Personal Statement

[maggs_07]

I've posted this here before when I was applying to a grad program, and this is the new revised version that I wondered how it looked before sending it out to more schools

Personal Statement

I grew up the oldest in my family and was the one everyone from my mother to my youngest sister turned to for advice and assistance. I knew growing up I

Comments

[tisiphone]

What's the prompt you're writing to?

[historychick49]

Couple of corrections: Change "My freshman year I found an organization" to "My freshman year I learned about an organization", as the former could be confused for you founding the organization.

"I have given presentations over dating violence" should be "I have given presentations on dating violence".

[historychick49]

OT, but is that a Fern Gully icon?

[anitakay]

Why should the school take you? Yes, you did all of this amazing stuff. But, what is it that you want to research? How will you benefit them?

What is it about the experience at Univeristy xxx that wanted you to go there? You touched on it briefly, go more in depth.

I agree with changing "My freshman year I found an organization", someone could confuse that with you founding the organization.

Instead of saying: "During this experience, I realized...", you should state: "This experience made me realize that..." (Note: this would be a good spot to go more in depth with your summer work in the Cognative Psychology Lab). The latter statement is more direct, it says that you did this and experienced it in an active way. The former, is passive.

Overall, it is pretty good. Good Luck.

[endxgame]

I'm never sure about how helpful my comments are for professional SOPs rather than academic ones.

- "Ever since I was a kid I wanted to do X..." is a cliche and an unhelpful opening.
- You need to explain why exactly Professor X and School Y are good fits for you.
- Cut down on the number of acronyms. It's really distracting.
- Include more info on what *exactly* you want to study.
- You provide way too much personal detail about your involvement in that organization - you've only got 400 words to work with (I assume) and 50% of that is tied up in talking about something you can probably describe in 75 words.

[maggs_07]

Yes it is a Ferngully Icon! And this is currently just a basic format I'm changing to work with each college. Actually this version is what I'm turning in for a completely pointless assignment for Senior sem, but none the less I want it to be good. The length actually is not over two pages, no word amount and currently I'm barely a pg and a half.