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November 3, 2004
when personal statements blow
I just had a short session with a student who had a paragraph personal statement. She said she had friends look at it, and half of them thought it was ok and half of them didn't like it. I thought it stunk.
I didn't say it stunk. I had her read it out loud, and we talked about some areas in the paper that were choppy to her ear and didn't make sense. I told her what I thought might make it stronger and what the reader is usually looking for in a personal statement.
After talking a while, she didn't seem really convinced that a technique she was using wasn't working in the paper. I think she just really wanted to use this phrase that was muddling up her statement and didn't want to let go. I can understand that- I've held onto a lot of downright idiotic things.
Shoot- my student is here.
My question is, should I have done anything differently? How much personal response can we give in looking at a personal statement?
Posted by wold0090 at November 3, 2004 12:04 PM
Comments
I've found personal statements to be the hardest thing to tutor. Even more complicated than something like a History dissertation, about which I know absoultely nothing. I don't know why this is. Maybe I'm nervous because students have so much invested in the application and I don't want to give them bad advice. I doubt this, though. I think it is more along the lines of this: I had a session Wed. about a personal statement. She had the statment, it wasn't very good, and she wanted me to "respond to it like [I am] on the committe." The only problem is that I am NOT on the committe. She really didn't accept this; like she expected that I know everyting about every kind of writing. So I told her what I thought AS A READER, NOT SOMEONE ON THE COMMITTE. (I emphasized this point multiple times). Basically, she said nothing about her future goals, and that was the main point of the statement according to the directions on the application, so I told her that I wanted to know more about what she wanted to do with her education, where she wanted to go. She wasn't really excited to talk about it with me, so I showed her a few technical things and sent her on the way telling her to write about what she wants to do. Whether or not she did it is beyond me.
So, after all of that, I don't know what you could have done differently. I don't know what I could have done differently in my session, either. To make it worse, the student was about 25 minutes late for the session.
Anybody have advice?
Posted by: Jeff at November 4, 2004 6:57 PM
Kari:
I think personal statements are the hardest things to tutor. Like Jeff says, there's a lot invested in them and it's a lot of pressure. And when they stink, because so much rides on them, it's really hard to not say ANYTHING along the lines of "this stinks" although of course we can't say that. So yes. What do we say? I think instead of saying "this stinks" maybe just give suggestions to get it going in the other direction. But also, since I have never been the audience of a personal statement, I also have a hard time giving "approval" because, you know, we can't guarantee grades/admissions. I think it's one of those rock/hard place situations because you can't call them awful and you can't call them great.
Jeff: You had what I'm starting to refer to as a "Dead-End Session." They don't go anywhere and neither of you is too sure what to do to save it--kind of like the session I had Tuesday that we talked about in class.
I think that as pointless/frustrating as some sessions may feel at the time, they're still helpful and we really can't know what the student thinks. And the most important thing, really, is to keep going. (I know that sounds like something on a motivational poster in a junior high guidance couseler's office).
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