- Joined
- Jan 5, 2009
- Messages
- 687
- Reaction score
- 12
I applied 3 years ago, and did not get any acceptances (8 interviews: 5 waitlists, 2 rejections, 1 w/d)... At the time I sent out my primary to 25 schools and completed the secondaries to ~20.
I really liked my old personal statement and the anecdote I used to open and close it. I don't think that my PS was a hindrance to my application last cycle (I think it was mainly my interviewing skills and lack of maturity/people-skills that showed through my interviews).
I will definitely be adding in an additional paragraph explaining what I've done in the meantime post-college and what I've learned. This means that I will also be cutting out some sentences from the intermediary paragraphs since I'm close to the character limit...
However, I've recently been reading that some schools have my old application right next to my current application. I'm figuring that it might look bad to have a "similar" PS in my current application... If I keep the opening and closing paragraph entirely the same, but modify the internal paragraphs a bit and add in a new section on my current experiences, would that still be considered too similar? I don't want the schools to think that I'm not even trying by writing a new PS, but at the same time, I think that my old PS was good and I don't really have better ideas for a brand new PS 🙁
(I anticipate that I'll be applying to maybe 1/2 of the same schools as I previously did)
I'd appreciate any input!
I really liked my old personal statement and the anecdote I used to open and close it. I don't think that my PS was a hindrance to my application last cycle (I think it was mainly my interviewing skills and lack of maturity/people-skills that showed through my interviews).
I will definitely be adding in an additional paragraph explaining what I've done in the meantime post-college and what I've learned. This means that I will also be cutting out some sentences from the intermediary paragraphs since I'm close to the character limit...
However, I've recently been reading that some schools have my old application right next to my current application. I'm figuring that it might look bad to have a "similar" PS in my current application... If I keep the opening and closing paragraph entirely the same, but modify the internal paragraphs a bit and add in a new section on my current experiences, would that still be considered too similar? I don't want the schools to think that I'm not even trying by writing a new PS, but at the same time, I think that my old PS was good and I don't really have better ideas for a brand new PS 🙁
(I anticipate that I'll be applying to maybe 1/2 of the same schools as I previously did)
I'd appreciate any input!