Excerpt from "A Word on this Book" by editor Janet Huseby
If you are about to write a college essay, there is nothing more useful than reading other students’ essays. This book is a good place to start: a collection of personal essays for California universities and other selective colleges, written by seniors at Berkeley High School.

The school, which forms a backdrop for many of the essays, is one of a handful of truly diverse high schools in the United States. In 2007, Berkeley had more than 3,300 students: 33.5 percent of the students were white, 29.9 percent African American, 13.1 percent Chicano/Latino, 7.6 percent Asian American, 14.6 of mixed race, and the remainder Filipino, Native American, and Pacific Islander. Approximately 20 percent of Berkeley High students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, and more than 90 percent of the graduating class planned to attend college.

Sample Successful College Admissions Essays
Complete UC essay package by Nat Smith
Long essay by Mollie Schoenwald
Long essay by Erendira Gutierrez

The UC Essay Package
Over the years the University of California has consistently required applicants to submit a total of 1,000 words, but the format has varied. Before 2000, students were given three prompts and asked to write their essay on one of them. Between 2001 and 2006, applicants were told to respond to three questions. Now they are being asked to answer two prompts, with the recommendation that if the essays are not of equal length, the shorter one should be no fewer than 250 words. While the format has changed through the years, the task has remained the same: Tell as much about yourself as you can in 1,000 words.

Complete UC essay package by Nat Smith, who graduated from Berkeley High in 2005 and is currently a student at Dartmouth College.
1. ACADEMIC PREPARATION
During my junior year, French class became more than just exercises and grammar—we started to translate. We translated children’s books, poetry, operas, and classic French literature. My favorite story that we translated was The Count of Monte Cristo. Our French version was abridged and illustrated; nevertheless, it caught my interest. After every-one turned his or her book in, I kept going. I went and purchased a copy of the unabridged translation, and read all 1,276 pages over the period of a month. Reading the English version (as opposed to the French) gave me insight into how translators and editors work. For me, reading The Count of Monte Cristo helped me realize that studying French was not just for finishing requirements in order to graduate but learning how to communicate with another culture. The Count of Monte Cristo gave depth to France, the French language, and the French culture for me, not to mention it is an awesome story.

2. POTENTIAL TO CONTRIBUTE
I like organizing groups of people together to do fun things. During my junior year, my friends and I organized an unofficial “capture-the-flag” club in a Berkeley park, which sponsored a series of well-attended games. Later in the year, capture-the-flag turned into softball. Over the summer I went on an Ocean Classroom course at sea. To the delight of the rest of the crew, I found myself in the enjoyable role of organizing my watch into interpretive dances instead of the run-of-the-mill shipwide navigation meetings.

At Berkeley High, I am one of the water polo leaders, both in the water and out. As co-captain, I lead the daily dry-land workouts (a practice I instituted), hold team meetings when the coach is too flabbergasted to talk with us, and lead the team in its signature gutter-yell before every game. My team is part of a league in the foggier part of the San Francisco Bay Area. The tournament games pit us against kids who live in the sunny parts, where they swim and play year-round. The result is a lot of disappointing losses. I have my work cut out to maintain our scrappy, happy-go-lucky attitude, which I do by encouraging, joking, and consoling when necessary.

The water polo season is over, and lacrosse has not yet started, but it might be time to start the kick-the-can league.

3. OPEN-ENDED
My Saturday mornings have always been spent in bed with a book, most likely one I fell asleep reading the night before. All of my life what I’ve read has made an impression on me. Books have given me the key to experience the world as I do. One thread has been a love of the sea and the heroes that come with it.

I received the Hornblower series in the second grade; true, my mother read the books to me. I followed Captain Hornblower with the Howard Pease series—tramp steamers, third mate Todd Moran, mysteries in the depths of the South Pacific, and the fog-shrouded wharves of Depression-era San Francisco. Then came 23 books in the Alexander Kent series, following Richard Bolitho in the British Navy through the American Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. I realized all these early heroes of mine believed one thing: “Life is an adventure—say yes to it and see where you go.”

