How to Write a Personal Statement for University

1. Create your initial draft.
   Creating a draft is the first step to writing this piece, but you must disregard the character limit at this stage to do it effectively. What you need at this stage is to pour out as much as you can about yourself. Paying attention to the character limit can hinder you from expressing yourself fully because you’re trying not to pass the limit. It doesn’t matter if you write 8,000 characters instead of 4,000 characters in your first draft. What would matter is that you’ve written everything there is to write. Subsequently, you can go on to compress the essay, delete some words, remove fluffs and make it more direct until you’re at 4000 words. By the time you’re done with this, you’ll have only the most important stories in your personal statement for university application.
   
   
   
2. Take your time.
   You mustn't rush when writing a personal statement. Work at your pace. It may take some people a few hours to write an excellent personal statement. Others may take a few days, weeks, or even months to complete theirs. It doesn’t matter what group you fall under. What matters is that you are working at your pace. You may even decide to take a few days off writing and return to it when you’re feeling fresher.
   
   
   
3. Express yourself perfectly with words.
   Some words help you express yourself better and more professionally. For instance, words like “accomplish” and “presume” are more elegant and professional in place of “do” and “think,” respectively. You may struggle with this if you’re an international student because English isn’t your native language, but there are useful synonym programs and translations on the internet that can help you. However, you must also be careful about overusing synonyms and fancy words, so your statement doesn’t sound too difficult to read or overdone.
   
   
   
4. Focus on your strengths
   You have just 4000 characters to try and sell yourself, so you must focus on your main strengths. The marketing ads for a product mostly focus on the best features and benefits of the product. Employ the same strategy for yourself within your statement. Write about your knowledge, experiences, and plans. Don’t talk about things you’ve failed or are struggling at. Try to sell yourself as best as you can.
   
   
   
5. Use the right opening sentence.
   A good way to give a nice first impression is to open your statement with an interesting, surprising, unusual or funny sentence. But be careful so that you’re not trying too hard to be funny and add useless information. The right sentence may come up to you at a random point after you may have worked for hours trying to think of it. So, don’t overthink it. Let it come naturally.
   
   
   
6. Own your statement with your ideas and voice
   Reading someone else’s undergraduate personal statement for university won’t help you write a great personal statement you can write because you may be tempted to copy their style, voice, ideas, and story. This will create a false idea while the university looks for something true but unique. Ensure to own your story and ideas, and write them in your voice and style.
   
   
   
7. Be truthful
   Also, you must be honest with your statement. Don’t try to claim what you’re not. For instance, you shouldn’t claim that you’re fluent in French if the only thing you know is a few French sentences. Don’t create a false image of yourself because you’ll be found out sooner than you think. Selling yourself doesn’t mean lying to be who you’re not; rather, tell them who you are appealingly and convincingly.
   
   
   
8. Let other people proofread your work.
   After writing your statement, the right thing to do is give it to other people around you to proofread. Your family and friends may be able to point out mistakes in your statement that you won't notice because you wrote it.
   
   
   
9. Read it out loud to yourself and others.
   Reading your personal statement aloud to yourself is a good way to find out the incoherence in your paragraph and overall story. You may not realize this while writing it, but reading it out loud to yourself and in front of other people will make you more attentive to little mistakes and vague parts that you should correct.