Glenn M. Callaghan
Department of Psychology
San Jose State Univsersity

Before you start, check out the tips below on "Getting Started":

I. Determine your purpose in writing the statement

Usually the purpose is to persuade the admissions committee that you are an applicant they should choose. You may want to show that you have the ability and motivation to succeed in your field, or you may want to show the committee that, on the basis of your experience, you are the kind of candidate who will do well in the field. Whatever the purpose, it must be explicit to give coherence to the whole statement.

Pay attention to the purpose throughout the statement so that extraneous material is left out.

Pay attention to the audience (committee) throughout the statement. Remember, your audience is made up of faculty members who are experts in their field. They want to know that you can think as much as what you think.

II. Determine the content of your statement

Be sure to answer any direct questions fully. Analyze the questions or guidance statements for the essay completely and answer all parts.

For example: "What are the strengths and weaknesses in setting and achieving goals and working through people?" In this question there are actually six parts to be answered:

1. Strengths in setting goals
2. Strengths in achieving goals
3. Strengths in working through people
4. Weaknesses in setting goals
5. Weaknesses in achieving goals
6. Weaknesses in working through people

Pay attention to small words.
Notice: This example question says through people not with people, if it says with people, answer that way.

Usually graduate and professional schools are interested in the following:

1. Your purpose in graduate study. This means you must have thought this through before you try to answer the question.
2. The area of study in which you wish to specialize. This requires that you know the field well enough to make such decision.
3. Your future use of your graduate study. This will include your career goals and plans for your future.
4. Your special preparation and fitness for study in the field. This is the opportunity to relate your academic background with your extracurricular experience to show how they unite to make you a special candidate.
5. Any problems or inconsistencies in your records or scores such as a bad semester. Be sure to explain in a positive manner and justify the explanation. Since this is a rebuttal argument, it should be followed by a positive statement of your abilities.
6. Any special conditions that are not revealed elsewhere in the application such as a large (35 hour a week) work load outside of school. This too should be followed with a positive statement about yourself and your future.
7. You may be asked, "Why do you wish to attend this school?" This requires that you have done your research about the school and \ know what its special appeal is to you.
8. Above all this, the statement is to contain information about you as a person. They know nothing about you that you don't tell them. You are the subject of the statement.

III. Determine your approach and the style of the statement

There is no such thing as "the perfect way to write a statement." There is only the one that is best for you and fits your circumstances.

1. There are some things the statement should not be:
   1. Avoid the "what I did with my life" approach. This was fine for grade school essays on "what I did last summer." It is not good for a personal statement.
   2. Equally elementary is the approach "I've always wanted to be a __________." This is only appropriate if it also reflects your current career goals.
   3. Also avoid a statement that indicates your interest in psychology is because of your own personal psychotherapy or a family member's psychological disturbance. While this may have motivated many of us to go on to graduate study in psychology, this is not what your audience is necessarily looking for in your statement.
2. These are some things the statement should do:
   1. It should be objective yet self-revelatory. Write directly and in a straightforward manner that tells about your experience and what it means to you. Do not use "academese" or jargon.
   2. It should form conclusions that explain the value and meaning of your experiences such as:
      • What you learned about yourself,
      • About your field,
      • About your future goals,
      • About your career concerns.
   3. It should be specific. Document your conclusions with specific instances or draw your conclusions as the result of individual experience. See the list of general Words to Avoid Using without Explanation listed below.
   4. It should be an example of careful persuasive writing.

CONSIDERTIONS ABOUT FORM

Keep to the Page Limit Number!!! Reviewers have to read hundreds of these applications, don't overburden them with extra pages.

Do not leave in typographical errors. You don't want to be taken less seriously due to a typo, rite? :-)

WORDS TO AVOID USING WITHOUT EXPLANATION

GETTING STARTED

EXERCISES:

1. Recalling and analyzing experience - write short paragraphs on the following:
   1. Pick a memorable accomplishment in your life. What did you do? How did you accomplish it?
   2. What sort of important activities have you engaged in? With whom? what role did you play?
   3. What work experiences have you had? What was your job? responsibility? How did you carry it out?

   Now look over your paragraphs. What skills and qualities do you see that you possess? For example, consider working with others. Were you a leader? important "team" player?

   Looking at what you have found, you can now look for skills and qualities that will help you in graduate school. What factors stand out?

   NOTE: You will undoubtedly have more material than you can use. This is good, but you need to make strategic choices.

