Crafting a Compelling Personal Statement for Postgraduate Applications

With the changing seasons often comes a period of personal reflection and change. If you're considering applying to a postgraduate program, you're likely navigating a complex process. A key element of this process is the personal statement. This article offers tips and guidance to help you create a personal statement that effectively showcases your qualifications, experiences, and motivations.

Understanding the Purpose of a Personal Statement

A personal statement is a short essay that provides graduate school admissions officers with an individual introduction to you. It's your opportunity to distinguish yourself from other applicants with similar academic records. It allows you to convey your personality, drive, and unique qualities.

Tailoring Your Statement

Aligning with the Program's Mission

Before you even begin writing, thoroughly research the programs you're interested in. Understand their missions, values, and unique aspects. A great personal statement begins with explaining your reasons for wanting to be admitted into a particular program. This is a good place to show off background research about the school. Perhaps the program has a diverse faculty. Maybe it is home to a renowned research facility. A successful application demonstrates that you understand what the program is trying to achieve and that you genuinely desire to be a part of that community.

Answering the Question

Carefully read the prompt before getting started. Some programs ask for very specific information in a personal statement. Schools ask questions specifically because they are trying to draw out evidence of things that matter to their program. If you answer essay questions directly - even if not perfectly - schools will have the best chance to consider your contribution to their community. It may seem self-evident, but it’s not uncommon to see applicants cut and paste the same essay from a different application….and forget to change the school’s name!

Highlighting Your Value

Remember that you are the asset, not the school. While it's important to express your interest in a particular program, focus on what you bring to the table. Highlight your skills, experiences, and aspirations. The better question to ask is “What’s the best program for me and my future aspirations?” There are so many outstanding programs out there. Find the one that is best for you. You’ve worked very hard to get to the position to apply to graduate school, and chances are you have much to offer to these programs. Please don’t forget that - you’ve earned it!

Structuring Your Personal Statement

Plan the structure ahead of time. While a five-paragraph essay is standard, some programs may only ask for a short response. Stick to the plan. Once you have an outline, use it. It can be tempting to veer off-topic, especially when writing about oneself. A well-organized personal statement is easier to read and understand. Consider the following structure:

Introduction: Capturing Attention

Begin with a captivating opening that draws the reader's attention. Your opening should be impactful and get straight to the point. The introduction of the personal statement is the most important part as this is what will draw the attention of the admission tutor reading it. Consider your main reasons for choosing your course and lead with that. Starting with something funny, interesting, unusual or surprising will give a good first impression. But do not try to squeeze something funny out of your brain; that is useless. The perfect opening sentence will just hit you in a random moment, when you have already worked hours and hours on your personal statement.

Body Paragraphs: Showcasing Your Strengths

Explain Your Interest: Clearly state why you're interested in pursuing a postgraduate degree in your chosen field.
Academic Achievements: Highlight academic accomplishments, such as honors, awards, scholarships, and high grades.
Research Experience: Detail any research projects you've been involved in, including your role, methodologies used, and outcomes achieved.
Long-term Goals: Describe your aspirations beyond graduate school. This section of the personal statement explains what you plan to do once you have completed your graduate course of study. You should emphasize how the school’s graduate program will help you reach your future goals. Perhaps by completing this program, you plan to enter a new career field or advance in your chosen career. The program may be a way for you to improve in your current position, bringing new knowledge to your current work.
Research Plans: Outline your intended research focus during the program to which you are applying.
Faculty Members: Identify professors whose work aligns with your interests.

Conclusion: Reinforcing Your Message

Summarize your key qualifications and reiterate your commitment to the program.

Content and Style Tips

Be Specific and Provide Evidence

Graduate school admissions officers are looking for candidates who have a proven record of putting in the work required for success. This section of the personal statement is your opportunity to brag. Instead of making general statements, provide specific examples and anecdotes that demonstrate your skills and experiences.

Tell a Story

A well-told story is a great way to convey your uniqueness without being preachy. Use subtle humor. Humor can be tricky, though. Outline any life experience you’ve had that relates to your course, any transferable skills, voluntary work, work experience and goals and aspirations to support your application.

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Be Authentic

Be sincere. There’s a fine line between portraying the best version of yourself and telling an outright lie. By lying about yourself, you may find that you gain entrance to a program that is not suited to you at all. You’re not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s okay.

Avoid Clichés and Overused Phrases

Avoid clichés. Words like “passionate” and phrases like “hard worker” are trite at this point. Don’t use unsupported clichés. It’s a good idea to try to stay away from clichés as a rule, but if you do think that one will work in your favour make sure it’s supported.

Some phrases and words to try to avoid include:

Mentioning your work experience at your “father’s company”
Using the phrase “quenched my thirst for…”
Any metaphors using fire, such as “sparked my interest” or “burning desire”
Starting the statement with “ever since I was a child” or “from a young age”
Using any of the following words: passion/passionate, fascinated, always, ignited, fuelled, enthralled, aspiration, intrigue, furthermore, ground-breaking, thought-provoking, inspiring, revel.

