Motivation when writing applications

[fenderpete]

Hey all,

I figured this might be a good place to share tales of woe concerning getting the applications done. I've been picking away at mine for a few months now and I seem to be really struggling with self-motivation - particularly with the personal statements.

Normally I'm pretty good at self-motivating in every other aspect of my life, but these applications just seem to be sucking my will to live. I really hate writing about myself, particularly in the cloying style of 'look how great I am' that seems favored by applications. At the minute I'm focusing on the other parts of the application like my policy memo, but I fear that procrastination can only go so far.

How's everyone else going? Any tips for self-motivation?

Pete

[Gvh]

Hello fellow applicant. I see you are also preparing for Fall 2012 application season, and yes I do know what you mean. I've got a fairly sound outline for my top 2 choices, 6 more to go! Bleh.

In addition to SOPs, there are some schools that want things like "autobiographical essays" and "specified statements of interest"..*coughnorthwestern*.

I suppose the motivation for me has been reading this forum and discovering how brilliant and well prepared people are, and encouraging me to do the same! That said, time is still on our side

[MoJingly]

Application season is a trying time! What helped me is writing every time I got excited about what I want to do. You can't force it. Write down WHATEVER you think. You're probably going to go through draft after draft anyway The more you get down on paper, the more you have to look back at and craft you application with.

[eco_env]

I'm accepted to grad school, but I still have that problem! I'm applying for the NSF fellowship, and every once in a while I get an idea and get excited, but then I realize that my research plan is unoriginal and my hypotheses have no logical explanation and lose motivation to keep working aimlessly. And i don't know what to put in my personal statement at all- they want both a personal statement and previous research experience statement- it seems like there would be a lot of overlap between the two.

[ZeeMore21]

I think one idea might be to really focus on what you are trying to achieve...in this case, you are completing these applications because you want to better your future through a graduate program. I know I definitely did get lost in the pile of applications I had to do...I lost track at times of why I was completing applications in the first place. However, I would at times, for a bit of inspiration, do a lot of research on a school and imagine myself there, and suddenly realize that I do have a chance at the school if I create the best application I can. I would also research people who have gotten to where I want to be goal-wise, and use their stories as inspiration.

But to quit my rambling, I just am saying that when you realizing that completing the applications are the means to your bigger goal itself, you should feel more inspired to get them done. Imagine where you want to be years from now, and see these applications as stepping stones to your destination.

[ktel]

When I lose motivation I read the biographies of impressive people in my field or people whose life paths I would like to follow. If their bio particularly inspires me I might use the structure of it to help write a personal statement.

This could work the opposite way for some people though and maybe make them feel inadequate. It works for me though.

[Mal83]

I too have a real problem with the "look how great I am" thing. So in my SOP I took a much more humble approach, which I feel is the better route to take in a field like ours because at the end of the day it's more about being able to contribute to a worldwide effort rather than say "saving the world" with your vast knowledge and skills. I basically expressed that the experiences that I do have, along with my educational background, have provided me with a solid foundation to move on to grad school and be qualified to contribute to the field. I found it much easier and satisfying to express my passion and admiration for ID rather than how I'd be some kind of asset the program couldn't go on without...Now of course I included my major experiences and an achievement or two, but I felt more inspired talking about how those things, which I expressed were a privilege to participate in, have prepared me to become a member of the ID community in DC than making the whole thing about me and what I did.

[Kitkat]

The SoP is hard, I am having a hard time going back and reworking it, but at least I got a first draft done.

Right now I have lack of motivation in contacting professors in the first place. Every time I think about it, I think I am not ready to get in touch with them. But soon I am going to have to get over that. Application time is almost upon us, or at least I feel like that is the case. My first deadline isn't until Dec. 1st, but with school work and research, and all of that, I don't think I will have much time in the fall as it is.

[OldGrad2012]

Hi all,

I am a nontraditional candidate applying for Fall 2012 too. Yeah, I feel very discourage and unmotivated when applying to grad school. I cannot decide where to appy. To make thing worse, applying to grad school is very different than applying to other professional school because you have to do each application separately tailored to each school requirements. I wish there is one central application where you only have to click to pick the schools that you want to go to. Would that be much easier and more convenient?

[tragicomix]

As Aaron and Mal83, I don't think you need to do the "look how great I am" thing. My statements consisted mostly of factual statements like the following:

I did course X, Y and Z where I learned about A, B, C and read papers on D, E and F. My research has tackled problems A and B, and we did this using new technique T. In the future, I'd like to work in the broad area A. A few things I'm particularly interested in are Prof. X's research into B and Prof. Y's research in the area of C.

Edited August 7, 2011 by tragicomix

[Hatem]

I lost my motivation too.

I even thought to postpone my application to 2013 instead of this season.At least I now know that I'm not the only one who's facing this lack of motivation.

[fenderpete]

Figured I'd update this as it might help other people a bit . I finally managed to break my way out of the motivation logjam last week. It was kind of a combination of factors, but probably the main catalyst was the fact that I had a job interview for a job that would take me out of the country for ten months until June 2012 - i.e. right up until grad school would start.

This gave me the chance to refocus with a bit of a deadline in mind (I'd leave early September if I got it). On top of that, it had also been around 3 weeks since I last looked at my SOP. This seemed to be the magic amount of time to gain perspective and also be ruthless enough to cut out swathes of stuff that had no business being in my SOP. I've now got to the point with my SOP that I'm not 100% happy with it, but it's 90% of the way there and I could submit it in an emergency, even though I'd like to tweak a bit (this is draft 3 btw, not including all the minor tweaks). I've gone chronological with it, and I think it works best to show why grad school fits in now.

Took the weekend off after that and I've now launched into proper school research for my fit paragraphs. Reading through course descriptions is actually really firing me up more, and I'm going through one school at a time and trying to spend about 2-3 days writing a paragraph summing up all the things that appeal about courses.

I think the main thing I've learned is that this is all about compartmentalizing the process - focus on one paragraph at a time and eventually you'll have a whole application

[emmm]

All I can add is that postponing the torture won't help with the motivation problem -- you won't feel like working on your SOP any more next year than you do now. So you might as well get it over with! Mine took several attempts and many weeks before it reached the "presentable" stage. Good luck!

[ZeeMore21]

One thing that might help with the motivation problem is holding yourself accountable to someone else, which may mean informing professors, advisers, and mentors that you plan on applying to graduate programs this year and need them to help you revise documents such as your personal statement and writing sample. In this case, you are kind of forced to abide by some type of timetable. This definitely worked for me as someone who needs a bit of pushing now and then...my advisor was always checking in to make sure I was working on my documents so that he could revise them.

[Hatem]

Thanks everybody for your comments and advice.

[orst11]

What I have tried to do is fill out the majority of the apps before hand. It is a tedious process of typing in the same stuff but I think I will save some time towards the end of the admission cycle. Plus it has given me a little more time to tailor other things such as my SOP or writing sample.

[fenderpete]

Well, I just landed a job in Nepal that's going to last until June of next year that starts in four weeks. Source of motivation well and truly found!!