<p>Major: History</p>
<p>when they read your personal statement!!! i’m currently in the outlining stage, so now i need opinion and help to make it the best.</p>
<p>Tips on your essay:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Satisfy the prompt comprehensively. Articulate why school is perfect for you not just academically, but personally and in terms of your intellectual growth.</p></li>
<li><p>Write in such a way that touts your command of language. This does not give you free rein to inject words that are clearly not in your personal lexicon, but rather a freedom to express yourself that indicates complex and interesting thought processes.</p></li>
<li><p>Do your research. Even if you are applying to a school for its prestige alone (which I completely support, as that was my logic), find facts about the school that appeal to you and put them into your essay. Be specific and show them that you know more about school than a wikipedia junkie.</p></li>
<li><p>Be personal. Invest yourself into the essay and make it come from the heart. The topic is less important than your ability to sell it and make it unique. I have read so many great essays that are specific, well-written, and objectively comprehensive, but so few that actually stir me or express any semblance of humanity in the writer. So many decry cliché essay topics, but the right character and personality can resurrect even the deadest of essays at times; it is merely a question of how you treat it. (Caveat: this is not a license to be cute, clever, or witty unless you want to take the typically 50:50 chance that someone will be offended or disagree. Remember your audience and maintain your appropriate distance, but not in such a way that is impersonal or false.)</p></li>
</ol>