The style you choose to use for your personal statement offers important clues about you and your character. Much like your high school English class essays, the style of your personal statement can reveal your ability to write, your attention to detail, and how you choose to communicate. Alternatively, a statement of purpose that fails to convey an appropriate style demonstrates undesirable characteristics like laziness, an inability to communicate appropriately, or a lack of real interest in the application process.
Personal statements and other college admissions essays are meant to communicate your admirable traits while at the same time describing your background, skills, and experiences that make you an ideal candidate. For this reason, I recommend you stick to using 1 of 2 styles when writing your college admissions essays: the narrative essay or the persuasive essay.
In narrative writing, the main purpose is to tell a story - your story. In telling your story, you communicate to admissions officers details about your background, life, and experiences that aren’t otherwise obvious on your resume or transcript. A narrative is personal by nature, so it works well as a means to convey what makes you unique and offers a glimpse into how you see yourself and the world around you.
Key Characteristics:
In using a persuasive writing style for your college admissions essay your main purpose should be to convince the reader of why you’re the best-qualified candidate for admission. To convince others to agree with your point of view, persuasive writing contains justifications and reasons like a description of your skills, previous jobs, relevant certifications, and applicable honors. This type of writing is typically used for cover letters and letters of application and thus are also a good fit for graduate school statements of purpose which should follow a similar format.
Key Characteristics:
There are many different styles of writing to choose from when writing college admissions essays. A narrative style or persuasive style provides the most useful format for structuring your essay as they help to convey the information about you admissions officers want to know most. So, stick to one of these two styles and you’ll be set in writing a top admissions essay.
A personal narrative works great when writing a personal statement because it allows you to relay the authentically relay your thoughts, feelings, and experiences about a certain event. Since a personal statement serves as your opportunity to communicate your individuality and what inspires, the narrative should be a go to format for your college admissions essays.
In writing a personal narrative as the primary basis of your college admissions essay or personal statement, your goal should be to construct a coherent story from the facts of a situation or series of events. Ideally, this narrative consists of a beginning, middle, and end. In personal narratives, you are both the storyteller and the main character.
The beginning of your narrative essay should draw the reader in with an exciting start which introduces the story you’re telling. There are numerous ways in which you can write this opening. For instance, you can:
Next, you should give relevant details about the story or event. The middle of your story can detail a series of events or facts that occur in the narrative you’re telling. This is also the place where the characters in your story change or grow and you begin to resolve any the prevailing issue(s). Be careful not to lose your reader at this stage of your narrative by following these guidelines:
Lastly, you want to write the ending of your essay. Ideally, this coincides with the final part of your narrative which should:
The statement of purpose, or what I like to call the cover letter essay because of its similar structure, is generally used for graduate school applications, takes on a persuasive style and focuses much more on describing the skills, experiences, and education that has prepared you for the program you’re applying to than a personal statement would. Its main purpose concentrates less on telling your story through a narrative and more on communicating the qualities that make you a perfect candidate. Ideally, the statement of purpose should convey your genuine interest in and enthusiasm for the program of study you’re pursuing, and what you have done in the past to nurture that passion as a way to persuade the admissions committee of your unique fitness to be admitted.
Here are 4 steps for writing a statement of purpose or college admissions essay using a persuasive style:
1. Start off your statement of purpose by describing your motivations for applying for and how it fits in with your academic and personal goals. Basically, you should be answering the question - what makes me want to learn more about this subject?
2. Next, you should communicate the past subjects you’ve studied, previous jobs you’ve held, and relevant skills and certifications you’ve obtained that prepare you for the curriculum or program of study. This is the part where you really get to brag on yourself in discussing your relevant qualifications and unique skill set that ideally prepare you for success in the field you’ve chosen.
3. Follow that up by communicating your interest in attending the particular university you’re applying to. It’s important to articulate why you’re choosing X school or Y program at every level of education. As an example, you might state your interest in working with Prof. Baker who is an expert in a rare 16th-century form of restoring ancient artifacts. Admissions officers and committee members want to know that you did your research and have a compelling and personal reason for wanting to attend their institution. In this section, be sure to also include statements about what you can bring to the university’s campus and how you will contribute to the prevailing culture of the college or grad program. Again, think, why should they pick me?