Know Your Audience

While you may not personally know your reader, know something about who reads these statements. It may be one person, who uses them as a screening tool. It may be an entire committee. By knowing something about the program, you probably know something about the selection committee. Tailor your response to your audience, avoiding religious or political subjects that may distract the reader from your qualifications.

Show How Capable You Are

Your personal statement needs to convince universities that you have the study skills to motivate yourself and work hard. Give relevant examples of how you have developed your independent learning skills and what motivates you.

Be Original

You know why you got excited about the degree when you read the course information or when you attended a Q&A with one of the lecturers during an open day. Use your personal statement as an opportunity to share your enthusiasm.

Thoroughly Research Your Subject Choice

Admission tutors will read your personal statement to help them evaluate whether you are right for the course. By attending open days, reviewing the course and module content and having researched the university’s values you will have far more confidence in sharing why you want to dedicate the next three years to your chosen course.

Promote the knowledge you already have and why you would fit in

Make it clear you have thoroughly researched the course and explain why you have made the decision to study it at university. Highlight the relevant skills and subject knowledge you already have and outline any relevant work experience that you have too, which will help to round out your personal statement.

The Writing Process

Start Early

It’s best not to leave writing your personal statement until the last minute - a great personal statement is one that is well written and well structured and this can take some time to put together. A superb personal statement will not be ready in a couple of hours. Or even a couple of days. It took me more than a month to complete the version I finally sent in.

Brainstorm and Outline

Create two lists: Write down one list detailing what you know about the course you would like to study and why you know it is the correct degree choice for you, including any career aspirations you might have or if you have plans to continue into postgraduate study. The second list should focus on why you are the ideal student for that course and university, including things such as extracurricular activities and related work placements you have done.

Write Multiple Drafts

When I started writing, I thought it would be a good idea to start with the character counter turned on, so I wouldn’t go over the 4,000 limit. First mistake… After 3,500 characters I started panicking because I was only halfway through my story. So I turned off the character counter and continued writing. At the end I had 7,000 characters instead of 4,000, but I had written down everything I wanted to say, and I only had to delete some words and compress it. That’s far easier than inserting more ideas while keeping it under 4,000 characters at the same time.

Seek Feedback

Seek feedback from someone else in your field who completed a similar program. Don’t be shy about asking people to proofread for you. When you have been working on something for a while it can be hard to spot any mistakes or tweaks you should make. Ask friends, family or a teacher to proofread it and give their honest opinion. They should feed back on whether your personal statement is well structured, do a spell check for any spelling or grammar mistakes and check whether it portrays your academic achievements and academic interests. Your parents, your teachers, your friends, your enemies… The more people you show it to, the more feedback you will get, and the better the final version will be. It helped me a lot when I read my personal statement out to my family and friends. When you are writing it sentence by sentence, you might not realize that there is no cohesion between your paragraphs.

Proofread and Revise

Proofread and revise. Pay attention to submission instructions. Don’t hound the admissions office. If a timeline for acceptance is not stated upfront, ask when you should expect to hear whether you are accepted or not.

Pay Attention to Submission Instructions

Your personal statement should be around 500 words, but some universities set their own guidelines that include a specific character, word or even line count. Whatever the limit, make sure that you tell a clear story and are concise. Every. Word.

Character Limit

Your personal statement can be up to 4,000 characters long, which is around two sides of A4 paper.

What to do if you are stuck

I suggest that you should not read any other personal statements before writing the first few drafts of yours. It will simply give you a false idea. You are most definitely unique, and it is worthless to follow some set rules or patterns, or someone else’s ideas.

Grammar

It sounds more professional and elegant if you use ‘accomplish’ rather than ‘do’, or ‘presume’ rather than ‘think’. As an international applicant, it was even more difficult since English is not my native language, but there are some useful translation and synonym programs on the internet to help with this. I used Google Translate primarily, which includes a great deal of synonyms if you translate words from English to another language.

What to write about

In these 4,000 characters you are trying to sell yourself to the university. A perfect product proposer is all about how great that thing is, and it’s the same with your personal statement. You should write about your experiences, your knowledge and your future plans.

Honesty

Do not write that you are fluent in Spanish if you can only say “I love you” in Spanish. Do not write that you are good at problem-solving if your sole example is a trick of carrying five bottles in one hand. If you are good, you are good the way you are.

The Role of AI

Can I use ChatGPT to write a personal statement? While ChatGPT or any other kind of generative AI technology can be a useful tool to write your personal statement, it is important that they are used with the right guidance. Ucas does not necessarily ban the use of ChatGPT for writing a personal statement, however applications are run through anti-plagiarism software so if it does detect that whole paragraphs are plagiarised, Ucas will notify any universities that you have applied to and any offers might be revoked. Some universities and colleges may also consider the use of ChatGPT as cheating so it might be better to avoid using these programs in case your universities take a stricter approach. The main thing to remember is that admissions tutors will want to see your character and personality so using a program like this would remove any kind of personality from your personal statement.

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