Make Sure Your Personal Statement Does the Job

I attended a lecture over the weekend. As the speaker began, he mentioned a couple of ideas that sounded intriguing, and I settled back expecting him to explore them, perhaps tie them together. Then came a few more unrelated ideas. OK, I thought, the first ones must have been warm-ups. It could be interesting if he develops these later concepts. But he didn’t.

He continued with teasing non-sequitur after teasing non-sequitur. It was a frustrating monologue of disconnected, but potentially engaging, ideas. I was not a happy listener. The person sitting next to me dozed. #FAIL

Don’t frustrate your reader. Make sure your personal statement has a point — one point. If you introduce an idea in the introductory paragraph, develop it. Build on your premise, answer your question, tie plot strands together, and clarify as needed the significance of your examples.

Don’t waste your reader’s time or irritate. Deliver on the promise you make in your personal statement’s opening.

By Linda Abraham, President and Founder of Accepted.com, co-author of MBA Admission for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Acceptance at Top Business Schools.