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How to Write a Personal Statement?

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17 January, 2025

Most prestigious universities across the world demand personal statements from their applicants. If you want to write a compelling and memorable essay, the first thing you need is to know what a personal statement really is.

What is a Personal Statement?

A personal statement is the most important component of a college or university application. It is an essay in which the applicants talk about themselves beyond their resume and other academic accomplishments. This essay helps the admissions officers to understand the values, experiences, and thought patterns of the candidates that apply.

This means that your personal statement adds meaning to all the other parts of your application and gives you a chance to make yourself stand out in a pool of thousands of applicants.

Common Myths About a Personal Statement

If you’re here reading this blog, you must have come across many different myths about writing a personal statement. Due to high competition, many people end up believing these myths and do not take the risk of being authentic!

Whether you are writing a personal statement for bachelors, masters, or a scholarship, know that a calculated risk of being authentic is what creates a good personal statement. So, before we start talking about how we can write a stellar personal statement, let’s first do a common myth detox!

1. Having a Dramatic Personal Narrative is Not Necessary!

It’s true that applicants who share stories about their own experiences stand out. But your experiences do not necessarily need to be over dramatic with a great emphasis on hardship and trauma. In fact, even if your experiences include immense hardship, your statement should not dwell on that too much!

Statements that are too focused on hardship/sob stories make the readers cringe. Instead, you should focus on how you grew out of hard times or situations.

Also Read: Top 10 University Scholarships for Pakistani Students

2. Your Accomplishments Do Not Necessarily Need to Be Huge

Your accomplishments do matter!

But not having huge national/ international level accomplishments, doesn’t mean you lose your chance to study at good universities!

If you have been worrying that your profile doesn’t look competitive enough for different institutions, still apply and express your true passion and potential of growth through your personal statement. Not every student in a class is a celebrity in one or another field. So, in your personal statement talk about how impactful small experiences or accomplishments have been, and how you have the potential to do great things in later stages of your life.

3. There is No Perfect Personal Statement Template or Format

If someone has been trying to sell you a set template to create a memorable personal statement, please don’t buy that. One shoe doesn’t fit all.

Instead of following templates focus on presenting your own unique and authentic story and find your own way to connect that story to the programs and institutions you are applying for.

4. Complicated Vocabulary Does Not Make You Memorable

Your personal statement needs to reflect your voice and tone. So, it needs to be grammatically correct, but if you overflow it with complicated and flowery words, you will be more prone to making sentence structure and grammatical errors. And you know what the bigger risk is? It can potentially kill the originality and authenticity of your statement!

So, use good words and write creatively but ensure the readers do not find your writing boring and can easily connect with your story.

5. Your Admission Does Not Solely Depend on Your Personal Statement

The personal statement is a very important part of your application but not your entire application. Remember, that your resume, recommendations, writing samples, and other application questions are also important. If you are busy being a perfectionist with your personal statement and ignore the other parts because you found them less important, you are likely to lose your admission despite a good personal statement.

Also Read: Should I Pursue a Degree or a Diploma: Is it Worth It?

OOPS! Everything I Knew is Gone? WHAT NOW!!!

Don’t worry, we will not leave you with nothing. Now that you know what you must not do, it will be way easier to understand and implement what you must do.

Must Read: What are Universities Looking for in a Personal Statement?

Steps to Write a Personal Statement

Writing a good personal statement needs a lot of research, and thought so you can create a compelling narrative. Here are some important steps you can follow to write the perfect personal statement,

1. Start Your Personal Statement Early and Research Thoroughly

Ideally you should be starting work on your personal statement two months in advance. In this time, you should research the following,

1. Most important values your targeted institute looks for in its student

2. Program specific skills and values

3. Extracurricular opportunities an institution can offer

4. Faculty and Important Research in Your Field

5. Your own values

6. What sparked your interest in both the program and university?

7. Your personal experiences and accomplishments

8. Your professional experiences if any

9. Your community service

10. If there are some problems you wish to solve in your community

11. Your future goals and aspirations

Remember! A large part of writing a successful personal statement is also knowing yourself. What if we told you that you can scientifically understand yourself, your aptitude, and your values? All you need is a detailed aptitude test before you apply to universities.

2. Put the Pieces Together

Once you have researched all of this choose the parts of your story, or your distinct experiences that connect deeply to the program, institution, and its values. Build a story line that effectively weaves your personal prospects into your future goals, and presents you as a candidate that can both benefit and contribute valuably to your chosen program and institution. If you can, create more than one kind of narratives so later you can choose the more compelling one.

Remember, your narrative doesn’t need all of your initial research, but the most relevant and important parts.

3. Decide on Strategies to Make Your Writing Memorable

Now comes the fun part. Before you start writing your first draft, think of ways to make your write up interesting. But we already talked about how not to be over dramatic. Well, there are numerous other ways.

One of the most unique things is to compare your journey, or purpose with some metaphors. But the metaphor needs to be attention grabbing and written in a way that readers can visualize. Other than that, think of a moment that changed your life and craft interesting ways to concisely and effectively add it to your personal statement. If not this, you can also make the readers visualize the change you wish to bring in the world you envision. Now these are just some examples. You can come up with many more such things. Just let the craziest and the most creative ideas flow in, and see if you can use them.

Must Read: 5 Best Countries to Study Art and Design

4. Start Writing Your Personal Statement

At this point, you will have done a deep self reflection on who you are, your goals, your story, and your targeted program and institution along with ways to make your write up stand out. This is where thinking ends. Now start writing. Make sure that you start building your story right from the first line and hook your reader. To start your personal statement, you can also consider using some of the writing strategies you worked on as opening sentences to hook the reader. Besides that, make sure you write in a way that each sentence blends into the next and every paragraph adds meaning to your narrative. While you’re at it, ensure that you add the following into your personal statement,

1. Your story, experience, or the general ‘Why?’ behind your goals.

2. How you are a good fit for the institution and program?

3. How your chosen program and institution can help you?

Beyond these major aspects, also ensure that you demonstrate your values, aligning them to the values of the institution you are applying for. Make sure that you do not just mention your experiences or accomplishments in your writing. Instead, mention it all as a part of your journey, including your learnings, and demonstrating the values that set you apart.

Must Read: Personal Statement Vs. Statement of Purpose: What is the Difference?

5. Revise, Edit, and Proofread Your Personal Statement

The work doesn’t end once you write your first draft. After this step you should edit, proofread and revise your personal statement to make it error free and smooth. At this stage you can also take advise from a counselor or someone from your friends or family.

After making the right changes and perfecting your writing as much as you can, you will surely have a really well thought out, and well structured personal statement ready.

Remember as an international student, you must also check the requirements about language profiency tests like TOEFL and IELTS! Make sure you remain up to date regarding everything you need to know about these tests.

Best of Luck!

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