7. Writing Personal and Diversity Statements

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Today I'm going to be talking about writing a personal statement and a diversity statement. I'm going to start by defining the two. So the first is the personal statement, that is an essay that tells you or tell someone about who you are as a person about your personal background and how it relates to your academic pursuits. Now, the diversity statement is an essay that lets others know how you're going to be contributing to the diversity of the student body, at the campus that you were previously at, or the campus that you will be attending in the future.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Overall advice in terms of drafting these statements is that unlike the statement of purpose, which I talked about in episode number five, these two statements are less structured. There's no like rigid way of like, these are the main things that you need to talk about in these statements. And that's what makes them hard to write. And so students often come up to me and ask me, like, I don't even know how to get started, I'm experiencing writer's block, I don't feel like there's anything unique or interesting about me to share. Or sometimes I have too much going on, I've got too many things to talk about. I don't know how to focus how to hone in.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And so I recommend just getting started with free writing, with brainstorming with outlining, and I'll share with you some of, well, first, I should probably share with you some prompts so that you can understand the difference between a diversity statement prompt and a personal statement prompt. Because sometimes, you'll be going into an application portal, and I'll say, oh, here's where you write about your personal statement. And you read the prompt and it actually sounds like a diversity statement. You know, a big tip that I want to share. That may seem obvious once I say it, but oftentimes students don't listen to this to read the prompt and answer the prompt. So that's number one. Always always answer the prompt.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

But let's go to some sample prompts so that you can see what I mean when I say please address the prompt. This is, I'm going to be reading aloud a prompt from UC Santa Barbara. And this one's a little long, but just stick with me here. Describe any aspects of your personal background accomplishments or achievements that you feel are important in evaluating your application for graduate study. For example, please describe if you have experienced economic challenges in achieving higher education, such as being financially responsible for family members or dependents, having to work significant hours during undergraduate schooling, or coming from a family background of limited income. Please describe if you have any unusual or varied life experiences that might contribute to the diversity of the graduate group, such as fluency and other languages experienced living in bicultural communities, academic research interests, focusing on cultural, societal or educational problems, as they affect underserved segments of society, or evidence of an intention to use a graduate degree towards serving disadvantaged individuals or populations.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Now, this prompt, it says that it's a personal statement on the application portal. But in actuality, once you listen and read to the prompt, it's a combination of both. It's a personal statement, and that they're asking for your personal background, accomplishments, achievements, but it's also a diversity statement. And that they're asking you how you might contribute to the diversity of the graduate group. And so this is where you'd write a little bit of both, you'd write a little bit more about who you are, and some of the life experiences that have motivated you to pursue whatever it is that you're studying, you're also sharing what it is about you may whether it's your identity, or your service work, or your research that contributes to the diversity of the student body. So that's one.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Here's another prompt. This one is specifically a diversity statement prompt. It says, Describe how your background or experiences will enhance the diversity of the blank community. This is the university for example, based on your culture, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, ideology, age, socioeconomic status, academic background, employment or personal experience. This one's much shorter, but it's, you know, short and to the point it's asking you how are you enhancing the student body and you can talk about it through a number of ways so it could be based on cultural race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, etc.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

That one is is just a diversity statement prompt. And now If you've read the prompts, you know a little bit about what these statements are, and your stuck how to get started. Well, first you read the prompt and underline any key words or things that you want to address from the prompt. The next thing is you want to make a list of maybe some personal qualities that you want to share with the committee. When these qualities may. Well, ideally, they'll allow you to think of a few stories that convey those qualities, some examples.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And here are some potential kind of additional questions that you can ask yourself just to get started on the personal statement, you can think about maybe some of the favorite professors or favorite courses that you took in college, maybe your favorite exam or project, maybe your favorite book, play song film, why are they your favorite acts? And how does that relate to your long term goals of studying X and becoming whatever is you want to become in your career? What are the three most memorable, memorable things that you've done in college? Or what are the most important concepts you've learned? Or life lessons that you've gained? Maybe there were some encouraging or even discouraging things that your professors said to you? And how have you used them to motivate you?

