Grad School Applications: The Personal Statement
The personal statement is the hardest thing to write—but I see it as one of the most important parts of your file, and it’s the first thing I read. A bad or indifferent one can even sour me on a candidate. I want to know about your specific interest in our program and your preparation to enter it. In doing so, don’t write stuff that anyone could write: I don’t care about the early origins of your interest for history, what you think the larger purpose of historical study might be, or which historical sites you toured on summer vacation or during study abroad (unless you were involved in an archaeological dig or intense research relating to them). Be sure to have one of your recommenders read and critique your statement.
What I want to know is what you want to study with me/us, the kinds of questions you want to ask and sources you want to examine, and how prepared you are to surmount the problems in your field. It helps if you can write it in an interesting, unique way. Mentioning your desire to teach is not important and should not be the focus of the statement: we are here to provide you with a professional education in history research, not in becoming a teacher (although of course you will learn how to teach along the way).
If you are directing your application at me specifically, let me know specifically how your interests intersect with mine; above all, you should clearly convey a sense of why VCU is the place for you. Before you apply, write briefly to those members of our faculty you’re most interested in to ask whether they are taking graduate students. They may be on leave, approaching retirement, or just not interested in graduate students; mentioning such names prominently in your application will reflect well on your familiarity with our program. And think creatively about which faculty can help you by looking at faculty who specialize in similar questions even though they may research other geographic areas or time periods: if we believe that our program is the very best for you, it can make a big difference when we have to choose amongst a top group of very strong candidates.
Send a writing sample that conforms to the general impression you offer in the personal statement. From my perspective, the most important aspect of your writing sample is that it show how you read and analyze primary sources—and they don’t have to be sources in my field. Make sure that, if you send a term paper, the thesis statement is in the first paragraph; if you send a completed MA thesis, that the argument is elaborated in the first few pages.
The letters of recommendation should add to the picture: your recommenders should be well-informed about you and your goals for grad school. At least one recommendation should come from a person who has had you at least twice in class and can speak to your strengths as well as how you might improve. If you are studying a field that obviously requires foreign language preparation, consider having one recommendation come from someone who can verify your facility with that language. (Take a year and learn languages if you want to pursue a field that requires them.) Give each of them a draft of your personal statement as they write their letters to us.
The GRE score is a final check but not a deal-breaker. If you’re not an international student, 640 verbal is at the lower end of our scale—if yours is lower than that, take it again. The quantitative score is less important unless you want to do something statistical in your research. That said, an exceptionally poor score can be a red flag; I become alarmed if scores are in the 400s. (The GRE is not useful in measuring the talents of international students.)
Last of all, I am often drawn to prospective students who convey the more ineffable sense that they are strongly drawn to a Ph.D. program in history and that they don’t want to do anything else. Often, students who’ve taken some time away from school after college have more drive and perseverance to handle some of the roughest aspects of graduate school—poverty, insecurity, uncertain job prospects, and a lot of hard work. If you can, display in your statement your own particular determination to study history at the doctoral level.
Borrowed and revised from the now-defunct blog (Almost) Without Footnotes, www.servetus.wordpress.com, 29 January 2009.
