The personal statement is an invaluable opportunity to set yourself apart from other applicants in the college admissions process. In contrast to the other components of your application, the personal statement allows you to speak on your own behalf and share your past experiences, present endeavors, and future goals.
Not only is the personal statement a significant component of your college application, it is also a rewarding exercise for reflecting on your life thus far and looking towards the future. We'll discuss each step of the writing process in order to help you craft a strong, compelling, and authentic personal statement.
For those seeking in-depth and individualized support during the writing process, we encourage you to schedule a free consultation with Invictus Prep to learn more about our services. Our College Readiness Specialists and Essay Specialists are ready to help you with brainstorming, draft revision, proofreading, and more, and we are confident that you will produce a personal statement that best represents who you are.
Contents
Step 1: Make a Plan
Step 2: Research
Step 3: Brainstorm
Step 4: Outline
Step 5: Write Your First Draft
Step 6: Rinse and Repeat
Step 7: Solicit Feedback
Step 8: Are We There Yet?
The writing process will be non-linear and iterative and you will find yourself skipping certain steps, revisiting others, and backtracking before moving forward. Regardless of the steps you take and the order in which you take them, what matters most is that you figure out what works best for you. Ultimately, your task is to commit words to paper and shape these words into a cohesive narrative that effectively communicates key aspects of who you are to college admissions officers.
Step 1: Make a Plan
If you are applying to college in the upcoming 2023 - 2024 college application cycle, you will need to submit a final draft of your personal statement with the rest of your application before the following deadlines:
- Early Action and Early Decision Deadlines: Early to mid-November
- Regular Decision Deadline: Early January to mid-February
- Transfer Deadline: Varies
Here are a few soft deadlines to help you stay on track to meet the application deadlines:
- August 1, 2023: Finish researching and brainstorming.
- August 15, 2023: Write your first complete draft of your personal statement.
- September 15, 2023: Solicit feedback on your personal statement.
- October 15, 2023: Finish incorporating feedback and revising your personal statement.
🌟How can Invictus help? A College Readiness Specialist can help you develop an individualized plan for writing your personal statement and can schedule check-ins with you to monitor your progress.
Step 2: Research
Start by reviewing the 2023-2024 common app essay prompts and read personal statements that are published on the internet.
- Analyze each personal statement in terms of structure, content, voice, and style.
- What is the writer trying to communicate? Are they successful
- Try to imagine that you are a college admissions officer and ask yourself, based on the essay in front of you, would you want to admit the author to your college? Why or why not?
Step 3: Brainstorm
On a blank sheet of paper, start listing your ideas and reflections in response to the Common App essay prompts that most speak to you. Your list could include any of the following:
A moment, story, experience, memory, accomplishment, aspect of your identity, personality trait, extracurricular, creative endeavor, meaningful relationship, or community of which you are a member.
The brainstorming process is not an isolated event. Rather, you should dedicate several hours across many days or weeks to brainstorming. Use the note-taking app on your phone or keep a journal with you so that you can capture ideas that come to you as you go about your day-to-day life.
Step 4: Outline
Review the list of ideas that you brainstormed, identify the most promising ideas, and make an outline for how your essay will proceed from start to finish. The purpose of outlining is to plan in advance the sequence of events and ideas in your essay so that you have a roadmap to follow when you begin writing. This will make the actual task of writing feel less daunting and ensure that your essay does not wander aimlessly.
If you aren’t sure how to begin outlining your personal statement, start by analyzing the structure of a personal statement that you found compelling during your research. Here are some questions to guide your analysis:
- How did the author begin their essay?
- What is the function or purpose of each paragraph?
- Where did the author share key information about themselves?
- How did the author transition from one paragraph to the next?
- How did the essay conclude?
Step 5: Write Your First Draft
Using your outline for guidance, dive headfirst into writing your personal statement. The first draft will likely be the hardest for you to write, but once you have words committed to paper, the rest of the process will feel easier.
Pay no attention to the word count and mute your inner critic to avoid editing over yourself as you write. Most of all, don’t be afraid to experiment.
Step 6: Rinse and Repeat
After you have written your first draft, it’s time to read what you have written, pause, reflect, and then work on editing, rewriting, and restructuring. Don’t forget, the “delete” key is your friend! Make sure to take a few hours or days in between writing sessions to actively not work on your essay. If you find yourself feeling frustrated or are struggling to figure out what to say or how to say it, then take a step back. The time you spend not writing will give you the renewed clarity you need each time you do sit down to write.
Here are some key ingredients for a strong personal statement that you should incorporate into your essay:
- Attention-Grabbing Introduction: The most impactful personal statements often begin in media res by plunging the reader into a pivotal moment or story from the author’s life.
- Description and Analysis: A strong personal statement strikes the appropriate balance between description and analysis. In other words, there should be a sufficient body of descriptive evidence—memories, experiences, and accomplishments from your own life—that supports your analysis—the meaningful insights and revelations you can articulate about who you are, what you value, and what you want for your future.
- The Past, Present, and Future: Personal statements are most effective when they blend elements of the past with those of the present and future. For instance, you might share a story from your childhood that parallels a story from your sophomore year of high school and discuss how these stories have shaped who you are today and your goals for your future.
Step 7: Solicit Feedback
After you have produced a quality draft of your personal statement that you feel confident sharing with others, solicit feedback from people in your network of family, friends,and teachers. When you ask someone for feedback, clearly communicate what type of feedback you are looking for and express your gratitude for the person’s time and effort.
Ideally, you should seek the following types of feedback:
- Ask someone who knows you personally to provide feedback on whether your personal statement authentically reflects who you are and your life experiences.
- Ask someone who does not know you personally to share what they learned about you from your essay. This will help you understand what an admissions officer might learn or not learn about you after reading your personal statement.
- Ask a strong writer or editor to provide overall feedback on the structure of your essay and make copy and line edits pertaining to grammar, conventions, word choice, style, and syntax.
Remember that while all feedback is useful, you need not use all feedback that you receive. Pick and choose what feedback you most want to incorporate into your essay.
Step 8: Are We There Yet?
The writing process can feel like it will never end, but rest assured, there will be an end point. This point may come when the early action, early decision, or regular decision deadlines are upon you and you are required to submit the best draft that you have written. Or you may reach a point where you realize that you are making cosmetic alterations rather than substantive improvements on what you have written. Regardless of how you get yourself to the finish line, be sure to celebrate once you do because this is a major accomplishment.
Your personal statement is an integral component of your college application that humanizes the application by shedding light on who you are—your identity, experiences, values, and aspirations. Furthermore, your personal statement is an opportunity for introspection where you can draw connections between your past and present and look to the future. With the guidance and support of Invictus Prep throughout the writing process, you will be in the best position to craft a personal statement that is compelling to read and an authentic reflection of you.
Click below to schedule your FREE trial call today with one of our specialists so you can begin working on your personal statement with us!