Application essay editing Archives

Five Tips for a Great College Admissions Essay

A cartoon illustration of a college student sitting at a desk, deep in thought while holding a pencil and notebook. The desk is cluttered with books, a laptop, and sticky notes. A corkboard with pinned photos and a calendar labeled "College" is on the wall behind him. Two friends are standing near the window, pointing and laughing. A light bulb with question marks around it floats above the student's head, symbolizing an idea or realization. — Have a plan for your personal statement!

Many college aspirants use the summer before their senior year of high school to write their personal statements. We’ll be doing a full, detailed day-by-day video series on how to build a college personal statement in late July (follow our YouTube channel to make sure you’re notified when it drops), but for now, we wanted to give you a quick five-part guide with some tips on writing a great personal statement.

Writing a college personal statement can feel quite daunting. It’s a unique opportunity to showcase your personality, achievements, and aspirations to an admissions committee that knows little about you beyond your academic record. With only 650 words (for CommonApp) to cover all that ground, it’s high-stakes and quite stressful. To help you craft a compelling and memorable personal statement, here are five tips that will guide you through the process.

Set a Schedule and Stick to It

One of the most effective ways to reduce stress when writing your personal statement is to set a schedule and adhere to it. Breaking the task into manageable steps can make it less overwhelming and ensure you have ample time to produce a polished final draft. Here’s a suggested timeline:

Day One: Brainstorm: Spend an afternoon brainstorming topics and themes you want to cover. Reflect on your experiences, achievements, and the qualities that make you unique. There are lots of ways to brainstorm. This video is a quick-and-simple brainstorming activity that you can use.
Many people avoid this step and feel like brainstorming is too “touchy-feely” but every time I’ve used this process in a seminar, the students have loved it and found it immensely valuable.
Day Two: Outline: Once you have a list of potential ideas, create an outline. This will serve as a roadmap for your essay, helping you organize your thoughts and ensure your narrative flows logically. Different people outline in different ways, but whatever system you use, the point is to nail down the basics of your story and note some details you want to include.
Day Three: Write: In my experience, two two-hour sessions can be enough to write a draft. The key is to schedule the time, turn off your phone, disconnect from the internet, and create a quiet, distraction-free space for writing. Focus on getting your ideas down on paper without worrying too much about perfection. The goal is to develop a first draft.
Pause and Revise: After completing your draft, take a break. A few days away from your essay will give you fresh perspective when you return to revise it. If you have the time, three days is an optimal break to put some space between you and your first draft. Then, go back and revise the text. Start by reading it once through completely without fixing anything. Ask yourself whether overall construction, transitions, and theme are strong. Make changes, as necessary, to get that right. Then do sentence-by-sentence revisions, paying special attention to grammar and syntax, but also to tightening the prose by eliminating everything unnecessary. Your edited essay should be considerably shorter.
Seek Feedback: Finally, share your draft with a trusted mentor, teacher, or professional editor for constructive feedback.

Don’t Ask Too Many People for Feedback

While seeking feedback is crucial, asking too many people can be counterproductive. The adage “too many cooks spoil the broth” applies here. Here’s why:

It Will Make You Feel Bad: Receiving conflicting advice from multiple sources can be disheartening and confusing. It may leave you feeling unsure about the direction of your essay.
You Can’t Incorporate It All: Different people will have different opinions, and trying to incorporate every piece of advice will dilute your unique voice and message. This is the dreaded “Frankenstein Essay” that’s a mishmash of parts from multiple perspectives.
Unhelpful Suggestions: Often, people will suggest adding more content but won’t advise on what to remove to make space. This can lead to an overstuffed essay that lacks focus.

Instead, select one or two trusted individuals who understand the application process and your goals. Their targeted feedback will be more manageable and meaningful.

Be Positive

Admissions committees appreciate honesty, but your personal statement should ultimately be a positive reflection of who you are and your future potential. Here’s how to maintain a positive tone:

Acknowledge Setbacks: It’s okay to discuss challenges and mistakes, but frame them in a way that highlights your resilience, growth, and lessons learned. We’ve spoken extensively about failures and how to write about it in your admissions materials. Here are three videos that might help you with this!
Forward-Looking Stance: Focus on how your past experiences have prepared you for future success. Show enthusiasm for your goals and the opportunities that lie ahead. For example, instead of dwelling on a low grade, explain how it motivated you to develop better study habits and led to academic improvement.

Be Judicious with Getting Advice Online

The internet is a double-edged sword when it comes to advice on writing personal statements. While there are valuable resources available, there are also many “message board cowboys” who may offer misguided advice. Consider the following:

Unknown Sources: You don’t know the credentials or motivations of people giving advice online. What worked for someone else might not work for you.
Individual Experience: Personal statements are highly individualized. Tailoring your essay to your personal experiences and goals is essential, and generic online advice may not be applicable.

Use online resources to gain general insights, but rely on trusted mentors and professionals for personalized guidance.

