Office of the Provost
Center for Research & Fellowships
Center for Research & Fellowships

Crafting the Personal Statement

What Is It?

The personal statement is one of the most important parts of a competitive fellowship application. In this statement you have the opportunity to illuminate what drives you and how your background and experiences not only have prepared you to achieve certain goals and work on your particular issue(s) but also make you a strong match for the particular fellowship. The way in which you communicate your story should work towards your ultimate goal of persuading your audience – in this case the selection committee – to award you the fellowship, and it can be helpful to think of this essay as a form of persuasive writing. Here you are making a compelling case for yourself.

What the Personal Statement IS

  • Authentic. There’s a reason that this is called a personal statement.
  • Reflective. Take stock and consider what pivotal experiences provide insight into your credentials and motivation as they relate to the fellowship criteria and your chosen path.
  • Specific. It’s the details that add texture and make a person human.
  • Mature. You are positioning yourself as someone with the potential to make an impact in your field; to be taken seriously, you should demonstrate an awareness of the authorities and/or emerging developments in your field.
  • Strategic. Consider what story needs to be told in the context of the larger application package.

What the Personal Statement is NOT

  • A narrative version of your resume.
  • Overly flowery and cliched prose that sounds pretty but doesn’t actually tell us anything.
  • A thought piece about an issue or problem without you in the picture.
  • A series of general statements and claims that could have just as easily appeared in another applicant’s materials.
  • A rehashing of material that appears elsewhere in the application.

The Approach

Think of the personal statement as an intellectual autobiography— one that provides insight into your intellectual development, helping the reader understand what formative experiences have

Start at the End Point

Start by considering the vision: the issue(s) on which you seek to work and the capacity in which you intend to have an impact. That vision becomes the anchor for the narrative. If you know what you want to say at the end, you’ll know what you need to discuss at the beginning and what aspects of your background and experiences to highlight.

You should have a complex personal story, with far more life experiences than you can (or should!) fit into a strong, concise personal statement—the first step is narrowing it all down. Which experiences have laid the groundwork for—and evidence your commitment to—the vision that you’ve identified?

Consider the “Swerves”

Think about the “swerve” moments—the experiences that altered how you were thinking about a particular issue or led you in a new direction of inquiry. Those moments are what propel the narrative forward. The story isn’t simply that change happened but how that change happened and how you reacted to that change.

Show, Don’t Tell

Use concrete examples and anecdotes to support and anchor the narrative. For instance, telling the reader simply that you have developed an appreciation for the challenges of aligning environmental protection and human development initiatives will not be as compelling as discussing an experience or two that introduced you to the scope of—and made you wrestle with—those challenges.

Consider the Larger Whole

Make sure to consider how the personal statement fits into the larger application. Is the personal statement the only required written response in the application? Or is it complemented by other essays? What you cover in the personal statement depends upon what is covered elsewhere in the application.

Plan It Out

Don’t just throw things down and hope something sticks. Reflection and pre-writing are critical to crafting a strong personal statement, as those exercises will allow you to determine not only what pieces to consider but also plan out the scaffolding and flow of the narrative.

How will you tell the story? Once you know what the central pieces are of the story that you wish to tell, you can play around with the order, starting at different places in the narrative. This approach will help you avoid a rigid chronological structure, which may be less interesting and risks transforming the statement into a narrative version of your resume.

Keep the Reader in Mind

It’s important to consider not just the content of the narrative but also the manner in which you tell it. You don’t want to bore the heck out of your reader, particularly since the reader will likely be reviewing a high volume of applications. Give some thought to how to present the narrative in an engaging way that also remains true to your own voice.

Words NOT to Use in Your Personal Statement