Tag: personal statements

Passion and the STEM PhD Statement of Purpose

Caroline Wilky, Associate Director

Many applicants to STEM PhD programs assume that they must convey their passion for their research subject in their statement of purpose. They are convinced of the importance of demonstrating to the admissions committee that they are obsessed with their field of choice and have been for a long time. This often results in statements of purpose that begin with anecdotes about how an applicant has loved science since she was a little girl, and spent her childhood raising tadpoles or reading anatomy textbooks. These passion anecdotes rarely if ever work and often have the opposite effect on readers. Moreover, they waste the little space that you have to convey what the committee is really interested in: your research interests, research experiences, and your case for why this program and department is the place for you to make contributions to the field.

The instinct to demonstrate passion is not, however, wholly misguided. They way to do it is through your description of your research, which should be sophisticated, informed by current scholarship and methodologies, and engaged with the concerns, questions, and problems the field you hope to join is interested in solving. It is not enough to describe what you did in the lab. You must show that you understand why you were doing it and where your project fit in the lab’s goals and the field’s priorities. The goal is not to come across as a precocious science student, or a competent research technician, but rather as an intelligent, motivated, and creative thinker capable of contributing new knowledge to your field. In other words, your passion comes through in how you understand and describe your research, not from your personal motivations for research, however meaningful and true they may be to you.

Advice on Writing an Effective Personal Statement for Medical/Dental School

Mia Carpiniello, Associate Director

Within the next few months, medical and dental school applicants around the country will draft, revise, and ultimately submit their personal statement to admissions committees. So, I thought it would be helpful to re-post my blog post from 2014 with tips on writing an effective personal statement for professional school. Although drafting a personal statement can feel like an intimidating and time-consuming task, please remember that this is also an exciting opportunity to convey who you are as a person, in your own voice. So, dig deep and take your time to compose an essay that accurately illustrates your personal attributes.

The personal statement can be the most daunting part of an application to professional school. What do I write about? How do I eloquently convey my thoughts? How can I possibly stay within the stated space limit? Here are 4 quick tips to help you make the most of this opportunity to share yourself with the admissions committee.

  1. Be self-reflective and introspective. What insights have you learned about yourself through a particular experience? Share one or two of your personal qualities, abilities, or characteristics by focusing on a meaningful experience you had. Do not simply restate your resume in narrative form or summarize all of your college experiences. Rather, convey something about yourself beyond your test scores, transcript, and resume. Use your personal statement to tell the admissions committee something about yourself that they cannot glean from the rest of your application, such as your compassion, determination, or meticulousness.
  2. Be concise and straightforward. Admissions officers will be reading thousands of these essays. They won’t have the patience for rhetorical flourishes. The introductory sentence and paragraph are the most important parts; use them to grab the reader’s attention and create a good first impression.
  3. Keep it positive. A personal statement is usually not the place to explain a weakness in your application, such as a low grade or test score. Save that for the secondary application (for medical school applicants) or a brief addendum.
  4. Proof-read! Again. And Again. And then have someone else read it and give you feedback. Ask that person what your personal statement says about you. Is that the impression you want to make? Finally, be sure to follow character or length limits to demonstrate that you can follow directions.

We in the pre-professional team here in Career Services are happy to help you reflect on your experiences and provide you with feedback on your draft. We also offer Personal Statement Workshops; you can find the dates and times on the Career Services calendar.

4 Tips to Writing an Effective Personal Statement for Professional School Applications

The personal statement can be the most daunting part of an application to professional school. What do I write about? How do I eloquently convey my thoughts? How can I possibly stay within the stated space limit? Here are 4 quick tips to help you make the most of this opportunity to share yourself with the admissions committee.

  1. Be self-reflective and introspective. What insights have you learned about yourself through a particular experience? Share one or two of your personal qualities, abilities, or characteristics by focusing on a meaningful experience you had. Do not simply restate your resume in narrative form or summarize all of your college experiences. Rather, convey something about yourself beyond your test scores, transcript, and resume. Use your personal statement to tell the admissions committee something about yourself that they cannot glean from the rest of your application, such as your compassion, determination, or meticulousness.
  2. Be concise and straightforward. Admissions officers will be reading thousands of these essays. They won’t have the patience for rhetorical flourishes. The introductory sentence and paragraph are the most important parts; use them to grab the reader’s attention and create a good first impression.
  3. Keep it positive. A personal statement is usually not the place to explain a weakness in your application, such as a low grade or test score. Save that for the secondary application (for medical school applicants) or a brief addendum.
  4. Proof-read! Again. And Again. And then have someone else read it and give you feedback. Ask that person what your personal statement says about you. Is that the impression you want to make? Finally, be sure to follow character or length limits to demonstrate that you can follow directions.

We in the pre-professional team here in Career Services are happy critique your personal statement and provide you with feedback. We also offer Personal Statement Workshops; you can find the dates and times on the Career Services calendar:

Who Are You?

by Anne Reedstrom

 

Whether this phrase immediately brings to your mind the classic sounds of The Who, the world of CSI (Las Vegas version), or simply sessions with your therapist, it is an important question to ask yourself when preparing to write a personal statement for your application to a health professions or law school.

Your personal statement is a chance to answer this question and give admissions committees insight into your personal qualities, abilities, characteristics, and skills which might be relevant to your field. I don’t mean that you should write an autobiography along the lines of “My name is Anne, I am X years old (I’m so not going to tell you the actual number), I grew up in Minnesota and studied Modern Languages as an undergraduate.” That’s not particularly helpful to anyone and will likely make you sound like a much more boring person than you are. That sentence certainly doesn’t do me any justice!

Dig a little deeper and provide the reader with more than a list of facts or accomplishments; these are the kinds of things that you can showcase on the actual application or the résumé you submit. Give them something they can’t get from your other application materials – you can’t really convey compassion, determination, meticulousness, organizational or communication skills on a résumé. But you can in a personal statement if you relate an experience, something in which you were an active participant, which demonstrates how you developed or used those qualities in a real-life situation.

When I talk to people about this, some know immediately what they want to write about – either the qualities they want to emphasize or the story they want to tell. Others struggle a little more, I think, for a couple of reasons. You have been doing a specific kind of writing since you came to college and only rarely has it been expressive or personal in any way. We’re actually taught to remove ourselves from academic writing and it can be a challenge to now be faced with a situation in which you are the subject of the essay. Some of us find it difficult to write about ourselves in an overtly positive way or even to identify positive traits we have – after all, our mothers taught us not to boast or be conceited (some were more successful than others).

These are the reasons that Peter, Todd, Carol and I are here to help you. We’re happy to help you reflect on your experiences, read what you’ve written and fill the pages with red ink. No, wait, that last one’s just me. Seriously, we are an excellent resource and hope that you will let us help you answer one of life’s great questions:

Well, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
I really wanna know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
Tell me, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
‘Cause I really wanna know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)*

*Words and music by Pete Townshend