Writing effective personal statements

Most applications for scholarships or admission to graduate school require a personal statement. I found a very useful site at Penn State, Writing Personal Statements online.

I read the two sample statements from applicants for a Marshall Scholarship. Both were very impressive. They illustrate several key ingredients

• Distinctly personal. It is about you. Only you could write this. Avoid generics "I am really interested in subject X and want to study at University Y because it is a world class university."
• Personally engaging. A natural outcome is that the reader should want to meet you.
• Specific connection between applicant and the target institution/program. Mentioning specific courses, faculty, and research projects is key.
• Polished and well written. This means writing and rewriting and getting feedback on drafts.

For those of us reading and reviewing applications I see two important consequences of this material being freely available.

First, the bar is higher. Any student with a little "get up and go" can Google "personal statements scholarship applications" and find material such as this. They should then aim to produce something of comparable quality.

Second, we need to be wary of plagiarism and so running applications through Turnitin or Googling suspect sentences may be a necessary precaution.

As an aside, I mention the movie Spanglish has an amusing opening scene [which I could not find on YouTube] where an admissions officer at Princeton is reading personal statements from undergraduate applicants.