Most of you are now — or will be soon — editing your critical application essays and personal statements. When Accepted consultants review and edit your essays, they go through a process I call the editing funnel. When you edit your own essays, you should follow a similar process. How the editing funnel works Here’s…
How to Stay Within Essay Word Limits by Reducing Verbal Verbosity
Most applicants – whether applying to med school, law school, business school, or any other grad school or college program – need to deal with rigid character or word limits when writing their application essays or personal statements. You may start out thinking that you have nothing to write, but generally, once applicants begin writing,…
“I’m Smart, Really I Am!” Proving Character Traits in Your Essays
When you write an application essay or statement of purpose, you’re trying to accomplish several goals at once: (a) You need to prove your worthiness to be accepted to your target school, while (b) also showing the adcom that you have desirable character traits that your program values. But how do you prove to people whom you…
The Miraculous 15-Minute ROUGH, ROUGH Draft
Having trouble getting those first few words and sentences of your application essay up on your computer screen? Don’t fret – even the most accomplished novelists or famous journalists have a tough time getting started. Tempted to get up and do something – anything! – rather than stare at that blank screen for another second?…
Fully-Funded PhD Program at Harvard University: How I Got In
Harvard is one of those places that people often talk about with admiration but rarely as an aspiration. “Could I ever get into Harvard?” is usually a question asked with a great deal of doubt and trepidation. However, thousands have graduated from Harvard over its lengthy and illustrious history, and those people are real people….
Your 5-Item Checklist for Submitting Your Applications
Whether you’re applying to b-school, law school, med school, grad school, or college, this checklist will be the same. Don’t hit that “Submit” button until you’ve checked off the following 5 to-do’s: You’ve made sure that your application presents a holistic, multi-dimensional picture of you. Each section of your application should not just present you…
Resourceful Essay Recycling
You’re applying to six different schools and each one requires 2-7 essays/personal statements which equals…a whole lot of writing. PROBLEM: How can you draft so many essays and still maintain a fresh and original voice in each? SOLUTION: Adapt one essay from one application to another essay on another application, given that you follow these…
The Personal Statement That Got Me a Large Scholarship to Cambridge
In October 2008, I submitted an application for a Masters program in Latin American Studies at Cambridge University. At the time, I was a bit lost in life; I was what they call a “super-senior” at UCLA, taking my last three General Education requirements during Fall quarter of a fifth year. I had already walked…
What Is the Diversity Essay Question & How Do You Answer It?
What is the diversity question in a school application, and more importantly, why does it matter when applying to leading programs and universities? Many applications now include a question – sometimes optional – that encourages applicants with minority backgrounds, unusual education, distinctive experience, or unique family histories to write about how these elements will contribute…
How to Project Professionalism & Positivity in Your Statement of Purpose
In my previous post, I discussed the importance of maintaining an appropriate tone in your admissions essay, and provided tips for checking your tone, specifically for finding a confident tone and avoiding arrogance. Once again, “tone” refers to a writer’s attitude toward their subject (and their reader). Your tone comes across in your choice of…
Writing Tip: Understanding the Fine Line Between Confidence and Arrogance
“Tone” is often one of the aspects of writing that applicants find most difficult to pin down. And yet, when you’re writing, it is also one of the most important to control so that you maintain an appropriate tone for your purpose. One way to think about “tone” is to understand it as conveying your…
Application Essay Tip: The Devil is in the Details
You can argue about the devil, but certainly the substance, distinctiveness, and success of your essays depends on the details. Bringing Out Your Uniqueness in the Details Many applicants tend to bury their uniqueness and success under vague assertions. You don’t want to hide your achievements; you want to trumpet them loudly and clearly. For…
Writing About Your Experiences Abroad
You studied, worked, or volunteered abroad and now you want to include part of this in your personal statement. Maybe you want to show that you’ve experienced a different culture or that you’ve managed to go outside of your comfort zone. Maybe you’ve had interesting experiences – met people, climbed mountains, or lived without air-conditioning….
Personal Statement Tip: Less is More
Most of us have heard the saying “less is more,” but how many of us put it into practice when it counts? Your application essays are the perfect forum for reaping the benefits of this deceptively simple principle. What does “less is more” really mean? It’s the idea that we must resist our natural tendencies…
4 Ways to Display Teamwork in Application Essays
Teamwork, and its close cousin, leadership, are highly prized by graduate programs and universities. 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. Consider the following 4 options: Remember: No Man is an Island Unless you’ve been living alone…
Writing a Lead That Pops
How many times have you wandered through a bookstore, opening up a book to read the first few lines only to quickly close it again? How often have you read one of those free samples on your Kindle, only to decide after a paragraph that you’re glad you didn’t buy it? Similarly, how many times…
4 Ways to Show How You’ll Contribute in the Future
Schools are looking for applicants who can show that they have strong leadership qualities and experiences and can demonstrate that they will actively contribute to their student/alumni communities, not to mention to the greater community and society. Yet grandiose, declarative statements and promises to be a superlative do-gooder are unpersuasive. So how can you show…
Statement of Purpose Must-Haves: 4 Tips to Get You Started
You’re ready to sit down and write your statement of purpose. You’ve got a cup of coffee and a chunk of time to think and write. Now, how do you get started? Here are 4 things you need to write a great statement of purpose: A clearly thought out goal This is the most important…
4 More Elements to Telling an Attention-Grabbing Story
In our last post, we illustrated 5 key story elements with these opening application essay lines: The moment I found the lump, I suspected my life was about to change – in a big way. It was mid-May 2011. I was a busy consultant in McKinsey’s Chicago office, the proud father of a boy about…
Stand Out or Fit In? 4 Application Strategies to Help You Do Both
It can be confusing: Half of the advice you read urges you to stand out in your application, while the other half advises you to explain how you’ll fit in. So which is it? Should you stand out or fit in? The answer, unsurprisingly, is BOTH. You need to show your distinction and demonstrate fit…
