Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Statements of Purpose/Personal Statements

A friend of mine who was worried about my application to Yale Divinity School, given Yale's relative conservatism, suggested if I was going to look at schools out in Connecticut that I also look at Hartford Seminary. So I went online tonight and browsed around a bit, and I found a sample personal statement/statement of purpose for applications for their Master of Arts program (which is different than the Master of Divinity program in which I am interested, but nonetheless)...

http://www.hartsem.edu/academic/guidelinesforpersonalstatement.pdf

I think it is interesting they include such a sample on their website (they also have very step-by-step application instructions), and I was frankly glad to see a sample because I am having a lot of trouble getting much accomplished on my Statement of Purpose.

What do you think of this structure and approach?

3 comments:

  1. Thats a good outline. Wow, 3-4 pages? Mine has to be 300-500 words which I think will be equally challenging in keeping it short and to the point. We need to exchange emails so we can proof for each other.

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  2. I think mine are generally limited to 1000 words, but I better double-check they are all consistent. I am guessing that the disparity in length has to do with the way ministrial applicants have to address the notion of "calling" (not to mention that they really want to get a good feel for your writing abilities/language). What are you studying, again?

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  3. Oh, and I totally agree that keeping it shorter adds a new challenge. I am already struggling with the 1000 word limit. Yeeks! I hope none of my schools want a shorter one.

    My email is g er f a o @ m s n . co m (take out all spaces).

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