Speaker 1: Welcome to Grad Life Grind and welcome to this second video on my series about personal statements. My name is Arielle and I'm a PhD student in clinical psychology. In this video, I'm going to be guiding you through why a personal statement is so important. Whether you're applying to graduate school or any other type of program or opportunity, the personal statement is one of the biggest parts of your application. So why is that? That's because this is your opportunity to stand out. What's not on your CV and what you haven't shared yet on your application is what's going to come through on this personal statement. Even though writing your personal statement can be a really overwhelming task, there are some really great opportunities that you get by writing this statement. The first one is the opportunity to bring your character to life. By the time they read your personal statement, the admissions committee would have already looked at your CV, your standardized test scores, transcripts, or whatever else you submitted with your application. So until they read your personal statement, they just see your credentials but they have no idea who you are, what your personality is like, and the personal statement lets you do that. The other opportunity that presents itself in the personal statement writing process is the chance to show that your writing style is versatile. You probably already wrote a statement of purpose that describes your research interests and other academic achievements or goals and you may have provided a writing sample that shows how you write academic papers. But the personal statement is a chance to show that you're a good writer not just when it comes to academics. You're a good writer when it comes to doing the hardest thing, which is writing about yourself. And perhaps more importantly, the personal statement provides you with the opportunity to show that you're more than just a student. Maybe you have great grades, maybe you have great test scores, and maybe you've written other great academic statements or papers, but the personal statement shows that you're more than just a student. And that matters a lot because even though admissions committees want students that are going to be high performing, they also want people. Especially if you're applying to a program in psychology the way that I did, it's really important to show that you have interpersonal skills, that you aren't going to drown yourself in school work, that you're something more than a student. And you want to be able to show that you're not just a person outside of academics, you're a person that they want to meet. The personal statement gives the admissions committee a taste of who you are and after reading your paper you want them to say, hey I want to meet them in person, and then they'll invite you for an interview. Lastly, another really important function of the personal statement is establishing goodness of fit. So if you're applying to graduate programs, especially if you're applying to doctoral programs, it is important that you showcase that you are a good fit for that program. Goodness of fit is really important because it tells the university or program how well you're going to fit in in their environment. And this is your chance to say, based on all the research I've done, this is the program that I think is the best for me because it aligns with my values, it aligns with the training that I want to get, it aligns with my future goals. So this is a chance to kind of tie together why you deserve to be at this program and why you are better than any other applicant that they may be reading about or hearing about. So now that you know what a personal statement is and why it's such an important piece of your application, you need to know how to write it. The next video in this series is going to share with you what you should include in your personal statement. And I really urge you to stick around for the rest of this series because it's going to get really good. I'm going to be sharing all my tips for how to write a strong statement. Before you click on to the next video, please do like this video and subscribe to my channel if you haven't already. Thanks.