Writing personal statement: thesis and conclusion necessary?

[kdbaker17]

I wrote my personal statement, and had it proofread by career development on my college campus and he said it was necessary to have a thesis and conclusion. Also stated that I need less story and more insight, which I partially agree with. I'm reworking bits of my essay now, but it just seems nearly impossible to work those in and have the information needed in the paragraph. Do you all think this is right?
He also said don't apply Early Decision if it's not set up like this, because only top students apply early and I won't get in if it's not fixed. I feel sick

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[sulgi1993]

Hey there! Writing the personal statement was definitely the hardest part of the application for me, as I am a terrible essay writer. When I had mine looked at, my proofreader told me the same thing, saying that the thesis helps to keep the overall idea in mind for the readers and without it, the readers won't exactly have a clear picture of what the main idea of your personal statement is and the conclusion helps to wrap up the whole essay. I had the opposite problem from you, my proofreader wanted more story haha, but without looking at your essay, I can only say try to cut the stories down and pull the main idea from each story. I know it's a tedious process, I had about 10 different drafts of my personal statement before I finally got my finished product. Hopefully I was able to help out even a little bit. I wish you the best of luck!!

 

[kdbaker17]

Hey there! Writing the personal statement was definitely the hardest part of the application for me, as I am a terrible essay writer. When I had mine looked at, my proofreader told me the same thing, saying that the thesis helps to keep the overall idea in mind for the readers and without it, the readers won't exactly have a clear picture of what the main idea of your personal statement is and the conclusion helps to wrap up the whole essay. I had the opposite problem from you, my proofreader wanted more story haha, but without looking at your essay, I can only say try to cut the stories down and pull the main idea from each story. I know it's a tedious process, I had about 10 different drafts of my personal statement before I finally got my finished product. Hopefully I was able to help out even a little bit. I wish you the best of luck!!

I actually reworked it, and integrated my proofreaders ideas and it's a lot stronger. This is my third rewrite (so exhausting...). I'm actually nearly done with my paper entirely. Do you mind reading it?

 

[sulgi1993]

Yay!! I'm glad it's turning out better!! Sure I don't mind reading it for you and giving you feedback, but you might want to get other people to read it as well (like I mentioned before, I'm a terrible essay writer).