Customer Reviews

Graduate Essays: What Works, What Doesn't and Why

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In the fall of 2003, I applied to 7 top PhD programs in my field (in the sciences), including the 5 best. Although I had graduated from the top Ivy League university, I had worked for 5 years and wasn't sure how I'd present myself to the graduate programs. I had reasonably good GRE scores, but all of my recommendations were from industry, so I needed to massage my personal statement to reflect strong industrial experience.

Using this book as a guide, I completed great personal statements. This book helped me through the writing and revising. In total, for the 7 programs, I had the following #s of versions of my PS: 13, 10, 14, 8, 6, 6, 7, in order by submission date. So, you should plan on being serious about writing your PS and revising it carefully! 64 revisions of my personal statement may seem like a lot of work, but why would I want to be lazy and take chances with the graduate applications?

I was accepted into my first choice program (I only had 1 rejection - from my second choice program), which is ranked #1 in the country. The chair of at least one department told me I was the best candidate, and many faculty remember reading my personal statement.

Am I really that great a candidate? Well, I was fortunate to have great work experience, but I also owe this book a lot of credit in helping me communicate some of the insights I gained during my years of working.

I strongly recommend this book. It's a bargain and its advice is invaluable. If you're going to spend the time and money to go to grad school, why not submit the best application you can?

As for specific comments on the book: I think one thing many may overlook is the fact the book covers a lot beyond just essays. It addresses issues like communications with the faculty and department before you apply, while the application is being reviewed, and discussions you should have with your recommendation writers. This book covers many, many useful topics outside of the essays, and was invaluable in my overall preparations. Regarding negative comments: I can't think of any. The book was extremely helpful for me and others, and I can't think of anything to change.

I also recommend "Getting What you Came For", which addresses a few things that you should consider while you're applying to grad schools, and a lot of things you need to think about when you're in grad school.

As further testament to the strength of this book, I've given 2 copies to friends, and they've since gotten into the best programs in the country in their fields. I have recommended the book to scores of others.

Good luck to you!

This wonderful grad admission essays book not only explains writing an essay for graduate school, but also covers the topics of choosing a program and financing it, planning your application, requesting recommendation letters, and dozens of samples of essays and recommendation letters. Just from looking at the cover, I didn't expect a book with such a large content when I bought it. This book was written as a complete reference for the applicants of the top grad schools. Contains internet links and many helpful examples. I didn't have oppurtunity of viewing the other books in this subject, but I think this book would be adequate by itself to the prospective grad students.

This book is by far the best book out there for those applying to graduate schools in the social sciences (I'm planning on getting my Ph.D. in Anthropology with a specialization in Archaeology). I followed his strategies carefully, and have received multiple funding offers from well known universities. Coming from a family where no one has ever attended graduate school, this book was essential. Definitely buy it now if you're considering applying in the fall!

This is definetely worth every penny you spend on it. It helped me a lot in my application process, and the tips I got helped me a lot to get into all the top Canadian universities I applied to with full scholarships. This book explains why it is important to go to grad school, who should go, how you should plan your application process, and it guides you through writing your essay. It also gives information about what a reference letter should contain, which is very useful as well. It has 50 samples of essays in a wide variety of grad programs, from history and anthropology, to medicine and molecular biology. I applied in biochemistry, and I found a couple of good related samples. It includes samples of post doc applications as well. It is very methodical, and it contains the experience not only of applicants, but also of the people in the admission committees who read the essays. I would pay 100 dollars for this book, because with it I got 6 offers with scholarships each of about 30,000 canadian from both the chem and biochem departments of Toronto, McGill and UBC!!!

Wow! What a great resource! Every word in this book helps, regardless of where you are in the application process. It definitely helps to calm you down, and get you focused...not to mention its positive tone that ameliorates those last minute doubts, etc. Probably its best asset is that it doesn't mince words... I read it from cover to cover in one night, unlike most books on the subject that I usually put down after chapter 2.

This book was helpful in that its beginning chapters dealt with answering questions about the application process and how to sit down and start writing the essay. The example essays were not especially helpful to me, although they did help get the juices flowing and gave me a great idea on an opening paragraph. I can see how they might be very helpful to people writing essays for very competitive programs in the medical, legal, or business worlds. I would recommend this book to people who have questions about the application process and having trouble starting their essays.

