you will work directly with an experienced, let's face it, in an ever competitive environment, your personal statement essay is often the deal maker in gaining program admission, so your personal statement must sell you to admissions personnel, and your personal statement must also set you apart from literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other applicants. Wolf creates personal statements which get all of your key selling points and story across, and his clients have had unmatched success in gaining program admission. You only have one chance to make a first impression, and our personal statements ensure that your first impression is an excellent one, to say the very least. I did not know that these kinds of services existed, but i found this service online. Prather, silver spring, maryland image: polka dot/thinkstock whether youre applying for an undergraduate school or trying to get into graduate programs, many applications require a letter of intent or personal statement. Personal statements are one of the most important parts of the application and sometimes the deciding factor for admission. Personal statements give a better understanding of who you are, beyond the rigid constraints of the fill in the blank application.

Like many around this time of the year, i am finishing my graduate school applications. Looking for advice and guidance, i decided to compare different schools personal statement requirements and ask admissions offices for advice. Heres what i found: the columbia graduate school for journalism encourages students to write about family, education, talents or passions. They want to hear about significant places or events in your life about books you have read, people you have met or work you’ve done that has shaped the person you have become. Show diversity rayna reid, a personal statement guru, received her undergraduate degree at cornell, masters at the university of pennsylvania and is currently pursuing a law degree at columbia. Reid says a personal statement is really just a way to make the college fall in love with you. The essay is where you really get a chance to differentiate yourself from the other applicants, she said.

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What will you contribute? sean carpenter, university of southern california student services associate and undergraduate student, reiterates the importance of differentiating yourself from other applicants. He works in the annenberg school for communication admissions office and deals with prospective students daily. They want to see how youre different from all other applicants, especially through diversity. What makes you unique out of all the other applicants? carpenter said, tell things that has helped you grow as a person and built your character. Do research and tailor each essay accordingly every college is different, so each personal statement should be different. Many students try to get away with having a universal essay but admissions departments will notice.

Do research to give concrete reasons why youre interested in particular program, carpenter said. Speak with a faculty member that youre interested in working with or doing research for and mention that in your statement. It would also be beneficial to say what classes youve taken that were relevant to the field of study.

Be concise and follow directions make sure you read the directions carefully. One of the biggest red flags for an admissions office are students who dont adhere to word limitations. If you need some help, ask several faculty members to read over your essay and give you feedback.

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Go beyond your resume, gpa and test scores many students worry about how their gpa and test scores will affect the admissions process. The personal statement is an opportunity to explain any strengths or weaknesses in your application such as changes in major, low gpa or lack of experience. Since reid didnt have the perfect gpa, she explained what she did with her time to make up for that fact. Being on the varsity rowing team and a teach for america corp member are great examples of how devoting her time to other things made an impact on her gpa.

For college, one essay i wrote was about how i have often felt like my life was a movie and how dirty dancing yes, the movie changed my life. My sister who currently goes to princeton even wrote about killing a fly! one of the worst things you can do is bore the admission officer. Make yourself memorable by telling a story about something distinctive from a creative or different angle. With this advice, your personal statement will be the highlight of your application. She has extensive experience in public relations, broadcast journalism, print journalism and production.

Alexis truly believes if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life. Collect this article it 39 s the one subject most students understand better than any other in the world mdash and the one subject they find most challenging to write on: the college admissions personal statement. With college applications at an all time high, competition is keen and a personal statement can determine a candidate 39 s chances of getting admitted to the university of his or her choice. Adding just the right amount of substance and spirit just might help score that coveted letter of acceptance.

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what is the personal statement? most warnings go without saying: don 39 t procrastinate, don 39 t submit without proofreading, and don 39 t plagiarize. The bottom line is that presentation and professionalism matter mdash just take care not to overdo it. Although prospective students will naturally want to present themselves in the best light, they should resist the temptation to inflate their skills or aggrandize their accomplishments. A general admissions adviser at ucla called the personal statement a way to gain information and/or an understanding of the individual applicant within the context of their everyday life. A personal statement should come off as masterful, but it should also sound mdash and look mdash natural. A scented r sum on pink paper and a video essay that could double as a swimsuit competition may have worked for elle woods in legally blonde, but such devices simply won 39 t play beyond hollywood. What comes off as clever to a prospective student may seem pretentious and immature to a selections committee.

An applicant 39 s best bet is to aim for a refined look and use white or cream paper and 10 or 12 point easy to read typeface. This isn 39 t to say a personal essay has to be bland on the contrary, it can and should be a great read, but it 39 s best for applicants to let the essay speak for itself rather than depending upon gimmicks. A personal statement that reads like a laundry list of a student 39 s accomplishments is bound to be feeble, and a personal statement that makes sweeping generalizations about the same applicant 39 s goals and expectations will be equally unconvincing.

One way to add weight to a personal statement is to support ideas with specific examples. If a prompt asks applicants why they want to attend a university, a decent response might mention the fact that the school has a good college of education. But a savvy candidate knows that detail makes a difference: gamma university offers a special education certification program for bilingual educators, which fuses my foreign language skills and career goal of teaching english language learners. If a prompt asks a potential student about his or her most salient trait, a passable essay might broadly discuss that applicant 39 s compassion. A great essay, on the other hand, will talk about how the applicant 39 s four year volunteer stint at an alzheimer 39 s care facility informed his ambition to help the elderly as a geriatric psychiatrist.