2. Your career goals - write two short paragraphs:
   1. What career have you chosen? What factors formed this decision?
   2. What evidence shows that this is a correct choice? That is, how can you show that this choice is realistic? (Personal experience in the field is a good place to begin.)

Another Advice

Taken from here.

The Statement of Purpose (also called "Letter of Intent" or "Application Essay" or something like that) is by far one of the most important parts of your application. Often it is the only way the admissions committee can evaluate your writing skills. Many applications will specifically tell you what they want you to address in this essay, but usually the instructions are vague. Here are some tips:

1. Plan on spending a lot of time on this essay. This will probably be the most difficult 1-2 page essay you've ever written. Most people I know take a month or more to write the essay--writing, rewriting, letting it sit and pondering what's been written, and then returning to it to do more editing, rewriting, tearing-it-up-and-starting-it-over-againing, and writing some more.
2. Solicit comments from professors and graduate students whom you know well--they can guide you as to what to focus on, what sounds too goofy or cheesy to include, what sounds like immature writing, etc. You can also give it to an english major friend of yours--english, philosophy, and comparative literature majors typically write far better than the average Psychology major and should be able to help you make your language sound smoother.
3. It is common for students to use the most advanced vocabulary they can muster, but what usually results is some perversion of English worth rolling your eyes at. For example, the very tacky sentence "I endeavor to pursue my doctorate in the field of cognitive psychology because I believe human thought permeates all facets of human behavior--from exam-taking to abhorrent aggression--and I believe that, as a cognitive psychologist, I would find the profession fulfilling to such a degree that I would be ecstatic regarding my chosen profession" would have sounded much better like this: "I want to get my PhD in cognitive psychology because I think it's an intriguing field and I know I'd be happy working in it". Most of us don't write as well as we think we do--so make sure you solicit comments from people whom you know to be better writers than yourself.
4. Keep it brief. Most applications specify how long the essay should be, but if they don't, stick to 1-2 pages single-spaced. (But double-space it if the instructions tell you to.)
5. Humor can be dangerous, because most of us aren't very good at making someone laugh whom we've never met before. My advice is to avoid any funny-business unless you're absolutely sure that you can pull it off.
6. Here is a rough outline you can follow when writing your statement of purpose. But make sure you also follow any instructions on your appliation, and make sure you also follow the advice of your professors.
   • Your beginning can be original, but don't make it ridiculous. If you don't have a philosophical quote or other profound statement that fits the overall theme of your essay well, just stick to a regular introduction like "I was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1980...". You absolutely must avoid cheesiness and/or egotism.
   • Your first paragraph might address any themes you can identify in your life that have pointed you toward your interests in psychology. Maybe you are interested in cultural psychology because your parents moved a lot when you were a kid; maybe you're interested in mental health problems because you had an uncle who was schizophrenic; maybe you're interested in psycholinguistics because you grew up in a bilingual home and you've often thought about how remarkable it is that humans usually succeed at understanding each other; etc. In short, there are probably some themes in your life that parallel your psychological interests. (Caution: talking about your own mental health problems is almost never a good idea.)
   • After talking very briefly about your upbringing and how it relates to your interest in psychology, spend a few sentences on your college experiences that are relevant to your intended career. Maybe you volunteered in a nursing home, or got a part-time job at a psychiatric hospital (these would only be worth mentioning if you're going into a mental health program). But don't bother going into a lot of detail about these experiences unless they are specifically relevant to your intended career (e.g., don't bother mentioning that you worked in a nursing home if you're applying to a biopsychology program).
   • Move on to talk about your research experience, and, especially if you're applying to a PhD program, spend most of the time in your essay talking about what you learned from these experiences. (If you're not applying to a research-focused program, emphasize work experience more than research experience.) Mention the kind of responsibilities you had, who you worked for, what you learned through this experience, etc.
   • Talk about how you think your past research (or work) experience is specifically relevant to the field you are interested in for graduate school.
   • As you're finishing up talking about your undergraduate years, you may want to take a moment to comment on your GPA or GRE scores, if you feel like they are not as good as you'd like them to be. You can even mention what your GPA might be under certain situations (e.g., "excluding my freshman year grades, my GPA would be a 3.7" or "if I remove the classes I took when I was a chemistry major, my GPA would be a 3.8").
   • Then talk about your goals in graduate school, and what you hope to learn and gain while you're there. Express confidence in your ability to be successful in graduate school, but be careful not to sound egotistical.
   • Then move on to talk about why the program you're applying to is a good choice for your career goals (e.g., "Harvard would be an excellent place for me to study social psychology because Professor Dan Gilbert and I share an interest in affective forecasting, and I sense that I would have wonderful research and publication opportunities at Harvard. I also share Professor Karen Ruggiero's interest in perceived discrimination. Finally, I recognize that the social psychology program at Harvard is an internationally respected one, and this makes me all the more interested in studying there so that I can be confident of obtaining a professorship when I've finished my graduate studies").
   • It would be wise for you to have at least one paragraph that you change for each school (like the example above). If you give the exact same essay to each school you apply to (which most people do), your essay won't sound as individualized, and you won't be able to talk about which professors you'd like to work with. Many schools put a high priority on whether your research interests match those of their faculty, so you should address any shared interests you might have if you can.
   • Sometimes it's also important to mention what type of work you would like to be doing after you finish graduate school. Again, focus on how the particular program you're applying to will help you prepare for this type of work.
7. Obviously, proof-read your essay a zillion times and make sure that there is not a single punctuation or grammatical error in it. Also, I state again, have several good writers (including several who are graduate students or professors) look over your essay for you and offer suggestions.
8. Above all, keep in mind that the tips on this page are very flexible. You should follow the instructions on your application and the advice of your professors.

