Scholarship Personal Statement is the most important thing to get a scholarship as an International Student.
Imagine you would have just a step ahead to admission to your dream University and your personal statement is all that can change the situation in your favour.
Yes! It is that much important in your academic journey.
The personal statement is a major part of your application for University admission and Scholarships. Besides that, it is the most crucial job to write a perfect Scholarship personal statement.
But you don’t need to worry about this part, as we have brought easy steps to write your personal statement in a compelling way.
Scholarship Personal Statement in Easy Steps
1. What is a Personal Statement?
2. Why Personal Statement is important for Scholarships and University Admission?
3. How to write a compelling personal statement for scholarship and Jobs?
4. 3 Steps to write a perfect Personal Statement
5. Important Tips to Write Personal Statement
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1. What is a Personal Statement?
A Personal Statement is a written form of your whole academic and professional personality. At the time of scholarship application and admission to Universities, you must provide a Personal Statement that is a picture of what traits and capabilities you possess.
It is like a professional as well as a soft introduction to your journey and goals for the future.
There are two different types of personal statements that have a slight difference.
1.1 University Personal Statements or Scholarship Personal Statement
University’s Personal Statement is about the student’s entire journey throughout his academic years. It includes your academic activities, extracurricular activities, interests, habits, goals and so on. Sometimes selection committee asks for personal statements for scholarships.
It is a long form of statement and may have a specific word limit. It can be as long as two pages.
Checkout some personal statement examples for Undergraduate degree programs in UK here.
1.2. Job Personal Statements
Personal Statements for Jobs are particularly required for a position. It includes your experience, academics, skills and other stuff related to the relevant position. It can be short and concise up to 1 paragraph to One page.
2. Why Personal Statement is Important for Scholarship Applications, Universities or Jobs?
Personal statement is an important part of your application because it makes you different from the crowd of applications. It is a personalised form of your goals and experiences.
The admission or selection committee receives hundreds of application and they aren’t able to meet every applicant in person, so the personal statement is a profile of the candidate that defines his personality.
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It helps the recruiting or selection process. You can win an admission, scholarship or Job position by writing a perfect personal statement.
3. How to Write a Compelling Personal Statement for Scholarship or Job?
The reason that a personal statement sounds difficult is that you have a blank page in front of you and you have to prove in that letter, that you are the most suitable person for the job or the seat or for the admission of your desired university.
Some people find it difficult when they try to write it but they are unable to put their thoughts into words.
So after wasting so much time in thinking & finishing a red bull they finally come up with some following questions, which they think will help them in selection.
“How I can be the most suitable person for this job” OR
“Reasons about my interest in this firm and thought that it would be fun” OR
“Why I want to get admission in this University?”
But in fact, the main reason to write this letter is they want to brighten their future and don’t want a miserable life. But it is difficult to put proper words in that letter.
Simply it is not about what are the goals you want to achieve in life but it is a description of how you want to achieve your goals.
You can write a compelling Scholarship Personal Statement by following the steps mentioned below.
4. 3 Steps to write a perfect Personal Statement
To write an effective personal statement with a natural flow of conversation, you just need the right steps to be followed.
These steps will help you to write an amazing draft of your personal statement
4.2. Focus on the Structure of Personal Statement
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4.1. Research
Always do your homework before you apply or write for anything. The first thing you do before writing a personal letter is to do some research.
Your job is to get all the information about the university or about the job description. let them know that you are interested & you did your research.
Because you can’t get too obvious like, “This university/firm is the best in town so I thought that would be great to get into this university/firm”.
Get information about the selection team and use that information in your favour in such a way that it would show how interested you are in their firm or how serious you are to get admission to this university.
So research is extremely useful in writing your personal statement.
4.2. Focus on the Structure of Personal Statement
There is a proper structure for writing a statement letter.
The structure of personal statement for scholarship is divided into some steps. We’ll discuss these steps in detail one by one in our writing process.
4.2.1. HEAD
It’s the first portion of the letter, In this section, you have to write your personal information like your full name and contact no, you can write your firm’s/university’s name, its location and also the date of the submission. After this information, you have to start your letter in a respectful way like addressing the name of the head with Sir/Madame. The head section ends with this.
