Personal Statement

[JGV20]

Hi,
So I am wondering if anyone could help with my personal statement and application process. I am having trouble typing my personal statement and I have researched so many different ideas that I feel as if I need some personal guidance. If there is a website or person to help more that would be great. Any advice also always amazing.

thank you for your time,

Jacob Velarde

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[R. Matey]

My general advice is be sure to state in clear terms your goals for study and talk about what you have to offer a prospective mentor. You also want to be sure you tie your research interests to your mentor's area. If you're looking for something more formal, I think the Insider's Guide has some ideas.

 

[deleted462159]

Hi,
So I am wondering if anyone could help with my personal statement and application process. I am having trouble typing my personal statement and I have researched so many different ideas that I feel as if I need some personal guidance. If there is a website or person to help more that would be great. Any advice also always amazing.

thank you for your time,

Jacob Velarde

It's hard to give guidance without more details. Can you share a bit about those ideas and your research experience and interests?

 

[JGV20]

It's hard to give guidance without more details. Can you share a bit about those ideas and your research experience and interests?

First gen high school graduate and first gen college graduate. I graduated with a bachelors in Biology with a minor in Psychology. I probably could have received a dual degree in both Biology and Psychology but initially wanted to go to dental school. I have worked in the dental field for 7 years and worked through undergrad full time. The year after graduating, my mother passed and I had some introspection and decided I wanted to do clinical psychology. I am wanting to do that in order to use what I have learned in life and in school in order to help other mentally, spiritually. Idk if this gives anything? Through the dental field I worked with people who had trauma, special needs, children and adults.

 

[psych.meout]

First gen high school graduate and first gen college graduate. I graduated with a bachelors in Biology with a minor in Psychology. I probably could have received a dual degree in both Biology and Psychology but initially wanted to go to dental school. I have worked in the dental field for 7 years and worked through undergrad full time. The year after graduating, my mother passed and I had some introspection and decided I wanted to do clinical psychology. I am wanting to do that in order to use what I have learned in life and in school in order to help other mentally, spiritually. Idk if this gives anything? Through the dental field I worked with people who had trauma, special needs, children and adults.

That's somewhat broad. Do you have any more specific research interests? Is there are specific aspect of trauma in which you are interested in researching or is there a different topic you wanted to focus on in grad school? What kind of research experience do you have already?

You seem to have a lot of dental experience, but how does that dovetail with those specific interests or populations other than that you happened to meet people with those issues in a dental setting? For example, are you interested in pain and anxiety research in the context of medical or dental settings? Do you want to research the role of prior trauma in apprehension or resistance to future medical or dental procedures?

This is the kind of detail and coherent narrative you need for a personal statement.

 

[StellaB]

I second the excellent advice @psych.meout gave. The personal statement is anxiety-provoking because it's where you get the most blatant in marketing yourself. There is almost always some kind of angle to tie your past experience to what you hope to do next (some ties are obviously stronger than others), so what you need to do is figure out what that is. Your mother's death certainly appears to have been a turning point in your life trajectory, but you don't want it to sound like you're just making a clean break into something new because that discounts the relevance of your experiences up to this point. You likely have an interesting set of prior experiences that uniquely inform your perspective on some core concepts relevant to clinical psychology (pain, anxiety, aging, decay, existential stress, physical trauma, etc.) So, answer the question: What did you learn from the dental field that you can parlay into clinical psychology?

 

[JGV20]

I second the excellent advice @psych.meout gave. The personal statement is anxiety-provoking because it's where you get the most blatant in marketing yourself. There is almost always some kind of angle to tie your past experience to what you hope to do next (some ties are obviously stronger than others), so what you need to do is figure out what that is. Your mother's death certainly appears to have been a turning point in your life trajectory, but you don't want it to sound like you're just making a clean break into something new because that discounts the relevance of your experiences up to this point. You likely have an interesting set of prior experiences that uniquely inform your perspective on some core concepts relevant to clinical psychology (pain, anxiety, aging, decay, existential stress, physical trauma, etc.) So, answer the question: What did you learn from the dental field that you can parlay into clinical psychology?