Sample SOPs

Essay 1

I suppose if we all knew why we think, feel and act like we do, Psychology wouldn't even exist. It seems next to impossible, therefore, to try to describe in detail why I have chosen to be a clinical psychologist. All I can possibly tell you is the sort of experiences I've had that demonstrate how interested I am in clinical psychology.

I can't even remember why I chose to major in psychology, but I knew once I enrolled in Psychology 101 that if I just stayed in psychology, I knew I would never be bored with my education or my career. I soon learned how important it was to get research experience, so I enrolled joined Dr. Sensali's lab in September, 1999. While there, I was primarily responsible for entering data from a survey we were conducting of students' attitudes toward different types of teaching styles. One of the things I most appreciated about this experience was that I got to interact with other graduate students, and observe firsthand the stresses and joys of graduate school. I also got my first exposure to SPSS that semester, and I am grateful for that because it gave me a bit of a head start in learning how to use a statistical analysis software.

In January 2000, I enrolled in Abnormal Psychology. Dr. Richmond taught this class, and it was probably his enthusiasm for the subject matter that eventually converted me to the idea of becoming a clinical psychologist. I did well in the course as I did in most of my courses, but the most important thing about that class was that I had to write a research paper on personality disorders as a course requirement. For whatever reason, I was particularly struck by narcissistic personality disorder, and as I spent hours and hours in the library researching this topic, it became clear very quickly that although psychologists know a lot about this and other disorders, more high-quality research is sorely needed. I remember thinking how frustrated I was as I realized that there were gaps in my paper-no one seemed to have explored this question or that question-and I could only imagine how practitioners felt as they tried to do the best they could for their clients but didn't quite have all the information they needed in order to do so. Good research is crucial to alleviating people's distress, and I want to be any research that moves toward that goal.

In my final semester of my senior year at XXXXXX, I joined Dr. Raskin's lab. There, I was able to run married couples through an interview procedure as part of a study on how marital communication is affected by the death of a child. I appreciated Dr. Raskin's trust in me, even if it was scary at times. Later I also assisted as a data enterer and response coder. On a few occasions, I also participated in data analysis sessions with the graduate students.

Another important experience I had that semester is that I began volunteering for Crisis services. This was not just an eye-opening experience, it was also a real personal challenge for me, as I was basically forced, with minimal training, to somehow establish common-ground with people who were experiencing acute, severe distress. Some of my life's scariest experiences took place while I volunteered for Crisis services, but it was so uplifting to be able to know I might have made a tiny difference at just the right moment for a handful of people. After this experience, I knew for certain that I would attend graduate school in Clinical Psychology.

Overall I am pleased with my academic record and I believe that it has prepared me very well for graduate school. As you may notice, however, my grades improved over time. I began college as a pre-med major, and as should be evident, most of the "damage" to my GPA occurred in my freshman-year chemistry and physics classes. I learned important things about the philosophy of science in those classes, but as I learned about a year later, my interests were clearly elsewhere (i.e., in working with people).