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I had one student who had a professor essentially tell him that he would never make it. He would, he should not pursue research and statistics and would never make it to graduate school. And I don't know how much of it was tied to his race, him being a Latino, I don't know how much of it was tied to him being first generation and a new transfer student. But the point is, this student use that as motivation to make sure that he did do the research on that he did get into graduate school. And so he put in all the hard work. And by the time he was a senior, he had been admitted into a fully funded Ph. D. program, at a top school in his field. And so that was great, because he used discouraging words to motivate him.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And so again, if there's, is there a quote, a line, something that someone said to you in the past that has stayed with you, whether that's good or bad, how are you using that to then inspire you to do better and to move on to the, to the next step in, in your life? Again, what experiences from your family life or history have contributed to you wanting to go to graduate school? How have you overcome unusual hardships and obstacles? This is the main thing actually, that I see, in most of the personal statements that I read. Most of them, it's a student that's writing about themselves and their backstory, maybe one or two memories from their past. And they write about it in chronological order. So they talk about their childhood, and then from there, perhaps their K through 12 story. And then what happened when they got to college, and where they are now, sometimes folks start with, you know, child story, and tying it to a theme of like, when I was a kid, my community helped to serve me in this way. And then they talk about giving back pain back, you know, to the community, through their service work and in college, and then what they're doing now, what they hope to do once they become a professor, or a researcher, or a director of a nonprofit, etc.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Those are the common ways that I see people write, or how they choose to structure their personal statement, a lot of times it's chronological, and a lot of times they share at least one very personal story about themselves. The other thing I see people do in the personal statement, is address a gap. And I know this is hard to do, because sometimes, maybe a student has a low overall GPA, or their GPA is fine, but they had one or two quarters where they really struggled. Or maybe they didn't do well on the GRE. And this is something that they're self conscious about, and then want to make sure to address it. How do you do that? My best advice for how to approach that is if you want to write about it, make sure that you write about it in a way where you share just enough detail so that they know what you went through. Not too much where it becomes a pity party. You know, you don't want others to feel bad for you want to say to in a matter of factly like this is what happened. And this is what I did to overcome it or this is what I'm doing currently to manage it or to get better. You want to make sure that you show how you're being proactive so that this is not something that continues to affect you in graduate school. That's what they really want to hear.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Now for the diversity statement, tips for how to get started. In some ways, a diversity statement might be easier to write or easier to get started than the personal statement, because there are some key things that they either ask you in the prompt, or that you could just in general, right about when it comes to the diversity statement, you're going to write about one of three things. If you have all three things, you can write about all three things, but usually, it's at least one of three things. You're writing about yourself, your personal experience, your identity, and how your life experiences have contributed or continue to contribute to the diversity of your campus and the diversity of whatever future school you attend. You can also write about your service work. How have you been involved in organizations and in volunteer work, even your important sources of employment, how have those things contributed to the diversity of the campus. And then of course, you can write about your research. If your research is about underrepresented populations, then that's something that you want to mention as part of the diversity diversity process. And I'm trying to think about like any other tips for the diversity statement, because typically, I say it's one of three things and you can expand on that one of the three things.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Sometimes students feel like, oh, well, I already wrote about how I am diverse. Through my personal statement, what am I supposed to write in the diversity statement, you can continue to expand on what you wrote in your personal statement, or you can write about other things, most likely, in your statement of purpose or your personal statement, you you may not have written about all of your service work. Or maybe there was one story that you didn't mention, and I had one student who shared something deeply personal, how she was a survivor of, of domestic violence. And she was willing to write about that in her diversity statement, and how that provide her with provided her with the life experience that now allows her to really empathize and to better serve other students who have unfortunately, struggled with with similar incident incidents.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

But in general, you want to get started by brainstorming, by answering some of the questions that I mentioned earlier, by getting someone to take a look at it, make sure that you share only things that you feel comfortable with, having the admissions committee know about. I had one student who talked about he very specifically addressed the different types of mental health disorders that he was dealing with. And that was because it was actually part of the motivation for him pursuing graduate study in a Ph. D. program in pharmacology. So again, only if you're comfortable, share what you want to share, because they're going to know this information with you coming in. And again, be very matter of fact about it. You don't want to make it seem you don't you don't want to make others feel bad for you. You want to make it seem like these are just some experiences that have allowed you to be stronger, have motivated you to pursue your research interests, to pursue graduate school interests, and to pursue the career that you're interested in. I hope that you found this helpful. If you have any questions about the personal statement or diversity statement, feel free to send me an email. I am happy to answer any of these questions on the podcast. Thank you.