Personal History Statement--Berkeley

[purplepepper]

Is anyone out there applying to Berkeley?

For those of you who know, the application requires a "personal history statement" which is much like a diversity statement from what I gather. Berkeley allows for a ridiculous length though--about 1000 words, where at other universities the diversity statement usually isn't more than 300 or 400 words.

What are people's thoughts about submitting just a 300 or 400 word length version? Is there anyone who knows if this personal history statement needs to be the full length, or if the abbreviated version will do?

By the way, Berkeley also allows the SOP to be up to 1300-1400 words (mine will be 1000, since that is what I'm submitting to other universities. Can't really add the extra 300 just to fill up space!)

Thoughts anyone?

[timuralp]

When I applied last year my SOP was about a page and same for the personal statement. I only applied to 2 schools that required personal statements: Cal and Michigan, so I just wrote one for each I think, which wasn't a big deal. Not sure if that helps at all.

Cheers.

P.S. I found their personal statement prompt to be complete BS. Oh, and I also didn't get in Berkeley, so you might not want to follow what I did

[nyr]

I emailed Berkeley about that, and this is what they replied:

The Statement of Purpose should be 3-5 pages double-spaced.

There is no length requirement for the Personal History Statement, however most tend to be 1-2 pages.

Hopefully, that helps!