Personal Statement 2: Five months, four dancers, three performances, two days in Hong Kong, and one Silver Award later, my Senior Capstone Project was complete. It was undoubtedly the highlight of my senior year, and quite possibly my greatest high school accomplishment. I signed up for the Capstone course to explore the vague idea of pursuing dance outside the boundaries of what my school offered. But when I began the class, I had no idea which direction to take it in....

Deciding to take a gap year enabled me to take dance classes without the worry of working around a school schedule, and is the ideal setup to remedy the gaps in the technical training I received while living overseas.

The UC application requires two short personal statements in response to a few questions so I chose to write about my experience in my senior capstone class. It was the most defining part of my high school career because it was about multiple subjects that I am/was very interested in: dance and travel. Seeing as the project spanned a semester, it was easy to write about. There were multiple times in the process where the next step was unclear,...

Overseas background, commitment to and...

I declined admission at UGA because it was not only far from my...

UCLA is close to my hometown (one that I haven't lived in in over 13 years, but still). I was also eligible for in-state tuition, so that was an easy plus. UCLA had a dance...

I chose schools primarily based on the availability...