6 Tips to Consider When Writing Personal Statements
You want to continue with your studies and go to graduate school. You’ve studied hard for the GRE. Now all that’s standing between you and grad school is writing your personal statement. The personal statement is a unique part of the graduate school application where the admissions committee will assess your writing skills. Writing an effective personal statement (also called the graduate admissions essay, letter of intent, or statement of purpose) may very well be the make-or-break decision on whether you will get into grad school in the first place. Most applications provide hazy instructions on how to write your essay. To give you a clearer idea, here are 6 tips to consider when writing personal statements.
1. Allot enough time for drafting and revisions.
Writing the personal statement will likely be one of the hardest pieces of your admissions package. Procrastination is the enemy to a well-written personal statement. Set aside at least one month to write, revise, and edit your work.
2. Ask for comments on your essay.
The best sources of feedback are professors, grad students, and even fellow psychology majors since they can tell you what you must focus on and what details to include or exclude. You can also ask for feedback from friends who are English, comparative literature, or philosophy majors. They can help you smooth out the language and logic you used in your essay. Not only do you want to demonstrate stellar writing ability, but admissions committees are also looking for great critical thinkers.
3. Make your essay simple (but not too simplistic) and easy to understand.
Avoid using big words and superfluous sentences, as they will make it hard to get your message across. Some students tend to overuse their thesaurus and add in words that do not flow naturally in the English language. Ditto to those who add so many big words that the point of the sentence becomes lost. This is why it is critical to ask for feedback from those who can write well.
4. Keep your essay short.
One to two pages single-spaced will do if your application does not specify the length of the essay. Basically, be short, sweet, and to the point. After reading so many essays, the admissions committee will thank you for being concise.
5. Unless you are 100% sure you can pull it off, avoid using humor in the essay.
You may think your sense of humor is great, but the admissions committee may disagree. Just avoid making a faux paus by maintaining a professional tone.
6. Use spellcheck and check thoroughly for typos.
Proofread your essay many times until there is no single typographical or grammatical error left. Have another person (a professor or grad student) proofread your essay to make sure it is free of errors you may have missed.
If this has been helpful and you’d like to learn more, please visit: Get into grad school
Visit the definitive source on applying to Ph.D. programs in psychology: Applying to graduate school
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Need more guidance on writing an effective personal statement?
Consult Petersen’s “How To Write The Perfect Personal Statement!”
