Which UC personal insight questions should you answer?

FFormer UC Berkeley admissions readers say most applicants choose their four Personal Insight Questions backwards, and admissions leaders speaking on the University of California's own panel have said the same. Every UC applicant answers four of eight prompts in up to 350 words each, and the usual method is to read all eight, pick the four that sound easiest, and start drafting the same afternoon.

It feels efficient. It also tends to produce four essays that overlap, leave whole sides of the student unseen, or spend a slot on a story the reader cannot credit against the UC's review factors, and nobody tells the family which slot was lost. The order those readers recommend begins with a different question entirely.