I assume that my recommenders have adequately addressed my qualifications for your graduate program. I hope you will seriously consider me as a student in your program, because by interest in personality disorders is well-represented by the faculty in your department. I sincerely believe I would make an excellent student in your program, and I am prepared to work and study hard in order to meet the high standards that CWRU is known for. Thank you for your consideration.

Essay 2

A beluga whale helped me first realize my true academic passion. I spent my high school summers and weekends volunteering at the New York Aquarium, first in the education department, and later in the training department. It was there, through casual and research-oriented observations of cetaceans, that I began to wonder about animal and human minds. I later had the opportunity to participate in an observational research project, helping to record data on the behaviors of new whale calves and mothers. My informal and formal observations fed my interest in the phylogenetic and ontogenetic bases of cognition and language.

As a psychology student at [my school], I had numerous opportunities to research and observe human psychology, both in and out of the classroom. As a sophomore, along with a professor and fellow students in a seminar class, I helped design and run a study on categorization and user's intentions. Later that year we presented our findings at the annual American Psychological Society meeting. In that same year I also assisted a professor in conducting a study on the effects of familiar and unfamiliar music on reading comprehension.

I spent the summer following my sophomore year (1997) as a research assistant in the [my school] Psychology Department, funded by a grant from the Howard Hughes Foundation. I collaborated with a professor, a fellow undergraduate student, and a visiting high school student to research, design, and run a study on attitudes towards germs and illness. This included conducting an extensive literature review, specifying research questions, and designing questionnaires that would help us effectively answer our research questions. In addition to strengthening my research abilities, this experience gave me the invaluable opportunity to interact with fellow researchers as a student, a peer, and a mentor.

My extracurricular research experience during my sophomore and junior years of college gave me the tools to independently develop and carry out research projects. During my senior year at [my school], I completed a long term library-based research project on the evolution of the human linguistic ability. As a person who tends to look at the big picture when conducting research, this project was the perfect opportunity for me to integrate research from numerous fields and subfields in order to answer a psychologically based question. Through the study of anthropology, paleoneurology, neuropsychology, linguistics, and psycholinguistics, I explored theories debating the neurological and behavioral bases for language evolution. Although I do not envision the study of language evolution as being my main focus in graduate school or beyond, I still hold an interest in the field. As soon as I complete my graduate school applications, I plan to start preparing peer commentary articles on this topic for the on-line journal Psycholoquy.

My current research interests include language acquisition and cognitive development. I would like to study the relationship between language acquisition and the development of other cognitive processes. More specifically, I am interested how the development of metacognition and concepts affects and is effected by semantic and lexical development in toddlers and preschoolers. This research interest has developed over the greater part of the last decade; starting with my observations of behavior development in beluga whales, and shaped by my in depth study of cognition and language as a college undergraduate.

I feel that my research interests fit extremely well with the psychology department at [school I am applying to], and in particular with professors [a professor] and [another professor]. I would be elated to have the opportunity to study in a department where there is such a plethora of researchers who study cognition and development. The breadth of research done at [school I am applying to] would allow me not only to pursue my interests in depth with talented researchers, but would also allow me to eventually pursue some of my secondary interests in other areas of cognitive development. It is because of these fabulous opportunities that [school I am applying to] is my top choice for graduate study.

I am confident that graduate study at [school I am applying to] would prepare me well for my long term career goals. I wish to eventually hold a tenured position at a college or university, where I would have the opportunity to do research and to act as a teacher and mentor to undergraduate and graduate students. My undergraduate experiences at [my school] have fostered my love of and dedication to research, and provided the necessary tools to pursue my goals. I know that the opportunity to study at [school I am applying to] would allow me to grow as a student and researcher, and allow me to make significant contributions to the field of developmental psychology.

Please note that I have replaced identifying information (my undergraduate institution, and school I wrote this essay for) with "[my school]" or "[school I am applying to]". Also note that the paragraph about my fit with the school was different for each school. And I didn't say that every school was my first choice... I only told that to the two school that were at the time my top choices. (I couldn't decide between the two, so I felt justified in telling both of them that they were at the top of my list, since they were.) Paragraph divisions have also been removed.

