Personal Statement Critiques by Student Development

We are here to assist you in preparing an effective personal statement for graduate school.  Each of our counselors has successfully applied and been admitted to a graduate or professional school program; they also receive continuing training from graduate and professional school recruiters about the nuts and bolts of a winning personal statement.

Our critique will be based on:

1. Have you addressed the prompt, or question(s) posed effectively?
2. Conceptually, have you constructed an interesting essay with a point to it?
3. Do we have a sense of what you are like as a person?
4. Is the statement focused?  Does it tell us why you applied for the program, and why you would be a good match? Is everything relevant?
5. Is it well written and free of mistakes?
6. Is it positive?
7. Is it persuasive?

Helpful hints on writing an effective personal statement, along with writing samples, are available in our printed guide “Graduate School Search Handbook”.

Guidelines for submission:
-   Statements may be “dropped off” at the front desk or provided to a counselor during an appointment. Student status will be verified by the front desk staff. A personal statement requires two work days (48 hours) to review.
-   Only one personal statement per submission.
-   We will do a critique of the first draft, and a review of the second.  Each draft requires a two day review period, so plan accordingly.  Because of counselor workloads, third draft reviews are not available unless you have made prior arrangements with the counselor.
-    Editing of documents by email is only available to clients who have met with a counselor first, and when     the counselor has agreed to that arrangement.  If you cannot return in person for a 2nd review, you will need to make a phone appointment, where you can view your document at the same time as the counselor.  The counselor will talk you through the suggested changes, and you will make them.

What we cannot provide:

• We cannot provide tutoring on writing methods.  If there are sentence or paragraph construction problems, our staff member will point out the problem areas and make some initial suggestions for revision.  Beyond that, we will recommend you visit CLASS.(Center for Learning and Academic Support Services).  CLASS, located in Small College, Room 1102,  is open Monday through Saturday, and writing tutors are available in half hour increments on a drop in basis.
• We cannot proof each paragraph for spelling and grammar mistakes.  Our counselors will be diligent about pointing out the mistakes in your initial paragraphs, and explain when we see a trend for errors.  For example:  “You are using the wrong verb tense.  I have marked examples of this in your first 2 paragraphs.”  Or “You are consistently misspelling bacteriological”.   We will recommend using grammar check and spell check to catch these errors on the second draft, and consulting a CLASS tutor for coaching on verb tenses, preposition usage, etc.