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Graduate School Personal Statement
Guide
| The Admissions Essay Prep Leader shares essay
writing strategies and samples that will help you gain entrance to your first
choice graduate school. For more free essay writing advice and for help with
your admissions essay, visit EssayEdge.com. |
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| Graduate
School Statement Strategies |
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Graduate School Personal Statement Guide
The personal statements or essays required of
graduate school applicants fall into two major categories. First, there is the
general, comprehensive personal statement, which allows the applicant more
latitude in what he or she writes. The second category encompasses essays that
are responses to specific questions. Here you might have less latitude in terms
of your topic, but it is still possible and prudent to compose a thoughtful and
compelling response that holds the reader’s interest.
No matter
what type of application form you are dealing with, it is extremely important
that you read each question carefully and
respond fully to it. Some applications are more vague or general in their
instructions than others; for these, it is often possible to compose almost any
sort of essay you wish. You have virtually total control, and you also have a
remarkable opportunity that you can either maximize or squander—the choice is
yours.
The best way to approach your
personal statement is to imagine that you have five minutes with someone from
the admissions committee. How would you go about making the best case for
yourself while holding the listener's interest? What would you include and omit
in your story? Figuring out the answer to these questions is critical to
successfully preparing an effective statement.
To arrive at
these answers, you should begin by asking yourself some more specific
questions:
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Why have I chosen
to attend graduate school this specific field, and why did I choose to apply to
this particular school's program?
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What are my
qualifications for admission?
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What is special,
unique, or impressive about my life story?
The answers will
not necessarily come easily to you, but this exercise will have great practical
benefit in readying you to write an outstanding personal statement. After
answering each question thoroughly, you will have given much thought to
yourself, your experiences, and your goals, thereby laying the groundwork for
formulating an interesting and persuasive presentation of your own personal
story. We have divided our strategies in this section of the course into
categories that follow those questions.
The Future
Over the Past
"First, they
should tell me where they're coming from--what it is in their background that
leads them to apply to a program like ours. Second, they should tell me what it
is they want to get out of our program. Third, I want to know where they hope
our program will eventually take them in their career."
-- The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International
Affairs, Princeton University
"Usually a
straight autobiography should be avoided, although interesting and pertinent
autobiographical facts should be included. But the statement should be more
future-oriented than past-oriented. I don't really want the story of a student's
life (although there are exceptions), but rather plans for and a vision of the
future."
-- Graduate English Department,
UCLA
"Mistakes? Dwelling on past accomplishments as opposed
to describing future interests. The recitation of past accomplishments, prizes
won and scores gotten-all that kind of stuff-is helpful but at the stage when
we're reading the statement, we know all the applicants are highly qualified;
that is almost beside the point. What we're looking for at that stage is, again,
some insight into how the student thinks, what sort of clarity of purpose he has
into one or more research areas."
-- Graduate Admissions Committee
Applied Mechanics, Civil
Engineering & Mechanical Engineering, California Institute of
Technology
Whereas some professional programs, particularly law
schools, give applicants more freedom to discuss any past experiences that may
help them to stand out, graduate schools are chiefly interested in your past
only as it relates to your future. That said, if there are aspects of your
background that would make you stand out, you should still try to incorporate
them into your discussion. Just be prepared to put in a little more thought and
analysis.
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