And they were right. Following this heroic thread in my own life, I can trace learning to sail in elementary school as part of a flotilla of dinghies braving the elements of the San Francisco Bay, to competing in my Laser off the coast of San Diego, to a Naval Academy summer seminar living the life of a plebe (to the puzzlement of my Berkeley friends), and finally, this summer, a 40-day Outward Bound tall-ship sailing course, climbing the mast to furl sails, standing watch all hours, navigating amongst commercial shipping, and diving into the frigid waters of Nova Scotia for Outward Bound’s dual swim test and bathing session.

Just as my heroes promised, while I sailed the northern Atlantic I met adventure. Hit with an attack of appendicitis, I was helped by sailors of the French Coast Guard to balance and jump from ship to ship in a rainstorm, where a volunteer French doctor holding a rusty knife greeted me by mimicking surgery—his idea of a joke. The Coasties took me to St. Pierre et Miquelon, a small French island off the Newfoundland coast, where I spent the night undergoing an emergency appendectomy. Under the influence of morphine, I found I was fluent in French, which was fortunate as no one spoke English. The hospital had one phone, which I used to have money wired to me so I could pay for the fine services of the island surgeon and to purchase passage on a small plane that flew out twice a week. I spent four days in that hospital listening to the whispers in French, “C’est le type du bâteau”—the guy from the boat. After being discharged I flew to St. John’s, where I met the ship that had left me stranded five days earlier. The ship, however, sailed on without me, and I was left to experience my Outward Bound solo in a Maritime hotel—complete with room service—while I recovered from the operation. As I hobbled around St. John’s, tender of stomach, I kept in mind how my heroes would have handled themselves: with courage and good cheer. With that in mind, I set off to find a good bookstore.

The Long Essay
With a few exceptions, most private schools now use the Common Application, which asks for a 500-word essay and a 150-word short answer. In addition, many private schools round out the Common App with supplementary questions. California students usually end up reworking their UC application for the Common Application. And, usually, distilling an essay from 600 words to 500 improves it considerably. In fact, the improvement is so great that I always suggest writing double and then simmering down by half—no matter what length is called for.

Long essay by Mollie Schoenwald, who graduated from Berkeley High in 2005 and is currently a student at Northwestern University.
Northwestern University Prompt In 1972, Edward Lorenz theorized that a butterfly flapping its wing in Brazil could cause a tornado in Texas. What small action had a larger impact than you expected? How were you affected by the consequences?

I tentatively opened the door to Room C113 on the first day of my freshman year, to be greeted by Mrs. Karla Herndon, whose unassuming paisley sundress and calm demeanor was merely a show for the freshman, she made sure to tell us. Majestically perched on her rickety stool, hands folded in her lap, she suddenly burst into song: “Eram, eras, erat, eramus, eratis, erant,” to the tune of the Mexican Hat Dance. Soon the entire class put aside their nervousness and joined her in singing. Already I knew that she was no ordinary teacher.

C113 was my escape from the pandemonium of Berkeley High School. There, Mrs. Herndon gave us the key that revealed the buried world of Virgil, Caesar, Livy, Cicero, Ovid, and made it come alive. As we gazed up at Mrs. Herndon during her lectures, I could hear the bustle of senators rushing through the Forum, I could discern Cicero standing at the Rostra declaring the guilt of audacious Catiline, I could sense the tension of a country on the brink of civil war. She led me far beyond the fourth declension or the passive periphrastic; she led me into the daily lives of the Roman people—their architecture, culture, habits, and literature.

I did not fully understand where Mrs. Herndon was guiding me until one foggy day in February of my junior year. With the smell of Mrs. Herndon’s cauliflower lunch still lingering in the air, the Latin class trickled into C113. Some excited, some lethargic, we sat down to translate the Aeneid. My revelation came as we read the passage in which Aeneas and his comrades encounter a ferocious storm at sea. Mrs. Herndon lectured on timelessness, on the immortality of Virgil’s characters, on the larger-than-life situations, on the moral lessons contained in the text, which have as much relevance today as in Virgil’s time. From beneath her lovingly worn text, she pulled out a letter written by her father during his service on a battleship in World War II. As she read this letter, her voice never faltered: Instead, her intensity heightened with every crashing wave and pounding surf—emotions and scenes depicted exactly like those that we had translated only minutes before. It clicked. The parallels of the two storm scenes blossomed in my mind, recalling the disregard for human life during times of war. Even more broadly, I saw the connection between the Aeneid and modern struggles, both national and personal. This realization of historical continuity overwhelmed me. At that moment I knew my fate as a Classics major had been sealed: Iacta alea est, the die has been cast.