4. Lastly, don’t forget to include in your statement what attributes and traits make you special because, yes, it matters to admissions committees what kind of person you are and student you will be. As an example, you could focus on describing the parts of your personality that demonstrate your ability to learn and think as well as your desire to collaborate and communicate effectively as a student-scholar. Colleges want to know that you possess the traits that will contribute to both your growth and the betterment of the department and university community. One of the important things to remember is that the best way to communicate your traits is to use an anecdote or experience from your past, that shows rather than just lists what makes you a top candidate.
No matter what, remember to be authentic and your uniqueness will shine through in your statement of purpose. Follow these 4 steps and you’ll be on your way to writing a winning statement of purpose.
Tone is more than what you write, it’s how you write it, and the tone of your personal statement can significantly impact your college application. Your choice of words, level of formality, and the writing style you choose to use comprises your writing tone and can reveal a significant amount about how you view yourself, your academic/career path, and your community. It’s easy for an essay reader to forgive flaws in your writing style as multiple styles can work. It’s less easy to forgive a tone that is too harsh, moralistic, or pretentious.
Writing a personal statement usually calls for a semi-formal, conversational tone in order to convey the right attitude to admissions readers. Think how I would tell my story to my YouTube audience vs. how would I tell it to my best friend. The difference is, with an audience, there’s still some separation between you and the people you’re talking to, whereas with your best friend you’re not really holding anything back. In personal statements, you should be vulnerable and introspective. With your best friend, you can be a sloppy crying mess.
Too informal and generic: When I was in 9th grade, me and my friends used to get together to work on math homework after school.
Better: As a freshman, my friends and I would often stay around after school ended, working on our math homework, and forming what we liked to call our “Math Club”.
Be specific
It’s better to discuss one interesting and relevant experience than to gloss over a bunch of mediocre events that don’t really add to anything to your narrative.
Communicate confidence, without being arrogant
It’s important to demonstrate your confidence in your ability to be successful in adding to the campus culture and completing the curriculum. Don’t go overboard though in describing your qualifications. As an example, you can say you that “I was happy to be among the top students in my graduating class” instead of stating that you were “among the most accomplished and educated scholars within the graduating class at my undergrad institution.”
Everything in moderation
The key is not to be too extreme in your commentary as you typically don’t know who will end up reading your college admissions essay. You shouldn’t take on the task of explaining the rationale for any extreme ideologies, good or bad, that it would be impossible to really explain the nuances of in 650 words or less.
Overall, the tone you use in your personal statement should mirror the tone you would use when giving a briefing or presentation - be interesting and be aware of your audience. With this combination, you’ll do great when writing your personal statements and college admissions essays.
When you’re writing a narrative or telling a story in your personal statement, using sensory details is one of the more effective ways to captivate the reader which makes your essay more likely to stand out. Sensory details help the reader figuratively see, hear, feel, smell, and taste your words.
If you haven’t started writing yet, but you have an event or story in mind, you can create a chart like the one the next page as a way to draft and organize the sensory details you want to include.
Here’s a paragraph from Wright State University that offers a good example text:
“Grandmother Workman lurched over and grabbed the pale skin of my thin forearm with her leathery hand. The folds and creases beneath her skin coiled themselves out like electrical wiring, like the bloated, roughly-textured relief map of the world that his mother just posted above his bedside table. I looked ahead toward the winding spiral staircase, fidgeted with a small hole in my baseball jersey, and bit my lip. My mouth filled with the sweet, coppery taste of blood as she leaned in closely toward me, breathing her hot breath on the damp hair at the base of my neck. She smelled of wet cigarettes and bacon. As we slowly climbed the long, steep staircase, the only sound was my grandmothers’ labored breathing and the mournful creak of the wooden stairs.”
