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Application Essays

Professional and graduate schools typically require essays as part of the admission process to assess your skills, background, interest and motivation for their programs.  These essays can demonstrate how your experiences and activities have prepared you to succeed in your intended field.

Get Started

Personal Statements are required by professional school programs which train you for a particular profession, licensure or certification (law, medicine, business, social work, teaching, etc.).   For details about content, format and other helpful hints, read Professional School Personal Statement.

Statements of Intent are required by academic graduate programs – Master’s and doctoral/PhD programs which allow you to study a particular subject in depth but are not designed to prepare you for a specific career.  To learn about the purpose, content and structure of these essays read Statement of Intent: Academic Master’s & PhD Programs.

Get Inspired

Books available at the Career Services Center contain tips for writing and examples of successful essays.  Come in to read these general and field-specific guides:

GENERAL:

 LAW & BUSINESS:
  • Graduate Admission Essays
  • Business School Essays that Made a Difference
  • Get Into Graduate School
  •  How to Get Into the Top Law Schools
  • How to Write a Winning Personal Statement
  • Get Into Law School
 HEALTH & MEDICINE:
  • Law School Essays that Made a Difference
  • Get Into Medical School
  • The Ultimate Guide to Law School Admission
  • Medical School Admissions:
    The Insider’s Guide
  PSYCHOLOGY & MENTAL HEALTH:
  • Medical School Essays that Made a Difference
  • The Complete Guide to Graduate School Admission
  • Write for Success
  • Getting In: A Step-By-Step Plan

Get Critiqued

Submit a final draft of your professional/graduate school essay to the Career Services Center for a professional critique of its content and structure/organization. Rather than focusing on spelling or grammatical errors, the critique is geared toward improving the personal statement or statement of intent by evaluating the appropriateness of its content, the points made about the topics chosen, and the structure/organization of those points, so that these lessons can be applied to future drafts. Additional writing assistance is available through the Writing Center and OASIS.

Submit Your Essay

Your critiqued essay will be emailed to you after seven working days. Rush service is not available – plan ahead to meet application deadlines. Current students and Alumni Career Plus subscribers can submit one essay per field of study, per application cycle with an option for one follow-up review. For complete Essay Critique Service policies, click here. For additional help with your professional & graduate school preparation and application come into the Career Services Center or contact your Professional & Graduate School Advisors.