Concluding your personal statement
keep being interesting!
Dear Applicants,
The final paragraph of the personal statement is possibly the most challenging part of the entire college application. I think this is because it’s the place where you need to be like, therefore, I am awesome. In case you missed it, these are the reasons and ways I’m awesome. I often see in this final paragraph an anxiety about ensuring your point comes across. All the subtlety, surprise, and specificity of the previous paragraphs is gone.
You gotta ensure that your reader walks away from that final paragraph with what they need to know about you, but you also have to maintain the tone, control, and most importantly, the interest of the rest of the essay.
So how do you do this?
Some tips:
Re-read your final paragraph, which is probably about three sentences long. Do these three sentences apply to other people you know, as well? Could you imagine another high school senior writing these exact same three sentences? If so, that is a problem! Don’t forget to be specific in this final paragraph. Keep using proper nouns—names, places, etc., vivid imagery, thoughtful adjectives. Seriously. Swap out those resume words and keeping using your own voice.
About those three sentences. Are they in the best order? You might have a very general sentence as your final sentence and a much more specific sentence as the second sentence. Make your current final sentence your penultimate sentence and move the penultimate sentence to the very end. Also, do you need the first sentence in that paragraph?
Experiment with a very short final sentence. I’m talking three words, four. A mic drop. I’ve seen this work because it’s so, so interesting at exactly the point where the least interesting sentences in the whole essay typically are. If it doesn’t work, fine. Just see!
Til soon,
Lucy
