Grad's Guide to Graduate Admissions Essays

This book is serving as such a wonderful resource as I prepare to write my Statement of Purpose for grad school! I read half of it on a day at the beach a couple of weeks ago and it inspired some new ideas for my essay and really kickstarted the brainstorming process. Regardless of the type of grad school you're applying to or area of focus you'll be studying, reading these essays is incredibly inspiring and I love Colleen's comments on what made each particular essay compelling, as well as the authors' words of wisdom. Whether you're not sure where to begin with your Statement of Purpose or already have some ideas, it's an excellent and inspiring resource. Best $11 I've spent in a while!

This book is full of examples, but not one helped my son who is currently working on a master's degree in music performance. However, he managed to get into a top school with a generous stipend in spite of it; I am not at all sure how important an essay is for performance degrees where talent plus GPA of your BM are vital. That said, more and more performance majors are getting Master's degrees and even PhD's so it would have been good to have an examples since many of them (like in many fields) can't stand writing application essays which are so much different than the others they write.

Graduate Admissions Essays has a lot of really good essays and helps you see the wide variety of the kinds of essays that can be written. Every essay has notes from ColleenReding about why a certain part of the essay works so well. There are also tips from the actual authors of the essays. I found it very useful to help me in writing my personal statement.

Whether you're in the process of applying to grad schools and looking for help in honing your admissions essay to perfection, or you're still on the fence about applying and looking for some inspiration to take the plunge, the Grad's Guide is a great read. A wide range of real (and successful) essays are included, along with astute observations from the author helping you figure out what made each one successful in its own unique way, and how you can incorporate those attributes into your own writing. Enjoy, and good luck in grad school and beyond.

No matter what graduate program you are applying to, Grad's Guide is a must read. The essay is undoubtedly the most time consuming and arguably the most critical component of the graduate school application process. The real and successful essays in Grad's Guide, coupled with the writer's words of wisdom, provide the reader an understanding of what really matters in an application essay. Before brainstorming essay topics and definitely before writing, read Grad's Guide and utilize the author's advice to create a compelling and memorable essay.

Simply a collection of inputs from Georgetown graduates. I was looking for some guidance and essay samples for PhD programs in management. For the business school sections, it only provide answers provided to questions for MBA programs

Comes out annually Don’t buy in August or September as a new version comes out.

Perfect standardized test scores and grades are not enough to gain entrance to the most selective colleges. Due to grade inflation and test prepping, quantitative perfection is becoming commonplace. To be successful, you must also show the school what kind of person you are. This is where the admissions essays come in.Colleges require application essays to get a sense of who you are as a person, and what you may contribute to the school’s student body. Are you a leader? Do you have an interesting background? Are you able, and willing, to make a contribution to the intellectual life of the college?While the undergraduate essay is the focus of many books, the graduate school essay is just as, if not more, important to your acceptance into graduate level programs. Colleen Reding has helped to fill that gap with her new book Grad’s Guide to Graduate Admissions Essays, published by Prufrock Press. This collection of essays provides grad school applicants with models of successful medical school personal statements as well as successful essays from law school, business school and general graduate school students, all of whom attended Georgetown with Ms. Reding for their undergraduate degrees. These essays go beyond the standard “I have always wanted to be a lawyer” and “I really just want to help people,” instead weaving personal experiences into the story of why they are the ideal candidate for admission. Readers will get a good sense of what competitive graduate programs are looking for in applicant essays, and models they can use when drafting their own. Equally helpful are writing tips provided throughout the explaining why the essay was particularly effective—writing style, choice of theme, integrating examples, etc.