Speaker 1: Welcome to Grad Life Grind and welcome to this series on personal statements. This is the last video in the series so I hope you've watched all the other ones that came before it so that you can learn what a personal statement is, why it's important, and what my main tips for writing a strong and compelling personal statement are. In this video I'm going to be sharing some of the mistakes that you want to avoid in your personal statement so that you can make sure that you're submitting the best essay possible. The first mistake that people make in their personal statement is being too personal or sharing way too much and I shared some tips earlier in the series about how to avoid this by not providing too much detail about personal events but instead focusing on your areas of growth and what certain experiences taught you and kind of lessons that you've gotten, ways that you've grown. But one of the biggest things that you can mess up in your personal statement is oversharing. So the way around this is that you can have people review your statement, you can review your statement when you're editing, and just make sure that it isn't something that's TMI or too much information that someone wouldn't want to be seeing when they're learning about your personality and your character for the first time. Along with being too personal, one other mistake that people make in their personal statements is being too casual. Yes, it's a statement that is about you and who you are and you want it to reflect you authentically, at the same time you're still writing to an admissions committee. This is still something that you want to write professionally and appropriately. So avoid using language that is too casual, avoid using slang, and definitely write kind of like you would in any other academic paper. The other mistake to avoid when you're writing your personal statement is writing too much. You definitely want to adhere to the guidelines that they give you if they provide any at all for what to include in your personal statement and how much you should write, whether that's a page limit, a word count, or anything like that. If you write too much then you're already kind of not following the instructions that they gave you and that's not going to be a good reflection on you. So don't write too much, make sure that you're writing the most important things about yourself, the most important stories and narratives about yourself, but keep it concise and to the point. The other major mistake that people make in their CV is bragging or sounding overconfident and this is probably opinion-based so maybe it depends who's reading it, but you definitely want to showcase your talents, your abilities, and your strengths in your personal statement, but there is a line that cannot be crossed and it's saying that you're like the best, saying that you are better than anyone else. You want to talk about your accomplishments in a positive way and you want to talk about your personal experiences in a way that highlight your ability to be flexible, your adaptability, your perseverance, but you don't want to come across like you're better than anyone else. So I would avoid arrogance and this is a place where again somebody reading your personal statement for you to review it and provide feedback is going to be key because the tone of your essay is really important and you want to come across humble but definitely well qualified and it's going to be hard for you to discern whether or not you're coming across too braggy or maybe you're not talking enough about your accomplishments unless you have someone review it for you and let you know where it stands. And the last thing that you want to avoid on your personal statement is repeating everything that is on your CV or your resume that you're also submitting with your application. This is your personal statement. That means that you want to showcase the things that are not on your CV. What you want to think about including is when you look at your CV or all the other things that you're submitting with your application, what's missing? What part of you is not there? That's what you want to talk about in your personal statement. Repeating that you did this and then you did that and then you work here and then you work there is not personal and it's definitely not a story or a narrative which is what I recommended doing, which is what I recommended talking about in my last tips. So you're not going to want to reiterate everything that's already on your CV or resume saying that you did this and then you did that and then you work here and then you work there. It's not any different than what they're already saying. You want to bring yourself to life and you want to talk about the things that are not already on there. One of the things that I mentioned in my personal statement is that I dance salsa and while I was in college I was also a salsa instructor and salsa is a huge part of my life and my culture. That's not really anywhere on my academic documents. It's not in my CV. It's not on any writing sample that I submitted. It's not really part of my research interests or goals but it's a part of my identity. So don't list out everything that's on your CV because it's not utilizing the opportunity that you're presented with in the personal statement. You want to do something different and what a lot of people do on their personal statement is exactly that. Just relisting what's on their CV and then they don't stand out. So do not make that mistake. Thank you so much for watching this video and I hope that you've also watched the entire series. If that's the case, I really appreciate it. Again, my name is Arielle. My goal is to inform you, to inspire you, to spark an interest in you, and hopefully also entertain you. I hope that you will subscribe to my channel and I hope that you will also continue to stay connected with me on Instagram at gradlifegrind or visit my website gradlifegrind.com. Best of luck with your applications.