Hi everyone,

I noticed that several people have already posted helpful sites and articles about how to approach writing the personal statement. However, I found some additional sites that I think also offer great insight into writing a strong, compelling, and personal piece:

1. For more general advice about how to structure the personal statement, see: Writing in Psychology

2. This article highlights how to approach the statement with a clinical psychology program in mind; It is called Applying to Doctoral Programs in Clinical Psychology: Writing an Effective Personal Statement. (I am worried that the article might be outdated, as it was written in 1999, but I do feel that a lot of the advice can still apply to applicants today!)

Also, there are a great number of us REU students who are interested in clinical psychology, particularly working with a child and/or adolescent population. I found this article (or manuscript!) written by a student at the University of North Carolina to be extremely insightful–The author discussed applying to a clinical psychology program, and focused on students who were interested in taking a year or two off to build their application before applying to graduate school. This is something many of us, myself included, are looking into, as well. I also liked that the author highlighted the specific types of experience and research he did to get into a clinical psych program!

The article is called “Before You Apply to Graduate Programs in Psychology: Knowing When You Are Ready and Gaining Post-Bac Experiences.”

I hope you guys find this helpful!

Daphne