How to Write a Personal Statement for a Graduate School Application

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Laura Turner, and today we're going to be talking about how to write a personal statement for a graduate school. Now, I applied to lots of different schools before I finally got in, and I do believe that my personal statement was the thing that got me into the one that I finally did get into. So, that being said, there are some things that you should consider when writing your personal statement Add a little of your personality in there. Don't go on and on about your life and everything that you do and how great you are, right, but add a little bit of yourself into your letter. Don't feel as though you have to make it so professional and perfect that you can't tell them who you are and what you're about. Describe what you plan to do with your education at this particular school. This also requires you knowing about the program that you're applying to, what kind of things they do, what kind of people they produce, that have come out of there, and what you think you might do afterwards, so why are you going to go to grad school? Be very, very honest. The school that I finally did get into was, in my most desperate moment, that I was sitting there and I was writing and I was thinking, you know, if I don't get in I don't know what I'm going to do. And so, be very honest with the people you're writing to. They once applied to grad school, in much the same way, and they're going to see themselves in your paper whenever they read it. And finally, if you can't do this, if you're sort of sitting down and you can't figure out why you want to go school there, what you're going to do, maybe take a little break from school for a while. Think about grad school. Think about what you want to do with it, and save yourself some time and money from applying to lots of schools that you're not really sure you want to go to."