Last year at this time I constructed The Ivy Roadmap, a section of our program dedicated to helping students achieve admission into their dream schools among the top 20.
For research for The Ivy Roadmap, I interviewed four students all attending top universities: Stanford, Harvard, and two going to Brown, including myself who went to Dartmouth.
A common theme I noticed amongst those four students, and hopefully myself, were really strong personal statements.
I know it’s August, so it’s time to start writing these personal statements and putting them into the Common App. So I thought today I’d share with you the five biggest takeaways I got from reading those strong personal statements to help you try to include these things and have college admission success.
Contents
Quality one: a clear main takeaway
I just said the word “takeaway.” That’s number one.
Your personal statement should have a main takeaway. What is the one thing that the admissions officers are going to remember about you when they are done reading your essay and they go talk with their admissions panel about whether or not they should admit you?
What’s the one thing you want them to remember?
Work backwards from your end goal
I like the idea of working backwards from an end goal. Maybe try to come up with the answer to this first: what is the one thing you want them to know about you?
Then try to work a story backwards from that to tell that story and tell about that one thing you want them to take away.
Why you need just one takeaway
All personal statements should have this. If you have too much information and too many things you’re trying to show, you’re not going to have a main takeaway for them to run back with.
Maybe it’s what you want to do with your future and how you want to help a certain subset of your community. Maybe it’s your ambitions. Maybe it’s something that’s defined you in the past.
There are a lot of main takeaways possible. But just make sure you have one kind of strong main takeaway. Your whole thing built around this. This is the thesis of your argument, which is your personal statement.
Quality two: an engaging story
You can give them takeaway after takeaway, but if they’re not entertained by your personal statement, they’re not really going to be interested.
The reality of admissions officers
Let’s be honest: these people are probably pretty bored. They’re reading 650-word essay after 650-word essay of a bunch of students they’re not going to admit.
So what’s going to make you different?
You’ve got to tell a story.
Why stories work
People love stories. People love to be engaged. Tell it in a thrilling way.
Think about the last book you read that you really loved. Maybe it was all the way back in second grade reading the Percy Jackson series. But when you’re reading good material and engaging stories, you can’t help but read more. It’s really hard to put it down.
That’s exactly what you’ve got to do in your personal statement.
You don’t have to be a world-class writer
I know you guys aren’t world-class fiction writers. But this is one thing where if you just do this, where every other student isn’t doing this, you’re going to have a huge advantage.
Make your thing a story. Make it so engaging. Have ups and downs. Plot twists. Don’t give away the thesis right away.
If your student doesn’t know what story to tell or what experiences reveal who they really are, start with my free Saturday Morning Test. It helps uncover authentic interests and experiences that make for compelling essay material.
Quality three: insight into personal personality
“Personal” is the main part of the word “personality.” And this is your personal statement. So we have to show characteristics about ourselves.
How this connects to the other qualities
This ties in with the main takeaway and engaging story. If you have a main takeaway and you have an engaging story, you’re probably shedding insight on yourself already.
But specifically ask: are you showing who you are?
- Are you a funny person?
- Are you kind?
- What do you care about?
Supporting characteristics
This is kind of a subset of the main takeaway. Maybe you have one main takeaway you want them to know about, and then three supporting characteristics that go into that.
The key is that by the end of your personal statement, admissions officers should feel like they know something real about who you are as a person, not just what you’ve accomplished.
Quality four: clear sentences
This one is more syntactical than overarching, but it’s incredibly important.
Admissions officers are speed-reading
These people are kind of speed-reading through your essays. They’re reading thousands and thousands of them. You have to make your writing so clear that they’re not going to go back and reread to try to figure out what you’re getting at.
What to avoid
Try to avoid really run-on sentences with:
- Four commas
- Three clauses
- Adjective clauses in the middle
- Semicolons connecting multiple complex thoughts
That’s really hard to understand.
