Graduate Admissions Essays, Fourth Edition: Write Your Way into the Graduate School of Your Choice

This book was so helpful in my graduate application process. Im the first college grad in my immediate family... so I didn't know much about grad school or how to get into grad school. This book was like the mentor I never had. It helped me write a killer personal statement/essay and I landed a spot in an amazing doctoral program. I highly recommend.

I would definitely recommend this book! This book was great for several reasons...First, it gives you a LOT of context. You get a better picture about who is reading your essay, what they are looking for, what the purpose of the essay is, and a better understanding of the application process in general. Obviously, you will need to pick and choose what applies to your field/program because certain things won't necessarily apply (which the author mentions). There is a lot of input from admissions committee members about what they do and don't like reading, which I thought was particularly helpful.The writing exercises are excellent because they are less daunting than trying to write the essay all at once, and once you complete these short prompts, you will find the scaffolding of your essay is already there for you. There were also a lot of helpful suggestions for the revision process. I would not waste time reading tons of the sample essays. I would find a couple that are in your field of study (or something similar) and look over how they were structured and to get ideas for style. If you are in a crunch though, just read chapters 4-7.The author does a great job helping you draw on your entire life experience to help you supplement your essay and make you stand out as a genuine and interesting person. I was really worried about my application being unimpressive. Never underestimate the power of a great essay! So far I have heard back from 5 of my schools and have been offered 5 interviews! I really think I owe a lot of that to this book and having an essay that stood out.

I bought this book looking for some guidance. This book provides ideas to help you, it will not write the essay for you or tell you exactly what to write, it will help you. It helped me. By most standard measures, there is no way I should have had a chance at a top school, nevertheless, the number 1 ranked school for what I want to study. With a 2.3 undergrad GPA (albeit a 3.9 grad gpa in a masters program) and average GRE scores, admission to a top school was a long shot. However, I got a call from a professor at the top school in the country for what I want and she told me candidly that my essay was what caught their attention. The book helped, but it is NOT to be followed to the tee, You still need to put your own thoughts and ideas into your essays.The book helped me in a few ways. First, it provided exercises to help brainstorm topics to write about. Second, and most important, I followed the advice of mention specific faculty members in my essays. DO THIS. When I talked to faculty members that liked my essay, they said that they liked how I mention specific faculty at their schools. In short, there were some things that I found to be great, but be choosy, as the author says, not everything in the book applies to all areas of study.Good luck. I just had a school buy me a plane ticket and hotel room to come visit for an interview.

I purchased this book after having decided on a whim to apply to grad schools for this fall. I had no idea where to begin and what I was doing, with application deadlines only a month away.Right away, this book offers better general advice than anything you'll find on the web, all in one place. Forget all those web searches and read this first. It helped me make sense of the process quickly and gives excellent information. Suggestions for how to begin the process of writing a SOP were invaluable, as were the many examples given in the book.I ended-up applying to three very competitive programs in my field. After one rejection, I was accepted to one of the three schools and was then offered a full scholarship by the third (my first choice at that). I can't wait to start!I was accepted on my merits, but absolutely credit this book with helping me strengthen my applications. Don't hesitate to get it, it might be the best $14 you ever spend.,

This book really helped me with my statement of purpose for graduate school. I'm not sure exactly how I stumbled upon this book but it really helped demystified the topic of writing graduate essays! The prose is also super supportive! I don't have any close contacts that have graduate degrees, so I was wading into uncharted territory... But this book broke the steps down and helped me write with confidence and passion!! Certainly, this book is no replacement for proper credentials, solid grades, and work experiences that graduate school requires. But if you have the background, this book will help you pull out your relevant experiences and make them shine!!!

I taught a workshop on purpose statements for grad school applications to those entering their final year of undergrad through the McNair Scholars Program, and this book was vital to the success of my workshop. I really wish I had known about this book when I was writing own grad school applications.The book explains things clearly to help understand what is effective, but also why it is so. But the biggest strength of this book is the many samples of essays for many types of graduate level academic programs.I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is even considering applying to grad school. It will be your greatest resource!