Essay 3

When I came to college I wanted to be a doctor. I was going to study biology, pick up a second major along the way, and go to medical school to become a rural practitioner. I soon realized that I was suffering from my own version of "Med. Student Syndrome." I did not think that I was sick, but I did realize that I was obviously delusional. I realized that I did not have the burning desire to become a medical doctor. The profession did not interest me; it was my perception of the profession that had caught my fancy. Luckily, by then I had begun to study psychology, so I understood what a good delusion was like. As I studied psychology more and more, I found what excites me most of all were the investigation, dissection and understanding of problems that I saw around me in the world. I began to really excel in my studies of biology when I began to take courses in field zoology, avian biology, and ecology, where I was able to approach questions I could visualize with experience instead of with slides. Likewise, I found psychology courses stimulated me to think and explore my world as I took courses in development, psychopathology, personality and behavior analysis. Dr. XXXX's behavior analysis classes gave me good critical and analytic skills through our repeated analyses, discussion and practice of both basic and complex behavioral principles.

I received research training with XXX, Ph.D. while working on an autism and social behaviors study, and with XXX, Ph.D. while writing an honors thesis and subsequent poster presentation. My work with Dr. XXX helped me develop my observational skills and learn to classify and define abstract descriptors into concrete variables. In my honors research, I started with a broad question, wondering whether young adults' substance use behaviors were related to both sensation seeking and their friendships and if so how. Once I narrowed my ideas, collected and analyzed the data, I had to deal with the frustration of getting results that did not support the hypotheses. I did more data collection and analyses for a poster presentation at the Society for Prevention Research annual conference, and in post-hoc analyses I found that while I had studied the sample as a whole, males and females had different predictors of alcohol use. Even though I hadn't supported my original hypotheses, this gave me ideas as to why. One of my favorite biology professors used to say that advances in science are often made by proving something does not exist, something I learned well through my research.

I am currently volunteering for a year in Fairbanks, Alaska, through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps at a parenting resource center. I work in Family Preservation Services with families whose children have been in state custody trying to keep the families together. It's difficult work; I see kids every day who are very young but who have already had pretty tough lives. Many of these children could be case studies of multiple risk factors. As some here have put it, they are "damaged." My work here has really driven my thinking about how abuse, divorce, and familial discord interact to affect children in their social interactions, their view of themselves and the world, and the future predicted for them.

I would like to find ways to help kids like those I work with have more promising lives. I am interested in studying child and adolescent mental health, particularly issues of substance use, risk and resilience, pathology and aggression, and how social and family context affects each of these issues. Essentially I am interested in ways in which we can make growing up less difficult, particularly for high-risk kids. Through my undergraduate research, including my honors thesis, I was introduced to the issues surrounding adolescent substance use. I found myself very interested in both the specific issues of adolescent substance use and the ideas of how an adolescent's context, whether it is familial, environmental or peer, could affect the adolescent's life. I have been exposed through other classes and independent study to other work in risk and resilience, and specific child and adolescent problems of aggression, delinquency, depression, suicide and eating disorders. Each of these clinical issues has interesting causal mechanisms and pathways, which frequently have much in common. How so very many different developmental pathways can result from subtle differences in both context and learning history fascinates me. I am starting to see that many clinical problems are a result of a complex interaction between the person and their context, and that teasing apart the individual pieces of these interactions as much as possible will better inform our understanding of them.

I see myself spending my career primarily in research and teaching. I see it as crucial to have research that is well informed by clinical practice, and clinical practice well grounded in research. I also see it as necessary to ensure that research is properly disseminated, and that under-served areas gain increased attention as targets of study and clinical practice assistance. For example, most of Alaska does not have a strong university presence, and I believe that the social service programs here suffer from not being up to speed on the latest in clinical developments. I'd like to develop prevention programs and interventions to help address what I choose to specialize in, and a position as a university professor would be the ideal way to achieve this goal. Further, I am very attracted by the prospect of teaching and mentoring college students about what I love.

I decided to apply to XXX University for several reasons. I am attracted to XXX University by the strong emphasis on research and methodology. Particularly, the strong preventive focus of the Child Clinical area of emphasis is one that meshes well with what I am looking for in a program. In researching XXX University, the work of Drs. XXX and XXX particularly piqued my interest. I worked with XXX at XXX University, who exposed me to much of Dr. XXX's work on children of alcoholics. I would be interested in further pursuing work in risk factors for substance abuse, particularly looking at how familial and social context affect risk behaviors. Dr. XXX' research in risk and resilience and her prevention work with high risk adolescents is very much what I am interested in doing, as I not only have research experience but the clinical work with similar populations to what Dr. XXX' is working with. The Clinical Psychology program at XXX University has everything I am looking for in a program, just as I feel I have what XXX University should be looking for in an incoming student.

