personal statement template

personal statement template

Crafting a Compelling Personal Statement: A Comprehensive Guide

1. Introduction to Personal Statements

Personal statements have long been a staple component of college and job applications alike. At present, a well-crafted personal statement is perhaps more important than ever. Given how many candidates may boast impressive GPAs, test scores, or resumes, a personal statement provides an opportunity for a more complete, comprehensive view of you as an applicant. There are three essay prompts to choose from for the Common Application Personal Essay. One will require an additional supplementary essay, asking you to disclose more specific information about you. While there is no word limit or specific length, your writing should be pertinent to the essay prompt or topic. If requested, a secondary personal statement should generally not exceed 650 words.

When crafting your personal statement, there are a few key guidelines to keep in mind. The goal is to share information not already included in your application file that adds value to the overall profile. The personal statement should fill in gaps in the student’s application, reveal who the applicant is beyond grades, scores, other academic concerns, and help the admissions committee learn more about the candidate. Typically, the only things that should be elaborated on are unique circumstances or experiences that may not be found on the application. These might include personal challenges, successes that may not be evident in the application and may not be on your résumé. To avoid common errors when drafting personal statements, carefully review all application materials. If the activities interview has been reported, ensure that the personal statement would not duplicate this information. Central to an effective statement is for applicants to tell their story in a personal and compelling manner, emphasizing long-term contributions to MIT, values, views of themselves or others, background and experience. Refrain from discussing academic or career goals (including intended major or how MIT can help), for this is not the purpose of the personal statement and will serve the admissions committee more effectively when addressed in an evaluative interview. Make the personal statement engaging, exploring aspects of your life and personality not easily seen or fully evident in other segments of the application.

2. Identifying Your Unique Selling Points

On page 1, we discussed the basic mechanics, or in other words, the 5 things that a compelling personal statement must achieve. On page 2, we take a look at the very first task you must complete in your process of crafting an effective personal statement.

After working with personal statement drafts, of course, the conversation naturally drifts to identifying strengths. For some students, this is easy, for others, not so much. Those with prior professional work experience have had the opportunity to work with supervisors and come to understand what their strengths are by virtue of being told what their strengths are. In addition, as Brandeis graduate school dean Karen Muncaster has said, “The more self-reflective [candidates] are, the more successful [they will be in] the admissions process.” A word about authenticity: a compelling personal statement leverages the strengths of the applicant. Thus, it is very helpful if, on the one hand, your strengths are by their very nature unique, and, on the other hand, if they are backed up by the empirical evidence of one’s resume. Conversely, the biggest mistake is to parse the job description and declare yourself the ideal candidate because you have all the attributes they need. That’s a bit too convenient, isn’t it?

Whatever you decide your “brand” is, remember that a personal statement can’t be effective if it’s not true. Curiously, this is sort of a corollary to the previous point. The total unveil of what’s expected of candidates for this waiver means we’re now faced with the stark reality of standing alongside candidates with 1600 GREs and 4.0 GPAs. Your work experiences are highly developed and impressive. But “impressive” itself just doesn’t get us to compelling. The adcom has to be able to see a deeper, inner reflection in order to understand how you might fit into the culture at this program. What parts of your personal story might make you a particularly well-matched candidate for this degree?

3. Structuring Your Personal Statement

To structure a compelling personal statement, consider the following structure: theme/message, anecdote, background/research experience, future research, significance, and complimentary closing. Many applications will specify word limits as well as what components should be included in the personal statement, so be sure to pay attention to those before drafting.

When creating the central message of your statement, consider what speaks to you the most: the “why” and research. When approaching these two components, you need to ask yourself “why?” Why are you passionate about what you are discussing? Why does it matter? After you have crafted the main message you want to convey in your personal statement, create a compelling opening. A great way to create engaging and visually appealing openers is to begin with an anecdote, even though it should be brief. It creates a snapshot of a point in your research journey when everything comes full circle.

