replace the traditional personal statement altogether.
The PIQs
All UC campuses use the same eight prompts for the Personal Insight Questions. Students choose four to answer, each in 350 words or fewer.
When choosing which prompts to answer, go with the ones that excite you. If a prompt feels like a struggle to answer, that’s a good sign it’s not the right one—better to pick one that comes more naturally.
Since every UC campus reads the same four responses, showing fit for a particular campus is tricky (unless you are applying to only one campus). A better approach is demonstrating the values UC campuses share, like service, sustainability, and experiential learning, which can be found in the UC system’s “Mission, Vision and Values.”
PIQs aren’t meant to assess writing quality or style but exist solely to reveal a student’s authentic voice. That means applicants shouldn’t waste space on scene-setting or narrative buildup, or demonstrate creativity via unconventional formatting. Instead, students should write clearly and directly, in their own voice.
In fact, authenticity is important now more than ever given the rise of AI-assisted writing. Broad, thematic answers that are highly polished sound like AI—but specific, meaningful examples that share personal experiences show admissions readers that the work is the student’s own. Jake Jerzy describes this as a “drop test”: if someone who knows the student found the PIQs on the floor, without a name on it, would they recognize the responses as theirs?
To back up his words, Jake closed out the webinar by reading his own PIQ response about his passion for film in high school—a fitting example of the kind of specific, personal response Berkeley looks for.
For all the details on these topics and more, and to hear Jake’s own PIQ response, watch the webinar above.
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