How to explain awards and acronyms on the UC application

UUCLA's admissions office hires seasonal readers each year, and its own hiring page gives a fair sketch of the person who will score your application: someone with at least a bachelor's degree, quite possibly a counselor at another high school, an alumni volunteer or a retired member of the admissions staff. They trained in November with norming sessions, scoring practice files until their judgments matched the group's, and now they read online, from wherever they are, through a quota that runs into the hundreds.

That person knows a great deal about how to read an application. They know almost nothing about your town, your school's clubs or the competition you won last spring, and families rarely write with that in mind.