Graduate school admissions committees want to know whether or not applicants will contribute to the program’s unique mix of personalities, intellectual criticism, personal experiences, and aptitudes. Demonstrate the characteristics necessary to meet the demanding requirements of the program’s curriculum.

Capitalize on your opportunity to convince an admissions committee of your passion for psychology. Write about what interests you and excites you.

Use the personal statement to present a total picture of your qualities other than attributes that can be reduced to numbers, such as your IQ and GRE score.

Don’t start your essay with "I was born in…" or "My parents came from…"

Communicate your unique characteristics and experiences in a way that will distinguish you from the rest of the applicant pool. Use concrete examples.

Prioritize and organize your personal traits, experiences, and accomplishments tailored to the structure of program admission requirements.

Convey your most significant research, leadership, and service experiences.

Provide illustrative details and meaningful insights related to each experience, event, or idea.

Be confident that your experiences are exciting enough to commit to print. It is the depth of character you convey—not the intensity of the topic—that matters.

Don’t overuse vague words like "experience" and "situation."

Don’t start too many sentences with the pronoun "I".

Don’t tell the reader "I am a unique and interesting person." Let the reader learn this indirectly from your unique and interesting essay. In other words, show—don’t tell.

Try to use active voice instead of passive voice. For example, use "Our staff completed the assignment in record time" instead of "The assignment was completed in record time."

Don’t try to impress your reader with your vocabulary.

Don’t try to write a scholarly or overly-important sounding essay. An essay showing off your knowledge of—instead of you passion for—psychology tells the reader nothing about you as a person.

Use a natural and informal conversational tone—not as informal as colloquial speech, but less formal than the tone of an academic assignment.

Be yourself. Convey your genuine thoughts.

Don’t write an autobiography or a resume in prose.

Don’t try to accomplish too much in your essay. Less is more. Don’t try to summarize your entire life’s accomplishments. Your essay will read more like a laundry list and less like a meaningful personal statement.

Don’t write anything that may embarrass the reader or make him or her feel uncomfortable. The reader is neither your therapist nor your close friend.

Don’t repeat or sum up your points.

End your essay with a statement that refers to the beginning and restates your main point.

Avoid careless grammatical errors. Proofread your essay several times for spelling and typographical errors. Use the spelling checker of your computer’s word processing program, but do not rely on it. Consult a dictionary for any words you vaguely suspect may be misspelled.

Revise your essay at least three times. Don’t attempt to write the perfect essay in one sitting. Good writing is the product of careful and constant rewriting.