The SummaEssay Blog
What we have learned from reading thousands of application essays - what admissions officers respond to, and what quietly costs students a place.
- Pharmacy School ApplicationsPharmacy School Personal Statements: Showing Your MotivationPharmacy school personal statements have a particular challenge: pharmacy is often seen as a stepping-stone to other careers (prescriber, business owner, healthcare administrator) or as a fallback from medicine.·SummaEssay
- Dental School ApplicationsHow to Write a Dental School Personal StatementDental school personal statements face a specific challenge: dentistry is a smaller, more specialized field than medicine, but admissions committees still read hundreds of statements that follow the same template ("I love working with my hands," "I decided in high school," "I shadowed a dentist and fell in love with the profession").·SummaEssay
- Medical School Applications"Why Medicine?" Essays: How to Write a Genuine ResponseSome medical school applications include a specific prompt: "Why do you want to become a physician?"·SummaEssay
- Engineering/STEM ApplicationsHow to Write an Engineering Personal Statement That Stands OutMost engineering personal statements read the same way: a list of relevant courses, a summary of a senior design project, and a closing line about wanting to "solve real-world problems."·SummaEssay
- Engineering/STEM ApplicationsHow to Write an SOP for a Master of Science or STEM ProgramWriting a STEM SOP for masters programs calls for a noticeably different emphasis than an SOP for a humanities or professional program.·SummaEssay
- Personal Statement & SOP WritingFrom the 'Maybe' Pile to the 'Yes' Pile: What Makes an Application Essay MemorableAdmissions readers describe the same phenomenon over and over: after reading dozens or hundreds of essays in a single sitting, most of them blur together. A handful stick.·SummaEssay
- UC ApplicationsEssay Structure for the UC Personal Insight Questions: A Simple Framework That Fits 350 WordsMost essay-structure advice is written for a five-paragraph academic essay with room to build an argument slowly.·SummaEssay
- UC Applications8 Tips for Writing a UC Personal Insight Question That Sounds Like YouGood UC essay writing tips usually fall into two categories: tips about mechanics, word counts, deadlines, formatting, and tips about voice, and it's the second category that actually determines whether a Personal Insight Question response gets remembered.·SummaEssay
- UC ApplicationsDo the UCs Require the SAT or ACT? UC Testing Policy ExplainedIf you're prepping for UC applications and wondering whether to spend your weekends grinding through SAT practice tests, here's the short answer: don't.·SummaEssay
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