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…
Your Law School Personal Statement Needs to Be Personal!
When writing your personal statement for law school, it’s a good idea to include a few school-specific sentences about why each of the schools you are applying to is interesting to you. You shouldn’t be addressing “Why do I want to go to law school?” but rather “Why do I want to go to this…
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…
5 Tips for Your Law School Personal Statement
Writing a law school personal statement can be daunting task. Below are five tips to help you craft a unique and eye-catching personal statement. Focus less on what you write and more on how you write about it. Don’t feel that your essay needs to be about a particular kind of experience. There’s no one…
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…
How I Wrote a Personal Statement That Got Me into Harvard Law School
When I was applying to law school, the advisor at my college told me to intern for a lawyer. Sound advice, and one I might give, but unfortunately my experience was miserable. I was even told by my employer that I was “not law school material.” So, how did I even get into law school,…
5 Law School Personal Statement Mistakes to Avoid
You have your rough draft and you’re ready to start editing. What should you watch out for? What are some mistakes to avoid? Mistake #1: You repeated your resume or letters of rec. Your personal statement shouldn’t be a resume-in-prose. It shouldn’t list your jobs, educational background, or awards. That information is already in your…
What Do Law Schools Look For? 5 Things Adcoms Love to See
What are the law school admissions committees looking for when reviewing applications? They’re looking to build a class consisting of strong students who will join together to create a solid class and an impressive crop of future lawyers. In particular, they’re looking for these 5 things when they look at your application: People who like…
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…
5 Elements to Telling an Attention-Grabbing Story
Ready to write your personal statement? Then it’s time to conjure your inner storyteller. The best way to distinguish yourself from other applicants is to tell the admissions board a good story, a tale of your greatest achievements, dreams, and challenges. How do you tell a good story? It’s not about lifting plots from Harry…
How to Add Detail to Your Social Enterprise/Community Service Goals
Whether you’re applying for an MBA, a PhD in Public Policy (or many other doctoral fields), or a Masters in Social Work, you’re likely to talk about social enterprise or community service goals in your application. For some, this will be your primary objective – those of you seeking careers in the non-profit sector, for…
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