How To Write A Winning Personal Statement For College


It is that time of year where students all over are struggling with their application deadlines. And with those deadlines comes the stress of writing the personal statement.

The personal statement is a significant essay that can make the difference in terms of your acceptance into college or not. But how do you write a good personal statement?

  • - Firstly it is imperative that you avoid lying. Many students want to inflate the things that they did or the positions that they held in order to make themselves seem more appealing compared to the competition. This is a bad idea. It is a good lesson to learn at an early age that lying on a resume or an application is never a good thing. This is true of the personal statement for college. Do not lie. Firstly the review committee likely has copies of your information so they can compare and see if you lied. But most importantly not everyone can be the president of every club or the leader of every group. Just because you were treasurer does not mean your contribution was not significant or that you need to try and lie to make yourself seem more important. Your job was great just as it was so be proud of that.
  • - Secondly make sure that the personal statement is just that: personal. The review committee has already seen copies of your grades and your achievements. They know what your accomplishments are. This is not the place to include another repetitive list of the things you have done. Instead it is an opportunity for you to show the committee why you would make a good addition to the school personally. It is a chance to show off your personality and what makes you tick. Schools consider themselves a community and this paper is your chance to tell them why you would fit in well with that community.
  • - Thirdly it is important that you do not write a ten page paper. Most colleges have a minimum word limit such as three hundred words but they do not have a maximum word limit. Do not take this to mean the sky is the limit. Be courteous of the reader and remember that the person reading your personal statement is sitting in a room reading personal statements all day long. If you give them a paper that is beyond five pages it is not likely that they will continue reading with interest until the end. It is more likely that they will get bored and toss it out quite quickly. So avoid exceeding this by keeping your paper to about an average of two or three pages at most. Remember that less is more in this case.

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