essay writing

So you’ve sat down and brainstormed, and you’re now ready to hit the ground running with your essays. Great! You might be wondering how to best convey your reasons for pursuing graduate school to the admissions committees. What kind of tone or approach should you use? A good rule of thumb is to...

A speaker recently told a story about traveling in Asia, where he saw a stunning emerald. Enchanted by the stone’s beauty, he decided to buy it on the spot. He returned home and took the emerald to a jeweler for appraisal. The jeweler began examining the stone through his magnifier, and as he...

Applicants love to write about their accomplishments, whether in a personal statement for graduate school or in a b-school essay that asks about one’s greatest achievement, challenge, or the like. And they are not shy about sharing their accomplishments, such as driving innovations that led to...

I'm speculating on the best practices to write an essay for a for-profit school. Generally, very prestigious schools care little about their students having ties to the school's state. My theory is that as a school becomes stronger and more desirable (academic excellence, selective admissions...

Your personal statement and essays are essential elements of your application and allow the adcom great insights into who you really are aside from your stats. However, no matter how extensive your experience or how accomplished you may be, all that can be lost if presented in plodding prose...

Wondering how to write about the tumultuous events of 2020 in your application essays? [Show summary] Accepted Founder Linda Abraham offers a framework for discussing COVID-19, the events of 2020, and their impact on your life in your undergraduate or graduate program applications. Your...

Each year, Accepted consultants are witnessing a recurring epidemic. And it’s worse than you can imagine: Generic-itis. What generic-itis looks like Here is an example of a severe case of generic-–itis that I drafted based on several different examples I recently read, along with 25 years of...

This might be a great opening line for a comedy night at a university student center, but can you use humor in a graduate school application essay? Should you even try? The answer is…maybe. If you have a funny bone, use it If you can use humor effectively, it will help you stand out from your...

Most of you are now — or will be soon — editing your critical application essays and personal statements. When Accepted consultants review and edit your essays, they go through a process I call the editing funnel. When you edit your own essays, you should follow a similar process. How the...

Having trouble getting those first few words and sentences of your application essay up on your computer screen? Don’t fret – even the most accomplished novelists or famous journalists have a tough time getting started. Tempted to get up and do something – anything! – rather than stare at that...

Use the following strategies to get organized and to help you write better secondary essays. Taking the time to think about how you will approach your secondaries can give you the “big picture” perspective you need to do your best work. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, trying a new approach can...

You’ve heard it again and again – the personal statement is one of the most important parts of your med school application. However, we know that admonition doesn’t make it any easier to write! But even though personal statements can definitely be challenging, they don’t need to be overwhelming...

Accepted Founder Linda Abraham Talks Med School Admissions [Show Summary] Are you planning to apply to medical school this year? Worried about the personal statement, most meaningful experiences, activity descriptions, and secondary essays? They can be challenging! Let’s learn about the who...

You’re applying to six different schools and each one requires 2-7 essays/personal statements which equals…a whole lot of writing. PROBLEM: How can you draft so many essays and still maintain a fresh and original voice in each? SOLUTION: Adapt one essay from one application to another essay on...

Hello fellow SDNers! I am a 2019 applicant (trying to get my PS written early) and I would really appreciate some help in brainstorming what I should write! This may be an odd thing to ask, as I do understand that PS can get very personal sometimes, but I was wondering if any past...

“Tone” is often one of the aspects of writing that applicants find most difficult to pin down. And yet, when you’re writing, it is also one of the most important to control so that you maintain an appropriate tone for your purpose. One way to think about “tone” is to understand it as conveying...

You studied, worked, or volunteered abroad and now you want to include part of this in your personal statement. Maybe you want to show that you’ve experienced a different culture or that you’ve managed to go outside of your comfort zone. Maybe you’ve had interesting experiences – met people...

How many times have you wandered through a bookstore, opening up a book to read the first few lines only to quickly close it again? How often have you read one of those free samples on your Kindle, only to decide after a paragraph that you’re glad you didn’t buy it? Similarly, how many times...

I am applying for Internship this year and I was hoping I could get someone's(preferably a doctoral level clinician) eyes on my APPI essays? They are all completed, but I was just hoping for some initial thoughts, reactions, feedback. And obviously, if there was something blaringly wrong it'd be...

You want to write a residency personal statement that will get you noticed – and matched! – at your top choice residency program. Not sure how to turn your boring draft into an application bestseller? Follow these 5 tips: Focus on what attracts you to this particular specialty This isn’t the...

