a personal statement writing tips

a personal statement writing tips

Effective Strategies for Writing a Compelling Personal Statement

1. Introduction to Personal Statements

Personal statements are a common, albeit often challenging, component in applications for college, scholarship, or employment opportunities. As the name implies, a personal statement should be a window into your personality and life – it should allow the reader a sneak peek into who you are and why you are the ideal candidate. The statement provides applicants with the opportunity to discuss difficult times, great successes, or everything in between that has had a tremendous impact on the way we think, view the world, act, and lead – in effect, what makes us “tick”. The personal statement is that one thing that can and will set you apart from the rest – it’s your one-and-only chance to show off your unique personality and share your unique story.

There are many effective ways to write a compelling introduction paragraph. We have a team of advisors, friends, colleagues, and clients who are always looking at drafts of essays and reading personal statements. Although other readers may disagree, they are our recommendations for some effective strategies. It is clear, fluid, captivating, achieving that balance of being detailed, and unclear ideas and vague references. Even if you have it personally, don’t be obvious about it. Stand out, have a hook. This should give the reader a reason to want to keep reading – introduce a theme that you will refer to throughout the essay.

2. Understanding the Purpose and Audience

Once you have generated a list of experiences that may serve as the content for your personal statement, given it a lot of thought, spoken to friends, faculty, and family, and sought advice on the potential power of each, you are hopefully ready to write! Unless your prompt is very specific, once again, as you sit down to write, what you are hoping to convey will likely change. Personal statements are most important when you are applying to an extremely competitive program, where all the applicants have high test scores and GPAs, and when you are a marginal candidate and need the essay to compensate for low test scores or a low GPA. Regardless, we always recommend starting brainstorming sessions as early as possible! Even if you have no idea what the content will be, you are all well advised to make all your essay readers excited by your writing, narrative voice, and personal story right from the start.

Now that we have you thinking about the topic of your essay, and ending the opening paragraph with a thesis sentence, and using anecdotes, you have the nice problem of getting out. Once again, do not be afraid to tailor the moves we have discussed in class and in our textbook on writing a personal statement. When we use your personal situation, be careful not to make the personal statement too personal. All of us are complex, and all of us have multiple, conflicting, and consistent aspects of who we are—what the personal statement allows is for you to discuss these multiple aspects! Remember to change the details of the story to fit your own experiences, though, our plagiarism checker is not forgiving! You should try to make your essay as interesting as possible.

3. Crafting a Strong Opening

Thank you for sending in your personal statement. You should be feeling a sense of accomplishment submitting this first draft, knowing that some students put off writing for weeks on end! That’s right, I know many students who postponed crafting a personal statement because they found opening a statement to be a challenging task. It will be useful to explore the key elements of a compelling personal statement opening by reading over this opening first paragraph, which will help you appreciate its effectiveness.

Let’s dive into the crucial work of constructing a bold opening. First sentences, generalizations, and dull sentences stand out from the crowd. Since we spend a lot of time looking at misplaced and bad initial sentences, it’s beneficial to start with extraordinary paragraphs rather than newbie errors. Make a point to enthrall the reader from the instant they set eyes on your file. Right to the point, a single, thought-provoking sentence that keeps the reader involved. Explain why your statement stands out from others as soon as possible. The foundation for your essay should be set. Establish a welcoming or solemn tone that reflects your personal style. Kick things off with a compelling narrative, literary introspection, mystery, or philosophical reverie. What is a killer “hook”? We all look at the hooks of the statement to see what unfolds.

4. Highlighting Your Unique Qualities and Experiences

It is important to remember, when writing a personal statement, that your readers are evaluating you as an individual apart from your CV, academic experience, or work record. In this section, you have been asked to describe any personal qualities, characteristics, or skills you possess in the context of professional training or experience. The gatekeepers see to it that the proclaimed attributes are more than just big words on a page. Your personal statement should also highlight your uniqueness as an individual, not just in the experience you have had, but in the person that you are. With so much emphasis on net worth, a competitive application often comes down to character and personality.

This is perhaps the harder area of the statement to excel in, because admission boards are looking for authenticity in the setting of individual experience rather than the cookie-cutter image of an iconoclast or a prodigy. One strategy is to reflect upon major experiences of one’s life and articulate what was the most meaningful to you and why, and finally how this event contributed to emotional, cognitive, or spiritual growth or change. Part of this articulation is an account of the emotional impact that the event has had, which deepens the connection to this material, though it must be done gracefully, diplomatically, and professionally. Similar themes can be applied to experiences such as travel, volunteerism, performances, research, etc. The idea is to illustrate your depth and character and to distinguish yourself as an illustrated and thoughtful human being.

5. Structuring and Editing for Impact

Rather than launch into this topic with advice about what to write, we took some time to discuss who reads the personal statement and what it might overcome or corroborate – without saying the ‘p’ or ‘t’ words once. This shift in approach was aimed at getting readers to stop thinking about themselves versus an unseen admissions officer and focus instead on the concrete thing they need to produce to make an impact – a text. This more grounded approach to revision appeared to resonate well with readers!

4. Structural Revision At this time in the process, you likely have amassed more content than you can include in the personal statement while staying within length constraints. Before you sit down to write, therefore, you should reacquaint yourself with the points you’d like to get across and start organizing those points so they can be conveyed coherently. This is the time both to jot a rough outline and to critically examine the gradual attained effect of one image or one argument leading into another. Revising your content to be presented in a certain way is a kind of strategizing meant to achieve a creative impression or draw out an a-ha moment that only in that exact arrangement would offer itself. Writers must do a kind of complex evidence of the psychological as well as semantic effects of various arrangements, each time focusing on that.