Advice from the admissions committee
Briefly describe your motivations for pursuing graduate school and any relevant experiences in a maximum of two pages.
Simple right?
Writing a personal statement or statement of purpose is probably the most daunting part of applying to graduate school. The prompts are often broad, nonspecific, and while it seems straight forward, the directions can be overwhelming. A student’s confidence in their writing and their familiarity with the style and expectations of the personal statement are highly dependent on their own personal background and experiences. Personally, I found out the hard way that access to information and resources can make the difference between an embarrassingly bad essay and one that I was proud to submit. I was fortunate to eventually find mentors who I felt comfortable enough with to ask a million questions and get feedback from while I was writing my final grad school application but learning the secrets of what admissions committees expect shouldn’t depend on luck.
The goal of this post is to demystify the graduate school personal statement.
To do this, I reached out to faculty members who have experience with admissions at various biology PhD programs around the country and asked them for advice. Below is a combination of what I’ve learned through my own experiences (as an applicant, student, and student admissions committee member) as well as the feedback I received from faculty.
Planning: The first step to writing your graduate school application involves a little homework. Before you can even start writing you need to identify the prompt(s) you will be addressing. One of the common responses I received from admissions committee members was that applicants should be sure to adequately address the prompt. There are many variations of the personal statement prompt. You will find that they can range from something along the lines of “summarize your life experiences and goals” to a detailed outline of specific topics to discuss. It may be helpful to make a list of the prompts for all of the schools you intend on applying to and compare them directly. If you’re applying to more than one school it’s likely that your essay for each will be almost the same but it’s critical to identify if any of the applications want you to address specific topics in detail.
“Follow the instructions closely – different programs may have different things that they want you to focus on in your statement”
Chris Fromme, former Admissions Chair and Director of Graduate Studies, Cornell University BMCB program
Multiple members of the admissions committee for Cornell’s Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology PhD program pointed out that they have updated their application instructions to provide a detailed outline of what they expect applicants to address in their essay. This change was a direct response to the challenges created by the previously vague and generic prompt. See below:
(1) Academic statement (up to 1,200 words): In this section, we would like to learn about your motivation to apply to a PhD program, the experiences that informed this choice, and how these experiences have prepared you for graduate school. You may include whatever information you think speaks to these points, but please be sure to specifically address the two areas outlined below.
Past and ongoing research experiences: We would like to hear about your research experiences, including your research goals, outcomes (positive or negative!), and what you have learned relating back to your initial research goal (your research conclusions). Please provide also the specifics of your research experience(s), including where and when they took place, and the average weekly hours of commitment.
Program and future research interests: Please describe your future research interests, and why you chose to apply to the BMCB program. If there are faculty members that you find resonate with your interests, please include that information. We appreciate that your research interests will evolve throughout graduate school, and we would like to hear what research areas and questions interest you most now, as you apply to start graduate school.
(2) Importance of community, diversity, and inclusion (up to 400 words): We strive to build a diverse and inclusive community that strengthens our intellectual and collaborative department. Please provide insight into your potential to contribute to a community of inclusion, belonging, and respect where scholars representing diverse backgrounds, perspectives, abilities, and experiences can learn and work productively and positively together.
Additional information to consider including within the Academic and Personal Statement of Purpose are:
- How your personal, academic, and/or professional experiences demonstrate your ability to be both persistent and resilient especially when navigating challenging circumstances. Consider including examples where you overcame obstacles, showed creativity, or demonstrated initiative.
- How you engage with others and have facilitated and/or participated in productive teams.
- How you have experienced or come to understand the barriers faced by others whose experiences and backgrounds may differ from your own.
- Your service and/or leadership in efforts to advance diversity, inclusion, access, and equity especially by those from backgrounds historically underrepresented and/or marginalized.
- Additional context around any perceived gaps or weaknesses in your academic record.
Regardless of which schools you apply to, these guidelines can serve as a starting point and give you an idea of the format admissions committees might expect even when the prompt is general. A personal statement that addresses a very detailed prompt like the one above would certainly be transferable to a one that is more open-ended.
“I think the applicant should follow the instructions given by each program carefully; make sure to explain/demonstrate your motivation for graduate studies; your past experiences and contributions; your future interest and the reason why you are applying to this particular program.”
