UNDERSTAND 

Why do colleges even ask for personal statements and how important are they? To understand, we suggest you think of admissions decisions as a two-stage process. 

PHASE I – First, there is the raw data–grades, test scores, school profiles, honors or advanced courses attempted, extracurricular activities, work history, etc. It’s a lot of information, and schools use it all to narrow the applicant pool to those students who seem to have the right stuff to fit in and excel on their campus.

PHASE II –  Now that the admissions team has used data to narrow the field to a qualified group of applicants, they have a pretty good idea of what percentage of these students will accept an invitation to attend. At this point, they look to your personal, written responses to essay prompts to uncover the unique individual behind the data and to help them make the difficult call between deny, waitlist, or admit. In this crucial final phase of the admissions decision process, the personal statement is your greatest opportunity to tell your unique, engaging and authentic story and move the outcome in your favor.

ORGANIZE

After you understand what kind of writing colleges are looking for, it’s important to break the big challenge of writing multiple essays for all your schools down into a simple series of steps. At this point, it’s also important that we strategize about how to write a few tent-pole essays and then customize those stories for individual schools so that you are efficient and don’t waste precious time and effort.