Happy Friday, Reader, you made it!
This week, we’re talking about one of the most important paragraphs in your personal statement, and how to make it read as fit versus flattery.
Admit It: Your “why this program” paragraph started off as a list of the program’s highlights from their website.
Reviewers often skim this paragraph because, when written that way, they already know everything it says.
When an applicant writes about a program’s renowned faculty, rigorous curriculum, or exceptional career office, it doesn’t fully answer the question of why the program makes sense for you right now.
Finding the right fit with a program goes both ways. They do want to see that you’ve found something there that you can’t get somewhere else, but more importantly, they want to understand what you’ll do with that opportunity as a student and alum.
As a reviewer, my favorite paragraphs were those that acknowledged what my program had to offer, but mostly described how they’d maximize those features to take their next step.
Here’s an example.
Picture someone applying to a public health master’s program. Here’s the flattering but otherwise empty description of “why this program.”
“I am applying to State University because of its excellent reputation, world-class faculty, and commitment to health equity. I believe it is the perfect place for me to grow as a public health professional.”
It’s… fine. But it doesn’t have a lot of substance.
The revision:
“For three years I have coordinated a mobile vaccination program and keep running into the same problem: collecting data and needing a better plan to use it. State University’s evaluation concentration, paired with a second-year practicum in a county health department, would teach me to design evaluations and develop actionable solutions. I am ready to turn the data we already collect into decisions about where the clinic goes next and which community partners we bring in.”
Same applicant, same program. The second one went deeper to pull out opportunities in the program that they would benefit from the most, in a way that serves the applicant’s and program’s interests: improving public health outcomes.
Here are the action steps to do a temperature check on your own personal statement.
Action Step 1: Run a swap test.
If you’ve already written this paragraph, try replacing the school’s name with another one on your list. If it still makes sense, there’s room to make it more specific.
Action Step 2: Trade adjectives for nouns.
“Diverse,” “innovative,” and “rigorous” are words you’ll likely see on a graduate program’s website. A decent statement echoes them to show you’ve read how the program talks about itself. The best statements go a step further and name what’s behind those words: the specific courses, a practicum or field placement requirement, a research center related to your career interests, a cohort model, a schedule built for working professionals, or a faculty member’s current research project.
Aim for highlighting two to three of these in the context of how they’ll help you get to where you’re going.
A quick note on naming faculty members and what they teach in your statement. It works best when you go beyond “Dr. Z’s course on Public Health Genomics sounds fascinating.” (I unknowingly did this in my first master's application and fixed it the second time around.) The applicant above might say: “The Public Health Genomics course will be especially helpful as I translate my vaccination program’s data into population-level disease prevention strategy.”
Action Step 3: Finish the sentence “[This program feature] matters to me because…”
Using those two to three program features above, finish this sentence with something from your own experience or future goals. This is how you show your true fit and preparation for the program.
Then consider another sentence that shows what you’ll bring to the classroom: maybe it’s work experience, a community you’ve served, an identity, or even a perspective that your classmates will learn from. This is the piece most applicants leave out, sometimes because they think it goes without saying.
What I’m working on ✍
Last week I led a workshop on How to Apply to Graduate School for City Year. It drew 83 live attendees from coast to coast and over 130 registrations. 🤯
I talked about the benefits of connecting with admissions representatives throughout the application process, and one of the most common questions was what to ask.
Stay tuned, I’ll cover that in more detail in an upcoming Admit It!
So if you’re writing your personal statement right now, or supporting a colleague, friend or mentee who is, reread the “why this program” paragraph and ask: “Could this be said about any other school?”
If yes, you know what to do next.
Make it a great weekend!
Dr. Jena
P.S. Applying to several programs this fall? The “why this program” paragraph is where tailoring your application is most impactful, and also one of the most challenging parts to write. Strategizing which of your experiences fit for which programs is part of what my Personal Statement Reviews cover, and packages adjust to the number of statements where you’d like support. Start with a short form, then choose a time for a free 30-min discovery call. Happy writing!