<p>I'm thinking of writing my personal statement about my research journey that led to a national science award. But I'm wondering if that would qualify as a compelling "personal statement" as the common app main essay. The essay would go into elements not elsewhere on the app, such as how did the research come about, what was it about, how are my findings useful etc etc. </p>
<p>The alternative would be to write learning more about my heritage and how I feel that has helped me grow as a person. How I connect better with my family who were immigrants etc etc?</p>
<p>I know the latter essay sounds more in line with a personal essay topic (or does it?) but it would be a lot flatter and not layered enough as the research essay. So what do the experts advise? Stanford is my first choice school. What type of personal essay topics do they prefer? My high school life has resolved around research and is closer to me than the cultural aspect. </p>
<p>Both essays are going to make it into the app, question is which is the personal essay and which is the supplemental essay??</p>
<pre><code> Honestly this is a decision only you can make we don’t know what your life has been or what your application looks like. It’s all about how you write either topics. Since the supplements are limited maybe you can put one of the essays that can still get the message across without so many words and you can save the personal essay for the one you think is more important, shows more about you and truly needs those 500 words.
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<p>I agree, what matters is how you write it. Choose the one which will define you the best: what you are, your thought processing, maturity etc.,. Based on the info, the first choice seems right but your gut feeling is the best guide. (the essay should reveal “you”, not the research, even when you are writing about the research)</p>
<p>Thanks guys. I really feel my research essay shows my passion for what I love most. The other essay shows how I got close to my culture. I will do my best to capture both aspects in my app, but I wasn’t sure which of the two essays is the personal statement. Based on the feedback from a couple of you I am leaning to making my research essay the personal statement. My only concern is whether schools see too many of these research or academia based essays as the main essay and get turned off, and the supplement essay then doesn’t matter, as their first impression is already settled. Thanks in advance for further insights.</p>
<p>Take Moshot’s advice and it doesn’t really matter what you write about. The fact of the matter is, you are going to university to learn, so for an admissions officer to look down on an essay on research/academia would be weird, no? What they don’t want to see, though, is information that is readily available in other parts of the app.</p>
<p>If you write true to your own style and speak honestly and insightfully, any academic institution that does not like your essay simply because it is academically themed is hypocritical and not worthy of your application ;)</p>
<p>I wrote my main personal essay purely about my research in applied math. And of the three supplements, one was on how I was inspired to study wavelet analysis at a science fair, and another was on my thinking process. Obviously, make sure material doesn’t overlap, but you can make it work if you stay loyal to who you are and how you want to express yourself.</p>