Personal Statement Prompts
Use these questions to form the basis of an effective general-purpose personal statement that you can quickly modify to
suit many purposes: internships, scholarships, even applications to transfer universities. Write a few sentences or a
paragraph in response to each question, and then string these together to make your first draft. Be sure to get outside
review for readability, language structure, spelling, punctuation and general effectiveness.
1. Describe your educational goals and your professionals goals, too, if you have decided on them at this point.
2. What influenced you in your choice(s)? Is there a story or interesting detail here?
3. What progress have you made so far? Include coursework or other relevant experiences.
4. What have been some of your challenges or obstacles you have encountered so far? Pick one, or two. (Some ideas to
get you thinking: inefficient or poor study habits, a lot of demands from family, financial obligations, working too many
hours outside school, weak background in high school, trying to take too many heavy courses at once, not
understanding how to make the most of working in a group, need for better time management skills, being the first
generation in your family to be attending college, etc.)
5. What have you done to meet those challenges and overcome those obstacles?
6. What other challenges do you expect may come up in the process of achieving your goals?
7. How do you think you might meet these future challenges?
Last Revised 11/16/2012 3:01 PM