Think you’re done with your personal statement once you have a draft? Think again. In order to truly get a great personal statement that will help get you into college, you’re going to need to spend some time on it. On average, I recommend 3 revising processes, with lots of breaks and help in-between. Read it aloud to your grandma, see if it makes sense to her. Ask your fave teacher to provide feedback. Ask your nerdiest friend. And every time you get feedback, use it to steadily tweak your personal statement until it is a reflection of how great you are! I wish I could read and provide feedback for all of you, but since I am merely mortal, I hope these videos suffice.

Step 3: Getting a Rough Draft. In this post, I go over a 3-4 paragraph structure for your personal statement with what each needs to have. The hardest part is getting a draft out, try not to obsess about it too much because once you get the words on the paper, it’ll be easier to refine it.

In this post, I go over 2 different strategies for brainstorming a topic for your personal statements. I also have two different videos where I walk you through each strategy. In general, when you are thinking about what you want to write in your personal statement, write about something that is important and interesting to you— it’s even better if you can write about something that you’re passionate about— anything that will allow the college admissions offiicers to see how good your writing is and who you are as a person!

Personal Statement Introduction, FAQ, and tips from the pros! The common app personal statement has a word cap of 650 words, but the shorter the better (as long as you’re not leaving out important details). You want to be vulnerable, specific, and interesting. Most of all, you want the essay to be about YOU!