how to write a personal statement for graduate school
I originally posted this on Facebook but I thought putting it here would make it easier to find. I also highly recommend reading the tweets from the Q&A Clint Smith and I hosted in fall 2015 about how to apply for grad school.
Alright, y'all. Every year people send me their personal statements to apply for doctoral programs and every year I give the same advice. Trying to make this advice more public so that more people can find it helpful. (And to save myself time, lol.) Feel free to share.
The personal statement is a slightly misleading title for this document. It is not primarily about you holistically in the way your college personal statement was. It serves ONE MAJOR PURPOSE: to demonstrate to a department that you understand how to formulate and pursue a research question, and that there is a good fit between your question and the department.
Your personal statement (for the humanities and social sciences) should follow roughly this outline. (Colleagues– if you think this is bad advice or have anything to add please feel free to comment.)
- Open with a story, anecdote, or scene that draws the reader in and helps us understand who you are and how your present research interest emerged. (In my personal statement, I talked about a scene in my classroom that helped me realize something about black adolescent girls and literature. In Clint Smith’s for example, he talked about being displaced by Katrina and experiencing a huge difference in educational quality.) Close this paragraph by explicitly stating an OBSERVATION, INSIGHT, or QUESTION that you took from this experience, that has guided you since then. So this is not just a random story. It should be a parable or fable explaining something crucial about you and your work.
- Now that we know who you are and what guides you, take us into your past work that has prepared you for grad school. Talk about professional experiences, classes, service opportunities, and so on. These should reflect your observation/insight/question. Close this paragraph with a key PUZZLE or CONUNDRUM or LINGERING QUESTION that emerged from this work. Something along the lines of “through this work I learned ___…. but I began to notice _____… which led me to wonder ____.” Something that keeps you up at night. Something that seems like it’s missing from the field currently.
- Demonstrate that you have made an informed effort to address this puzzle by doing some reading and research. What have other scholars said or done in attempts to get at this puzzle? What research articles and books have been written in this general area? (Google Scholar is your friend here.) Show that you are knowledgable about this topic. Close by making clear WHAT IS STILL MISSING FROM CURRENT RESEARCH. This, of course, is where you are going to direct your talents once you get into the program of your choice.
- Now you explain how this current program will help you answer these extant questions. Think of the program like an item in a video game or a secret weapon– it helps you level up from what you are currently able to do based on your already-impressive professional expertise. What resources does the department have that appeal to you? What faculty do you want to work with and how is their work related to yours? (Name two or three.) How is the program a good fit? (Not the university, not the field, not “graduate school,” but this department or program specifically. So yes, you need to modify this section for every school you apply to.) Reciprocally, what do you think you can add to the department and your peers? What are you bringing with you in terms of knowledge and expertise that makes you feel like this time is going to be really fruitful? THIS SECTION NEEDS TO MAKE SENSE. There needs to be a clear fit between the questions you have and the resources the department has. If not, take this school off your list.
- Now that we understand who you are, what your questions are, how you have approached them so far, and how you are going to approach them wielding the powers of the department, close by saying what you want to do with the degree. Briefly discuss your goals for after the program, then end with something profound (ideally, something that ties back to your opening anecdote or story).
*** Important addendum: if your interests change once you get to grad school and you do not do this exact thing, that is okay. In fact, it will almost certainly happen. (After all, hopefully you are meeting people and learning interesting things in classes that evolve your ideas. Otherwise what are you doing, lol) No one is going to come after you and say “you said here you would do xyz…” The purpose of this exercise is to provide an existence proof that you know how to develop a question, even if you end up pursuing a different question.
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