Personal Statement

Why every applicant must submit a personal statement: Your personal statement is an important part of your application for admission. It provides you with the opportunity to discuss aspects of your life that may not be apparent from information provided on your application, transcripts, or the Writing Skills Assessment.

Please answer all of the topics that pertain to you. If only part of topic pertains to you, answer that part. The topics are in four sections. Similarly, your statement should be organized into sections. You only get 1000 words total for the entire statement (four sections combined).

Tips

• Be specific.
• Don’t spend your time telling us such things as “I’ve always wanted to attend the Foster School because I want a business degree.” It is a legitimate comment but does not tell us anything distinctive about you.
• When describing your experiences, don’t assume the reader has had your same experiences or shares your perspective. Keep in mind that what you write in the application is used for admission purposes only.
• Be concise, direct and truthful.
• Be thoughtful about your response, we are not interested in superficial answers.
• Give yourself ample time to write and rewrite these essays, to make sure that you are using the allotted work limit to effectively express what you are trying to convey.
• Extra spacing counts towards your allotted word count, and copying and pasting from a Word document can detract from your total word count. We recommend writing directly into the application itself, however it is wise to save a copy of each essay before hitting submit.