Diversity/Personal Statement Tips

[cunninlynguist]

A fair number of us will submit another piece of writing in addition to the SOP and writing sample - the "personal" statement. I've looked around GradCafe for prior discussions but there's a dearth of information relative to other application components.

What I've gathered so far is that it does not grant you license to talk about yourself in an intimately personal way without grounding some of those experiences to your academic progression. Is that the basic principle? Anecdotes are clearly welcome in this essay but they still need to connect to your interests or to your ability to overcome an adverse situation.

While it seems like an afterthought - and some programs basically imply it's not a big deal - it would be very useful to get any insight from those who wrote a compelling diversity statement, and what they included. Thanks!

[runonsentence]

Here's how I think of the SoP and personal statement and the differences between them. (Note: this mostly applies to professional programs, or other programs that ask for both. If a program only asks for one statement, it's probably an SoP by another name.)

I'd say you're correct that the personal statement isn't supposed to be overly intimate or personal—while it gives more of a picture of you as a person, it's still there to give the committee an idea of why you're prepared to go graduate level work.

SoP = forward-looking. Concerned with future work and goals.

Personal statement = back-looking. Concerned with how your background has shaped your research interests, given you the experience you need, and generally shaped you into the applicant you are today.

[bluejay16]

What if the program doesn't specifically ask for a SoP or personal statement, but rather a general essay that describes your reasons for studying and why you would diversify the program? Wouldn't that be like combining the SoP and personal statement into one essay? How then could you write a good essay that wouldn't focus too much on either aspect? That's the boat I'm in right now. I'm afraid to flesh out too many details for either aspect in my application essay.

Edited September 12, 2011 by Janomaly

[cunninlynguist]

What if the program doesn't specifically ask for a SoP or personal statement, but rather a general essay that describes your reasons for studying and why you would diversify the program? Wouldn't that be like combining the SoP and personal statement into one essay? How then could you write a good essay that wouldn't focus too much on either aspect? That's the boat I'm in right now. I'm afraid to flesh out too many details for either aspect in my application essay.

I'd still place more emphasis on the SOP elements. Perhaps you can weave in some academic qualities and research/career interests of yours that would make you a diverse addition to the program, rather than conveying you're diverse in the personal sense. If you want to include a couple of background tidbits, I think that'd be acceptable given their instructions. My ratio would be 75% SOP and 25% diversity, with most of the diversity thoughts still attached to some academic or professional goal.

[TypeA]

I haven't written my personal statement yet, so I certainly can't label it "compelling." I do have a plan, though: I'm using that essay to discuss the "when, why, and how" of my decision to pursue health policy instead of medicine. This will tie in my undergrad academics (there's a serious trend in the last year away from the natural sciences into the social sciences), service/activities, and former/current employment.

My (nearly finished) SoP, by contrast, will have a paragraph about my current employment as it relates to policy, and the rest is pretty evenly divided between policy topics of interest/what I would like to do with my degree and why I chose a particular program.