The First Paragraph…
As with any important writing assignment, the first paragraph of a personal statement can be the most difficult. People feel the need to immediately dazzle and wow the reader with some eye-catching turn of phrase or to immediately draw them into an exciting situation. Too often, though, writers get so caught up in having a unique and catchy opening that they do not make sure that it is actually good. The best opening paragraphs lay out the basic theme and tone make clear right away who you are and why the admissions committee should
In previous posts, I urged you to work to distill the essential aspects of your applica-tion down to just a few sentences. If you cannot do this, then you cannot write a quality admissions essay. As I noted before, a very average personal statement will just recount the applicant’s resume. A good essay will use stories and examples from the applicant’s life and accomplishments to develop a clear theme that answers the question, “why should you admit me?”
Having identified a theme, you now need to select a story that demonstrates this theme. For example, you will remember that my distilled theme for admission into Yale’s History Ph.D. program was that: “My legal career in South Africa and the United States has exposed me to the complexities of history and how they impact us today. I want to further investigate this.” In order to build on this idea, I selected a story from my life. I opened my essay by recalling how, after a meeting with pro bono clients, I looked out the window of my Johannesburg:
“Looking out of my office window at the University of Wittswatersand, I could see South Africa’s problems in stark geographic clarity. North of the university were the wealthy districts of Rosebank and Sandton, where South Africa’s wealthiest citizens lived safely on heavily guarded palm tree-lined streets. South of the university were Johannesburg’s poorer districts where blacks, recently freed from the living restrictions placed on them by apartheid, had moved in by the thousands, creating one of the worst examples of urban blight in Africa. Poor schools, high unemployment, and the highest crime rate in the world was the Johannesburg that most black South Africans knew. It was the mission of the department in which I worked, The Center for Applied Legal Studies, to form and implement legal strategies designed to attack various manifestations of the still-lingering vestiges of apartheid and social inequality.”
Looking back some years later, I see at least a dozen things that I would change, but one thing that the essay does well is to create a clear sense of who I was and to build on the clear basic theme by telling a compelling story. I am in a strange place doing an
interesting and relevant job. From here, I could go on to talk in detail about my job and to talk about how what I did set the table for me to become an excellent academic.
In the thousands of admissions essays that I have read, the clear link between a well-established theme and a compelling individual story is the most consistent variable in excellent essays. As you go about writing your essay, this is what you should seek to create. On the other hand, perhaps the worst way to begin a personal statement is to say something like: “My name is Brian Fobi, and I am applying to the Ph.D. program in History because I have long had an interest in history, and want to further work in this field. ” This is incredibly boring, stale and unoriginal. Consistent readers of the blog will by now know that I stress telling stories. You need sto- ries of your accomplishments, setbacks, life circumstances and aspirations. This is compelling and it will help to make the reader feel as though they know you. Even in things like hard sciences, you can find ways to use stories to make your strengths clear.
For Example, if you had a particularly important or compelling discovery or advancement in a lab, take the reader through that. Opening your essay with a story about you facings a moment of crisis or an acutely difficult puzzle in lab will allow the reader to instantly think about you being “the girl in the genetics lab who made Discover X.” The one caveat that I would offer regarding telling stories is that you should not go overboard. I will occasionally get an essay in which the opening story drones on for several paragraphs and seems not to be moving in a relevant and germane direction. Always remember that the purpose of your essay is to convince the reader that you are prepared and qualified, so your story needs to be succinct and to the point. Once you have established the key things, transition to the next stage. The introduction can be challenging and difficult, but if you take the time to do it right, you can set the stage for a very compelling essay that does a strong job of advocating for your admission.
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