This doesn’t necessarily mean that the school is your only pick. However, generic essays have no place in the graduate school application process. Form letters aren’t persuasive, and generic essays won’t help your application package. If you can’t sincerely write that the school is a top pick, then why are you applying there? Instead, focus on creating stellar essays for the ones that actually interest you. Help the admissions officers understand your overarching vision for your future career and how your time at the school will prepare you to realize these goals.
Writing an amazing graduate school essay is probably far more straightforward than you might think. Graduate school admissions officers aren’t looking for gimmicks. They’re looking for passionate, motivated, and prepared applicants who are ready to hit the ground running in their program. Read on for more details in creating your best graduate school essay.
Don’t make assumptions about your graduate school personal statements. Many programs simply ask you to submit a personal statement without any further guidance. Other programs will tell you exactly how they want the essay structured along with word count limits and formatting requirements. Review the prompt thoroughly and plan your essay before you begin writing to ensure that you create an essay that will be an effective and persuasive addition to your application package.
It is common for graduate school applicants to start their personal statements with an anecdote about something that happened during childhood or high school. On the surface, this makes sense because that event was what started the journey that has culminated in an application to the program. However, graduate programs are for professionals, and writing about your childhood is more appropriate for an undergraduate essay than one for graduate school. If you feel that you absolutely must include something from your childhood, use it as the starting sentence of your concluding paragraph.
Know your program and make connections
During your graduate studies, you’ll likely do research, and graduate programs want to know that you can both participate in ongoing research as well as find a mentor for your own project. In your essay, write about professors in the programs whose work interests you and why. Also, there is life outside of the classroom. Does the school have a close-knit traditional college campus? Is it located in the heart of the city? Especially if you will be moving with your family, show the admissions officers that you will thrive in their environment.
Did we mention personal? Some graduate programs will ask you to write an additional essay about an issue within your chosen field. However, your personal statement should be about you as an individual. Write about issues only if they relate specifically to your personal experiences. For example, ‘In Africa, a child dies every minute. This stark statistic prompted me to join an NGO aimed at providing nutrition and healthcare for children in Namibia.’
What should you do if the program doesn’t give you any specifics? With greater numbers of applicants to graduate programs, the trend is toward shorter essays. This is especially true of graduate programs in the STEM fields. Unfortunately, longer essays tend to be skimmed rather than read thoroughly, and most any admissions officer will tell you that the best essays that they’ve read are always shorter essays. Think about what is absolutely essential, and write about those aspects of your experience with passion.
Securing acceptance into a graduate program is more about being the best match than about being the most highly qualified. Among applicants who meet the program’s minimum requirements, they’ll choose an enthusiastic and informed applicant over one with higher test scores and a better GPA who doesn’t seem to know much about their program.
Most of examples are posted as part of writing guides published online by educational institutions. We’ve rounded up some of the best ones here if you are looking for more personal statement examples for graduate school.
A personal statement is slightly different from a statement of purpose (also known as a letter of intent). A statement of purpose/letter of intent tends to be more tightly focused on your academic or professional credentials and your future research and/or professional interests.
My public health recommendation: eat more fruits to get energy to do your personal statement!
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Cal State Sample Graduate School Personal Statements
It’s actually hard to get a complete picture of the student’s true motivations from this essay, and what we have might raise real questions about the student’s character to some admissions committees. This student took a risk and it paid off, but it could have just as easily backfired spectacularly.
You should also be careful with how you deploy humor and jokes. Your statement doesn’t have to be totally joyless and serious, but bear in mind that the person reading the statement may not have the same sense of humor as you do. When in doubt, err towards the side of being as inoffensive as possible.
Paragraph One: For twenty-three years, my grandmother (a Veterinarian and an Epidemiologist) ran the Communicable Disease Department of a mid-sized urban public health department. The stories of Grandma Betty doggedly tracking down the named sexual partners of the infected are part of our family lore. Grandma Betty would persuade people to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases, encourage safer sexual practices, document the spread of infection and strive to contain and prevent it. Indeed, due to the large gay population in the city where she worked, Grandma Betty was at the forefront of the AIDS crises, and her analysis contributed greatly towards understanding how the disease was contracted and spread. My grandmother has always been a huge inspiration to me, and the reason why a career in public health was always on my radar.
