Drafting Your Personal Statement

Modified: 2023-09-08 (5:34 AM CDST)

At the 2023 meeting of the National Association of Foundation Advisors (NAFA) in New Orleans I attended a presentation by Kelly Thornburg of the University of Iowa. Her presentation emphasized the importance of creating an excellent personal statement with which to submit to funding agencies. I reproduce her outline below (with permission).

Think of the Personal Statement as a resume on steroids. You want the reader to visualize your training, experience, successes, how you think, and the problems you have solved.

• Public/Professional
  • Publications, Presentations
  • Leadership, Training, Performances
• People/Places
  • PIs (principal investigators, the research faculty you work(ed) with, Coaches, Mentors
  • Other faculty, Community Members
  • Leadership, Staff, Peers
• Events/Dates (This is the traditional starting point)
  • Year by year
  • Foundations and Funding
  • Undergrad Timeline
• Ideas/Thinkers (Your intellectual autobiography)
  • The Big Ideas that blew your mind or changed it
  • How you think
  • How you work
  • How you conceptualize the world

Specific Hints (from Salisbury University Nationally Competitive Fellowships Office)

• Good grades, yes, but demonstrate a "thirst for knowledge'
• Improve your communication skills (oral and written)
• Get an internship and/or volunteer
• Stay abreast of current events
• Travel (ASAP)
• Involve yourself in extracurricular activities
• Be a leader
• Write essays and compete for smaller scholarships (such as SAU's)
• Undergraduate research
• Network
• Assess your credentials and goals regularly
• Take chances; nothing ventured, nothing gained
• Read books and articles

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