To some students, formulating a competitive scholarship strategy means sitting down with an academic adviser and charting a four- or five-year plan of study, including subjects considered to be good "skull practice" for the scholarship competition. An effective scholarship strategy involves more than deciding which courses to take and when. Rather, it is a plan for personal, as well as intellectual, development. An excellent foundation for such a plan is to write and regularly revise a personal statement, which many scholarship programs, particularly the Rhodes, require as part of the application itself.
Your transcript and resumé provide information about your achievements and experiences, but a personal statement is an essay, usually of about 500-1,000 words, that offers understanding of the kind of person you are and the life you live. It should be the product of deep reflection on who you are, not just what you have done. It should reveal how you got to be the way you are and where you think you're heading — not just in college or in your chosen career field, but in life itself.
One way to approach your personal statement is to think about how you would answer questions such as these:
- What individual people, books or experiences have shaped your life the most?
- What fascinates you and why?
- What makes you an interesting person?
- To whom do you feel obliged and why?
- In facing moral choices, where do you draw the line?
- What would you like to change about yourself?
- When was the last time you were emotionally moved by something that really mattered?
A few things you should try to avoid are:
- Excessive claims of achievement
- Gratuitous quotations of authors, celebrities, public figures
- Name dropping
- Vague or unrealistic goals
- Stilted vocabulary, pompous expression
- Sesquipedalianism
There is no preferred format or style for writing a personal statement. Nor should you approach the task as a fill-in-the-blank response to stock questions. The personal statement should bear the imprint of your individuality. It should tell a "story" about you and make the reader want to get to know you. Be imaginative, expressive and honest. Most of all, be yourself.