In English class you learn to structure your essays in a very specific format: the 5-paragraph essay. In that format, each paragraph has a very specific role.
Personal Statements also have a structure you can follow. Instead of being formatted by paragraphs however, they can be organized by sections that can take up as many (or as few) paragraphs as you want.
Here is the sections for a narrative personal statement:
Important: Don’t just tell a story. Admissions officers care most about what you learned and how you’ve grown. Make sure sections 4 & 5 are well developed.
This is an essay written by Kashvi G., a student admitted to John Hopkins Unversity this past season. Each section has been labelled.
INTRO/HOOK
Nothing about true love comes easy. Loving comes with hard work, responsibility and compromise. In my case, it came with four legs, PTSD, separation anxiety and in need of constant attention.
BACKGROUND CONTEXT & CHALLENGE
Rock came to us when he was 10 years old, retired from the Bangalore police force and in need of a loving home for his last few years. I’d been asking my parents if we could adopt a dog for years. I still wonder what made them say ‘yes’ to Rock. Suffering from amebiasis and severely malnourished, he had been at the dog shelter for a while, and was on the verge of giving up.
I wasn’t ready to parent a senior dog. As the youngest in the family, I was the one who was always looked after. Once Rock came along, I was suddenly completely responsible for someone else’s life. Roles like being a school student council member taught me responsibility, but not to care for someone else. I realized the stark difference between acknowledging responsibility and actually taking it on.
OVERCOMING THE CHALLENGE
It was the small things like recognizing the difference between barks for food or barks to be taken out. It was the bigger things like feeding him 10 pills a day, bladder issues that meant he needed four walks a day and acute PTSD and separation anxiety. Rock was a whole lot of work and needed a whole lot of love.
LESSONS LEARNED
I thought I knew how to multitask with my varied extracurriculars, but here I was learning a whole new meaning to the word. I thought I had effective communication skills from my time volunteering at a dog shelter, and here I was trying to create a whole new lexicon for what each of Rock’s barks meant.
And yet, nothing has come easier to me than my love for Rock. Awkward, unsure of how to express love, and constantly hungry, he and I mirror each other in more ways than one. As a child, I would make my older sister follow me around the house, just to make sure I had her attention. Ten years later, my dog does the same to me.
Anxious and traumatized, he needs me as his therapy human as much as I need him for moral support and inspiration. And, an inspiration he is. Arthritic, limping, and uprooted from his life of ten years, Rock remains the biggest source of joy in our lives. As tough as it was for us to adjust to having him, it was a million times harder for him. But, somehow, he’s managed to find his joy with us, too. Whether I leave the room for ten minutes or 3 days, he’s always ecstatic when I return. All he needs is for me to show up. There are even times when he wags his tail in his sleep. Our relationship helps us both – he teaches me to be happy and I make sure I always show up for him.
APPLYING LESSONS LEARNED
I recently visited the Exploratorium in San Francisco and observed what is known as a mutualistic relationship between Randall’s pistol shrimp and prawn goby. The shrimp always has at least one antenna touching the fish at all times – their symbiosis depends on it. Rock and I are always in the same room, always within a foot of each other.
In his essay collection, ‘The Anthropocene Reviewed’, John Green says, “the Canada goose is hard to love. But then again, so are most of us.”
CONCLUSION
Rocky has taught me that I’m, surprisingly, pretty good at the tough parts of love. That I can be responsible, caring and overflowing with good feelings all at once. Maybe it’s just that the love that seems the hardest, that teaches us the most, is the one we treasure most. And for this, and for Rock, I am forever grateful.
Start fresh in a new document and write it from beginning to end—don’t copy and paste. You’re not starting from scratch; you can keep your first draft nearby for ideas. But retyping the essay helps you see it in a new way and make real changes.
Use what works, cut what doesn’t, and add stronger details. Try new opening lines—you might already have a great one hidden later in your draft. Make sure your ending is strong, too. Keep your focus on What is the story? How did I feel? How did it change me?
Look at Steps 6-1 and 6-2 for new material to include. Reread Kris' feedback for Step 5 and Step 6. Aim to stay close to the word count, but don’t worry if you go slightly over.
Use the structure sections to help you format your content.
Go to the Essay Folder and open Step 7-2: 2nd Draft and write your new essay.
Check "Done" box in CounselMore and wait for my feedback.