Writing a Personal Statement for Graduate School Admissions

If you are applying to graduate school, you will have to write a personal statement. Regardless of the degree, either a direct personal statement or an essay whose questions require you to discuss yourself and your motivations is generally required of all applicants. Graduate schools vary in terms of the weight they place on various factors during the admissions process. Some will place more weight on your undergraduate grades and GRE, LSAT, or GMAT scores, others will place more eight on your essays and recommendations. Regardless, the personal statement allows admissions committees to see who you are as a person, which has a significant impact on their decision to accept or reject you. It's extremely important to write a compelling statement that allows an admissions committee to see you as a multifaceted individual who would be an asset to their student body.

Brainstorming the Personal Statement

You should start by exploring the reasons you would like to attend graduate school. A good exercise that will help you get your reasons on paper is freewriting. Freewriting is an exercise in which you write anything and everything you can thing of about a topic for a preset period without self-censoring. In other words, you ignore the rules of punctuation and grammar and syntax; you write as much as possible about the topic without worrying about it making too much sense. Also make sure that you do not stop writing; don't let your pen leave the paper. If you stop to think, you are doing it wrong.

Spend five days doing this. The first day, take a blank sheet of paper and write everything you can think of about "why you want to go to graduate school" for seven or ten full minutes without stopping. Put this sheet of paper some place safe and don't look at it. The following days, freewrite about related topics of your choice, such as:

• When I became interested in my field of study
• Why I want to study in a particular environment
• Why I want to study at a particular school
• What I want to do with my degree
• Where I see myself in five years
• What my academic/professional life has been thus far
• Why graduate school is a good choice for me at this stage of my life

When you are finished, put them away and avoid looking at them for at least a couple of days after you've finished the final one. When you do finally pull them out, you may be surprised at what you have put down. You may have written down some reasons you didn't realize you had for going to graduate school. You may even find out you have compelling reasons not to go to graduate school (!), but if you still have good reasons for going, this exercise will give you some good primary material for an outline.

Outlining the Personal Statement

After this, take a look at your research - notes from campus visits, campus websites, graduate school brochures, and the like. Start to extract salient facts that show that you are a good fit for the campus and that it is a good fit for you. Look at all of the facts as potential evidence to make that argument. For example, if the graduate program in question looks for people who are intellectually curious, then the evidence you might include beyond your previous academic work, is perhaps the fact that you are from a rural background, and your ideal campus is in the city. The advantage of freewriting is that small insights like that will likely wind up on paper. For each school you plan to apply to, the outline for the personal statement should demonstrate those two points: you are a good fit for them and they are a good fit for you. Create a rough outline of the most compelling reasons you have for going.

Writing the Personal Statement

Then write a draft. You will usually have a word limit to which you must adhere. For the first draft, ignore it.

Your paper should be straightforward and in your own voice. Overusing the jargon of a particular field becomes readily apparent to experts in that field. If you are not a strong writer try to avoid using humor, because the printed word can easily be misconstrued. Even if you are, only bring it up if it's a part of your core argument about the fit of the school. Remember too that there's a delicate balancing act between demonstrating humor as a key strength, and demonstrating professional and personal maturity. At the same time, it should not be too dry. An anecdote or two might help, but do not overdo it. Put your draft away for at least two days. Reread it.

If you've written more than the word limit, edit it down and then put it away again for another day or so.

If it's within the word limit and you think it flawless, show it to three other people. If there's someone who you hate showing your work to because they are (constructively) critical of everything, show your work to that person.

Rewrite again. It may be helpful to revisit the freewriting exercises during your writing phase particularly if your statement is particularly deficient in some aspect.

Put away again.

Reread again (and have others reread it as well).

Rewrite, and repeat as necessary. You'll know you're don when you feel that it's your best work; and everyone that you show your statement to is not only convinced that this is your best work, but that you are a great fit for the graduate program in question.

Keep rereading and rewriting as necessary. Show to as many people as you can afford to who can provide substantive constructive criticism. You should not submit anything other than your most polished work.