4.2.2. INTRODUCTION
After the head section, let’s move to the intro section. The introduction has to be very impressive so that the reader will remember you through your statement letter. In this section, most of the candidates try to describe their personal history which is unnecessary and totally irrelevant. It can be started by explaining your story with a punchline or quotation.
You have to write about your achievements and motivations according to the job description or you can write about your discoveries if you are applying for a university.
Also, write about the main things like what you learnt during that specific mentioned period which totally resonates with the vacancy.
4.2.3. BODY
This is the main section of a personal statement. In this section, you have to explain your academic, knowledge, skills and experiences.
You have to also define why you are suitable for their firm/university and
Why they should choose you and give you admission/job you desire. You also have to explain why are you applying to this firm/university.
In this section, you have to write about your aims and the goals that you achieved. Don’t forget to explain to them about your research work and your experience.
You need to be creative while writing about your goals and experience. You can reference any quote, book, Podcast or anything that motivated you. The story must be in a creative manner, it must elaborate your experiences in a distinct way.
4.2.4. Conclusion
This is the section of regards and best wishes. You can add some ending statements with some promises like you’ll work hard and become successful in your future. You can write your contact information in this section so they can contact you.
4.3. Review & Edit
After completing your first draft, review the entire personal statement. It must be grammatically correct, in easy language, concise and relevant to the position. You must check out all the mistakes and edit them before moving to the final draft.
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5. Important Tips to Write a Perfect Personal Statement
You can win this part of your scholarship application by keeping some tips in mind. There are some do’s and don’ts that will help to reach your perfect personal statement.
Following are the key points to write a Perfect Personal Statement;
5.1. Focus on Format
You have to be careful about your format because it matters while writing a personal statement for scholarships. The personal statement letter is a one-page letter so don’t overdo it and overlong it.
It should not exceed one page according to the requirement of universities/firms and other information.
The font is also prescribed in it, for writing style you can use Times new roman or aerial and the size of the font should not be too small nor too big, it should be readable.
5.2. Reason to Get in
You need to show them how enthusiastic you are about this job or in the university subject. Tell them about your plans that how you plan to develop yourself with this opportunity and also tell them how much you want this job or how eager you are to get in this university.
The reason must be authentic and give a realistic approach to the selection board. Keep it natural and comprehensive.
5.3. Prove Yourself a Perfect Candidate in Scholarship Personal Statement
If you just write that you are the perfect candidate and don’t give them the reason behind it then you are not writing your statement properly. You have to explain to them why you are the perfect candidate and you can show them by getting on their merit list.
This will show them how skilled and suitable you are for this position/admission. You will sound much more convincing if you do your homework, don’t forget to do your research.
5.4. Talk about your Interests
Non-academic activities including soft skills, Interests and co-curricular carry 30% to 40% of the personal statement. You must provide details of relevant interests to the position.
Writing about your interests in other extracurricular activities also shows them what type of person you are. Your interests can be according to the job description or according to the university subjects that you are applying but they can be different like online activities, sports, research or just reading books. You can tell them about your skills according to your interest.
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5.5. Avoid Irrelevant Things
You should avoid irrelevant things like your personal history. You also need to avoid telling them how impressive you are. These things can only be judged by your achievements and experience so you have to discuss those. You should have also avoided telling them your life stories that are not relevant to the job/admission.
5.6. Proofread the Personal Statement for Scholarships
You must proofread the personal statement as many times as you can. There should be fluency and correct use of words. You need to use suitable words and well-punctuated sentences. It will reflect your discipline.
Always review the content before completing your final draft.
6. Final Thoughts
Writing a good personal statement is an art that you can learn easily. If you want to be the perfect candidate for scholarships and jobs, you must have an amazing personal statement.
You can stand out among other applicants if you learn the tips mentioned above
There are various tips and tricks that will help you in future. This guide includes everything to craft a compelling personal statement.
So, read all the guidelines to make your journey possible!
We cover everything in detail, but if you still have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask us in the comments.