Resist the Urge to Make a Lot of Last-Minute Changes

As the submission deadline approaches, it’s natural to feel nervous and second-guess your work. However, making significant last-minute changes can be detrimental. Here’s why you should trust your process:

Nervousness: Last-minute changes are often driven by anxiety rather than actual improvement. Trust that the time and effort you put into planning, writing, and revising have paid off.
Process and Feedback: Rely on the feedback you received from trusted sources and the revisions you’ve made. Your personal story, as thoughtfully crafted, is your best asset.

Instead of overhauling your essay at the last minute, focus on minor tweaks and proofreading to ensure your final draft is polished and error-free.

Conclusion

Writing a great college personal statement requires careful planning, thoughtful reflection, and a balanced approach to feedback and revisions. By setting a schedule, limiting your feedback sources, maintaining a positive tone, being cautious with online advice, and trusting your process, you can craft a compelling and authentic personal statement.

If you need additional support, consider reaching out to a professional service like Gurufi, which offers personalized feedback on completed drafts and consultations to help you select topics and build detailed outlines. With the right approach and resources, you can create a personal statement that stands out and truly represents who you are.

What is a Frankenstein Essay, and Why Will It Destroy Your Application?

Cartoon of Frankenstein sitting at a desk, writing a personal statement with a quill, portraying a humorous juxtaposition of a monstrous figure engaged in a scholarly task — Avoid turning your personal statement into a ‘Frankenstein essay’. Even Frankenstein knows the importance of thoughtful, careful editing!

After nearly 20 years of reading, assessing, revising, and consulting on personal statements, I have seen every variety of mistake an applicant can make. More importantly for you, though, is that I am pretty good at identifying the upstream source of the problem and providing guidance on how to fix it. One of the most common mistakes might seem counterintuitive: the author sought too much help… or at least too much of the wrong kind!

Once you’ve finished your personal statement, you may feel a little apprehensive about what you have written, and as such it is only reasonable to seek out second and third opinions to make sure that you have overlooked nothing, the prose is tight, and you have made a compelling case for your candidacy. But, just as an excellent revision and editing can make an average essay excellent, bad editing can wreck an essay. On such occasions, one is smart to heed the old aphorism that ‘too many cooks spoil the broth.’

Once you have completed your first draft, you need to think carefully about how you go about using advice from other people. Here are six pointers for how to get the best advice in order to turn your draft into an excellent final version you are proud of and happy with.

1.) Be careful about who you pick.

Obviously, you want to get advice from someone who writes well, can be frank with you, and has some understanding of the field to which you are applying. If you choose to get advice from a boyfriend or your mother, for example, then be careful because they might give you an overly glowing review because of their esteem and love for you or may lack the qualifications to point out minor problems with your approach. Similarly, asking your English major friend to look at your Engineering graduate school essay is not a bad idea, but if you go that route, also have someone involved in Engineering (preferably in an academic capacity) is a good idea.

Good people to talk to are your academic advisor (if you are applying to graduate or professional schools) or guidance counselor (if you are applying to college). I know that many people will take their essays to message boards and post them to see what people think of it. The problem here is that you have no real way to gauge someone’s level of expertise and you may get too much feedback from too many sources.

Which leads us to point #2…

Don’t give it to too many people.

If you get critiques on your essay from 8-9 different people and you incorporate all of their suggestions, you will be pulled in too many directions and the essay will lose its sense of voice and focus. The old joke that a camel is a horse designed by committee applies here. Your essay cannot be everything to everyone, and you have to accept this fact. There will always be something that someone would have done differently, so they will often naturally advise you that you should do something different than what you are doing.

Ask follow-up questions

Whenever someone suggests a change, don’t be afraid to ask them about it. Sometimes you will agree with their rationale, but disagree with the execution of the change. Also, through a conversation people will often help you see larger problems that you may have missed. People are often hesitant to give tough advice, and a friendly conversation can help you to avoid this problem because by talking to someone, the person will see that you are serious about valuing their advice.

Don’t be afraid to ignore advice.

At the end of the day, this is *your* personal statement, and *your* future depends on how well you execute it. When someone suggests changes, consider their level of expertise, think about it carefully and if you disagree, then don’t do it. Not every piece of advice given is good; often, you will receive terrible advice.

The final decision is yours, so take your role as the gatekeeper of advice seriously, and only let the best suggestions that work well with your theme, tone, approach and goal through.

BUT, try to avoid pride of authorship

In my capacity as an admissions essay consultant, I often encounter customers who are furious when I tell them that they have things that they need to work on. It is almost as if they paid me $200 for me to tell them that their work was perfect, and they should not change a single letter.

Because a personal statement is so, well, personal, it can sometimes sting when someone gives you some pointed advice. Try to see the bigger picture and embrace the process that will help you to move towards a better and stronger essay. Do your best not to see a critique of your essay as a criticism of you as a person, and rather see it as a positive moment that moves you one step closer to your goal.

Consider using an essay editing service

They can be a bit expensive, but in the end, it makes sense to spend a hundred dollars to give yourself a better chance of getting into the graduate program of your dreams. Getting into a top school, as opposed to an average one, is worth investing in, especially when the cost is less than a pair of fancy Nikes or a new purse.

Some things to consider:

-Make sure that they guarantee your satisfaction.

