How Do You Write An Excellent Personal Statement?

Write An Excellent Personal Statement

You’ll almost probably be asked to write a personal statement while applying for a Master’s degree. What exactly is it? It’s distinct from the rest of your application, to be sure. When you consider the other things the university wants to see, your qualifications and grades come to mind. It wants to see proof of any experience you may have, including professional experience if it’s relevant to the application. All of these things are critical since they demonstrate your ability to complete a master’s degree.

The personal statement is unique in that it outlines why you should apply. It’s also the bit that needs to be most unique to the master you’re applying for because you can apply for more than one master’s if you want to, and when you do that, you don’t need to go and get a new Bachelor’s degree for each master. but you really should be writing a unique personal statement for each one, we’ll talk a bit more about that in a bit.

All of the other sections of your application exist to check off a few easy boxes, demonstrating that you have the necessary qualifications, experience, language skills, and so on. The personal statement accomplishes much more. It’s also the part that the admissions committee will spend the most time looking at, so make sure you devote the most time to it as well.

What’s a personal statement for?

Before we discuss how a personal statement works, I believe it’s critical to consider what it’s for and what it needs to accomplish. There’s one apparent thing a personal statement needs to achieve, which is to persuade the university that you can undertake this Master’s program in addition to all of your other qualifications, so it gives context and gloss for those. You’ll have addressed everything, provided the specifics, such as your undergraduate degree grade and subject area, and then the personal statement expands on what you learned. The modules you took, what piqued your interest, and so forth. All of this is critical, with the personal statement assisting in convincing the university that you are capable of completing the course.

It must also assist in persuading them that you will complete the course. Not only that you’re capable of it, but also you’re committed to completing this Master’s degree. The rationale for this is that a student who begins a master’s degree but does not complete it is not only terrible for the student but is also bad for the university for a variety of reasons. And they want to know that you’re dedicated and serious, and your personal statement is the best way for you to demonstrate that.

The third thing a personal statement does, and this is something that I think it’s easy to lose sight of at this stage, actually provides a kind of starting point for your interview. Now not all Master’s degrees include an interview, but if you do get invited to one, the panel is going to be looking first and foremost at your personal statements and thinking about what’s going to form the basis for their questions and conversations. So you can be thinking about that at this stage as you put it together.

What should the postgrad personal statement include?

So, how should a postgraduate personal statement appear? What goes in it, and how do you write it?

1. 500 words

first of all, let’s think about length. 500 words is a rough guideline, that’s about one side of a4. But the thing you need to be doing is checking the information the university provides, they’ll probably give you a word count, make sure you stick to it.

2. introduction

In terms of contents, again, I’d advise you to check the university’s guidelines they might even give you a good example, But as a kind of rough sketch well, you’re going to need an introduction, and here I think it’s worth focusing on both the terms there, personal and statement. Say who you are, and make a statement. Say what your ambitions and interests are, and get their attention, they’re going to be reading a lot of these.

3. background

After that, the statement’s main focus will be on your background. You’re telling a story here. You’re describing where you’ve been and what you’ve accomplished thus far, particularly in terms of your undergraduate work and any related extracurricular activities, and you want to make sure that the Master’s degree you’re applying for fits into that narrative. Have a precise timeline, and explain to the university how they/them, and learning with them, will fit into your tale.

4. relevant specific modules

Again, use caution when deciding what to include. Specific modules and extracurricular experiences should be included if they are relevant. However, you do not have to provide everything; you will most likely have the opportunity to expand on your background, interests, and so on later.

5. interest in the course

You should be extremely explicit about your interest in this course at some point; it should come through naturally, but it doesn’t harm to mention it explicitly. Say, for example, that I want to do this Master’s because it is the ideal master's for me. After all, this master’s degree will assist me in accomplishing x. At the very least, this demonstrates that you haven’t simply copied and pasted the same sentence into different applications.

6. conclusion

You’re going to need a conclusion and again, let’s think about the statement element here. Make a closing statement, and sum up what you’ve said so far. Who you are, where you’ve been, where you’re going, and how this course is going to help you get there.

In terms of your style, it doesn’t hurt to err on the side of formality, aim for a polite but professional tone. You might be tempted to try and be a bit wacky to make a few jokes to stand out, I’d be cautious of that because you’re never quite sure how those jokes are going to come across. At this point, you don’t need to work too hard to stand out you just need to make sure the personal statement does its job. Hopefully, you’ll then get onto a subsequent stage which might be a bit more conversational, in an interview or even just over email.

However, the most important thing to remember is to be passionate. You should be enthusiastic about pursuing this Master’s degree, so be upbeat and show it.

Tips for writing a postgraduate personal statement

here are a few tips for writing a postgraduate personal statement.

1. remember what it’s for

First of all, remember what it’s for. It’s about convincing the uni that you should do this Master, and you will do this Master. That’s its job, make sure it does that.

2. include relevant information

Don’t feel that you have to say absolutely everything, part of the challenge you’re being set is in being selective and judicious, knowing what is and isn’t relevant. Remember too, that this may end up being the basis for your interview. So, you can lay some of the groundwork at this point, if you like, you can include a bit of information on something, and then if you get the opportunity you can expand on that and that’s fine, it can help you when you get to the interview stage.

3. opportunity to tell them about you

Remember that it’s an opportunity too, this is the bit of the application when you get to talk about yourself, about your interests, it’s your opportunity to say things.

4. proofread

Finally, proofread it. Then proofread it again. Then proofread it by reading it backward. Don’t let any mistakes creep in. Understandably, it looks pretty bad.

Mistakes to avoid when writing a postgraduate personal statement

1. don’t copy and paste

copying and pasting. You might be applying for more than one master’s, that’s fine lots of people do it, but make sure you write a unique personal statement for each one. It can be tempting just to paste the statement from one university into another and change the university name and so on, don’t do that. First of all, there’s a risk you forget to change the university name somewhere which looks terrible and that does happen. Second of all, you’re not going to give yourself a chance to do all those things I’ve been talking about.

2. don’t exaggerate

don’t tell fibs. You might be tempted to say, I engaged with this scholar’s work or, I enjoyed writing an essay on that particular thing, then perhaps you didn’t. There's always the chance of being discovered, and it never looks nice; it always looks bad.

3. don’t ignore the word count

Make sure you don’t forget to keep track of how many words you’ve written. If the university requests 500 words, please provide 500 words, not 600. They have a lot of statements to look through, and if they come across one that is significantly longer than the word limit, they may decide not to bother with it.