Before you write anything of value, you must first pre-write. Check Out These Related Posts! In your ideal world, where would you live in ten years? For virtually every student applying to college, the moment when you sit down to draft your personal statement is likely the first—and may end up being the only—time in your life when you are pushed to describe your entire identity succinctly and eloquently.
But if done correctly, acknowledging that you are not perfect can add genuineness to any personal essay.
You often have a very small space in which to express yourself, which is why these essays lend themselves to bite-sized tales that are representative of the whole, versus broad subjects that say very little in-depth about your inherent nature.
The first step is to back up. Can you go even smaller?
Just me? Now, check if any of them are particularly unusual, unique, memorable, entertaining or interesting.
Read my posts in this Jumpstart page and I promise this will start to make more sense, and even give you more ways to discover your best topic ideas. They cannot change the prompts, but they may choose which to write about first.
Yet another way to discuss your character flaws is to acknowledge how certain struggles or personal shortcomings have shaped your identity, allowing you to go into more detail about the ways in which you were able to better yourself by identifying a flaw in yourself and being willing to fix it.
Try to think of one big example and one small one.