Just as being too intimate in your statement can hurt you, it’s also important not to be overly formal or staid. You should be professional, but conversational.
While your graduate school essay should be written in straightforward language, it should also reflect a command of graduate level vocabulary. However, you need to be able to use those words with precision. If you’re not sure, look online for examples. If you’re still not sure, leave it out. Better to use plain language well than advanced vocabulary incorrectly. Even so, higher vocabulary gives you a chance to add shades of meaning and streamline your phrasing. Can you substitute one word for a phrase? Can you use an advanced vocabulary word instead of an idiomatic expression? Look for opportunities to include a broader variety of word choices in your graduate admissions essay.
When you’re ready to write your graduate school essay, keep in mind that there are certain things you definitely should do as well as common pitfalls to avoid. Graduate school essays tend to be very specific to the school and program. Because of this, you might simply be told to include a personal statement in your application package or be given a paragraph-long prompt as well as formatting guidelines. Regardless of whether you are applying to an EdD program, an MPA, or med school, follow these guidelines to create your best grad school application essay.
When writing graduate school essays for admissions committees, strive for depth. It is likely that, now that you are applying to graduate school, you will have numerous experiences in your background that attest to your qualifications for the program. However, instead of briefly writing about many experiences, it is better to go in depth about a handful or even just one.
Whether your grad school essay is 500 words or three pages, effective graduate school personal statements are succinct. Everything should fit together and flow smoothly within the context of an overarching theme. Decide what you think is most important for the admissions officers to know about you, and then focus on those experiences within the essay. Concise essays demonstrate respect for the admission’s officers’ time, and that tacit message will be received by the reader. Moreover, writing in this manner lets the admissions officers know that you can organize your thoughts well and express them clearly to others.
Know your GRE, GMAT, LSAT or MCAT level vocabulary
The admissions officers are looking for much more than just further details on your resume. In your essay, they want you to demonstrate self-reflection, critical thinking skills, the ability to apply what you learned across broad real world scenarios, and what you would do differently if you encountered a similar situation in the future. Although you don’t need to cover every one of these aspects within your essay, this can give you an idea of what is important to the admissions officers. Along with the facts of a situation, the essay also needs to include your perspective.
The first step in writing your best grad school essay is to brainstorm content. What were the pivotal events that led you to the point in your life that you are applying to grad school? Pick anecdotes that you can clearly express to the reader as well as demonstrate analytical skills in your reflection on the meaning of those events. Help the admissions officers experience these events alongside you so that they can gain insight into your background and potential.
Additionally, you’ll need to budget enough time to proofread and have others look over your essay. We can all become blind to errors in spelling and grammar that will become obvious when a new set of eyes reads your essay. Also, be selective in who you choose to read your essay. Too many opinions will only confuse you and leave you with an essay that is actually worse than it was before. Pick people who are either professionals or have had success in gaining acceptance to your chosen school or program.
Learn more about admissions to graduate school with articles, tips, and strategies from Peterson’s.
I don’t recommend this. I also don’t recommend taking a big risk in your personal statement.
Paragraph Four: My undergraduate education has prepared me well for my chosen career. Understanding the underlying structure of a group’s culture is essential to successfully communicating with the group. In studying folklore and mythology, I’ve learned how to parse the unspoken structures of folk groups, and how those structures can be used to build bridges of understanding. For example, in a culture where most illnesses are believed to be caused by witchcraft, as is the case for the Zande people of central Africa, any successful health intervention or education program would of necessity take into account their very real belief in witchcraft.
Looking for grad school personal statement examples? Look no further! In this total guide to graduate school personal statement examples, we’ll discuss why you need a personal statement for grad school and what makes a good one. Then we’ll provide three graduate school personal statement samples from our grad school experts. After that, we’ll do a deep dive on one of our personal statement for graduate school examples. Finally, we’ll wrap up with a list of other grad school personal statements you can find online.
