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The biggest mistake that an applicant is prone to make is to write his personal statement as an epic or a glorious life course. The applicant should make a full introduction as far as possible, reflect one or two of his own topics, and have clear views and prominent points. The theme of "personal statement" should also affirm its own strengths and advantages and reflect the uniqueness of the applicant. It is unwise to constantly explain your shortcomings and weaknesses.

Although people occasionally submit two personal statements, we only need a concise personal statement, and we don't care about the length. If you submit more than one personal statement, I think there must be a reason, and I will try my best to find out the reason. In fact, if the applicant tries to explain their weaknesses, I suggest adding a short appendix after the personal statement. From my personal point of view, it would be a big mistake to use the personal statement itself to illustrate the weakness. The personal statement I hope to see can convey some positive information and some information that other application materials can't show.

Writing samples and personal statements are completely different. The former enables us to find some shortcomings in writing that cannot be found in personal statements. Writing samples can also let us see whether the applicant has the initial logical ability, argumentation ability and the ability to put forward opinions.

Letter of recommendation is also an important basis for our enrollment. His academic performance and personality can be seen through the letter of recommendation. Each applicant should prepare two letters of recommendation. If the applicant is a student at school, the recommendation letter should come from the teacher; Otherwise, the applicant should use the recommendation letter from the boss. If the applicant has left the school for many years, it is not suitable to get the recommendation letter from the school. Otherwise, we will wonder why we don't use the latest materials. Excellent grades are of course important, but because our school attaches great importance to the cultivation of students' quality, we will never admit those applicants who seem to have excellent academic performance but do not have noble moral character. We are small in number, so we pay special attention to the quality of the members who make up our small group.

If we are interested in the applicant's file, we will invite him for an interview. Compared with the number of applicants, few people can attend the interview. For various reasons, we may arrange another interview for them. For example, we sometimes want to know some aspects, or the applicant has some questions that have not been fully answered. Not many institutions do this like us.

Georgetown University

Andy komblatt

Assistant director of admissions office

Because many applicants can't interview us, they feel depressed and we understand. But it can be made up by personal statement, so you should seize this opportunity and don't worry about exposing your true side to us through personal statement. Never put obstacles between us. So we call it a personal statement, not a general statement. The more you confess, the more we know. Have you done well enough in this respect? I recommend a quiz. After writing the statement, you can show it to your friends and ask them, "If you have never met me, do you think you know me completely after reading this personal statement?"

When writing a personal statement, you can consider some activities you have participated in, how you grew up, and some work and travel experiences. You can even talk about some political topics without worrying that your opinions will offend the judges. It doesn't matter what your opinion is. Our group itself is very diverse. If you want to tell us why you want to enter our college or what you plan to do in the future, that's fine, but these are not necessary.

Some applicants suffer from not having the opportunity to explain some weaknesses in the evaluation, such as that you were ill in a certain semester, that an unfortunate arrival in a certain period made you do your homework badly or other information. You can provide an appendix, and we will be happy to accept it. Unless this information coincides with the theme of your personal statement, I will never allow you to write it as part of your personal statement.

I can submit papers, news briefings, videos and other auxiliary materials, which can give me a three-dimensional impression of you. But please remember that we are unlikely to read a lengthy paper, and we should not be unnecessarily smart when submitting application materials. Although I encourage applicants to be original, don't let us think that you submit something just to show how smart you are.

Letters of recommendation are very useful for us to master information. You can describe how you participated in extracurricular activities in your application, but if this information is corroborated by others, such as teachers and directors, it will become much more convincing. In addition, if you have very contradictory indicators such as high GPA and low GRE, or vice versa. If there is a reason or a professor explains it, it will be very, very valuable! This is a hundred times better than your own explanation.

University of Texas at Austin

Director of admissions

We accept 4000 application materials every year. If students were enrolled in strict accordance with undergraduate and LSAT scores, the average of these statistics would have exceeded the current figures. In fact, personal statements, resumes and letters of recommendation play an important role. We bring diversity into the classroom through this information. What we are looking for is not a person who only studies well, but an interesting applicant who can bring a new perspective to our discussion through his unique life experience and make contributions to this major.

