Creighton University

Some of the sites below contain models of personal statements.  Remember, however, that MODELS are not formulas, so it is unwise to mimic too closely the structure of another person’s statement.

Donald Asher's Graduate Admissions Essays: Write Your Way into the Graduate School of Your Choice (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2000) is available for you to consult at the ARC, the Career Center, or from Dr. Keegan's office -- or link to amazon.com to buy your own copy.

Mary Tolar’s excellent PDF document on preparing Personal Statements.

Getting Personal, by Joel Schall, from Graduating Engineer and Computer Careers Online
http://www.graduatingengineer.com/articles/feature/11-06-00a.html

Writing a Personal Statement, from the Purdue Online Writing Center
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/pw/p_perstate.html

Tips on Writing Scholarship Essays, From Kansas State
http://www.k-state.edu/artsci/scholarship/essay.shtml

Graduate School Statements, University of California Berkeley.  This has an especially useful list of WORDS TO AVOID in statements.
http://career.berkeley.edu/Grad/GradStatement.stm

Tips for Writing a Personal Statement, from Carnegie Mellon.  This is largely for medical school, but has great information on “showing” v. “telling” in writing a statement.
http://www.cmu.edu/hpp/achieve/pstips.html

Fulbright’s “Tips on Writing the Project Proposal and the CV"
http://www.imakenews.com/fulbright/e_article000448567.cfm?x=b11,0,w

Proposal Writing, The Art of Persuasion, from Holy Cross.  This has a detailed set of tips for each of the individual fellowships and it is especially good with information on preparing proposals for the Fulbright.
http://www.holycross.edu/departments/gradstudies/website/proposewrite.htm

The Art of Writing Proposals, from the Social Science Research Council, but also generally helpful
http://www.ssrc.org/fellowships/art_of_writing_proposals.page

Proposal Writing: The Business of Science, by Wendy Sanders.  This is especially helpful for NIH proposals.
http://www.whitaker.org/sanders.html

The National Science Foundation’s Guide to Proposal Writing
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf04016/nsf04016_1.htm

A Sample Marshall Essay, from Nicholas Baker, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
http://www.wpi.edu/News/Transformations/2003Spring/marshall.html

Successful Essays for Various Fellowships from Boston University Students
http://www.bu.edu/bufellow/successf.htm