For those of you who have applied electronically to graduate schools, were you concerned about specific formatting in the personal statement? For example, does it have to be double spaced, titled, etc.

1/13/2007 5:42:28 PM

I seem to remember working on making something look really nice, but then when pasting into their box or uploading it, they autoformated it to make it look like crap. Focus on content, thats what they'll judge the cattle in their line up by the most.

1/13/2007 6:59:08 PM

Some places, like Michigan, let you upload your personal statement as a pdf, in which case I did worry about formatting.

Others just give you a standard text box to type your information in. I wouldn't worry about formatting in those situations.

1/13/2007 7:16:22 PM

yeah content is what they care about, also make sure to drop some potential professors you want to work with and why, they eat that shit up.

1/13/2007 8:04:52 PM

even better (though it's probably too late now), make sure you e-mail those professors beforehand to talk about their research, then put their names in your statement

1/13/2007 8:10:07 PM

I sent out hard copies of my letters because of this same problem.



[Edited on January 18, 2007 at 12:51 AM. Reason : out]

1/18/2007 12:28:25 AM