Anonymous
“Your personal statement should describe your motivations for pursuing a PhD, your previous research experience, and possible areas of research interest for the future. Admissions committees are evaluating whether you understood why you were doing what you did in the lab and are trying to evaluate your scientific, academic, and technical preparation for graduate research. Be sure to include the ‘bigger picture’ of your research. Sustained research experience is a plus, as is evidence of resilience. Admissions committees recognize that individual circumstances vary greatly, and that students have had different opportunities available to them. We’re looking for students who have taken advantage of those available opportunities. If there are any potential problem areas in your application (for example, unusually low grades for a semester), it’s best to briefly address the reason for this in your statement. But don’t feel that you need to share private personal details.”
Mary Gehring, MIT Biology
When you describe your previous research experiences, the goal should be to communicate that you understand the bigger picture and the science of the project you worked on. Think about the questions you were trying to address with your research, why those questions were important, and how the work you contributed addressed those questions. Instead of listing out all of the techniques and methods you learned, think about what you were trying to do with those methods.
“[A good personal statement has] Detailed explanations of previous research experience, focused on the scientific question(s) being asked, the rationale for the experimental approach being used, and next steps that could be taken in the future.”
Chris Fromme, former Admissions Chair and Director of Graduate Studies, Cornell University BMCB program
“Write your science story that includes your science with enough details for us to understand that you know the big picture of the project, your focused role on the project, and the experimental design/results/conclusions. If you have multiple experiences, pick the top two or three of those. Be sure to include why you want to be a scientist and how that particular school is a good fit for you.”
Stuart Ravnik, Assoc. Dean, UT Southwestern
For more inspiration and to become more familiar with what application essays might look like, I recommend reading through this example provided and pointed out to me by the Stanford Biology PhD program.
This article is also a great primer to read before starting to write.
Getting started writing: The hardest part of writing for me is always getting started. A broad essay prompt can make it feel impossible to do anything other than stare at a blank page waiting for a prize winning statement to manifest on the screen (spoiler, that never happens). The most helpful writing advice I was ever told is “just start writing. You can always go back and revise.” Put your ideas on paper. Writing is an iterative process and having something to read through, no matter how bad you think it is, gives starting point to build from. The process of writing down all of your ideas, even if they don’t go together, can help overcome the writer’s block that occurs when you’re hung up on a concept you can’t get past. I like to think that moving the ideas out of my head makes room for new ones and the process of reading through what I wrote will either help my thinking evolve or inspire something new. Example: This entire post started as a crude version of this paragraph with even more rambling.
Dr. Roman Feiman (@RomanFeiman), a professor at Brown University, shared this advice on Twitter (re-posted here with permission). This is a great primer with some fantastic insight to get you thinking about how you could frame your essay!
Every year I read a lot of grad school applications from accomplished people that don’t give me the info I’m looking for. It feels like a major hidden curriculum thing. So here’s (my opinion on) how to write a great Statement of Purpose/Research for a PhD program. I read around 50-100 graduate applications every year. Maybe 95% of them make the same major mistake: they tell me very little about what the applicant actually wants to research. Most students assume (understandably!) that a grad school statement should be like an undergrad application. They write autobiographically — “I started here, then I did A then B then C really well, and now I’m applying to work with you”. This is a mistake. Unlike an undergrad statement, a grad school SOP needs to tell the reader (the prof(s) who you want to work with) what you want to work on. The main thing readers want is to understand how your interests would gel and to imagine where they might be able to advise you. The best SOPs I’ve read are written in three acts.
Act I: Research interests
Act II: Supporting evidence (background/experience)
Act III: Fit to the faculty/department
Act I: What are your research interests? What are the intellectual issues you want to better understand? This should be specific enough to make it clear that you know the major open questions in your research area, but not so specific that you’re proposing one study.
Act II: What is the experience and background you have that enables you to carry out graduate work on these issues? Your thesis/RA experience shouldn’t be autobiography, it should be evidence — look, I really have the skills, ability, perseverance, etc. to do this work!
Act III: How do your interests match specific faculty members at the department you’re applying to? This is the part that changes the most between applications. You core interests (Act I) shouldn’t change much — they’re what you generally want to work on, regardless of where!
