Grad school applications invariably contain a request for a personal statement (or statement of purpose) about your reasons for wanting to pursue a Ph.D. in -ology. From one year as a student representative on an admissions committee, my advice to the applicant: write an IMpersonal statement.
What do I mean by this? Countless personal statements contain the dreaded "grandmother" paragraph. "I want to study -ology because my grandmother suffered from Disease X and the potential of a cure is fascinating to me." [The stilted writing is a separate problem.]
The problem with this statement is not that the applicant is using an ailing grandmother who may or may not have been as beloved as she is described. The problem is that graduate school is very hard, and the skills required have little to do with the intensity of your love for your grandmother. You can really, really, really care about curing Alzheimers and still be a screw-up in the lab.
Instead, applicants should describe the independent research they have carried out, and what their preferred research focus is. Go into detail on the research, both technical and intellectual aspects; it will demonstrate that you knew what you were doing as a tech/undergrad. You can write about how the joys and satisfactions of research thrilled you personally, but really that's about the extent to which your "personal" statement should be about your feelings.
Of course, if your recommendations/grades/GREs are so stellar, or perhaps so bad, that no one will bother reading your personal statement, you can disregard this advice. Personal statements only matter for borderline candidates. But do you feel that lucky?
15 years ago
7 comments:
Agreed! The grandmother story is probably the most awful cliche in all of personal statement writing, not just for PhD programs, but med school as well.
But are there really applicants who get in on the strength of their scores and grades alone? I'd think/hope that since most PhD programs only accept 5-10 students a year, the personal statement would be important no matter what. Getting a PhD is not for the faint of heart--you have to love science, and anyone entering a grad program should be able to articulate that.
Let's just say that I'm glad my personal statement didn't matter when I was applying for grad school- because I've gone back to read it, and it was absolutely atrocious. Horrible. Embarrassing. I actually have just given myself goosebumps just thinking about it.
@Dr.Becca-
But are there really applicants who get in on the strength of their scores and grades alone?
Absolutely, there are. If you graduate near the top of your class, have several years of undergraduate lab experience, and have great letters of recommendation, you'd be a shoo-in for almost any school in the country (at least in my discipline). Departments are not going to care how well that 21-year-old can articulate themselves as long as they have potential. (I'm not talking about borderline cases here, just the best applicants.) In my discipline, most Ph.D. programs might accept ~50 students per year, usually hoping for a final class size of ~20.
Agreed with Candid, if you have great recommendations from big shots, and good grades and scores, you can burble on about your grandmother all you like.
Candid, you should totally post anonymized excerpts of your statement, that'd be hilarious.
Ugh. I agree. In my field, oceanography, the equivalent of this is "I just love dolphins and want to study them.... or coral reefs". Some version of this ends up in more than half of the biology applications I see.
Agreed. Don't ever talk about your feelings - use what you write to demonstrate hour feelings. Don't say "I love research!"; instead write an enthusiastic paragraph about the research that you've done or want to do. Similarly, never start a sentence with "Interestingly"; instead generate interest by the information you provide.
Thanks for this post! I'm currently writing a personal statement and biochembelle referred me to this post. Thanks again- I'll keep the tips in mind....
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