Don’t know where to start? Take a deep breath. You’re facing the blank page with that dizzying cursor flashing expectantly. You think it shouldn’t be that hard to write a personal statement, yet you’ve already gotten up for a second cup of coffee, scrolled through Instagram, and twiddled around with your new fidget spinner. What’s…
How Personal is Too Personal?
The personal statement serves as a terrific opportunity to share with admissions committees an interesting and unique aspect of your life. How much should you tell, and how much is too much? When I applied to college, I wrote a personal statement describing some challenging family circumstances I’d had while growing up. I can still…
First Drafts of Personal Statements: Let Yourself Go
Writing the first draft of your personal statement is probably the hardest part of the whole application process. And it makes sense – it’s not easy to capture so much of your experience onto a single page. Moving Your First Draft from Just OK to Simply Spectacular I’ve read hundreds of first drafts over the…
How to Demonstrate Leadership When You Don’t Have Leadership Experience [Short Video]
Most admissions committees are looking for applicants who can demonstrate leadership. If you don’t have any formal leadership positions to discuss in your application essays, that doesn’t mean that all is lost. Watch this short video for Linda Abraham’s definition of “informal leadership” and how to highlight it in your applications. Visit our services section…
How to Choose X Essay Questions to Answer from Y Choices
If you face multiple essay questions on an application, how are you going to choose which one(s) you should answer and which one(s) you should skip? What factors should you consider when choosing the best essays for you? Appreciate Your Options! First, options are good! But they do force you to think (a task we’re…
Admissions Tip: BE YOURSELF!
One of 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, and instead would just be themselves. Admissions committee members time and time again say they wish applicants would answer their…
How to Write a Med School Personal Statement that Captures Your Best Qualities
This is the third post in our series on applying to med school in the most efficient and timely manner. You’ve got six months to make this happen. Make sure you do it right by following the tips in Med School Action Plan: 6 Steps for the 6 Months Before You Apply. In preparing to…
How Can You Show Passion in Admissions?
When one thinks of passion, one doesn’t generally think of investment bankers. But the admissions committees are looking for passion in their applicants; so how are you – a computer guy, an engineer, a biology major, or yes, an investment banker – going to craft a winning application that shows them the passion they’re looking…
5 Pointers for a Stand-Out Med School Personal Statement
If you don’t put effort into standing out in your medical school personal statement, then you likely won’t. Most applicants will have rather similar profiles; and without going the extra mile to highlight your unique strengths, talents, experiences, and interests, you run the risk of blending into the pool of applicants. These 5 pointers will…
Writing an Awesome AMCAS Essay
You’ve taken the MCAT, completed all the pre-reqs, and maybe shadowed a physician, done some research, and volunteered. Now it’s time to make sure you’re all in for the last legs of this long journey. In this series, we’ll discuss how you can continue to navigate your way to a med school acceptance by analyzing…
What Should I Write About? Making a Difference
In my non-admissions life, I once went to a lecture given by a biographer whose work I admire. In the course of his talk he mentioned that while writing about genius has merit, writing about typical folks and their extraordinary achievements is more valuable. The compelling story — the inspiration, and attention grabber — resides…
Two Grad School Applicants Walk Into a Bar…
This might be a great opening line for a comedy night at a university student center, but can you use humor in a graduate school application essay? Should you even try? If You Have a Funny Bone, Use It The answer is…maybe. If you can use humor effectively, it will help you stand out from your…
“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…
What is an Accomplishment?
Accomplishments constitute 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 your own profile to find compelling accomplishments to write about? The Bread…
4 Tips for Writing About Last Minute Extracurricular Activities
You want to write about all your fantastic non-school and non-work endeavors so that you really stand out from your competition, but when you start to think about it…you draw a blank. There must be SOMETHING you can show for how you use your free time, but what? Have you found yourself in a last minute…
The Importance of Obstacles in Your Application Essays
When applicants write about their accomplishments, whether in personal statements for graduate school or in b-school essays that ask for greatest accomplishments, challenges, and the like, they almost always come up with real accomplishments: driving innovations that led to revenue boosts for their firms, conducting original and meaningful research in their fields of study, or…
Bring Your Personal Statement to Life With Vivid, Active Verbs
I watched a candle burn a few nights ago. It happened to have a particularly nice flame that conjured up many different images: • The flame stood erect. • The flame danced. • The flame cavorted. • The flame pranced. • The flame swayed. • The flame flickered. • The flame fluttered • The flame…
Stand Out! A Critical Goal for Your Application [Episode 181]
I covered the importance of showing fit in Episode 162 “Focus on Fit,” the second most popular show of 2016 and the most popular show of the second half of 2016. But there is a second focus you need if you want to apply successfully to highly competitive programs. You need a corollary to fit….
Female Medical School Enrollment Reaches 10-Year High (and Other AAMC Report Findings)
According to a report by AAMC, the number of women enrolling in medical school in 2016 increased 6.2% over the previous year to 10,474. This is the largest increase since 2006. 2016 also represented an all-time high in the overall number of medical school applications, with 53,042 students applying, 38,782 of whom were first-time applicants….
Review Your Essays Like an Admissions Consultant: Use the Editing Funnel
Most of you are now — or will soon be — 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. Here’s how it works… 1. Start…