This leads me to an important point: Act I should really be the actual reason you’re applying. It takes a long time and lots of trial-and-error to figure out your intellectual interests. If you haven’t figured them out yet, that’s not a knock on you!
But if you find yourself feeling like you’re making stuff up or only trying to appeal to a PI just to get accepted, take a step back and ask yourself why you’re applying. A PhD takes too long and pays too little to do something you’re not genuinely excited about.
Finally, this is all just my opinion and I’m sure not universal. Still, I hope it helps some prospective students! My 1st draft grad app was an autobio too. Luckily, I had the chance to show it to a prof (thx @Ori_Friedman!) who gave me this advice. I rewrote and it helped!
Revise, rinse, and repeat: Once you have a rough draft, take a short break, but then start revising. No one churns out their best work on the first try. It can be helpful to mentally separate the writing, editing, and revising steps. Read through what you’ve written, highlight the things that don’t make sense or need clarification. Then, once you’ve made it through the end, start again from the beginning but this time correcting or rewriting.
One of the challenges you will face writing a personal statement is… well…it’s personal. It can be difficult to feel comfortable sharing what you’ve written. This is completely normal. However, the importance of having other people review your essay and provide constructive feedback cannot be overstated. Remember, the goal, after all, is to share this essay with a bunch of strangers when you submit your application.
“A good personal statement is logical and clear, without a lot of extraneous anecdotes, and gives one a sense of the person behind the words.”
Mary Gehring, MIT Biology
Once you have a complete draft that you’ve revised as much possible on your own, you should seek feedback from people who are familiar with your background, the science, graduate school applications, or all of the above. Try writing and revising in stages. Send your draft to a few people for comments, revise based on the feedback you receive, and then do it again. You don’t have to send it to everybody at once but generally speaking you can’t have too much feedback. Having people with diverse backgrounds provide comments will help streamline your essay and make sure it’s written for a broad audience.
“[A good personal statement is] Concise, clearly written, and conveys good science and understanding of the science.”
Stuart Ravnik, Assoc. Dean, UT Southwestern
Consider asking for feedback from the following sources:
Close friend, significant other, or relative – There’s no shame in starting with someone who you can be confident won’t judge you from your writing. This person doesn’t necessarily need a degree or background in science. Sometimes a fresh set of eyes is all that’s needed to spot issues that would have been obvious if you hadn’t been staring at the same text for hours. If you are feeling self-conscious about sharing your writing, this experience can be as valuable for learning how to receive constructive criticism as it is for improving the quality of your essay.
Research advisor – This one may seem obvious but if your advisor is busy or hard to coordinate with it can be intimidating to ask them for time. Don’t let this prevent you from seeking out their assistance. Your advisor’s feedback is essential for making sure your descriptions of the science and your contributions to project are clear, concise and accurate.
Letter writers – It’s good practice to send a copy of your final application materials to the people who you ask to write letters of recommendation. You should not wait until the last minute to contact them. If you are able to contact them early enough, these people can be a good source of feedback on your previous research descriptions. Having other scientists review your personal statement will ensure you aren’t using too much jargon or assuming that the reader has knowledge of a specific field. An added benefit of asking them for feedback on your application materials is it can provide an opportunity to get to know you better and seeing your commitment to graduate school can show through in the way they describe you in the letters.
Current graduate students or postdocs -Talking to current or recent PhD students is a great way to find assistance preparing your application materials. These people are fresh off their own experience going through the application process and many will be happy to share examples, provide feedback, or simply talk and answer any questions and doubts you might have. If you are at a university with a large graduate student population or participated in an REU you’ve likely had a chance to interact with some of them who will also be familiar with your research. Don’t be afraid to reach out to that postdoc you worked with two summers ago but haven’t spoken to in a while. Chances are they are happy to see you pursuing a graduate degree and will be glad to help. If you haven’t had this experience, check out the GAINS Buddies program to be connected with a mentor. You can also find more information on application assistance programs here.
Writing a personal statement can be the most difficult part of applying to graduate school but you can do it and you don’t have to figure it out on your own! Hopefully after reading this you will have a clearer sense of what admissions committees are looking for in a personal statement and where you can go to find help. If you have any questions or would like to talk about STEM PhD programs don’t hesitate to reach out through the GAINS Buddies page. Good luck!