I would be very excited to join the incoming class at the XXX University for 2000. I feel I am well prepared to enter graduate study, and my strong motivation and career goals are a good match for what XXX has to offer.

Based on a presentation in Madras by:
Professor Hower, Cornell University, Department of English.

The personal statement is a difficult piece of writing, maybe the most difficult piece of writing you will ever do, and therefore you have to do it very carefully. It is an opportunity for you to give a picture of yourself. It may take a great deal of time and energy but at least you will have written something you are proud of, which says something important about you. So I would suggest first of all: write it for yourself as much as for graduate schools in America; do a job that you like, something that has integrity, which says something important about you. If things don’t turn out the way you hope, at least you will have written something difficult but satisfying.

Importance

How important is the essay part of the application? This depends on your marks to a certain extent. If your marks are very high, then it may not be as important as it is for someone whose marks are not so good. Nevertheless it is important. A person with high marks can spoil his/her chances of admission with a bad essay. At highly competitive schools, where most applicants score at the 97th percentile level on standardized tests, a winning personal statement may be the deciding factor in admission.

What Are Universities Looking For?

First of all don’t second guess. Don’t try to figure out what you think they want and supply it because you won’t be able to do that. Nor can you understand the mind of a 50 year old American who is living 10,000 miles away from you and may have woken up that morning with a headache and then was bitten by a dog on his way to the office. There is no way you can second guess, you cannot read their minds. Having said that, I can tell you some things which all college admissions officers want to see in the application:

• A Picture of Your Overall Personality
  How will you give a picture of your personality? I would suggest that you imply rather than state the facts. For instance, don’t say ‘I am a smart person.’ Demonstrate it, imply it. Don’t say ‘I am energetic.’ Give evidence by the fact that you worked after school for six hours every day and still had time to play on the volleyball team.
  
  
• Academic Background and Work Experience
  It would be a mistake to talk about your high school. Start with your undergraduate career. School records may be worth mentioning if there is something extraordinary about them.
  
  
• Continuity
  Admissions officers are looking for some continuity in what you have done, what you want to do in the near future and what you hope to do in the distant future. So, connect them.
  
  
• Commitment and Motivation
  Rather than simply saying ‘I am committed’, find a way of inferring that you are indeed highly committed and motivated to your proposed field of study.
  
  
• Communication Skills
  They will be looking at your writing skills - how well you can present yourself clearly and intelligently when writing, hence the importance of spending considerable time on the statement.

These five points are very general but almost every university wants to know about them. They may be too general but if you miss one of them you are probably missing something important.

General Do's and Don'ts

Do's

• Do take a lot of time.
  Don’t do this at the last minute. Plan to spend a month or so preparing for the essay. Plan to let it rest for a week, so you have time to mull it over and get a perspective on it. Don’t be hasty and sloppy.
  
  
• Do read the question carefully.
  If they ask you why you want to go to law school, answer that. If they ask what are your career goals, answer that. Don’t go off on a tangent or get too verbose.
  
  
• Do write the length of essay they ask for.
  If they ask for 200 words give them that or 190 or 220. You don’t given them a 1000 and you don’t give them 50.
  
  
• Type your final draft unless they tell you not to.
  Type it well with no mistakes. Buy some good paper. If you’re writing it, see that it is clear and legible.
  
  
• Do write a separate essay for each university.
  There is no reason why you can’t take a paragraph from one essay and apply it to another. Your essays don’t have to be every word different but each university would like to think that you are especially interested in their program. Each university is different. Make something about your essay distinctive to that university and mention its name. Don’t write an all-purpose general essay. Admissions faculty don’t like that.
  
  
• Do as much research on the university as you can.
  If you can get hold of a catalogue, read it. If you can find someone who went to the university, talk to them. Find out as much as you can about the university. You don’t want to say ‘I have always wanted to go to Harvard because I wanted to find out about the Great American West’. As most of you know, Harvard is not in the Great American West. It is in Massachusetts.
  
  
• Accentuate your positive qualities.
  If you had the highest mark in class, make sure that they know it. Make sure that they know that you were able to hold a full-time job while going to school. Make sure that they know that you won any awards. Make sure that they know that you were captain of a team.
  
