Personal Essay
There are two main criteria for writing a successful personal essay
- Follow directions exactly
- Distinguish yourself from the crowd through your past experiences
Follow Directions
Admission committees will be reading through dozens, hundreds or thousands of applications depending on where you are applying. A heuristic that most follow to make their jobs easier is to throw out all those that don’t follow instructions. So, read questions carefully and answer what they ask for. Try to be clear and concise and always stay under word/page limits (with NO formatting tricks). Give yourself as much time as possible to work on these essays by selecting potential schools early and getting together all of the admissions material you need. By starting early, you’ll be able to have the best opportunity to have a number of people look through your materials to improve them. Then, at your leisure:
- Read each program thoroughly
- Select the schools/programs/advisors you want to apply to
- Prepare to write and tailor to each specific school/program/advisor
Distinguish Yourself from the Crowd
Admissions committees need to know is who you are -- and in particular, what you can do (in order for them to know think about what you might be able to do). Tell them why you are attracted to the profession/field, what you've done to prepare, and what you hope to accomplish. You do this by telling the story of yourself (while minimizing the grammatical first person and self-aggrandizement - it’s a difficult line to walk). Also, distinguish yourself without being odd. This isn’t a “viral” way to ask someone to prom or trying to make an impression on the first night of the Bachelor/Bachelorette.
The personal essay let's you tell the admissions committee that you are prepared to be a graduate student because you've already experienced the things that make graduate school difficult, taking difficult classes, teaching, time management, research and you're ready for more.
Basic Outline of a Personal Statement
- Motivation for studying -- opening paragraph -- anecdotal/narrative (why this field/profession?)
- Qualities/Experiences -- told by example -- a few focused, well-developed arguments -- no listing, re-hashing of cv (why you? - what can you do)
- Future Plans -- what populations, organizational settings, research are you interested in? Not set in stone, but need some indication (what are your plans?). This is especially important if you are applying to work with a specific advisor.
- School Choice -- why this program?
Things to think about/consider
- Most Important Rule -- Only write about what is directly relevant your merit as a graduate student. No need to go high school English essay on the admissions committee and add famous quotes from other people
- Be truthful - They need to know what you have done - from this they will think about what you will be able to do. The best predictor of future success is past success. While this may not always be true, remember that grad schools are looking to make many year investments in people and have generally found that people who have had experiences analogous to what they will experience in grad school, will be more likely to stay in grad school when many things that can go wrong, do go wrong.
- Does the essay begin in an interesting manner? Is motivation clear? (remember that motivation doesn't have to be amazing, but it needs to be there and must sound sincere)
- Details sell. Do not write out your CV. Choose one or two experiences that were particularly meaningful and/or can illustrate qualities that you want the admissions committee to know.
- Tell the story (what happened)
- Does the applicant sound clear and certain about their future?
- Tell what you learned (what you got out of it)
- Tell how what you learned applies to success in grad school or in your profession (why it matters)
- Does the applicant sound focused and enthusiastic about the field? Where?
- Does the applicant include attributes that indicate preparation for graduate school as well as potential for the same?
- Again, are achievements and experiences included? Are achievements and experiences presented in stories with clear lessons that include overtly stated application to graduate/professional success?
- Are there cliches, platitudes, quotes or other distracting, empty phrases used? Don’t use them.
- Are vivid, strong vocabulary words used? Are there places where weak or over-used words are used? Just make sure to not use your thesaurus, it can be off-putting to see vocabulary that doesn't seem to fit.
References
Schafer, M.S. Writing the research report. Retrieved from http://users.clas.ufl.edu/msscha/psych/personal_statement.html
;