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College Transfer:

College Transfer:. The Personal Statement. Personal Statements. Five Main Questions Form and Style Things to Avoid How to Be Concise. Five Main Questions. What is your academic history? What significant challenge or positive experience has influenced your academic career?

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College Transfer:

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  1. College Transfer: The Personal Statement

  2. Personal Statements Five Main Questions Form and Style Things to Avoid How to Be Concise

  3. Five Main Questions What is your academic history? What significant challenge or positive experience has influenced your academic career? What is your intended major? What cultural experiences have you had and what did you learn? Why this school?

  4. Academic History What have you studied and why? What are your accomplishments? What have you done in school (at BC and/or other colleges) that brings you to where you are now?

  5. Challenge or Positive Experience What happened? What did you learn from the experience? How will you deal with this situation if it should happen again? Focus on showing how your experience empowers you and prepares you for university challenges.

  6. What is your intended major? Why did you choose it? What do you want to do after you graduate?

  7. Why this school? What can this school do for you that perhaps another school cannot?

  8. Form and Style Tell them about YOU—who you are today, what you can do in the school, what sets you apart from other applicants No thesis statement or mere 5-paragraph structure Use short, descriptive stories in each paragraph to illustrate the point you are making.

  9. Things to Avoid Starting with a quote—yawn. That’s someone else, not you! Personal difficulty that you have not resolved or that you cannot say you could overcome in the future. The Immigrant Story: “I came to the U.S. It was hard. I experienced culture shock. My grades were bad. I joined clubs and made friends. Now I am succeeding in school, and I want to get a BA in America.”

  10. What’s wrong with my life story? The “immigrant story” is something that is not unique. It may be your true experience, but colleges and universities are looking for outstanding individuals. Being outstanding is in the details of your experiences. Being remarkable is about being different from other people.

  11. Tell Them About Your Best Self Focus on what is best & most distinctive about you It should be features that a stranger cannot discern from your transcript, résumé, or test scores Describe examples that illustrate your point

  12. Be Concise Use as few words as possible Make sentences simple: Subject Verb (Object) Use simple tenses Avoid “There are/There is . . . ” beginnings to statements

  13. More Concise Examples I learned how to set priorities and establish short-term goals through the class project.  Completing the project taught me how to prioritize and set goals. I want to attend the University of Washington because the school is the only public college in the state that offers graduate-level degrees in Linguistics. (25 words)  The UW appeals to me most because no other public college in the state offers graduate degrees in Linguistics. (19 words)

  14. Examples Practicing medicine has been my dream for as long as I can remember. (12 words)  For years, I’ve dreamed of practicing medicine. (7 words)

  15. Weblinks The University of Washington Admissions: http://admit.washington.edu/admission Check out the Quick Answers page! For international students: http://admit.washington.edu/Admission/International/WritingSection For all other transfer students: http://admit.washington.edu/Admission/Transfer/Statement Examples of memorable opening lines: http://www.washington.edu/alumni/columns/june09/hub_lines.html

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