What to do instead
Try to keep your sentences really concise. Really straight to the point.
This is just good writing practice in general. And if you embody that, they’re also going to know you’re the type of writer, the type of student, that will thrive at their university.
Quality five: little overstatement
This is often not touched on when talking about essays and college admissions, but it’s crucial.
The problem with overstatement
People love to overstate things. The biggest example is what I just did: “people love to overstate things.”
“Love” is such a strong word. It’s the biggest emotion. And I just said “people love to overstate things.” Do they really love to overstate things? No. It’s just a figure of speech.
Why this matters in personal statements
In our personal statements, we should be trying to avoid that because it kind of sets you up as a liar to the admissions officers.
If you tell them:
- “I love to code”
- “I love to help a girl in my neighborhood”
- “I love to tutor her”
Avoid that word. And just avoid words in general that overstate things or avoid coming off too strong for a certain thing.
How overstatement hurts you
This loses your trust with the reader.
When you over-embellish certain things, it disempowers the point you actually want to make. Maybe if you’re overstating a lot about your “love” for math, that takes away from your main takeaway, which might be the thing you actually love or actually want to accomplish.
Be precise. Be honest. Let your story and your genuine enthusiasm speak for itself without hyperbole.
Putting the five qualities together
Let me show you how these five qualities work as a system.
Start with your takeaway
What’s the one thing you want admissions to remember? Define this first. Everything else serves this.
Build your story around it
What experience from your life demonstrates or reveals this takeaway? That becomes your narrative backbone.
Let your personality show through
As you tell your story, your voice, humor, kindness, curiosity, or whatever makes you “you” should come through naturally.
Edit for clarity
Once you have your draft, go through sentence by sentence. Can each one be understood on a single read? If not, simplify.
Remove overstatement
Search for words like “love,” “passion,” “obsessed,” “always,” “never.” Are you being precise, or are you exaggerating? Tone it down. Let the story carry the emotion.
Be memorable for the right reasons
Admissions officers read thousands of personal statements. Most blur together. Generic stories, overblown language, unclear writing, no real sense of who the person is.
The ones that stand out have:
- One clear takeaway they remember
- An engaging story that makes them want to keep reading
- Real personality that makes the applicant feel like a human, not a resume
- Clear sentences that don’t require re-reading
- Honest language that builds trust instead of eroding it
Do these five things, and your personal statement will be one of the ones they remember when they sit down with the admissions panel.
Ready to take the next step?
If you want help developing the story that will become the foundation of your personal statement, and ensuring it connects to the rest of your application, book a free 45-minute college planning strategy session with our team.
We work with high-performing students to identify their main takeaway and build an authentic narrative that runs through everything, from activities to essays. When you know your story, the personal statement writes itself.
Frequently asked questions about personal statements
How do I find my “main takeaway”? Ask yourself: if an admissions officer could only remember one thing about me, what would I want it to be? That’s your takeaway. Work backwards from there.
What if my life doesn’t have any “dramatic” stories? You don’t need drama. You need authenticity. A small moment that reveals something true about who you are is more powerful than a manufactured dramatic narrative. The best personal statements often come from ordinary experiences examined with genuine reflection.
How long should my personal statement be? The Common App allows up to 650 words. Use most of it, but don’t pad. 600-650 words is typical for strong essays. Every word should serve your takeaway.
Can I be funny in my personal statement? Yes, if you’re genuinely funny. Humor that feels forced or inappropriate will hurt you. But if humor is part of who you are, letting that show is a form of “insight into personal personality.”
How do I know if I’m overstating? Read your essay and circle every strong word: love, passion, obsessed, incredible, amazing, always, never, etc. For each one, ask: is this literally true? If not, find a more precise word or let the story itself convey the emotion.
Should I have someone else read my personal statement? Yes, absolutely. Have multiple people read it. Ask them: what’s the one thing you remember about me after reading this? If they can’t answer clearly, your main takeaway isn’t clear enough.