Your background/research involvement should explain your path to where you are now, e.g., your undergrad research service at areas psych rehab and most recently research justice for the mentally ill population; relevant paid and volunteer work. This part of the personal statement can also briefly describe your process, who your mentor was, what projects you were involved in, what methods you were using, etc. This structure allows you to clearly articulate your background and involvement in research in a way that makes it significant to the admissions committee. Be sure to emphasize what is important to you, not just what you did. It also directly sets up what your research focus is and opens the door for you to discuss it.

The future research paragraph outlines your career goals, where you see yourself in five years, etc. You must be specific about what you want to study, if you can relate it to a unique feature of that school, so much the better. Avoid generalizing about patient-centered medicine and saying how much you like it as everyone says this.

The significance paragraph shows that your plans for a research career are important and significant. You might also want to talk about program features that will facilitate your academic pursuit. When you are wrapping up, lead into a strong finish. Decide whether it is appropriate to close with an anecdote and make a circle or come full circle. Choose a closing that leaves an impression and compels the reader to want to sit down and talk with you. This allows the reader to leave with a lasting impression, whether from the story you’ve told them or an idea that has been sparked by what they read, and serves to make you as a person stick out.

4. Writing Techniques and Tips

Normally, a personal statement serves as an introduction, implying that narrative surprisingly serves as the most excellent approach in many circumstances. Some tales only require a few words to set the scene, and a 1,500-word narrative about a six-minute occasion generally lacks vibrancy and is dull. A lot of essays, after the opening paragraph, delve straight into experiential wisdom, notably since it cuts away from the ethos of an individual who’s met great thinkers and begun to read hundreds of essential texts from psychology, mathematics, ethics, or the like. Describing immersion with reading has two benefits: first, it accurately describes how much these books mean to the storyteller, and second, it suggests that certain wisdom has come from these texts and the community of men who have dwelled on them, which has completely overwhelmed the writer’s school- or life-learned knowledge or character.

Other essays tend to drift steadily from side to side, achieving an episodic or vignette-like consistency. Instead of constructing a narrative, they might reflect on the importance of separate occurrences in their life and adopt a much more slowed-down style. A personal statement need not offer a blur of information about a person. In reality, concentrating on a single example will enable the applicant to extract several smaller but no less meaningful stories from it. Four passages on the effects of modern technological addiction and ten on the need to challenge the misguided notions and concepts that comfort us and open up new questions. You are more than an inference from your CV or your very finicky age entails. Describing one’s credo does neither, but it is far less forgotten.

5. Editing and Refining Your Personal Statement

After drafting and redrafting your personal statement, you should carefully edit and refine your personal statement to ensure it reads clearly and with purpose. Here are five key things to look out for.

Keep the reader in mind. As you reread and edit your personal statement, try to adopt a critical eye from the perspective of the admissions officer. Imagine being another person rating hundreds of statements. Even if you believe something is common knowledge, provide a sentence or two of context to ground the reader’s understanding. Avoid simply stating a list of personal attributes and experiences – your personal statement should offer narrative depth, and the stories nearly every applicant has experienced should be told with an original twist.

Remove redundancy. If you mention an experience or quality in response to multiple prompts, ensure you are offering new insights each time. If this task becomes difficult, consider identifying the prompt you feel most aligns with your story and focus on responding to it only. Remember that your current identity (school, race, gender, hobbies, etc.) is established in your application. Therefore, you should not start off with something that is already on your application. When trying to “hook” or “grab” a reader’s attention, make sure you are doing this with a unique personal story detailed in your personal statement or your unique reading of something in your life (if appropriate). Avoid cliché hooks like “From a young age I…” or “Ever since I was a child.”

Get feedback and revise. You should be your first critic. Take a draft of your personal statement to the UC Writing Center, or to someone who can give you some critical feedback. One or two drafts is usually enough, as you do not want to lose the voice you have worked hard to create. Also, ask for feedback from your college’s unofficial undergraduate Pre-Law or Pre-Health advisors.