Need Advices on Personal Statement

[ChaoL]

Hi there, I'm preparing my PS. I know the most basic rule is telling "how unique I am" during my personal statement. But it is always the most difficult part.

I'm considering the structure of my personal statement,
One choice is: one paragraph about my academic background, one about my professional background, one about my interests in financial engineering, one about my career goals, one about why does this program suit me....then conclusion.
An alternative one is I showed how my interests started in finance and then how did it transform to financial engineering combined with my backgrounds and my career goal in a time order.

Which one do you guys think better? or more attracted to admission committed? Thanks a lot.

 

[GoIllini]

When applying to the top tier MFE programs run by liberal arts schools- we are talking Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, maybe Stanford and NYU, it's good to talk about the stuff that has a large cross product with your academics and credentials as a quant. They want interesting people on campus.

Here is what a foreign applicant needs to focus on for an essay to help him the most:

1.) Demonstrate mastery of American English or British English. Try to avoid being wordy; keep sentences, clauses, and paragraphs efficient. The more your essay can read like a baseball loving, Shakespeare-reading American (or Brit) wrote it, the less an international status can hurt you and the more it can help.

2.) Devote some (not all) of your essay to things that give you a strong cross-product and add a lot of pizzazz. You're not just an engineering or physics major who does well in class and got a 168Q on the GRE. You do something really cool that most people would be shocked to see a quant doing.

For maximum credit, one of these things is ideally a bit athletic and involves some risk of injury (this defies the quant stereotype). Maybe you do open-water long-distance swimming and have competed in a number of races. Maybe you play lacrosse. Maybe you go skydiving. Cite numbers, details of accomplishments, etc. For most American programs, the ideal essay/application will shatter the quant stereotype of nerds who are too wrapped up in their equations to go outside and get some exercise, let alone carry on a conversation with people.

3.) Also mention your leadership. What clubs have you led? Show them that there is a valid call option on you becoming a manager and hiring graduates of their program in ten years.

4.) Finally, cover your academics and career interests. What is reasonable for someone in your situation, with your background to graduate with? Be conservative here. Ideally, this is a field you could enter today without any help from the program. The program may give you a better position in that field or qualify you for more work, but you don't want to apply saying that you are trying to switch from being a programmer in trade capture at Morgan Stanley to getting a job running private equity at Blackstone.

Every good essay will spend at least 45-50% of the time on #4 and do a good job on it, but what separates the great essays from the good is in how much and how well the applicant addresses 1-3. This is what adds the marketing power to the essay and casts you not just as a smart person who can get a job out of the program, but as someone who carries a mild aura of arete.

 

[ChaoL]

When applying to the top tier MFE programs run by liberal arts schools- we are talking Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, maybe Stanford and NYU, it's good to talk about the stuff that has a large cross product with your academics and credentials as a quant. They want interesting people on campus.

Here is what a foreign applicant needs to focus on for an essay to help him the most:

1.) Demonstrate mastery of American English or British English. Try to avoid being wordy; keep sentences, clauses, and paragraphs efficient. The more your essay can read like a baseball loving, Shakespeare-reading American (or Brit) wrote it, the less an international status can hurt you and the more it can help.

2.) Devote some (not all) of your essay to things that give you a strong cross-product and add a lot of pizzazz. You're not just an engineering or physics major who does well in class and got a 168Q on the GRE. You do something really cool that most people would be shocked to see a quant doing.

For maximum credit, one of these things is ideally a bit athletic and involve some risk of injury (this defies the quant stereotype). Maybe you do open-water long-distance swimming and have competed in a number of races. Maybe you play lacrosse. Maybe you go skydiving. Cite numbers, details of accomplishments, etc. For most American programs, the ideal essay/application will shatter the quant stereotype of nerds who are too wrapped up in their equations to go outside and get some exercise, let alone carry on a conversation with people.

3.) Also mention your leadership. What clubs have you led? Show them that there is a valid call option on you becoming a manager and hiring graduates of their program in ten years.

4.) Finally, cover your academics and career interests. What is reasonable for someone in your situation, with your background to graduate with? Be conservative here. Ideally, this is a field you could enter today without any help from the program. The program may give you a better position in that field or qualify you for more work, but you don't want to apply saying that you are trying to switch from being a programmer in trade capture at Morgan Stanley to getting a job running private equity at Blackstone.

Every good essay will spend at least 45-50% of the time on #4 and do a good job on it, but what separates the great essays from the good is in how much and how well the applicant addresses 1-3. This is what adds the marketing power to the essay and casts you not just as a smart person who can get a job out of the program, but as someone who carries a mild aura of arete.

Thanks Golllini! Your advice is impressive. I learned much.

 

[JamesAndres]

The reason this is typically one of the most challenging aspects of a resume for most people is due to the fact that we only ever see ourselves through our own eyes. It is more challenging most times for us to see our selling points than it is for us to see others points or for them to see ours. It is often easier to see our negative points as well. The best advice that I can offer you is to take the time to begin to create a list of your positive attributes. What things do you enjoy to do? What are your hobbies? What volunteer work have you done in the past? These are the traits that should help you create a better personal statement.

 

[GoIllini]

Hi there, I'm preparing my PS. I know the most basic rule is telling "how unique I am" during my personal statement. But it is always the most difficult part.

I'm considering the structure of my personal statement,
One choice is: one paragraph about my academic background, one about my professional background, one about my interests in financial engineering, one about my career goals, one about why does this program suit me....then conclusion.
An alternative one is I showed how my interests started in finance and then how did it transform to financial engineering combined with my backgrounds and my career goal in a time order.

Which one do you guys think better? or more attracted to admission committed? Thanks a lot.

Tell us about yourself. If your friends were asked to brag about you, and they knew everything you did, what would they talk about besides your primary work or school? Do you play sports? Are you an expert on paintings?

Everything else, we can figure out from a resume. But oftentimes, there's other stuff worth mentioning that people have no idea is that interesting.