-Ask if they will work with you beyond just receiving a single revision back from you. Often, it will take 2-3 exchanges with your editor to completely understand what you want to say, how you want to say it, and what core message you want to convey.

At Gurufi, we don’t put a cap on the number of revisions you get, and we’re not happy until you are. That’s why we get such consistently excellent reviews!

For more help with your personal statement, check us out at Gurufi.com. Our personal statement editors and consultants 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.

The Importance of Strong Writing in STEM Grad School Applications

Scientist in a dimly lit lab, surrounded by scientific instruments, deeply focused and slightly frustrated while writing on a piece of paper, with notes and open books around, symbolizing the challenges of research and discovery. — Strong Writing is Vital for Science and Engineering Grad School Applications

At Gurufi, we help hundreds of applicants every year get into top Masters and PhD programs. If you’re applying to a STEM program, we have editor-consultants with the experience and skill to transform your personal statement or statement of purpose into a powerful piece of writing!

Many applicants for graduate programs in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) assume that, since they’re applying to a technical field, their personal statement or statement of purpose doesn’t have to be well-written. This is a huge mistake. Applying to any graduate program is a rigorous and competitive endeavor, requiring candidates to demonstrate not only their technical expertise in their particular field but also their ability to communicate complex ideas effectively. The blunt truth is that scientists do care about writing, and even if they profess not to, a well-written essay will always impress the reader more than a poorly-written one.

Debunking the Myth: Writing in Science Matters

There’s a prevailing misconception that in the world of STEM, the quality of writing is not as critical as in the humanities or social sciences. This could not be further from the truth. In reality, scientists and academics place a high value on writing skills. Effective communication is essential for the dissemination of research findings, the acquisition of funding, and for engaging with a broader audience. Studies have shown that well-written research papers have a higher impact and are cited more frequently, underscoring the practical benefits of strong writing in the scientific community. Moreover, though “hard evidence” does play a more significant role in STEM than in social sciences or humanities, it remains the case that effective researchers must possess the ability to explain their data, make a case for its importance, and muster an argument that their perspective is more compelling than its rivals. And while scientists may place more emphasis on hard evidence, they aren’t robots, and they do care about, and are swayed by, strong and clear writing.

The Unique Nature of Science Writing

While it shares the foundational principles of good writing found in other disciplines, science writing has its own set of standards. It emphasizes clarity, simplicity, and precision. Unlike writing for the humanities, where there might be a greater allowance for flowery language or abstract ideas, science writing demands strict adherence to what can be empirically proven and clearly communicated. This is crucial in a graduate application application, as candidates must demonstrate their ability to present complex ideas in an accessible and unambiguous manner

Persuasion Through Strong Writing

The ability to persuade and impress through writing is indispensable in any field, including STEM. A grad school application is not merely a showcase of past accomplishments or a recitation of technical skills (that’s what the CV is for); it is an opportunity to persuade the admissions committee that the candidate possesses the intellectual curiosity, the clarity of thought, and the research potential that are essential for a successful doctoral journey. Frankly, there’s no better way to demonstrate the rigor and clarity of your thinking than through a well-crafted essay. Strong writing in a grad school application can set a candidate apart in a pool of similarly qualified applicants.

Striking the Right Balance: Jargon and Accessibility

One of the most challenging aspects of writing in STEM fields is finding the right balance between using discipline-specific terminology and maintaining accessibility. Applicants must show they are conversant with the technical language of their field while ensuring that their ideas are not obfuscated by jargon. This balance is a clear indicator of a candidate’s ability to think critically and communicate effectively. A good rule of thumb is to follow the Hemingway Rules for Writing: if a simple word or sentence will do, use it. Sometimes, one cannot convey complex technical research in lay language; obviously, it’s okay to use jargon in such instances. But use it sparingly, thoughtfully, and precisely. You certainly want to ensure you’re deploying the words properly, as using jargon incorrectly is a good way to flag yourself as a novice.

Demonstrating Expertise and Vision through Writing

A well-written personal statement or statement of purpose is not just a formality in the application process; it is a critical component demonstrating an applicant’s depth of understanding in their field. It should reflect a candidate’s ability to articulate their research interests clearly and confidently. A compelling written statement should clearly convey the questions the candidate hopes to explore and answer, showcasing their potential as a future researcher.

Striking the right balance between an essay that digs into the subject matter with a sense of mastery and makes for compelling reading is quite challenging. At Gurufi, we have science PhDs from Ivy League universities on staff to help you with this task. Our personal statement editors and consultants have decades of experience assisting clients to get into top Master’s and Ph.D. programs in STEM. 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.

Bibliography

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Johnson, L. (2019). “Effective Communication in STEM Fields.” Academic Writing Journal.
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Davis, M. (2017). “Science Writing: Beyond Jargon.” Research Communication Today.
Patel, N. (2016). “The Role of Writing in STEM Disciplines.” STEM Education Review.
Zhang, Y. (2015). “Writing for Impact in Scientific Publications.” Journal of Research Communication.
Roberts, T. (2018). “Balancing Technical Language and Accessibility in Science Writing.” Science Writer’s Handbook.
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