Writing a Winning Personal Statement for Grad School

Write a comprehensive draft of your graduate school personal statement or essay. Make this version very personal. Express all of your deepest motivations and desires for graduate school. In this draft, allow yourself to be as emotional as you can. This process will help you not only sort out your feelings, but you might also discover deeper motivations for your pursuits and new goals may arise.

Consider this an exercise in self-exploration that is best kept to yourself. After all, you will need to be professional, objective, and concise in your finished drafts. Once you've got all of that off your chest, you can focus on the final draft(s) that you'll send to your desired graduate program(s).

If you intend to apply to multiple schools, having a thorough source document will be enormously helpful. You may be able to recycle certain bits on each grad school personal statement, such as the introduction, but the other parts may need to be cut or revised to meet the needs of varying program directives and focus.

Get motivated. Make sure you are motivated for every program you're applying to. This goes double for your top two or three choices. You need to be enthusiastic and excited to attend the program. If you have that sort of excitement driving you, admissions counselors will pick up on it.

To avoid any sort of burnout, try to space out your writing sessions. Even if you are trying to knock out all your personal statements in a single day, take breathers between each one. Take a walk around the block or run a few errands. When you return to your desk, your mind will be refreshed and ready to express your driving desire to attend that program.

Know your audience. This is a general rule of formal and business writing, but in this context, it means that you should know the specific requirements of each admissions department. Things like word count requirements mean a lot and should be heeded. You should also look for any tips on their website. Many programs provide examples that they found particularly effective. Study these and analyze what made those examples so successful.

Though every program will rely on numbers such as your GPA and test scores, they may really want to hear about your extra-curricular activities as well. A lifelong dedication to photography, for instance, may reveal not only a strong and consistent work-ethic, but a perpetual dedication to improvements, on top of the requisite attention to detail.

Other programs may be more interested in your academic experiences. Here, you might describe the first intro class you took and how that changed your major and the entire course of your life. These programs may also be interested in relevant work experience or special academic projects, such as scientific studies or internships.

Plan each personal statement. For you, this might entail a detailed outline. Others may jot a series of notes gleaned from what they learned on the admissions web page. Regardless of your specific method, make each planning document unique and specific to a particular program.

If you need to craft a series of personal statements or essays, write out your plan or outline for each one prior to crafting a full draft. This way you can have this planning step completed for each application and you won't be constructing each personal statement from whole cloth. Further, this will give your brain time to process these plans and you may discover new ideas between the planning and writing phases.

Make revisions and edits. One maxim professional writers live by is, "Writing is revising." You may jot out a full draft in a single sitting and think that it's perfect. However, if you return to it later, there's a significant chance that you will need to make at least a few changes.

It will also be immensely helpful to share your personal statement with a friend or colleague who can provide an objective critique. Though it's not always comfortable to hear criticism, any outside suggestions may make the difference between an average personal statement or essay and one that blows away the admissions counselors. You might even consider hiring a professional writer/editor to assist you.

Know your material. In this case, you must know exactly why you want to attend a graduate degree or graduate school in general, and what you intend to gain from it. Further, you need to know what you bring to the table. These things may seem self-evident, but that's not always the case. The more you explore your inner motivations and long-term goals the better you will be at articulating them in a personal statement.

Avoid clichés and seek specifics. This is a personal statement, after all. Thus, when you discuss your motivation for a specific field, write it in such a way that it's unique to you. If you want to attend a graduate art program, don't say you have always loved to draw. Rather, recall a moment from your past that served as a definitive moment and made you the artist you are today.

Be clear and concise. Most personal statements have word count limits, so make each word count. This is where revision is key. Look for words that can be easily omitted. One good place to start cutting is adverbs. Try cutting as many adverbs and adverbial phrases as possible. In their place, make sure that you have strong verbs and adjectives to do the heavy lifting.

You can also reduce extra verbiage by culling stock phrases.

Know that you are unique. While some of your fellow graduate students may seem to have exceptional academics and dramatic personal stories that dwarf what you have to offer, know that you are also worthy. If you dig deep into your story, you are sure to discover that you have special strengths that any graduate program would love to have exemplified in their students.

Remember that grammar matters. These days, many undergraduate degree programs undervalue grammar. Don't let this dissuade you from its importance in effective writing. Consider that you are headed to graduate school in order to become a professional. Thus, your writing should reflect a well-educated professional who attends to their words and phrases with care. Make sure to have a grammar guide on hand when you begin writing. If you don’t have a copy of a grammar guide, you can search for the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL), which can answer any writing question you may have.

Style matters more than you might think. Try varying your sentence structure and question each comma usage. If you write one long, compound sentence, try to follow up with a shorter, simple sentence. On the other hand, a series of simple sentences can sound staccato and even a bit immature. If this is a new idea to you, try to use nothing but simple sentences in your first draft. On revision, see which sentences can be combined into compound sentences.

Essentially you want your essay to flow and be as easy to read as possible. With that in mind, try to build effective transitions between paragraphs, and avoid repeating words as much as possible.

Always use the active voice. You want to come across as confident and professional, so avoid using ‘to be’ verbs or other passive constructions. When you use an active voice, the action (verb) is attributed to the subject. In this case, most of your sentences are about you and you want your reader to see you as proactive and effective. Passive voice will only sabotage this mission. You can use Grammarly’s free, online editor to catch as many of these passive phrases as possible.

Tell everything as a story. This doesn't imply that your essay needs to read like a short story, but it should carry the reader through a narrative. Flesh out you’re the essay with enough specific examples and details to make you a fully-realized individual. You should also include action that leads to some sort of change or conclusion for the reader. Part of this work can be done by choosing specific words and phrases that demonstrate who you are, your worldview, and how it evolved to its present form. As always, much of this will be achieved in the revision process.

Focus on a theme or thesis. If the program provides an essay prompt or question, make sure you stick to it. If it has multiple parts, be certain to address each with depth and detail. When you revise, ask yourself if each sentence directly relates to the theme or prompt question. If you happen to stray off on a tangent, that's okay. You may be able to revise that material and make it work for that essay. If not, it may be useful for other personal statements.