In the evaluation process, each Committee member will only review a small part of many applications. Under the current system, the application materials will be examined by a professor and two members of the admission Committee. One of these two members will review all the materials of the applicant so as to have a general understanding of the overall application situation, so that we can make a more accurate judgment.

The theme of your personal statement is your personal choice. Since we asked for a resume, don't write your personal statement as simple as a resume, listing your work experience and various activities you participated in. I hope to see the applicant's unique things, such as special achievements in the past and interesting experiences in the past.

This year I read a very unique personal statement about the applicant's voluntary care for AIDS patients. This article does not give a general explanation of his service, but describes his experience with an AIDS patient in a concise and vivid style. This article left a deep impression on me and made the applicant stand out. He talked about how this experience made him a better person, and this angle was well found. It is much better to describe the impact of an event on you than to tell a plain story.

We can see that many candidates always like to say "I dreamed of becoming XX when I was XX" or "My grandfather is XX", or "I think this is a noble career …". We are more interested in the applicant than his goals and ideals. Of course, many applicants have clear plans for what they want to do in the future. Maybe they want to engage in public welfare law or international trade law, so it is necessary to receive a good education. If we think his ideal is logical and convincing according to the evaluation of other materials, then such a personal statement is better.

We usually limit our personal statements to two pages.

As for the recommendation letter, it is not necessary. Of course, it would be better if there were. We hope that letters of recommendation will be written by teachers who have worked together and know the applicant, followed by the applicant's boss, colleagues or teaching assistants. In short, we believe that only referees who know and are familiar with the applicant can provide true and reliable information.

People often ignore the importance of writing samples. In fact, the writing sample is very important to us, because it can reflect whether the applicant has the basic writing skills for future legal research. Neglect in this respect may eventually lead to the failure of the applicant.

Associate Dean in charge of enrollment and management of Columbia University Business School:

The admission process is both subjective and objective. Because we are choosing talents who may really become business leaders, in the process of enrollment, we not only examine students' college grades and GMAT scores, but also consider their interpersonal skills, work experience and personal qualities. So it is very important to improve yourself in an all-round way. We will also increase interview opportunities, which will help us to evaluate whether the applicant can succeed in our school and enterprise.

In the personal statement, we are most interested in the applicant's goals and plans after graduation, and the relationship with personal experience. We attach great importance to their past work experience, for example, they have led others to do something or can prove their leadership potential. We also attach great importance to whether the applicant can cooperate with others, because studying here requires you to cooperate closely with others and participate in group projects. To be successful, you must cooperate well with others. We are also interested in the applicant's interest and understanding of Columbia University, because this university is located in the bustling city of new york, and the applicant's future study will be closely linked with this international metropolis. We are looking for people who can succeed in this exciting and diverse environment. Our student group is very complex and international. About 25%-30% of the students come from abroad. Our domestic applicants are becoming more and more international, because many of them were born abroad, and many of them travel and work abroad. Therefore, if an applicant only stays in a single environment and has never been abroad to do projects, then he is not suitable for Columbia University. We prefer those applicants who are willing to learn foreign culture and other ways of dealing with others through any opportunity. Therefore, the applicant's rich foreign experience and international cooperation ability are very important factors.

There is no need to play tricks when applying, unless these can match the applicant's specific experience. For example, an applicant used to run a canned fruit juice company, and we received samples of canned fruit, which was very impressive. From this can, we can know that the applicant has really started a business, which is a good contact. But this is by no means necessary. The most important thing is how the applicant evaluates himself, and it is not advisable to explain his past achievements blindly by grandstanding. What we really need is not perfection. In fact, many people have been tainted in the past. We are looking for applicants who are ambitious, have long-term plans for the future and have the ability to strive for success.

It is entirely possible for foreign students to ask for help when writing personal statements. But it's better to point it out, or you'll wonder who wrote such a perfect article.