Thank you for advice! I do want to know because I did write some of my statement and my second parish talks about trauma I have seen people come into the dental office with and how I handled it. What qualities I passed in order to make them comfortable. Do I continue to write my paper about that? or transition into my education?

 

[Dazen]

Not sure if you've seen this document, but it's an excellent compilation of successful personal statement examples: here

I also echo much of the above advice. The goal of your personal statement is to convince a potential advisor that 1. you have a well-defined research interest that is a good fit for their expertise and current/future work and 2. you are capable of succeeding in grad school. As callous as it sounds, if you are writing sentences/paragraphs that do not speak to those two points, they are hurting your personal statement, even if they are personally meaningful. Personal statements are short documents, so every sentence counts.

I'd encourage you to really hone in your research interests (as @psych.meout said above, what you have described so far is pretty broad). Is/are there specific disorder(s) you are interested in researching? Specific populations? Sociocultural factors? A few examples of appropriately specific research interests are something like protective factors against binge-eating behaviors in young adult women, impact of early life trauma on adolescent externalizing behaviors, and the influence of chronic illness on identity. These are all broad enough to generate a number of research questions, but specific enough to show direction. While research interests can change over time, people with a doctoral degree are generally experts in a narrow area, so advisors are looking for you to start defining this narrow area.

I'd also encourage looking at your past experiences through the lens of how they will make you a successful clinical psychology grad student. One thing I did was list out what I thought my strengths were, relate those to success in a grad program, then see how my experiences helped develop or highlight those strengths (e.g. I thrive when given independence and am self-driven. This allows me to be a better researcher because I can meet my research landmarks with less oversight and generate my own research questions. I can show this through (in addition to research examples) a history of developing self-initiated projects at old jobs and following them through to completion, along with success metrics of said projects). I don't come from a psychology background, so I strongly believe that you can leverage non-psychology experiences to success in applying to grad school, but you need to have a very cohesive narrative and clear communication of how your more unique life experiences have prepared you to be successful. The more different you are from the norm, the more it's on you to prove your value.

Good luck!!

 

[summerbabe]

I do want to know because I did write some of my statement and my second parish talks about trauma I have seen people come into the dental office with and how I handled it. What qualities I passed in order to make them comfortable. Do I continue to write my paper about that? or transition into my education?

This might come off as harsh but I think your struggles with this task relates to a lack of academic preparation for doctoral study in psychology.

I think you’re attempting to write a personal narrative detailing your journey and motivations for this degree/career. While this is really important, it’s also largely (or wholly, depending on who you’re speaking to) irrelevant from an admissions perspective.

No amount of life experiences, empathy, desire to help others, etc can make up for a lack of engagement with research, which is a huge part of doctoral studies in psychology, even if somebody has zero interest in an academic career.

Mitch’s guide would be a good resource to review. If you feel like getting research experience is either a major barrier or something you’re not interested in, perhaps a MSW or LPC degree might be more appropriate to pursue to become a therapist. Good luck!

 

[psych.meout]

Thank you for advice! I do want to know because I did write some of my statement and my second parish talks about trauma I have seen people come into the dental office with and how I handled it. What qualities I passed in order to make them comfortable. Do I continue to write my paper about that? or transition into my education?

That's great, but do have a specific research interest that you're drawing from that experience? Like, are you interested in researching interventions in this area? Are there certain risk factors you're interested in investigating (e.g., type of trauma, previous negative medical/dental experiences)? What relevant outcomes connected to this (e.g., adherence to dental treatments, number of cavities/caries, odds of needing periodontal surgery) are you interested in researching?

 

[Temperance]

I think you’re attempting to write a personal narrative detailing your journey and motivations for this degree/career. While this is really important, it’s also largely (or wholly, depending on who you’re speaking to) irrelevant from an admissions perspective.

To add to this, it might be helpful to not think of the personal statement as a "personal statement". It's more accurate to call it a "statement of purpose" that outlines what you want to do in graduate school and your career. It would also be more helpful to think of this as a job application, not a college or scholarship application. While talking about your journey can be helpful to show your commitment to the field (as much as you would do in a cover letter), using your statement of purpose for just that would be counterproductive.