While there are many different ways to approach writing a personal statement (PS) for your PA application, I am including a successful example here. The character limit for the CASPA application PS is 5,000 characters with spaces. In this essay, you are responding to the question, “Why PA?” To...

If you sent your AMCAS application off promptly in June, you’re now working your way through secondary application essays. When writing your secondaries, keep in mind that the purpose of the secondaries is to show your fit with the specific school, not to show why you want to go into the medical...

As you start to work on your secondary essays, one of the things that will become clearer and clearer is that you’re working within some VERY tight character limits. You may sit and stare at your computer screen, thinking you have nothing to say, but once you start writing, you may see that you...

Now that you’ve (hopefully) finished up your primary med school application, what’s next? Ideally, not stressing yourself out by reading the forums on SDN for the next six months…you’ll go mad! Instead, how about conquering your anxiety by slicing through all the noise and misinformation about...

You want your medical school application to make it to the top of the accepted pile. Your medical school personal statement and secondary essays are one way to make your application really stand out. How do you choose which of your lifetime of experiences to include in your application? Let’s...

Will your undergraduate degree in Music, English, or Economics put you at a disadvantage when the time comes to apply to medical school? Not at all! Medical schools want well-rounded students with the potential to become passionate, dedicated physicians, and following your heart into art or...

Whether you’re applying for an MBA, a PhD in Public Policy (or many other doctoral fields), or a Masters in Social Work, you’re likely to talk about social enterprise or community service goals in your application. For some, this will be your primary objective – those of you seeking careers in...

In this blog series, you’ll get succinct, practical tips on how you can optimize your AMCAS application for acceptance to top medical schools. As I discussed in the first post of this series, your AMCAS essay serves as your introduction to the med school admissions board. In this way, your...

One of the many challenges of applying to college or graduate school is showing the admissions committee how you’ll fit in and stand out. Adcoms are trying to build student bodies that will work cohesively towards shared goals and ideals, but that come from different backgrounds and with...

One of most important pieces of advice I can give you regarding your personal statements and application essays is this: Show, don’t tell. Here are three tips to help you achieve this essential writing goal: 1. Show the steps you’ve taken. If you are writing about a goal you achieved or a...

Cydney Foote, one of Accepted’s most experienced medical school admissions consultants, worked with a client, Ben (not his real name), during the 2016-2017 cycle. Ben started working on his personal statement in February and received medical school acceptances by October. He certainly had good...

hey guys I was wondering if someone could read over my personal statement for the main essay on PCTAS!! could really use some advise/editing. thanks :) pm me and I'll send you my essay

SITE LINK: Home US Medical Admissions Consulting (USMA) is offering its services for the 2017-2018 Application Cycle. USMA is a New York based consultancy offering its expert editing services to applicants seeking admission to a variety of health care programs. The greatest portion of our...

Make those words count! Most applicants – whether applying to med school, law school, business school, or any other grad school or college program – need to deal with rigid character or word limits when writing their application essays or personal statements. You may start out thinking that you...

Time to brush up on your basic writing skills! Want to show the adcom that you are a master of the written word, someone who knows how to convey their thoughtful experiences and insightful ideas eloquently? Then it's time you brush up on your basic writing skills with the following 10 tips: 1...

Don't just copy and paste (no matter how similar the questions are)! You’re applying to six different schools and each one requires 2-7 essays/personal statements which equals…a whole lot of writing. PROBLEM: How can you draft so many essays and still maintain a fresh and original voice in...

'Twas the night before deadlines, and all through the world, Our consultants sat cramming, coffee brewing, brows furled; Though the essays were written with effort and care, There were still a few things that were cause for despair! The clichés! Oh, forsake! Terrible, were they – That all our...

Want to let your funny side show in your application essays? Here is what Linda Abraham has to say about humor in admissions: Related Resources: • Linda Abraham’s Admissions Assortment [podcast] • So These Two Grad School Applicants Walk Into A Bar . . . • First Drafts Of Personal...

Caution: Don't bury your qualifications under prepositions! From my base in the Middle East, I work with many applicants throughout Asia who have excellent English but use a few phrases in ways that depart from the strictly correct. Here are some tips to help applicants improve their use of two...

When you write an application essay or statement of purpose, you’re trying to accomplish several goals at once: You are trying to prove your worthiness to be accepted to your target school, while also trying to impress upon the adcom that you have desirable character traits that your program...