🔺 r/gradadmissionsuIll_Wolverine_9735·37 days ago
What to avoid when writing a personal statement (in my opinion)
I’ve been accumulating a huge google-doc of the advice I find myself giving to prospective applicants every year so I decided to start a blog to organize it in one place, but I also wanted to share it here since this subreddit helped me a lot when I was applying. I remember how stressful this process was– happy to try to answer any questions and help if I can! Here are the things that in my opinion you should avoid when writing a personal statement. This is all just my opinion and based on my own experience as a PhD student; there are exceptions to everything. “Ever since I was a child, I was fascinated by the world around me and wanted to learn more about the biological principles that govern life.” This is an exaggeration but everyone on the committee has probably read a million essays that begin like this and they’re probably going to roll their eyes a little bit. Unless you have a super compelling anecdote I’d start by getting straight to the point: what kind of science do you want to do, and why? Describing your research experience primarily with the methods you used. This one is surprisingly common even though it seems somewhat obvious: talking about the methods you used in a…