Personal Statement Essay
Personal statements are often the basis for interview questions, so be prepared to respond to queries about what you have written and clearly remember the details you included.
A personal statement should tell a story about you and attract your readers with an effective opening paragraph. Capturing and maintaining the audience’s interest is essential or your application will be passed over.
Most important in a personal statement and contrary to what intuitively you think would impress, such as awards, scholarships, degrees, sports victories, etc., is GROWTH, MATURITY, AND CONFLICT. Read the personal statements on the Wheaton college link. These are not laundry lists of good deeds, but instead stories of how people overcame problems in their life and grew in the process.
The Wheaton Law school video I refer to will reiterate this advice. Lots of applications will have perfect GPAs and interships, etc. But what sets you apart from the others?
We will look at various sources for writing an effective personal statement, including examples, what to include, and what to avoid. Remember that the examples are other people’s work and representations of themselves. While you may refer to the examples as helpful models, you must compose your own original statement to avoid plagiarism. After all, the purpose is to sell yourself and stand out from all the other candidates.
Format:
The personal statement will be 450-550 words.
Have at least 5 sentences beginning with participles. See my discussion on passive voice and participles in Content.
Include an appropriate heading or title at the top, such as
Make sure your name is on the second page as well (use the header or footer feature in your Word document). The final draft will be submitted as a Word document so I can offer critique using the word comment feature.
Send to the safe assignment link titled 1WP DRAFT.
If for some reason you have trouble submitting your draft, send to my email by the due date with a subject line DRAFT SUBMISSION PROBLEM and I will accept it for full credit. But do all you can to get it into the safe assignment.
Solution Preview
Since my early days, schooling has always been a very significant underpinning upon which I put up my dreams and goals in advancing my future career. I have always kept in mind that without education, it would be difficult for me to achieve my greatest ambition which has always been helping children to develop to their fullest potential.
(482 words)