  
• Mention your positive achievements as they apply to your graduate admission.
  The information you provide about your important achievements must be related to your field. If you are applying for medicine and you have won a poetry prize, don’t mention your poetry prize because you may not have space. It is a good thing, but you may need to fill your application with more relevant information. On the other hand, you could mention your work as organizer of blood donation camps or your internships as a psychiatric care worker.
  
  
• Do mention your work experience, or volunteer work that you may have done or extra-curricular activities if they relate to your field.
  For example, if you are going to apply to business school and you were on the basketball team you may think that it is not relevant. However if you learnt leadership qualities, if you learnt how to endure defeat, if you learnt management skills by being captain of the basketball team, then it is relevant. You have to show the relevance. If you had a job after school, working in the college bookstore or you have done volunteer work at a hospital, this is relevant - you have learnt management skills at the shop. You have learnt to interact with people while you worked in the hospital.
  
  
• Be definite in your application.
  Don’t say - ‘I hope to do this’, ‘I might like to do that’. Say ‘I want to do this’, ‘I am planning to do this’, ‘I intend to do that’. Your language is definite. It is not hesitant and indecisive.

Don'ts

• Don’t try to second-guess admissions faculty, as I have already said, and don’t flatter them.
  Don’t say ‘I’ve always wanted to study at the University of Montana because I have heard that it is the best university in the world to study medicine.’ It may not be and even if it is, it sounds like flattery.
  
  
• Don’t be phoney.
  Be honest. Admissions faculty can spot a dishonest essay a mile away. It would not be to your advantage to be dishonest as you might get into a university and then find it was not the right place for you.
  
  
• Don’t glorify yourself.
  Don’t say - ‘I was the best tennis player in the whole city of Madras’. That is boasting. However being modest and subtle are also not good qualities. There is a medium between being modest and boastful.
  
  
• Do not repeat materials that are already on the application.
  Don’t say ‘My major is Physics’ because you have already said that somewhere else. Instead say ‘While I majored in Physics I also took ...’ or ‘My Physics major enabled me to take special courses in... and...’. Do mention your knowledge and experience in the field at the university level. It is usually a poor idea to mention your high school experience unless something exceptional happened at that time that changed your life or affected your career choice.

Tips on Writing Style

• Write simply, not in a flowery and complicated manner.
• Write in a straightforward way.
  In other words don’t be subtle or cute. Write in a clear and logical manner. If you have to be creative, that is fine, but do so in a straightforward way. These people are really interested in your vocation. They don’t want to read something that is in the form of one act plays nor do they want to read three adjectives per noun. They want you to be direct and straightforward.
• Be clear in what you are saying.
  Make sure you are logical. Explain yourself with great clarity. Finally, most important of all, be specific, not vague. Don’t say - ‘My grades were quite good’ but say ‘I belonged to the top 5% of my class’. Don’t say - ‘I am interested in sports’. Say ‘I was captain of my hockey team’. Don’t say ‘I like poetry’. Say ‘I did a study of Shakespeare’s sonnets and wrote a twelve-page bachelor’s degree dissertation on Imagery’. Don’t say - ‘I want to be a Supreme Court Judge, that is why I want to go to law school’. Say things like ‘I was an apprentice in a court’ or ‘I often went with my father to the courts to listen to cases’ or ‘I wrote a legal column for a school newspaper’. That is being specific.

Writing the Essay

Stage 1: Preparation

Brainstorming is an important part of preparation. Take some time and write down in note form the important events and facts about your recent life - from the time you graduated from high school. List the things that you have done and the things that have been important to you. For example:

• Won a poetry contest
• Got A’s in Physics and Mathematics
• Member of volleyball team
• Worked after school in shop
• Won a contest
• Worked with a social welfare group on a slum project
• Went to Hyderabad for six months to stay with an aunt because she was sick

Write out the answers to some questions. Write them out in some detail, being as specific as you can.

• What have you learnt about your field that has stimulated you and given you the conviction that you are best suited to that field?
• How have you learned this? Classes, important reading, work experience, extra-curricular activities...
• How have your work experiences contributed to your personal growth?
  If you have not had a job, don’t worry about it, but mention it if you have - even if you were not paid for it. Perhaps you took care of neighbours’ children for a number of years. If you are applying for graduate study in social work, psychology or education, you can make this relevant.
  
