The personal statements are a very important part of your application. They assist the university in knowing you as an individual, independent of test scores and other objective data. We ask that you respond to two of the topics below. Your personal statement should be no longer than a total of 500 words or 7000 characters for both statements combined. The best personal statements are not necessarily the longest ones. *1 picked the following two questions to do my essay on: 1. How has your family history, culture or environment influenced who you are? 2. What qualities or unique characteristics do you possess that would allow you to contribute to the college community?