Five Steps to Writing a Personal Statement
Imagine finding (and committing to) a roommate for the next four years. You’d want to get to know who that person is, what he/she enjoys doing, and probably more.
Are you looking for someone who loves music, is interested in thriller movies, and enjoys café-hunting on weekends? Or perhaps you’re hoping to find someone who is funny, down-to-earth, and shares your love of reading.
Guess what? That’s essentially what colleges are doing. They want to get to know you better.
One of the ways colleges get to know you is through your personal statement — a 650-word essay that shows who you are, what you value, what you could bring to the college community, and in some ways, whether you and the school fit together.
What a personal statement is not?
While it may be tempting to start writing your personal statement as with any other academic essay you’ve written in high school (a literature review or an argumentative essay), a personal statement is anything but. It is personal. That means you will have to write about yourself, which most students are not used to.
Before I talk more about what you should include in your personal statement, here are a few things this essay is not:
It’s not a five-paragraph English class essay where you make an argument and support it with evidence.
It’s not a list of what you did outside of school.
It’s not analytical, but more casual, personal, vulnerable.
It’s not an academic essay where you avoid using “I.”
It’s not a “Dear Diary” journal entry.
Great. So what should you include in a personal statement?
Squeezing in 17 or 18 years of your life story into a 650-word essay seems pretty daunting. So here’s an easier way to approach it. Think of your life so far as a movie. You will want to highlight specific moments, stories, experiences, or scenes that demonstrate who you are and what you value to put in your personal statement, like snippets of a movie.
There are two basic structures you could use:
Thematic Structure – a series of moments, stories, experiences, and insights connected by a common theme. For example, five different snacks that explore five different sides of you.
Narrative Structure – a traditional story structure, where you dedicate a good portion on challenges you faced, what you did about them, and what you learned in chronological order.
If you did not face significant challenges (or do not want to write about them), I would highly recommend trying the Thematic Structure. Afterall, we are dynamic human beings, and should not be solely defined by just the challenges we face.
Step 1 - Brainstorming
This step is crucial. Good brainstorming will generate good content. And good content means better essays. Before you even start writing, take a few minutes to do the following brainstorming exercises:
Step 2 - Outlining
Some may think outlining is unnecessary, but I can assure you that it is super important. It can save you tons of time by giving you a clear roadmap of what your draft will look like (and whether it would work).
For Thematic Structure …
Describe the seven linked things you picked from the Seven Things Exercise.
Outline how each of the seven could connect to different experiences that show different values.
Include your personal take on why those values matter and how you’ve grown from each experience. If these insights are surprising, even better.
Write a short paragraph on each one.
For example, maybe there are seven cards written to you from different people, and each card represents a different interaction or experience that shows one side of who you are. Or seven different snacks. Or even seven different elementary schools (if you moved around a lot as a kid like me).
For Narrative Structure, flip your Challenges & What I Did About It Exercise sideways, with “Challenges” at the top and “What You Learned” on the bottom. That’s essentially your outline if you split it into three sections:
Challenges + Repercussions
What You Did About It
What You Learned
With about 650 words to work with, you should dedicate about 200-ish words to each of the sections above.
Step 3 - Drafting
Once you have a solid topic and outline (with detailed examples), set the timer for 30 minutes, and start writing. Don’t let yourself spend too much time on any one draft, as you’ll probably go through many. The sooner you let go of older drafts and dive deeper into writing better ones, the better.
At this point, try to focus on writing the body of the essay first. Many students get stuck trying to come up with a really good opening. But an opening is just an opening. Whether an essay will work depends on the meaty middle of the essay. If you’re worried that you’ll get stuck thinking about an opening, write a placeholder sentence to remind yourself to come back to it.
Step 4 - Upleveling
Once you have your first or second draft, or if you’re feeling ambitious, there are some techniques you could do to uplevel the quality of your paragraphs. For your personal statement to really stand out, you need to have a relatively uncommon topic and connect it to uncommon values.
For example, tons of students write about wanting to become a computer engineer. If you want to stand out, you probably need to connect your essay to a few values that are not commonly associated with being a computer engineer. Instead of “collaboration,” “efficiency,” or “hands-on,” perhaps focus on “social change,” “well-being,” and “accountability.”
The more uncommon the connection, the more likely it is for your personal statement to stand out. Take some time to do this step. Your brain is more imaginative than you might think.
Step 5 - Revising
During revision, use the following checklist to see if your essay is clear:
For Thematic
Is my topic/theme clear?
Are my examples specific, and clearly linked to my topic/theme?
Do my values show through the examples?
Do each paragraph offer some kind of insight based on my experiences and values?
For Narrative
Are my challenges clear?
Are the effects of the challenges on me clear?
Are what I did to overcome my challenges clear?
Are what I learned through these experiences clear?
Finally, one of the best ways is to read the essay out loud to yourself, or better yet, read it to a friend, family member, or teacher. They’ll be able to give you some constructive feedback to make your piece flow better.
If you’re applying to the University of California, check out “How to Tackle the Personal Insight Questions.”