You studied, worked, or volunteered abroad. Now you want to include part of this in your personal statement as part of an undergrad, AMCAS or other application. Maybe you want to show that you’ve experienced a different culture and expanded your perspective through your eye-opening experiences meeting new people, mountain-climbing, assisting in a rural community,…
10 Tips for Better Essay Writing
Let’s take your writing up a notch–or two! Ready to up your game in the writing department? Since you’re probably eager to show the adcom that you’ve got the “write” stuff and can relate your significant experiences and insightful ideas eloquently, these 10 tips are for you: Think about writing as a conversation on paper….
How Personal is Too Personal?
The personal statement is a terrific opportunity to share an intriguing and unique aspect of your life with the admissions committees. How much should you tell? At what point are you crossing the line into TMI? When I applied to college, I wrote a personal statement describing some challenging family circumstances I’d had while growing up….
Admissions Tip: BE YOURSELF!
One of the things admissions committee members tell us again and again is that they wish – really, truly wish – that applicants would not try to write what they imagine the adcom wants to hear, but would just be themselves instead. Time and time again, admissions committee members tell us they wish applicants would…
Writing a Lead That Pops
How many times have you wandered through a bookstore or library, opening up a book to read the first few lines only to quickly close it again? How often have you tested a free sample on your Kindle only to decide after a paragraph that you’re glad you didn’t buy it? How often have you…
How to Create the First Draft of Your Application Essay
You now have a clear sense of what makes an essay effective. You have reflected on the questions that helped you identify and develop your theme. Now it’s time to start writing. Before you begin, draft an outline, even if it’s only a very informal list of the main points you want to cover. Based…
Finding a Theme for Your Statement of Purpose
All effective essays have a distinctive theme. Referring back to the essays we read in the previous post, we might say that our MPH candidate’s theme was her passion for finding answers to significant public health issues. Our law school applicant’s theme was his yearning for greater intellectual challenges while remaining in the healthcare field….
Identifying the Ingredients of a Winning Essay
As you gear up to write your application essays, you may have looked at sample “winning” essays published in books or on websites, only to ask yourself afterward, “Sure, these are great, but what do these essays have to do with me?” This blog series will show you how to plan for, draft, and edit…
Your Guide to Getting off the Waitlist in 2022
Landing on a waitlist can be a nerve-wracking experience. As a result, sometimes waitlisted applicants let their anxiety or disappointment get the better of them. But the application process is not over for waitlisted applicants! “Waitlisted” is not “rejected.” If you play your cards right, you still have a fighting chance of getting into your…
3 Reasons Why Writing About Overcoming Obstacles Strengthens Your Application Essays
Why do obstacles matter to the adcoms? Applicants love to write about their accomplishments, whether in personal statements for graduate school or in b-school essays that ask for greatest achievements, challenges, and the like. And when they do, they are not shy about coming up with tangible accomplishments: driving innovations that led to revenue boosts…
Happy Thanksgiving!
Today is Thanksgiving in the United States, a national holiday during which we give pause – at least for a brief moment – to count our blessings. Wherever you are, that is a good exercise. With the corona pandemic not yet fully behind us and the various wars, tensions, and crises throughout the world, it…
10 Tips for Writers of Letters of Recommendation
It’s time to ask your professor, boss, or colleague to draft a convincing and enthusiastic letter of recommendation for your grad school application. And honestly, you are not looking forward to it. The recommenders you want to write on your behalf are very busy people; can they really give this the attention it requires so…
Happy 4th of July!
Test-Taking Advice for People with Learning Disabilities or Test Anxiety
Nobody likes taking tests, right? Well, perhaps a few of you out there get psyched at the chance of showing how well you have boned up for your exams. But most people facing a timed test can’t wait to get it out of the way. Even those who are fairly confident of their abilities will…
5 Tips for Writing About Extracurricular Activities You Started at the Last Minute
You are this close to finishing your application, but in the section that asks you about your extracurricular activities, you freeze up. I don’t really have any extracurricular activities, you think. What should I do now? How will I be able to stand out from the competition? We’re glad you asked. Team Accepted has worked…
3 Must-Have Elements of a Good Statement of Purpose
What are the essential, absolutely must-have components of a strong statement of purpose or goals essay? Very simply, you’ll need to include your MAP. At Accepted, MAP has a double meaning for individuals writing statements of purpose and goals essays. It stands for Motivation, Aspiration, and Perspiration, and illustrates the road you will follow when…
4 Ways to Display Teamwork in Application Essays
Teamwork, and its close cousin, leadership, are highly prized by graduate programs and universities. But if you haven’t worked in teams on any regular basis, don’t worry! There are more ways than you may realize to prove your chops in this area through an essay about teamwork. Consider the following 4 options: Remember: No man…
How Do You Write an Accomplishment Essay?
Build a better accomplishments essay by following this recipe. Accomplishments are the bread and butter of personal statements and application essays. That may sound straightforward, however, a fascinating brainstorming session of Accepted admissions consultants reveals that applicants don’t always know what an accomplishment is. What goes into this application staple? And how can you analyze…
Got a Criminal Record? Here’s How to Address It in Your Application
If you have ever engaged in disorderly conduct, petty theft, gotten a DUI, been arrested during a political protest, or have any other infractions (minor or major) on your record, we hope that you have learned important lessons from those experiences and won’t repeat them. But if you are applying to a grad program, you…
Bring Your Personal Statement to Life With Vivid, Active Verbs
Your personal statement and essays are essential elements of your application and allow the adcom great insights into who you really are aside from your stats. However, no matter how extensive your experience or how accomplished you may be, all that can be lost if presented in plodding prose that no one has the energy…
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