Last Thursday, I attended the seminar about personal statements for grad school. I came to the event because I am interested in law school and wanted to gain some insights on how I could possibly start positioning myself to have a good and straightforward personal statement. I found the event really helpful because I learned a few things I don’t think I was really aware of before about what really wins in this process.
One of the the tips I took away from the workshop was that it is important to actually mention your fit tp the school you are applying to. I used to see the fit topic as something you try to address i your essay/statement by highlighting certain experiences over others, but it was cool to learn that it actually helps to somewhat concretely mention it. Another tip I found interesting was how it is incredibly important to always approach the experiences you discuss with positivity, to the extent tat you need to screen the things you write to make sure they don’t come off, even minutely, negative. The last tip I took away was how you need to address your motivations and your long term goals in your statement, making sure to point out how they intersect and particularly will at the respective school.
I will be applying to grad schools in senior year, so this blog post about the tips you learned how to write a personal statement is very helpful. It’s interesting that you should not include any negative details or maybe sad details when describing an experience. I wonder if writing about a struggle or failure is considered negative, but it would make sense that the end result or process should be positive.
Hi, thanks for your response to my post, firstly! I just wanted to comment back that the example of writing about a struggle of failure (as you pointed out) is exactly what I was thinking about when I heard that tip in the workshop! especially because that is what I did for my undergrad essay. It definitely was a moment that enlightened me to the fact that the grad application essays are a completely different ballgame.
I also want to apply to law school in the future and for me writing the essays and personal statements is the hardest part. I never know what to put in and what to leave out. I found the tips from this workshop to be extremely useful. I also found the tip about writing positively to be very interesting and it was one that I had not anticipated. I normally don’t pay much attention to whether an essay comes off as positive or negative but after the workshop I can’t help but notice it in different writings. I think that is one of the most overlooked and yet most important tips for us to follow when writing personal statements.