问题：How to make the beginning of the personal statement more attractive?
回答：
These are first and foremost strategic documents. There is a word limit for a reason. Every sentence you include in your statement should be judged by you on the basis of the standard this implies: Do these words efficiently convey my motivation and aptitude for success at this school and beyond? This sounds like a terrifying standard by which to judge one’s writing efforts. But worry not! Getting your statement written well is all about treating it like a problem-solving exercise. Adopt a smart process and the components will fall into place.
I recommend you start with the end in mind.· But how to do this with a statement? · Simple: Write the beginning at the end. To take away the pressure of trying to write the perfect introductory sentence, write the body of the statement first. Start with the second paragraph.
Keep writing till you get to the end. It’s often easier to identify a through-line or a set of themes after you’ve put down the last sentence.
On the subject of themes, you should also look to the program you’re applying to help you develop a resonant theme. In fact, there’s a whole lot you should do between the second paragraph and the end of the document. The thing I want to focus on here, however, is what you’ve asked about: How to begin.
Sometimes we don’t know what we want to say until after we’ve written it. You’ll be surprised by how easily the beginning will come to you, like a flash of inspiration. The important thing is to create the right conditions to have that flash of inspiration.
The beginning of a personal statement is the easiest thing to overthink. Having advised on thousands of applications over the years, I’ve found this to be true of students from both the U.S. and China alike.
It isn’t difficult to see why this would be the case. After all, so much is at stake! We come to believe that admission to certain elite institutions can have a profound impact on the rest of our lives, our careers, our livelihoods, our future happiness and self-worth. Moreover, there’s so much we want to communicate about our motivations, qualifications, and potential and the words we have at our disposal simply can’t express it in the way we feel it in ourselves. This last point is especially true of students for whom English is not their native language.
However common it is to overthink the beginning of your statement, this is also the aspect of the statement that suffers most from overthinking. One could even argue that overthinking can be detrimental to the whole statement. Overthinking the beginning of your statement can lead you to make mistakes that are easily avoidable. For instance, I’ve seen far too many statements that try so hard to find a “hook” or otherwise display unnecessary cleverness. This is a mistake. Nine times out of ten, the results will seem… well, I don’t want to provide specific subjective characterizations; let’s just say, speaking objectively, they don’t help the candidate.
If you find yourself stuck, it is time to step back, take a deep breath and relax. You can accomplish that most efficiently by working on the rest of the document. Not only do you get the bulk of the work out of the way, you create the conditions to sort out the opening lines later; by doing work on something else that is related, you can be calm, but you can also be focused on relevant, related work; this will help you figure out the opening lines.
Once you’ve done that you can review the text you’ve generated and begin to review and critique your own work. Focus on what the statement is, the specific role your statement has in your entire application, and what it’s meant to convey.
Candidates should take their cue from the application context: This document is asking you to pitch yourself to the program. Embrace the type of writing it requires. Your statement of purpose (or Personal Statement) is not your autobiography. It is not a prose recitation of your CV. It is also not an opportunity for you to “impress” so much as persuade. You are making a case for your admittance to your dream school.
Your goal is to convince the reader (i.e. the admissions officer) that you are the one who will benefit the most from being educated at their institution. You want them to be able to see you attending classes, participating in discussions, pursuing your research on campus, collaborating with other students, assisting the professors on their research. You want them to read your statement and envision you succeeding both scholastically and as a productive and generous member of the academic community of their school. You want to persuade them that you are the one who will make the most out of the precious resources that they’re offering.
Seems pretty easy, huh? While there are factors that are out of your control, the simple fact is that there are steps you can take to make it easier. You just have to do the work.
When admissions officers are asked for their top tips for applicants writing their statements, one the most frequent answers is: “Get to the point”. But what is the point?
The great thing is that the application has already given you a way to “get to the point” – the question or prompt. The question or prompt provided in the program’s application instructions is there for a reason.
Often students overlook this. I don’t really know why.
I see it time and again. Candidates using one general statement to apply to several different schools. They simply change the name of the school and a few other details and they’re good to go. Except they’re not. Not if they think of themselves as ambitious!
It is a grave mistake. Because, to the reader, it’s completely obvious what they’re doing.
Imagine you’re taking a test and instead of answering the questions given, you provide some other information that wasn’t even asked for. You would fail that test, wouldn’t you? The question or prompt is there for a reason. If you can’t even engage with the prompt that they’ve provided, why should they believe that you’ll be able to follow simple requirements as a student?
I often think that schools use the phrase “careers service” as a quick way to assign a lower rank to certain application statements. Because it’s such a give-away that the student is disengaged. Who applies to university because of the careers service? Schools list it on their website because all the others do. But… I’ll say it again: Who applies to university because of the careers service?
The truth is, the question or prompt is your friend. If you don’t know what to write for your statement or how to begin or how to “get to the point,” your first clue is in the question or prompt.
Why?
Because, showing you’ve thought about the problem you’re dealing with—and that you’re responding in a smart way—is great. Even better is to show the admissions reader you understand that the personal statement itself acts as a piece of direct evidence—the most direct evidence they have—that you’re able and motivated to face big, new challenging situations at their school.
Now let’s apply a bit more of this ‘contextual understanding’ stuff. Imagine the person reading your statement. They’ve read through dozens of statements one-after-the-other (12-15 minutes per statement is maybe a reasonable guess for a competitive school).
They won’t be able to give each statement nearly the level of attention that you put into writing it. That’s why you’ll be richly rewarded if you do choose to write it with really formidable care and intelligence.
Some statements they’ll skim, others they may not even finish reading. For this reason, the beginning of your statement should – in addition to “getting to the point” – do two things:
1. Grab the reader’s attention
2. Keep the reader engaged right through to the end
How to do this?
Sometimes when we think of a “hook,” we mistaken think of something big and unique and flashy, like the mystery novel that begins with a murder and keeps the reader hooked in figuring out who the true culprit is. But a hook can be quieter, subtler, less forced and artificial. For the statement, this is the most effective path to take.
A common reason why it can seem difficult to write the beginning of your statement is because it asks you make a decision about a crucial question: Where does your story begin? (In fact, I can see why this question could provoke full-blown existential anxiety in some thoughtful individuals, and why not! It’s a question worth thinking about).
This is a strategic document, with a specific persuasive mission. Therefore you can’t simply begin on the day of your birth. You could begin on the day you first discovered an intense interest in your the subject you’re applying to study. Start with your passion. What motivates you. Why are you specifically interested in attending this program.
Think of a recent event or instance that illustrates how your passion and motivation has manifested at your highest levels of development. Perhaps you overcame an obstacle that forced you to mature, that solidified your objective to study your chosen area, or that led you to greater knowledge?
The key to doing this and keeping it original and unique is to be specific and concrete about the words you use to describe that experience.
Use vivid language and active verbs. Avoid using the passive voice in your sentence constructions. Why? To assert your ownership of the experience. To connect with the reader and report what happened credibly.
Avoid general words and unsupported assertions. It is not enough to simply say: “I am passionate about… (fill-in-the-blank).” Use specific, concrete nouns to illustrate your experience for the reader. This doesn’t mean verbosity or colorful language. It just means ‘describe an actual moment’, ‘zoom in on a key detail’. Trust me, the reader will wake up.
Let’s go back to that stack of 50 or so statements that the admissions officer has one hour to read.
· Each of those statements represents an applicant that really wants to gain admittance to the school.
· Each applicant is passionate, motivated, qualified.
· How are you unique among those 50 other applicants?
· Because of what the experience was like for you.
· That’s your hook.
