Impactful personal statements spotlight individuals
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When academic scores, exam grades and recommendations are perfect, the admissions decision often comes down to what admission officers describe as the “likeability” of the applicant.
Most selective colleges have a holistic admissions process which means that they create a statistical and a personal profile of each applicant. A student’s grades and test scores provide the statistical profile, and the essay and the recommendations provide the personal. Ideally, the statistical and the personal have equal weight in the decision to accept an applicant; however, due to the great increase in students with similarly high scores and glowing recommendations, admissions officers will look to the student’s writing samples as the “tiebreaker.”
With so much importance riding on the essay, it is important to make it memorable by communicating your character through the essay and supplements. Most students, however, don’t know how to communicate effectively and their essays are lists of extracurriculars and interests. This approach yields a very superficial essay. Character is more than your likes and dislikes. Character is the way you think, feel and behave. In other words, it’s not what you do, but how you do it.
In terms of the college essay, students are always told to show and not tell precisely because by showing the readers how you act — instead of what you do — you are allowing the reader to understand your character.
In conclusion, whether you are still writing your essays or have finished your finalized version, keep in mind three essential tips to make sure you have put the “personal” in your personal statement:
1. Quality over quantity: instead of writing an essay that sounds like an extended resume, choose one moment in your life that shows an aspect of your character you want to highlight and write your essay around it. This approach will yield an essay that is focused and impactful.
2. Look at the things you do outside of school: do you have a store on Taobao? Write a blog? These self-created activities often speak more to your character than any school activity because they require initiative and creativity. Also it is unlikely that another applicant will have the same activity; so it is an easy way to stand out from the crowd.
3. Don’t use a thesaurus or an SAT word list: to an experienced reader, it is immediately apparent when a student has done this, and it will not work in your favor. With my students, the first thing I do is to get rid of all their big words. You don’t communicate your intelligence by writing with big words, you do so by giving examples of events or moments that show your intelligence. Remember the trick is to show not tell!
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