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Helpful Hints

PERSONAL STATEMENTS

by Lisa Eck and Spencer Seher

In the application process, the personal statement marks an opportunity to lend a face to the facts, through what can be a very flat colorless medium: paper and ink. Do not, however, think of the personal statement as a mini-autobiography, where the emphasis is on listing the facts in chronological order. Instead, treat the noun on equal par with the adjective; just as important as the personal content of your essay is its ability to make a statement, to perform as an argument.

Generally speaking, to write in this difficult genre--the personal statement--you need to find a balance between the descriptive and the analytical. Find ways to generalize out from your life so that it speaks to others, but do not let abstract arguments supplant the specific detail that lends authenticity to your beliefs. Narration, storytelling, example, and illustration are all important rhetorical strategies that help your readers see a face or picture a scene.

Choosing what to write about is the first hard step, but ultimately what will prove more important is not your handling of what  but your attention to how and why. In short, the personal statement is not a statement about your person; it is a statement about how you think about your preparation, about your anticipated field, about events or theories someone else could interpret differently. This is where your voice comes in: the committee reading your statement wants to hear you think out loud about your selections.

The ultimate challenge becomes this: Can you shape your life, your education, your habits of observation into an argument? The personal statement will require a combination of vulnerability and editorial distance, emotional risk and intellectual objectivity. What will secure this combination is 1) time spent pre-writing, brainstorming the content of the essay, and 2) time spent revising the essay. Expect to produce multiple drafts to achieve a concise and powerful personal statement.

Would you like additional advice? Please peruse the following links!

Common False Starts
The Balance of Style
Checklist