What to write in the UC Additional Comments section

TThe University of California application gives applicants two places for context, a short comment space in the academic history section and an Additional Comments box after the essays, and former UC Berkeley readers say both are read even though neither is required. That combination makes them easy to misuse.

Some families leave a real hardship unexplained because the box looked optional. Others fill it with material readers were told to set aside, and spend a little of the attention a file gets in its ten or fifteen minutes on lines that change nothing. Former Berkeley readers give consistent advice about what belongs there, and it starts with what a reader is trying to judge.