Crafting a Personal Statement for your Counseling Psychology Graduate School Application

Writing a great personal statement is key to your application to graduate school. This is your opportunity to bring your resume to life, explain why you’d make a great candidate for the program you’re applying to and do a little bragging about yourself.

Here are some key points that I would keep in mind while writing yours:

• Introduce yourself in the first paragraph. Explain who you are and what program you are applying to.

• Include how you became interested in the field. Provide an overview of your background and relevant (and recent) experience.

  • Try not to bring in stories from before your time in undergrad unless they really tie in. For example if you went to therapy as a teen and it really changed your life, you could mention that, but you can safely leave out the fact that you were an honors student in high school.

• Keep it personal, craft a narrative and try to tell a great story.

  • For example, I am a former dental assistant and I included some information about how dental assisting is in some ways similar to therapy (patients will sometimes tell you some very personal information while sitting in the dental chair, and a dental assistant needs to be great at communicating as well as assuaging patient anxiety).

  • I also mentioned what got me interested in getting back on track to pursue therapy as a career. Of course there are a lot of complicated factors that go into a big decision like graduate school, but for the sake of storytelling, in my case, it was reading a very influential book and working with my dental patients that inspired me.

  • You can go over the major points in your resume and tie them into your narrative, but remember you’re more than just a list of achievements. Be authentic. It’s cliche advice, but be yourself.

  • Connect the dots, don’t just list things in order. If you’re mentioning some part of your resume or application, explain why it’s relevant or how it’s impacted you. For every achievement or anecdote noted in your statement, ask yourself “What does this say about me? Why am I mentioning this?” and make that a little more explicit. You don’t have to hit them over the head with your explanations, but don’t be too subtle about it either. Lay out the themes for them so it’s easy to see why you’re a great candidate.

• Talk about your vision for your career, and how this program will help you reach your goals.

  • Instead of gushing over how great their program is, you want to simply explain how it’s the logical next step on your career path.

  • Explain why this school is your top choice and why you think you will be a good fit, both personally and professionally.

  • Mention your future plans beyond school. How might you plan to use this degree to benefit your community? How will the world be a better place with you in this career?

In my case, my program did not focus at all on research and so, even though I did have some research experience, this was not a major area of focus for my application or personal statement. If you know your program has a research aspect to it, be sure to focus on that as well. You can discuss how you’ve been able to find previous research assistantships, what you learned from them, which faculty you’re interested in working with, and so on. You could touch on major research projects or presentations you were able to work on in your undergraduate career, and discuss any conferences you attended or hope to attend.

I hope some of this was helpful! Each person’s personal statement is naturally going to be very unique and personal to them. I think letting a lot of your natural self show through in your writing is actually quite important because you do want to be in a graduate program that’s a good match for you. The main things I would keep in mind while writing your statement are making sure to bring all of your points back to your overarching narrative/theme, and showing how experiences from your history are relevant to your future success.

If you’re a first generation student, or even if you’re not, I know it can be quite hard to know what’s too personal to share in a personal statement, and what’s just right. Having someone look over your application can be really helpful. I had a friend who was also in graduate school look over mine and provide me some wonderful feedback.

If you’re in need of some helpful feedback and guidance, I know Carolina Wiita offers coaching services on her website. In the future I’ll most likely also be offering consultation on graduate school applications and other services, so keep an eye out on my website for that if you’re interested.