personal statement writers

personal statement writers

The Art of Crafting Compelling Personal Statements: A Comprehensive Guide

1. Introduction to Personal Statements

Personal statements are a critical component of the college admissions process. Although curriculums and standardized test result summaries boast various academic, extracurricular activities, work experiences, and honors or awards, the personal statement is like the canvas against which the application can really come to life. Artfully crafted personal statements matter to admissions counselors because they help reveal who students really are. Colleges and universities know that while there might be an overachiever with perfect SAT or ACT scores or a four-point GPA at their high school that has taken every AP or IB course offered, they really hope for a class bustling with different characters, perspectives, and qualities.

The only way to learn about these other pieces of an applicant’s true self is to read their genuine, original words and thoughts. When a student’s personal statement is working, admissions officers will be thoroughly charmed, intrigued, moved, and impressed enough to admit them. So much rides on the strength of your personal statement that applicants can feel pressured and paralyzed with writer’s block. This guide will lift some of the mystery and intimidation around writing a college application essay by coaching you through the processes of brainstorming essay prompts, identifying your personal strengths and writing style, getting in the right mindset, free writing, condensing, editing, and polishing. In the chapters that follow, you’ll learn some approaches college essays that work share, learn you’ll more about yourself, and have the information and tools you need to get started on your own personal statement.

2. Understanding the Purpose and Audience

To write an effective personal statement, you must first understand the purpose of this document and keep in mind the intended readers. As the application itself is essentially a blend of personal and academic qualifications, the personal statement should reflect the character, passions, achievements, and beliefs that define this unique fusion. The admissions specialist reads the part of the application carefully and even uses it to provide a personal impression of the candidate. This impression is vitally significant when it comes to fit. Thus, the aim of the piece is to reveal something about the applicants’ personalities to admissions pros. In this case, the applicants are being evaluated for a certain skill set, and the speech should make clear that they would be excellent candidates. The approach must be precise. The statements should be specific and engaging. It will give the readers a feel for the person who wrote it.

To write an informative personal statement, you must have a specific target audience in mind. We propose writing about certain individuals you have already met in order to set that audience as a real individual and confide in them. Consider the hopes you have in reading the application. You want candidates who wish to be a part of the program and bring us something new and special. As you work on your personal statement, imagine if they are reading your essays and sitting in a room with 20 other applicants who already match the profile you have created. What would you tell us to stand out from the rest of the participants? Be specific and honest. Keep in mind that if the values and vision are in line with those of the agency, the more genuinely involved you are in those issues.

Finally, a personal statement is just that—personal! It’s a one-of-a-kind piece of prose that paints a picture of you as a student, as a human being, and as a future member of our campus community. Be yourself, and make an emotional connection. We anticipate your response with bated breath!

3. Structuring Your Personal Statement

The structural blueprint: A personal statement operates differently from a resume, for example, where the chronological outline demonstrates the breadth and length of your experience. A personal statement, instead, is an essay of personal and professional self-reflection. Consider the structure as instructive: a prologue and epilogue should envelop the middle of your reflection. These sections represent your present and future, respectively, while the heart of the essay will unfold your past and how you have come to this moment in time. In other words, use the tone and language of composing a cohesive narrative. Treat your personal statement as an essay instead of an inventory or list.

One solid way to execute these structural schemes is chronological, offering a hybrid account of transitions. Each begins and ends with a qualification in the present and future, giving some direction to the writer while connecting, through a legitimate process, the life decision of education. Another structural writing blueprint is the humanizing resume: a framework wherein each paragraph unpacks a particular and poignant experience, using the autobiography of that incident as the narrative of the entire work. This approach can work particularly well for individuals with gap leadership on resumes. Follow each anecdote with the point of growth and learning, and it can layer your essay with a philosophical approach, which the reader may find interesting.

4. Showcasing Your Unique Qualities and Experiences

Once you have a good idea of how you should structure your personal statement, consider spending some time putting your outline together. Doing so can help you identify any potential challenges in crafting an effective statement that allows the admissions board to see you as a candidate. From there, you can revise your outline as needed to structure and shape your story in the most effective way.

Providing a unique perspective Your personal statement offers you the chance to show off your distinctive qualities and the experiences you’ve had that set you apart. Make sure to choose those personality traits and experiences that will help you stand out, make you who you are, and will make the admissions board members want to know you better. The most memorable personal statements are those that keep their readers focused on the applicant themselves. Many candidates make the mistake of spending too much time writing about others when they ought to be focusing on themselves in these papers. It is being upfront about who you are and specifically pinpointing things that hold true for you that will make you the most unforgettable to those who peruse these documents.

Show, don’t tell: Sharing indicative experiences One of the strengths that an applicant can bring to this part of their graduate application and indeed their application to graduate school, in general, is the level of reflection on their experiences and the understanding they have already garnered about themselves as a result. The MIT center recently ran a study that showed recommendations from peers of an applicant had a predictable outcome. Admissions, it turns out, are genuinely seeking to know a student in a fairly unvarnished, authentic way. Candidates must let their personalities shine in this paper. Any tactics for shoe-horning enforced “team-players” or “compassionate, empathetic helpers” would prove likely to lead to negative results. It is much wiser to focus on one situation and determine what story this one instance makes clear.

5. Editing and Refining Your Personal Statement

Give yourself plenty of time for this final stage of drafting your personal statement. Good writing is rewriting, after all, and polishing your initial ideas will lift your personal statement from good to excellent. You will be working at a word level to ensure clarity and precision, while also thinking about the overall structure, flow of ideas, and flow of your personal statement. There are a range of techniques you can use, as follows.

– Read your writing out loud to yourself. It will become immediately clear where sentences are too long or unwieldy, where words don’t quite work, where you’re using the same phrases or words, or where there simply isn’t the right ‘flow’. – Read each sentence separately from the preceding and following sentences. This is a useful way to double-check that, taken alone, each sentence is saying something important. (Don’t worry about comprehensibility – it can be a bit disjointed to read an essay in this way, but that’s useful for pulling out any weak sentences.) – Be careful about making it too literary. You are given very limited space to communicate specific and concise information. Remember, every word you spend stating that you fulfilled or exhibited a particular virtue has to be cut from the section where you demonstrate it. – Don’t over-embellish your personal statement to win an admissions officer over. Obviously, you want it to be engaging, but superfluous fluff does nothing to show that you are suited for your course. It’s about giving enough information about yourself and your interest in your chosen subject so that the admissions officer is convinced that they should interview you.