Three Steps To Write A Winning Personal Statement For College Admission

The personal statement is your opportunity to give the admissions committee a sense of the person behind all the grades and test scores. Many of the other applicants are likely to have similar academic credentials, but none has your particular experience, background, or outlook. A strong personal statement can set you apart from other candidates. Remember, the admissions committee is looking for reasons to accept you, and you can make a strongly favorable impression with a thoughtful, well written statement.

While it may seem to you like an afterthought or a chore to be dispensed with as quickly as possible, nothing could be further from the truth. This is your best opportunity - short of a personal interview - to convey a sense of who you are, what is important to you, and why you would be an outstanding student.

Step 1: Interview yourself
Write short answers to a bunch of the following questions. Keep track of which ideas keep popping up, and when you seem to be repeating yourself. Limit yourself to one or two paragraphs so that you can answer as many of these as possible.

* What experiences do you like talking about the most? What has been the most interesting, intriguing, and exciting part of your life – why, and what did you learn from it?
* Discuss an activity or experience that has helped you to clarify your long-term academic goals.
* Name a class or internship that you have taken to develop expertise in your major field of study.
* Describe a person who has shaped your values or beliefs.
* In five years, where do you see yourself working and what do you envision yourself doing?
* Discuss a need of society that you hope to address in your career Use statistics and other published resources to document the magnitude of the problem.
* Describe your hometown and explain its impact on your beliefs or values.
* Discuss an obstacle that you’ve had to overcome to achieve your academic goals.
* Write me a letter, and tell me everything you do, your personal history, and what matters to you.
* What do you enjoy doing?
Click here to find more Self-Interview questions

Step 2: Start writing your essay
In many ways, writing a personal statement is a 180-degree turn from what you’re used to doing in college. You have been trained to write rather staid, formal, academic papers in which you know the format and what is expected of you, and the challenge lies in researching the topic at hand. In crafting a personal statement you are the world’s leading expert on the topic, but must create the method of conveying this information to the committee.

With that very general advice in mind, here are more specific do’s and don’ts for writing a personal statement:
DO

* Write from your gut. You’re used to writing from your head. Don’t let your head make it up. Listen to your gut, and get it down.
* You can’t tell them everything. Have a few main points you want to get across, and let them find out the rest of your story in your resume, interview, letters of recommendation, and other elements of your application.
* When you decide on the main points and stories you want to tell, answer these questions: What is the point of the story you’re telling? What do you need to include to tell it well? What isn’t necessary?

DON’T

* Don’t be flowery in your prose
* Don’t refer to me/I too many times
* Don’t use this as a resume in narrative form. You should only talk about those accomplishments that are directly germane to the subject at hand. Let them find out about your other activities through the other elements of your application.
Click here to find more Do's and Don'ts(Best tips for college admission essay writings I've ever seen.
Step 3: Read it
By now you should have a pretty much complete first draft of your statement. But it is far away from the end. First read through what you've written slowly and try to read it from someone else's point of view. Make sure it's easy to read and not confusing, make sure you've said everything you want to say and not under or oversold yourself.

Next get other people to read it, mainly your family, friends, teachers and anyone else who you think will be able to give you a good opinion. As well as checking for spelling and grammar mistakes, they will be able to tell you if they think there is anything you've missed out.

Also show it to head of year or career advisers, people like this will have seen a lot of statements, and have a good idea what they should sound like.

You could also get people on the internet to look at your statement, and see what they think.

Hopefully by looking at your statement again and showing to other people you should have a whole bunch of changes to make to your original statement. Before making these changes, save a copy of your original statement so you can go back to it if you need too. Keep making changes, showing people your statement, and making more changes.

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