20. Would love to hear if others have different views or questions about any of this. Good luck! /End

19. More than 3 people might seem a bit scattered but that's just intuition on my part, not a clear cut rule.

18. I suggest more than 1 mentor for a few reasons: Maybe one person isn't taking students, is looking for different experience than what you're bringing, etc. Also many programs value collaboration across labs & some require multiple faculty to support your application to invite you to interview.

17. Eg: "I am especially excited to pursue this research (whatever you proposed in the previous paragraph) with Drs. X & Y. Dr. X's focus on morality & Dr. Y's focus on culture perfectly complement my desire to study punishment across cultures." Show research fit with 2-3 possible mentors.

16. The last paragraph is the only thing that would change across schools. This part is unique to each program & explains why you're applying there.

15. I'd use the next-to-last paragraph to describe in more detail the research you want to do as a graduate student. I'd focus on big question and maybe suggest one study to answer it. You probably won't do that specific study but shows that you can move between big questions & specific methods.

14. . . .but what people are usually doing is making something up post-hoc that ties together their main experiences. That's normal, no one has things figured out as they're doing them. (Also goes for tenure statements, etc.)

13. You probably didn't actually have a cohesive narrative in mind while you were living these experiences. That's fine! People put a story on top of their experiences. If you only read the statement it sounds like they had the story in advance and chose experience accordingly. . .

12. ". . .So (new paragraph) in my senior year I pursued an honors thesis in a cultural psych lab looking at punishment in X and Y cultures. Here's the main question I was answering there and the specific things I did to answer that question (tested participants, analyzed data, etc.)."

11. Eg: "Babysitting made me curious what kids learn from punishment. This led me to take a dev psych course, which drew me to a lab studying moral development. Here I did X tasks to answer Y question. Realized that dev approach on its own was insufficient to fully address this question. . ."

10. Paragraphs should be integrated into a cohesive story. I shouldn't be able to scramble the paragraphs and have the statement still make sense - they shouldn't be bullet points. I'd include transitions between them to show how one experience led to the next.

9. I'd do ~1 paragraph per experience. Describe at a high level (eg what research question were you trying to answer as an RA) & nitty gritty level (eg what was your specific role in/contribution to the project(s) you worked on in your lab).

8. Then the body of your statement. What are the main experiences you've had that prepare you for grad school? For most people this is mostly experience as an RA in a lab. Could also be internships, maybe working as a teacher for dev psych, clinical experience for clinical psych, etc.

7. Use a specific example. Tell a story about a specific time something happened that sets the stage for who you are as a researcher. Not too personal - a story you feel comfortable speaking into a megaphone at a conference.

6. My first paragraph described a book I had read where main character experienced conflict between his religious community & his desire to pursue psychology. Made me wonder why a conflict might exist, got me interested in both topics, set the stage for my research interests in psych of religion.

5. 1st paragraph = story or example to draw readers in & set the stage. For instance: "When I was in high school, I worked as a babysitter for two families & saw them respond to kids' transgressions very differently. Made me wonder what kids learn from different punishments."

4. Every paragraph in the personal statement should have a clear connection to that topic or question. Here's one way to do this:

3. What research question or topic do you want to pursue in graduate school? In terms of level of specificity, more specific than an entire subfield, more general than one study. For someone working in my lab could be something like "how do kids think about punishment?"

2. I'd think of the personal statement as a story about who you are as a researcher. Not about who you are in general (for the most part admissions committees don't care about, eg, extracurriculars in my experience). Not just about research. But who are you as a scientist?