1. Personal statement of the application document for studying in the United States
Personal statements play a very big role in study abroad applications. On the one hand, American schools not only value academic achievement, but also attach great importance to students' comprehensive ability. The personal statement is the best carrier to reflect the comprehensive ability of students, it integrates the student's personal situation, a brief description of the participation in activities, the award experience and other content, and is the medium for students to fully express themselves.
The basic content of a personal statement includes:
1. Their own ideals - long-term goals;
2. The reason for choosing a major and institution;
3. Academic potential and advantages;
4. Their own study plan, career development direction, extracurricular experience, etc.;
5. Personality, values;
6. Finally, sincerely express your desire to be admitted.
The personal statement required by each school is different, but the above six points are essential to the personal statement. The focus of the personal statement is to let the students grasp the details of their strengths, and use real events to concretize the advantages, so as to gain the trust and recognition of the teacher.
A well-written personal statement can greatly improve an applicant's odds of getting an admission and scholarship. This is a great opportunity for applicants. Unfortunately, many people's personal statements are often perfunctory, poor in content and full of grammatical errors. Western universities do not assess the qualifications of their applicants solely through traditional examinations, which is not to say that their admission criteria are not strict. When foreign professors decide whether you are the person they want, they first want to hear what you have to say about yourself. When you introduce yourself through the application essay, you will find that the opportunities and challenges you face are equally great.
It is not enough to write a successful application essay with only those basic writing skills (clear and concise) that apply to any type of writing. A good filing instrument requires the applicant to be able to subtly present his or her unique personality and experience in a completely different way than other applicants. It's a demanding and very tiring job. Many applicants, when writing application documents, often say that they do not know what to write. They lament that they have not done anything extraordinary in their ordinary lives for more than twenty years. If you think so, it's just because you haven't done enough to fully examine yourself. Try to do this:
1. Analyze your personality and experiences.
2. Differentiate, organize, and trade off your traits, experiences, and accomplishments to meet the requirements and criteria for school admission.
3. Summarize all this choreographed information into a narrative structure.
4. Draft a short, persuasive essay that highlights your traits. As long as you delve deep enough into your life experiences and inner world, you will find that you are very special, very special, in your own way.
The process of writing a series of application essays is a process of self-examination. There is a saying in the West: "In the city of Rome do things like the Romans." In fact, when writing study abroad documents, Chinese students should use Western thinking to take care of the cognitive habits of readers while retaining their own characteristics. Only in this way can applicants fully demonstrate their talent potential through these documents and win their own chances of admission.
2. Letter of recommendation for application documents for studying in the United States
The purpose of writing a letter of recommendation is to allow the professor of the school you will be applying to understand the teacher's opinion of you, and to understand your future development potential and past deeds from the letter of recommendation, so it is important to choose a referee carefully. The content of the recommendation letter must be true and credible, concise image. When we need a letter of recommendation in China, we often look for the top leader of the unit or the academic elite, and the recommender talks about the character performance of the recommended person in general. Therefore, the role of recommendation letters in China is limited (readers pay more attention to the information provided by official documents or interpersonal relationships), and their use is also limited (generally only for job recommendations).
On the contrary, as a document of credit guarantee, the letter of recommendation plays a very important role in Western society with a relatively perfect credit system. It is one of the important ways for readers to understand the recommended person, and is widely used for studying, seeking a job, and even judging and renting. In foreign countries, the recommender is generally a person who has the necessary qualifications and knows one or more aspects of the recommended person's study, work, character, etc. The content of the recommendation letter requires truthfulness, accuracy and completeness, and is directly or indirectly related to the purpose to be achieved by the recommendee.
In view of the differences in Chinese and Western cultural thinking, Chinese students should pay attention to the following points when preparing a letter of recommendation for studying abroad:
(1) The recommender should have more opportunities to understand the recommender, and several recommenders can show the recommended person's learning, work and character from different angles. Therefore, the recommended person cannot blindly go to the academician or foreign professor who knows little about himself, nor can he say that a few recommenders can only reflect one aspect but not other aspects.
(2) From the common sense of the average reader, the content of the recommendation letter is reasonable. It is generally unreasonable if the boss of the company knows the specific score of a course when the referrer goes to college, or if the average classroom teacher of the university knows the average score of the recommended person's entire course.
(3) Do not make the content of the recommendation letter empty and general. In the letter of recommendation, the recommender generally lists many advantages of the recommended person in various aspects of study, work, and character, but in fact, the effect is not as good as specifically describing three or four advantages within a reasonable range. In addition, the relationship between the referee and the referrer, the contact time and the contact information of the recommender should also be clearly written.