How many drafts did it take you

[GoJoeyMojo]

to complete your personal statement? Throughout these threads and at school, I 've heard about applicants preparing 15, 20 or more drafts of their personal statement. I'm just curious because I can't imagine writing that many drafts. I feel like the quality of my essays plateaus and even declines after writing a certain number of drafts. So... how many did you guys end up preparing before being satisfied?

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[Whootman]

If you're toying with several completely different ideas, then it would probably be beneficial to write many drafts. When I wrote mine, however, I knew generally how I wanted to write it so I really only wrote one draft then edited it a few times.

 

[PhillyMD2006]

I'm like you. Whenever I wrote essays for english/lit classes, most of the time it was 1 draft and submit, but for my PS i did like 5-6 drafts. I did 2 drafts myself and then gave it to a bunch of people to read. It's good to try and get a variety of people to read it b/c you never know who's on the other end at the AdCom reading your essay. Compile the criticisms you get from your readers and re-write a final draft or two. It goes without saying that there better not be any grammatical errors in it.

 

[psipsina]

I wrote one for my pre-med advisor that wasn't at all what I wanted, but I had a deadline. Then I thought about it for like 5 months, almost like I was writing it my head, and whenever I came up with something I thought was good, a phrase, sentence etc I scribbled it down somewhere. Then I finally wrote the actual essay in one shot and then only editited it for gramatical or vocab issues.