This year I've faced some push-back regarding personal essay writing that I did not notice last year. More than one student has resisted following the three-part format on our handout. The three dissenters I consulted cited wanting to be original and have a personal statement that is different from everyone else's as the reason they did not want to follow a format. The irony is, before we workshopped their writing, their personal statements were full of generalities and cliches and lacking truly original content.
The way I approached this obstacle was by emphasizing that the format we suggest for personal essays allows for a lot of originality, especially with the "hook" beginning. I encouraged the students to think about something about themselves related to the discipline of the graduate program they're applying to that no other student could say and then to write about that as their "hook." I explained as long as they found a unique angle and dug in deep, their essay would be original.
Each time a student pushed back against the personal essay format, I found it easier to convince them to adhere to the format in a shorter amount of time. Just a couple sentences about how beginning with something personal and unique will stand out to the graduate program admissions committee is enough to get most people to at least begin their essays with a personal hook.
Many students come in with essays that contain a lot of information that is essentially their resumes in sentence form. I view this as a very rough version of the second part of the personal statement in our format--the part where the student explains what makes her a good candidate. For this, I explain that the graduate committee is going to be rushing to read a high volume of personal statements and doesn't want to take extra time to analyze the meaning of all of this info. Although the student might think it's obvious why their past experiences make them a good candidate, I encourage them to spell it out and explicitly write that X experience will make them a good graduate student because of Y. When I tell them many graduate committees will not take time to figure out Y on their own, the students are much more willing to reframe this section. I assure them that they won't sound arrogant as long as they use professional language and don't make any grandiose claims. Now the student is on board with 2/3rds of our personal essay format.
For the final 1/3rd, I explain to the student that because of the economy, there have been many more people going to graduate school in recent years less because they are passionate about it and more because they can't find a job or aren't yet ready to face the "real world." I explain that a graduate committee will be trying to weed out the students who don't know why they're going to graduate school, which is why it's important to explicitly write details about what the students plans to do in school and beyond. Just a few sentences and then they're on board with part three of our format. By this point, we are working toward an essay that fits our format and is also much more original than the one the student brought in.
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