First, let me state this: I followed the advice in this book and for it, I was accepted to graduate school. I was accepted to one MS program, and had the impression that an additional MS program and a PhD program were interested in me, but couldn't offer acceptance for lack of financial support (both were public schools that lost a lot of funding in the recession).

There are a few short requisite sections on things relating to graduate school: why you should (or shouldn't) go, how the application process works, etc. These are simply to provide framework for how you'll write your essay. They aren't authoritative on such, and as a result, are somewhat lacking. That's ok though, since that's also not the book's mission. For a more complete look at the entire admissions process, I recommend Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide to Earning an M.A. or a Ph.D. with gusto.

Then the actual essay section. It comes in two sections: advice and examples.

The advice section is extremely good. It tells you how to structure and essay. How to develop and stick to a theme. How to address something on your record which may be problematic. And it also covers a large number of "Don't do this!" items. This part was crucial in helping me craft a personal statement. For me, the advice was crucial. I had a crappy undergraduate GPA, but good experiences and great GRE scores. The advice in this book really helped me to develop my strengths and use them to not only outshine my weak GPA, but even to mitigate it.

Also, for reasons lost on me, this book is not available from Amazon (as a seller). It's only available from third parties. I don't know why Amazon doesn't stock it considering the magnitude of good reviews. But I encourage anyone to buy the book even though you'll need to get it from a third party.

Now it needs to be noted that the book also has a MAJOR downside. Every example essay- EVERY SINGLE ONE- is written by someone who has some amazing superlative on their record which they can build a theme around. I just flipped to three examples and found:

1) A student who while working as a CA at her undergraduate school helped her residents evacuate the residence hall during a major earthquake.
2) A student who earned a double major as both a BS and a BA in Biology.
3) A student whose academic adviser and research mentor was Glenn Seaborg, better known as the man who discovered (was the first to isolate) plutonium.

Luckily for me, I had some extremely unique community service experiences from which I could draw to build an essay around. But I admit they were a stretch (not at all on par with the actual essays given in the book). The bottom line is that if you're a student who showed up to class and did alright but didn't really do anything of significance in college or life otherwise, every single one of the sample essays will be worthless. Moreover, they'll probably be disheartening. Every sample given is written by someone who has a stellar background and simply needs to know how to get those superlatives into essay form. There aren't any sample essays for someone who had a crappy time in college and transferred partway, or someone who has a good record but didn't test well on the GREs, or who really wants to get a research assistantship yet was unable to ever beg his/her way into a professor's lab as an undergraduate.

For this, I deducted one star from my review of the book. Do note that the book isn't useless for someone whose background has shortcomings. You'll find some guidance for this in the advice half of the book which talks strategies and techniques for crafting your statement. It's just entirely absent from the section with example essays.

I read this book many times in preparation for my own grad school (social science Ph.D.) applications. I've got my degree, and I'm an Assistant Professor at a large research university. I've now read many graduate admissions essays. From my experience, it seems most essays are not as effective as they could be. Most are just poorly conceived, and the authors seem to misunderstand the point of a personal statement. This book will help you not only to write and revise your essay, but to do so with a clear understanding of the essay's purpose and its intended audience. This book really is a must read for anyone applying to grad school. I recommend it to all my undergraduate students who ask me for a grad school letter of recommendation.

This book covers most of the admissions process in a general manner but really gets specific when it comes to the personal statement and essay portions of the book. It really helped me prepare my essay and application.

Chris, a perpetual graduate student, January 5, 2002,
An Unusual Guide
The strength of Mr. Asher's book is not, necessarily, the writing Mr. Asher inserts at the beginning and the end of the book. Rather, Mr. Asher's book is ingenious because the bulk of it is composed of writing done by other people. That is, actual exemplars of good to down right excellent specemens of graduate personal statements. I'm not the kind of person who typically uses a book like this: I consider myself a writer and I like to write. When it came to this damn statement, I felt like I needed to see what other people did, how they succeded in selling themselves to a prospective program. Mind you, the portions that Asher writes are good and helpful if you can make the excercises yours. The great thing, however, is seeing others transform themselves and their goals through their writing. Whenever I have to write a personal statement (grant, fellowship applications, etc.) I look through the sample essays to see the elements that others have used as inspiration for my own. I can see this book would not be for everyone but if you have a talent for squinting between the lines and letting your writing take off, this book may help you chart a strategy.