  
• What are your career goals?
  Be as specific as you can be. Not all students are clear about what they want to do ten years from now. If you don’t know it, don’t fake it. Be as specific as you can be. Not everyone can be clear - some students are not old enough or experienced enough to know what their future goals are.
  
  
• Explain any discrepancies or gaps in your record.
  If you dropped out of university for a year to take care of your father who was ill, that will show up in your student record or transcript. You will have to explain that. You don’t have to make a big deal about it. However admissions faculty will want to know why you were not at university for a certain period. Suppose you had poor marks in the first two years and then your grades picked up and the reason you had poor marks is because you were not sure what you were doing or you were sick a lot or you were moving from one city to another. Explain that. For example, ‘My marks in the first two years were not up to my expectations but once I got settled into a new home, they improved remarkably’ or ‘My father was ill at that time and I had to take care of him. After his death, I had to face university again.’ If such experiences have influenced your record you should mention them. Don’t make silly excuses. But if something really needs explaining, don’t skip over it.
  
  
• Have you overcome any special obstacles?
  Some of you may have faced troubled times in your life - financially, medically or have had family problems. If they are really obstacles explain how you have overcome them. This makes you appear like a person of considerable character.
  
  
• What personal characteristics do you have that will enhance your prospects for success in your field?
  Can you demonstrate that, give evidence? If you can’t give evidence that you are a hard- working person then don’t say you are hard-working. If you are a hard-working person and you have worked ten hours a day at a job and studied, that is worth noting. Again inference may be the best way of stating it.
  
  
• What special skills do you possess?
  Ask your friends. You may have special skills in communication, articulation, or are you especially good at leadership, do you have sharp analytical skills, or are you creative. This is where your autobiography would be useful. You acted in a college play and people thought you were terrific. What does this mean in terms of applying to a graduate school of law? It means you are able to get people to pay attention to you. Being a good actor can make you a good lawyer. Actors have gone on to become lawyers and politicians as we all know, so look over your life. What special skills do you have? Perhaps you have a technical skill, a pilot’s licence or you know how to repair motors.
  
  
• What are the most compelling reasons the committee should be interested in you?
  What is so great, so wonderful about you? If you have done a good job with your autobiography and you have done a good job answering these questions half of your work is done. It takes time to do this. Spend time on it.
  
  
• What is special and impressive and unique about you?
  This is not an easy question to answer. You should ask someone ‘Hey what is so special about me’. Your mother may not always have the same ideas you have: ‘You eat well’. That’s not going to help you figure out an answer. Ask a friend.
  
  
• What details in your life have shaped you and influenced your growth?
  What details in your life have made you the person you are and have influenced your choice of career goal?

Stage 2: Writing

Write several outlines and decide which you like best. Remember the essay has an introduction, a body and a conclusion. Outline the things you want to say and from all the material you have written, select the material which you think will go well in your essay. Select the most significant details. Put that into your outline. Make your outline useable, make it neat and leave lots of space. Now you are ready to write the essay. Write on lined paper, double spaced, using only one side of the page.

The first attempt at writing the essay is going to be terrible, but don’t worry; it is only the first draft. Do not edit as you write. Write it out. Make it too long.

Stage 3: Revision

Let the essay sit for a day or two. Then go over it with a red ink pen making little lines; cross out words or sentences. Revise it carefully and write your second draft. This may also be disappointing. Don’t expect too much from your first attempts. It takes a lot of work. I have often put in a lot of work, put it in an envelope, taken one last look and said ‘Oh hell, I have to do it again’ and I did it again. Do as many drafts as you feel is necessary.

Spend time on the first paragraph. Make sure that first paragraph is terrific and interesting. Don’t make it cute or flowery. Don’t say anything less than fascinating. You won’t get it on your first draft. You will probably get it on your sixth or seventh try. Also pay attention to your last paragraph which may be only one sentence - make it a snappy last sentence.

Be clear, specific and interesting.
You are likely to be exhausted, fed up and sick of the whole project. At that time don’t push yourself. Let it sit. Give the essay to somebody else to look at. Someone who is older, perhaps a former teacher; not a friend who is afraid to criticise you. Somebody who cares enough to be critical and tell you the truth. Then write it again.

Once you think you have got the final draft, what do you do? Proofread it as if you were the editor of India Today or Times of India. Not a single mistake must survive - spelling or grammatical. Look every word up in the dictionary that you are not absolutely sure of.

Remember that content and style are both important (60%:40%). Make sure that the essay looks perfect.