Month: July 2022

Applicants are often told that they need to begin their personal statements with a bang. Tell an over-the-top story, open with an emotional tear-jerker, or start things off with some clever turns of phrases that will make the reader remember you.

This is horrible advice.

In 99% of cases, a “hook” of this kind will come across as insincere or gimmicky. It almost always feels like the writer is trying too hard. That why I often tell clients “let’s turn down the volume here” so that we can work to make the opening more sincere and authentic.

In this brief video, I talk about why you should avoid hooks and a technique for how to think about your openings.

For more help, check us out at Gurufi.com. Our editors have decades of experience helping clients get into top Masters and Ph.D. programs in STEM, humanities, fine arts, and social sciences. Our specialty is helping you craft compelling personal statements that move the needle in your admissions process! For questions, shoot us an email at service@gurufi.com. Check us out on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

In this video, we cover why it’s so important to contact potential advisors when you’re applying to graduate school.

In this week’s installment of “Getting Into Graduate School” we provide some important tips and strategies for getting a great letter of recommendation.

 

Writer’s block can derail your Personal Statement before you even begin! Too often, we let ourselves feel overwhelmed by the stakes involved. We think that every word has to be perfect, and this desire for perfection paralyzes us. This is 100% the WRONG approach to take to the early stages of writing a Personal Statement. Instead, just think in terms of getting your ideas down on paper, and then go from there! Here is a brainstorming exercise designed to jumpstart your mind into thinking about stories and content… and in the process remove you from that place of perfection paralysis.

For more help, check us out at Gurufi.com. Our editors have decades of experience helping clients get into top Masters and Ph.D. programs in STEM, humanities, fine arts, and social sciences. Our specialty is helping you craft compelling personal statements that move the needle in your admissions process! For questions, shoot us an email at service@gurufi.com. Check us out on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Many applications will ask you to write about your “biggest failure.” This can feel like a trap. After all, aren’t your application materials supposed to make you look like an amazing SUCCESSFUL person?

If done correctly, your “Biggest Failure” essay can convey a picture of you that is successful, thoughtful, humble, and persistent. Here are three tips for writing a strong “Biggest Failure” essay!

When you’ve read as many personal statements as I have, worked with thousands of clients, and helped guide countless people to the schools of their dreams, you get a clear sense of what works and -just as importantly- the common ways that things go wrong. In this podcast, I talk about the five most common mistakes that I see applicants make. By avoiding these errors, they can make their personal statements stronger, improve their chances at admission, separate themselves from the pack by telling a unique story, and also make the whole thing much less stressful. Check it out!

 

We’re excited to announce a new collaboration with GMATClub, the Internet’s leading source for information on business school admissions. Each week, we’ll be speaking with admissions directors at leading schools and also offering actionable insights and tips for your MBA applications.

In this episode, we speak with Andrea Flores, the Director of Global Recruitment at IE University in Madrid. We talk about the program’s stellar history nurturing and producing founders of dynamic companies and also how you should think about ROI for business school.

For more help, check us out at Gurufi.com. Our editors have decades of experience helping clients get into top Masters and Ph.D. programs in STEM, humanities, fine arts, and social sciences. Our specialty is helping you craft compelling personal statements that move the needle in your admissions process! For questions, shoot us an email at service@gurufi.com.

Check us out on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

In Part 3 of our series ‘Getting Into Grad School’ we explore the three factors you should consider when applying to graduate school. Too often, students get enamored with a fancy name or Ivy League designation. Be more thoughtful about the program you choose and the potential advisors there who can will ultimately have the most impact on your intellectual growth and professional readiness.

 

For more help, check us out at Gurufi.com. Our editors have decades of experience helping clients get into top Masters and Ph.D. programs in STEM, humanities, fine arts, and social sciences. Our specialty is helping you craft compelling personal statements that move the needle in your admissions process! For questions, shoot us an email at service@gurufi.com

You shouldn’t go to graduate school. When I worked as a professor at Harvard University, this is the advice that I always gave students who came to me asking about graduate school. It’s not that I didn’t think any of them should go, but rather I wanted to see if they would push back, articulate a reason for going, and demonstrate the kind of passion and grit they would need to survive -much less excel- in graduate school and beyond.

DON’T skip this part of the process. In this video, we help you to ask the hard questions you need to ask yourself regarding whether or not grad school is for you. In my decade helping clients earn admission into top graduate schools, I’ve often had to have the tough conversation with clients who are looking to attend graduate school for all the wrong reasons. In this edition of our ongoing series ‘Getting Into Graduate School’ we explore the question “should you go to graduate school?”

We cover common BAD reasons to go, some good ones, and start the difficult conversation about what it entails and what you’re facing once you graduate… IF you graduate. (more on that in future episodes!)