We need two letters of recommendation, really from the boss rather than the school teacher. We rely on GMAT scores and university transcripts to evaluate applicants' academic ability. Sometimes we know that the recommender authorizes the recommended person to write letters of recommendation, especially when these letters of recommendation are too fancy and similar to commercial advertisements. We hope to see authentic letters of recommendation, and practical information is more valuable to us.

Stanford University, Business School:

I hope everyone can write lively articles. Because you have to understand that people are reading your articles, not machines. If you are, you should screen 15-20 articles every day for a year and a half. What kind of articles do you want to read? Vivid and interesting, isn't it? So do we. Don't try to be different, because you don't know about other applicants. Don't write your personal statement with crayons, and don't send videos recorded by you and your friends to tell us the purpose of your study. This may not be a bad idea if you apply to art school, but if you want to study in law school or business school, don't do it.

Usually, the applicant likes to mix our questions with those of other business schools he applied for in his personal statement. You can see from the first paragraph that they didn't answer our questions well. It is very important to answer our questions. A common mistake is that you cannot explain why you choose a school. Please keep in mind that the teachers who apply for you often work in the school for many years and have deep feelings for the school, so I want to know the exact reason why you choose this school. Many students' articles fall into the routine, such as "I chose your school because you have strong teachers in marketing and finance, and I think it is the best school in China …" But I want to say that there are many schools that meet this requirement. If you choose us only because our school ranks higher, then don't expect us to attach importance to your application. It's like you joined a basketball team because you predicted that this team would win the first place before the season.

Please be sure to explain your shortcomings. Maybe your grades dropped in one semester because of your parents' divorce or financial difficulties. You should work hard to make a living. Then explain. But we don't want you to cry! Life is sometimes cruel, but there is an essential difference between explaining difficulties and lamenting. Statements such as "As the vice-chairman of the class reunion, asking me to do this and that hinders my study" or "My homework is poor because my lover dumped me" will make the Admissions Committee very angry. In fact, this kind of thing may happen again after you enter business school. Some people also add charts to their personal statements, but I don't think this will help.

Only the admissions Committee will read your materials. One person will add some comments after reading it, and then others will agree or disagree after reading it. The more people read your materials, the more likely you are to be admitted.

We will always pay attention to the name of the referee. Therefore, applicants are eager to find some celebrities or influential Stanford alumni as referees. Frankly speaking, it doesn't work. We hope that references are people who really know you and have worked with you. If referees know little about the applicants, they will often point this out clearly in their letters of recommendation, and they will also point out that they don't understand why they should be asked to write letters of recommendation. Then we will question the applicant's judgment. Such a letter of recommendation is not only invalid, but also counterproductive.

Director graduate department, Department of Biology, Stanford University:

We hope to see some experience in a certain research and the ability to distinguish the value of different things. We don't care much about what he did, but we want to see evidence to prove his judgment. We hope to recruit applicants who are willing to make basic contributions. Applicants generally have to say what they have done, what they want to do and what to write. We should all understand this seriously.

Don't overdo it. Don't praise our school too much, it's useless. When people look back on the past, they should extract the value of their past efforts. Sometimes this kind of effort may not be effective, but the applicant can honestly say, "We tried this plan, but it proved to be unworkable, and we understand why. Anyway, I still have to study science, and so on. " The analysis that sounds full of wisdom shows the author's analytical ability. As for future plans, as mentioned above, applicants should have the ability to judge important things and be aware of finding a balance between efforts and gains. You should try your best to get the maximum benefit from every effort.

Director of Admissions Office of Applied Machinery and Civil Engineering, California Institute of Technology:

We want to find several factors in our autobiography. What we mainly want to see is whether the applicant has thought about this field. Do they know the hot issues in this field today? Whether I have read some related research papers or been exposed to the mainstream of research at that time in college.

Don't pay too much attention to describing past achievements and ignore future planning. It is certainly helpful to reiterate our past achievements, but when we read the autobiography, we are fully aware that the applicants are first-class. What we want to know is the thinking mode of applicants and their definition of goals.

Simplicity is the most important thing. We usually read only the first two pages of an autobiography.