And here’s the table I would use to highlight the sensory details in this story during the pre-writing phase of my essay:
Sensory Details |
||||
I saw |
I heard |
I felt |
I smelled |
I tasted |
● pale skin
|
● lurched
|
● leathery hand
|
● wet cigarettes and bacon
|
● sweet, coppery taste
|
● folds and creases beneath her skin
|
● labored breathing
|
● fidgeted with a small hole
|
|
|
● bloated, roughly textured
|
● mournful creak
|
● damp hair
|
|
|
● winding, spiral staircase
|
|
● roughly textured
|
|
|
|
|
● hot breath
|
|
|
If you’ve already written your personal statement or essay, go back through it and underline all the places you use sensory details. If you find that you don’t have many spots underlined, I recommend revising your text to include more sensory details.
You can use the shorthand below to quickly mark the sensory details you underline during your initial review:
See – S
Hear – H
Feel – F
Smell – Sm
Touch – T
No matter if you’re writing about a specific event or a personal narrative that includes details from your entire life, you should include sensory details. It’s one of the most effective ways to ensure the people reading your essay are engaged in what you wrote.
There are some clichés in personal statements that seem to happen over and over again. While having one or two clichés won’t prevent you from getting into a good college, it is nice to avoid them as don’t add depth to your writing, nor do they particularly work to help your application stand out. There are also a number of common occurrences I’ve seen when reading personal statements that are just annoying and don’t add any value to the application.
To help you out, here’s a short list of clichés and topics/ideas to avoid when writing your personal statement:
Remember that personal statements are about YOU. Quoting Einstein takes that focus away from you and places it on someone who the reader already knows, so they’re not really learning anything new in reading your essay. Instead of quoting Einstein, reflect and communicate your own ideas about physics or science and turn that into a mantra or saying that exemplifies who you are. This gives the application reader a glimpse of your personality, ideas, and beliefs, which is much more beneficial in relating what you stand for and why you should be selected.
Avoid this altogether. Understand that each generation is unique, and this is what makes progress and change possible. No application reader wants to read through a personal statement in which they applicant only sees despair and destruction ahead because of the belief that current generations aren’t as successful as ones of the past. Instead of criticizing your peers, focus on describing your personal and professional goals and how you hope to connect with the folks in your community (from all generations) to ensure that our world becomes a better place. Focus on the positive, not the negative.
I tell most applicants to do their best to especially avoid using the additional information section on applications to make an excuse as to why their grades may have slipped. Don’t get me wrong; there are definitely legitimate and very real reasons as to why your grades may have been impacted by an event in your life (i.e. you were in a coma and missed three weeks of school). If your reason doesn’t involve a medical issue, major life event (like a death in the family), or school transfer, you should probably avoid talking about it altogether. Of course, every situation is different, so this list isn’t all-inclusive.
Stay on topic. There’s nothing more annoying than reading through an entire personal statement or supplemental essay and realizing the writer didn’t even attempt to answer the question the prompt asked. Don’t write about “why you want to attend X University” if the essay instructions say to “describe a time in your life when you had to make a tough decision.”
There’s just so much more to talk about that when application readers see this, it can seem as if the writer just treated it as a throwaway question. There is a story to tell in having friends from different ethnic, religious, or socioeconomic groups, but when a prompt is asking you to describe how you’ll contribute to diversity on campus or to discuss personal adversity you’ve experienced, they’re wanting to know that you have an informed perspective on the nuances of identity, equity, and inclusion. So, if you don’t think you have anything useful to say for diversity questions, think deeper and consider questions like:
Keep in mind that while most colleges have standard rubrics for evaluating applicants, each application reader is different and has their own pet peeves when it comes to reading files. This is just one opinion, but hopefully, it can still help you avoid some of the common clichés and pitfalls writers can fall victim to when crafting a personal statement.
As the name implies, personal statements are inherently personal and meant to communicate your qualifications and show what kind of person you are. For this reason, each statement an admissions team member reads is uniquely different from any other, as it should be. That said, there are still some general do’s and don’ts to consider when writing your personal statement.
Today, almost all college applications for school in the U.S. require applicants to submit a diversity statement, or short response essay related to diversity, with their application submission. In addition, providing a personal statement, the University of Washington, for instance, asks freshman applicants to respond to the prompt:
“Our families and communities often define us and our individual worlds. Community might refer to your cultural group, extended family, religious group, neighborhood or school, sports team or club, co-workers, etc. Describe the world you come from and how you, as a product of it, might add to the diversity of