short personal statement

[bookworm06]

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I am in the process of drafting a personal statement and it is currently at about 1300 words. However, two of the schools to which I am applying ask for no more than 500 words in the ps. Although I have a tendency to be wordy, this word limit seemed to me to be extremely short and I'm having a very hard time narrowing down the personal statement that I have already worked on for so long.

Has anyone else run into a similar issue? If so, how did you handle cutting down your statement to a much shorter document?

Thanks.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Yes. I passed it around to editors far better than myself. They helped tighten up my prose, and then suggest things to cut. I wasn't at 1300, but I was over by quite a bit. I got it down to 505-510 for each essay.

-t

 

[kr862313]

Does anyone have an idea of how serious the word limit is? I know UNC's application says it should be between 400-700 words, but mines 900 (two single spaced pages). I wish thinking of just submitting it how it is. Do you think that is taking too big of a risk?

 

[JockNerd]

Does anyone have an idea of how serious the word limit is? I know UNC's application says it should be between 400-700 words, but mines 900 (two single spaced pages). I wish thinking of just submitting it how it is. Do you think that is taking too big of a risk?

200 words is noticeable. Think about it; they've seen 200 applications that are 700 words; they know how long it should be. I don't know if that alone would affect your chances, but why take a risk? Plus, one more chance to practice concision!

I'll just plug Strunk and White's The Elements of Style one more time for people writing PSes. Single best book you can read for the PS (and any other writing).

 

[bellecalle]

hey bookworm,

i'm in the EXACT same situation! AND i was actually going to post something about this yesterday myself but got tied up. glad you brought it up! (..are you by any chance applying to FSU?)

anyway, so my essay is also right around 1300 words as well, which I thought was just enough to cover all the essential stuff.. yesterday i worked on cutting one school's essay to less than 500, but it was closer to 600 words.. i feel like i took out all the good meat and just left the bare essentials.. maybe it's the school's stealthy way to assess whether someone is a good writer and can be concise but also precise.. hm..

 

[socialcog]

I had to get my 1300 word PS down to 500 words for 2 schools. It was very upsetting and I felt it unfair. Luckily, both schools requested an additional 500 word 'personal history statement' that could better describe me, my personal background, family, cultural diversity...yadda yadda.

But for the Statement of purpose, the end result ended up being extremely to the point with very little or no elaboration. Seriously, I just had one sentence about each bit of research project I have ever been associated with. A very brief paragraph about my research interests and goals. A sentence for each faculty I like and why. An opening and a closing and that got me just under the 500 word max. I did the best I could given the constraint.

 

[yikes]

i'm in the same boat, but trying to cut down the essays made me realize how often i say things like "extremely interesting" or "exact same" i think those phrases are somewhat redundant and while it won't make a 1300 word essay 500, it helps a little.

the elements of style is a good suggestion and really helps with this kind of stuff.

 

[kr862313]

What about if it just gives a "suggested" word length? Do you think it would be ok then to go a little bit over? Thanks

 

[bellecalle]

What about if it just gives a "suggested" word length? Do you think it would be ok then to go a little bit over? Thanks

In my opinion, I think that's ok, as long as everything you say in your statement is relevant, coherent and well organized.. If you go over the word length and much of your statement is rambling and repeating things in different ways, I think that would be bad. But as long as you're not drastically surpassing their length and you are saying everything that you need to be saying, then you should be ok..

 

[GiantSteps]

I suggest writing the whole personal statement in text messaging format/lingo. It might not make much sense to someone who does not know text messaging but it should significantly cut down the number of words.

Here is a list of helpful terms:
http://www.netlingo.com/emailsh.cfm

And be sure to conlude with: "^URS" even if that puts you at 501.

 

[nononora]

After cutting down the number of words with netlingo, I also highly recommend you convert your PS to leet speak lest they question your online communication skills.

7|-|1$ \/\/3ß$173 1$ 3)(7®3|\/|3£¥ µ$3ƒµ£ 1|\| $|-|0\/\/1|\|9 0ƒƒ ¥0µ® µß3® £337 (0|\/|pµ73® $|{1££$. (This website is extremely useful in showing off your uber leet computer skills.)

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/leet

 

[psychwanabe]

I didn't have quite as severe a limit, but my standard PS was almost 3 pages and a couple of places limited it to two. I think one had a 700 word limit, and mine was just over 1000 so it took me a while to do that.

It's very possible to cut it down. You need to be brutal as you go through it and decide was is absolutely relevant and what is just there because you like how it sounds. You will find a lot you can edit if you take that point of view.

Good luck!