<p>How many times is it acceptable to say the word "I" in a personal statement? I've heard conflicting things from different sources... My statement is about 750 words long, how many "I"s is acceptable? Thank you!!</p>
<p>Pare it down to as few as possible. Find other ways to indicate yourself. </p>
<p>@dyiu13 Well, in general, how many times can I say “I”, “me”, “my”, etc. overall? I should have specified, sorry about that!</p>
<p>I don’t think that any number of “I,” “me,” etc. will stand out to admissions officers as arrogant or conceited or anything like that. But limiting your use of self-reference will definitely force you to vary your sentence structure. So whenever you can make a point without using those words, do it.</p>
<p>It’s really not so much about the “I” word-count. It’s more about finding variety. Like, avoid writing an essay that reads like this: I… I… I… (rinse, repeat). Rather, study-up on creating paragraphs with sentence variety. Ideas: <a href=“Purdue OWL® - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University”>Purdue OWL® - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University;
<p>More: <a href=“writing style - Is it poor form to start too many sentences with I? - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange”>writing style - Is it poor form to start too many sentences with I? - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange; </p>
<p>The above advice is great, but if you want to read up on college app essays I recommend the book “On Writing the College Application Essay” by Harry Bauld. He spent many years in the college admissions industry at selective colleges. There is a section on overuse of I, me, my etc. and it says basically what the people above said. If you don’t have to use it as much as you do, figure out how to change it up a bit. It is a personal statement however, so don’t be too worried. You will have to use those words and your reader understands that.</p>
WAY delayed, but thanks so much!! I brought my “I” count (including synonyms) to about 20 or so. For what ended up as 750 words, it seems good to me, especially since I was accepted to the school I was applying to at that point!! Thanks again 
Isn’t this the kind of things students are supposed to learn in their 4 years of HS English classes?
In my longest essays I’s have 17 I in 475 words and 26 in 450.
I feel talking about other people is more important then worrying about using the word I too much.
Not necessarily, especially if you don’t take AP Lang., AP Lit., or dual-enrollment courses (I didn’t take a dual-enrollment English course until this year, which was after I needed to know this). I live in Virginia… All people tend to care about are standardized tests. @JustOneDad
@JustOneDad
English class does not teach students how to write personal statements, business memos or resumes. Usually all people learn is basic grammar and crazy literary analysis papers.
I thought essay writing was the “Comp” part of English Composition.
@JustOneDad
English 100 & HS English was impersonal essays.
English 101 was crazy literary analysis.
Neither class touches on ease of readability / skim ability, avoiding cliche subjects, overly dramatic writing or the other pitfalls of personal statement writing. Using your own life experiences or beliefs are not allowed and only quotes/sources from other authors are. So very different from personal statements.
Ironically Business Communication was a better English class than actual English classes.
All of my kids HS English included essay writing. Every course.
@JustOneDad
So? As I said. HS & College “English” classes do not focus on practical writing skills. Only Business Communication/Writing comes to close to what works in a personal essay. For instance a cover letter is very similar to a “why us” essay. A six page paper on whether William Shakespeare was a sexist based on The Taming of the Shrew is the complete opposite of a short 40 word reply on a disappointment in life.
In fact I would say a lot of common issues I see in personal essays stems precisely from the fact that people write them as-if they were in an English class.
Let me be more clear.
Every course included essay writing of the type that would be encountered in college and scholarship applications, etc.
@JustOneDad
Post up an “essay of the type that would be encountered in college applications” because i have never seen 1 in HS.