Does Your Personal Statement Deliver?

By Linda Abraham, founder and president of Accepted.com. Accepted.com, the premier admissions consultancy and essay editing company, has helped applicants around the world gain admissions to over 450+ top schools since 1994. Visit Accepted.com for guidance with your law school application today.

I attended a lecture over the weekend. As the speaker began, he mentioned a couple of ideas that sounded intriguing, and I settled back expecting him to explore them, perhaps tie them together. Then came a few more unrelated ideas. OK, I thought, the first ones must have been warm-ups. It could be interesting if he develops these later concepts.  But he didn’t.

He continued with teasing non-sequitur after teasing non-sequitur. It was a frustrating monologue of disconnected, but potentially engaging, ideas. I was not a happy listener. The person sitting next to me dozed.

Don’t frustrate your reader. Make sure your personal statement has a point — one point. If you introduce an idea in the introductory paragraph, develop it. Build on your premise, answer your question, tie plot strands together, and clarify as needed the significance of your examples.

Don’t waste your reader’s time or irritate. Deliver on the promise you make in your personal statement’s opening.

This blog post originally appeared on Accepted Admissions Consulting blog.

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