In this paragraph, I link my undergraduate education and the skills I learned there to public health. The (very brief) analysis of tailoring health interventions to the Zande is a good way to show insight and show off the competencies I would bring to the program.
Wheaton College Personal Statement for Graduate School Sample 10
Above all, a good personal statement communicates clear messages about what makes you a strong applicant who is likely to have success in graduate school. So to that extent, think about a couple of key points that you want to communicate about yourself and then drill down on how you can best communicate those points. (Your key points should of course be related to what you can bring to the field and to the program specifically).
You can also decide whether to address things like setbacks or gaps in your application as part of your narrative. Have a low GPA for a couple semesters due to a health issue? Been out of a job for a while taking care of a family member? If you do decide to explain an issue like this, make sure that the overall arc is more about demonstrating positive qualities like resilience and diligence than about providing excuses.
The writing in some of these statements is a little dry, and most deploy at least a few cliches. However, these are generally strong, serviceable statements that communicate clearly why the student is interested in the field, their skills and competencies, and what about the specific program appeals to them.
Fine-tuning will make your personal statement even more beautiful!
…Fifth paragraph: “Ballet has been my passion throughout my life, and although I have experienced difficulties, I never stopped loving it. It is this kind of passion for ballet that I intend to bring to my academic career as an undergraduate at your school.”
One very accessible solution is to let a professional editing company revise your work—preferably a company that is reputable and employs highly qualified editors but is also affordable and can quickly deliver your edited essay. And according to an October 2019 article in Wired.com, the company that currently best meets these standards is Wordvice Editing Service. One Wired tech reviewer performed a blind study of four leading editing companies, evaluating them in terms of cost and quality of editing, and Wordvice came out on top. Now, how’s that for great word of mouth!
Why is it important to write a second or third draft of your personal essay? For the same reason that architects don’t decide that a house is ready to be built after only one sketch. On subsequent viewings, revisions that you missed the first time around will appear. While you are writing the first draft, you are almost still in the process of brainstorming, at least on the level of the word or phrase if not the general ideas or concepts. When you revisit the work, you will see what you have written and often easily determine what needs to be revised, deleted, or rewritten altogether. Luckily, this process is usually more fun because you can already see what you have accomplished and are now simply “reworking the clay” into a more sophisticated and precise shape.
Consider this a kind of brainstorming exercise. Close your eyes and imagine what drives you, motivates you, excites you, inspires you to pursue great things (or at least fantasize about doing them). This might include a hobby, a genre of music, an important person in your life, a pivotal memory or experience, a book—anything meaningful that you consider part of your identity or that defines you. Start by making a list of these things and creating a word web of other relevant or secondary aspects of this one idea, person, object, or experience. Write some brief sentences about exactly why it is important to you. Once you have your list and a few sentences written, it should be a bit easier to narrow your topic to just one or two things at most.
3. Provide a beginning, middle, and end in your story—and include some twists and turns
Far too many students neglect the importance of editing and proofreading their admissions essays. You need to ensure that your writing is not only free of grammar and punctuation errors but that it also has natural and appropriate language, flows logically, and contains anecdotes and other content that is more likely impress admissions committees (but, as we mentioned, not in a way that is cliche or forced). And as good of a writer as you may be, even the best authors use editors to improve their work and give it that extra layer of polish or extra “oomph.” And in fact, an unedited essay is generally far less likely to get you into a great school—this is especially true if English is not your first language or if you have had limited experience writing essays.
Luckily there are models you can use—many hundreds of thousands of college applicants have trod this road before you, and hundreds of sites publish successful admissions papers that you can (and should) read to see the common elements that make them effective. Think of the tips below as a kind of map to both plan out your route and then check to see if you are on the right path to writing a strong admissions essay that will make any admissions committee think to themselves, “Now THIS is a sincere and interesting person who belongs at our vaunted learning institution!”
Second paragraph: “I continued doing ballet into my junior year of high school because of this passion. But then I had an accident and had to stop for six months. However, ballet remained my passion before, during and after this tragic event.”
Writing your application essay in a quiet place will let you focus–and good ambiance just might inspire you to craft a brilliant (but true) story about yourself.