Overview of a Personal Statement
A personal statement is quite critical in college application. It provides you with the opportunity to demonstrate why you are a suitable candidate for admission. Markedly, a personal statement is usually a general form of an admission essay.
Note that you should use personal statement for university application as a marketing tool to illustrate capacities and capabilities that go beyond your academic performance. Doing this requires the right skills and experience in writing.
To acquire these skills and experience, you could start by exploring personal statement examples for college by past students who successfully secured admission.
Questions to Ask on how to Write a Personal Statement for College
There are numerous questions that you could ask to help guide you in writing a top-quality personal statement for job or college. These questions are as illustrated below.
1. What should be the length of my Personal Statement?
This is a key question when it comes to how to write a personal statement for college. Usually, your personal statement should be between 400 and 600 words long. In some postgraduate cases however, the required length may be up to 1000 words.
Carefully note that the length requirements may vary from one institution to another. It is important to strictly adhere to the stated length requirements since admission board members have numerous personal statements to review.
2. What should be included in a good Personal Statement?
This is another important question to ask when writing a personal statement for university application. As earlier mentioned, you need to include details and information that illustrate why you stand out as a candidate for admission.
Below is some of the key information you should include:
-A brief personal background on why you are suitable.
-How you developed interest in pursuing a particular course.
-Interesting areas in your previous educational studies.
-Your career goals in relation to the admission.
-Academic and personal attributes that reflect good character and personality.
-Outstanding features about the college you are seeking admission to.
3. What should be avoided in a Personal Statement?
Good skills on how to write a personal statement for college requires you to understand the different gray areas that should be avoided. Some of these gray areas are as described below.
You should avoid exaggerations: Although a personal statement for university application should be as creative as possible, it should be factual as well. Note that exaggerations are likely to put off the admission board members, when reading through the personal statement or during the interview.
You should not copy an existing personal statement: It is tempting to copy personal statement examples for college from past applicants or online sources. However, this is likely to limit your admission chances due to potential plagiarism incidences.
You should avoid negative information: Good practices on how to write a personal statement for college requires you to carefully determine information to include. Accordingly, you should avoid information on contentious issues in areas like radical political and religious beliefs, unorthodox marital and social practices, and discriminatory causes and ideas.
You should avoid poor structure: It is important to observe the conventional personal statement format. Usually, this format follows the normal structure of an essay. The format plays an important role in ensuring that ideas flow coherently.
Tips on how to Write a Personal Statement for College
You can borrow various tips from superior personal statement examples for college to help you appear competent and exceptional. These tips include some of best practices to observe when writing a personal statement. They are as discussed below.
1. Start with a compelling statement: It is advisable to include catchy statements at the beginning, whether it is a personal statement for job or college application. You should include a statement that compels the reader to continue exploring more about you.
2. Be honest: As earlier stated, you should avoid exaggerations. You as well avoid lies and misleading statements. This requires you to support all claims made with solid evidence.
3. Don’t duplicate content in other application documents: A good approach on how to write a personal statement demands that you avoid replicating content in your other documents, including curriculum vitae or resume.
Per se, you should include fresh content that adds value to the already existing documents.
4. Start writing early: Starting the writing process early provides you with the opportunity to reread and rewrite your personal statement. This is important in ensuring that you include all the relevant information in a unique way.
5. You should seek a second opinion: It is advisable that you ask your friends or an expert to go through your personal statement for assessment. You should avail it to several individuals and use their collective opinions to make it better.
Steps on how to Write a Personal Statement for College
Note that personal statement writing is a process. As such, you can follow various steps to help write a superior personal statement for job or college application. Such steps are as described below.
Step I: Exploring the Course
This step demands that you explore in details the requirements of the course you wish to pursue at a particular institution. You should find out the academic, experience, and personal attributes required for enrolment.
Besides, you should also acquire details of the institution in relation to the course. This includes information on areas such as its recognitions and awards, key scholars and lecturers, successful alumni, and relevant facilities.
Step II: Exploring Personal Attributes
After securing information about the course and the institution, you should go ahead and list down the personal attributes that make you suitable for admission. This requires you to conduct a self-evaluation test.
To do this, you should list down your respective strengths and weaknesses. This is a key task when it comes to how to write a personal statement for college as it helps illustrate your value to the institution and the discipline.
You should device a way to highlight how your strengths will augments your suitability, and how you will compensate for your weaknesses.
Step III: Creating an Outline
Just like in the case of an admission letter, you should develop an outline. This step entails developing the respective key points. Herein, you should come up with ideas to include in each of the areas to be covered. To make this easier, ensure that the outline for your personal statement for university application is in bullet points.
The outline should be in tandem with the appropriate personal statement format. As earlier noted, this format is usually the normal essay format. As such, there should be bullet points for the introduction, body, and conclusion.
Step IV: Writing the Personal Statement
This step entails compiling the points into one coherent narrative. It demands excellent skills on how to write a personal statement for college. In this step, you should ensure that the personal statement persuasively explains why you stand out among other applicants.
In doing this, you must illustrate a mastery of the language. Proper use of transitions and conjunctions come in handy.
Step V: Proofreading
This is the last step when writing a personal statement. It requires you to go through the final draft to ensure that it effectively covers all the instructions, free of grammatical errors, coherent, and has the appropriate personal statement format.
Go through the draft for at least three times.