Long essay by Erendira Gutierrez, a member of the Berkeley High class of 2000. Gutierrez attended California State University, Chico, and the Dental Hygiene Program at Santa Rosa Junior College.
When the door shut, it slammed so hard I heard the room echo. The room looked so pale and cold, like something you would only see in the movies. Everything was cement and tightly compacted. I sat on the thin layer of cushion that was laid out on the bed for hours, asking myself a hundred questions, repeating myself over and over.

My first idea was to escape. It hadn’t kicked in that I had no options. I tried to pick the automatic lock to my door. I even tried to think of a way to melt the nine-inch-thick plastic window to get out. I wondered if anyone even remembered that I was in this room or if I even existed. No sounds. No visitors. Nothing but the deep thump of my heartbeats and the sound of my deep breaths.

The next morning I woke up to the horrible sound of the Juvenile Hall guard’s voice telling us to get up and make our beds. I had barely opened my eyes, thinking my bad dream was over. But it wasn’t—it had just started.

I was so terrified about what was going to happen. I was in trouble with the law and my family. I was more afraid of coming out than staying in. I was going to be dealing with the toughest family and teachers. I had a lot to think about in 48 hours. I had a weird feeling about worrying my teachers, as they had become a big part of my life. I never thought I would even become close to one. I thought they gave me Fs because they just didn’t like me. The truth was that I was at the best high school, where teachers love their students and will take that extra step to make sure that we succeed.

When I was 15, I could have sworn my birth certificate said 21. I even got to live like an adult. But when I was 16, that’s where it got bad and my adulthood paid me back. “Erendira Gutierrez, please strip and bend over. Then cough.” Those were the words of the woman who left me bare and cold and ashamed. Assault and robbery was what it was called, for my case. The fingerprints, the mug shot, everything I’ve watched on Cops is what I experienced.

At the age of 15, I was known as a juvenile delinquent. Who would have ever thought I would follow in my brother’s footsteps? Life was surrounded by gangs, in my eyes. I grew up in a neighborhood where the majority were Latinos who immigrated from all over Latin America. Gangs came in the late 1960s, which carried on from generation to generation. The people I looked up to and the people who I thought I could be with, the ones with the so-called power, were failures, gang members.

The four days I was in Juvie felt like four months. Every time they closed the doors behind me, I felt this bitterness that the system had the key to my life, and in reality it did. Who was I to blame at the age of 15? “The white man put me here,” I thought, but the fact was I couldn’t blame anyone but myself. It was the Chicana girl that put herself here.

The two people that I was mostly worried about were my aunt, Beatriz, and my teacher, Mr. Ayers. They both had done a lot for me to achieve. I was embarrassed and ashamed. They both had tried to keep me out of trouble, but there was nothing they could say or do to change my mind. I had to find it in my eyes. Two thoughts, giving in to my gang or proving myself for the rest of my life. It had to be one or the other that was more important to me.

When I was a little girl, I always wanted to be like my Tia Beatriz, who I thought was mean and smart, a very strong Chicana with a perfect family that included a dog. I could only think she was very lucky, but now I was starting to realize that it had nothing to do with luck. At this point, I had to think about what was best for me—having everything she had or not knowing if I’m going to live the next day or not. I had to think if my gang was going to make me happy or if I should go to college, get a good job, education, and have a family of my own.

All these points laid out for me made me change so quickly. My outlook, my views, my friends, my attitude changed. Here I am today, May 1999, at UC Santa Cruz, getting some help from college students. They are helping me to write this college admission essay. Sitting with one of my classmates whom I hated during my sophomore year because I thought she was too smart, telling her my story and asking for her opinions.

I never once thought that I would make it this far or even visit a college to write an essay for my future. I’m thinking right now, and looking back, even if it was a few months ago, how stupid and selfish I was. I was making myself think I was going to become someone bigger with power. The real power is what good things you do with your life. I know that college is just the beginning of those good things for me.