How to Write a Personal Statement Using AI and ChatGPT
What is a personal statement?
A personal statement or personal essay is a written document that often accompanies college/university, job, scholarship, or grant applications. It is an application essay in which an individual shares information about themselves, their background, experiences, goals, and aspirations. It can be submitted to provide admissions committees with insights into a student's or academic interests, achievements, and reasons for wanting to pursue a particular course of study.
Alternatively, the purpose of a personal statement can be to highlight a job seeker's relevant skills and work experience, to describe a student's financial needs and how receiving a scholarship would help them achieve their educational goals, or to explain a researcher's interests and the potential impact of their proposed work. A personal statement should be well-written, concise, and tailored to the specific purpose and audience. It offers applicants the opportunity to stand out and provide a more personal and comprehensive view of themselves beyond what can be conveyed through grades or one’s resume.
Should I use AI tools like ChatGPT to write a personal statement?
The short answer is no, you should not use an AI personal statement generator to write your application essay for you. Why not? The most important reason is that overreliance on AI tools to generate text that you then simply copy-paste into your application can be considered plagiarism or cheating by admissions committees and scholarship reviewers—this could negatively affect your chances of being considered.
Another important reason not to include an AI-generated personal statement in your application is that it won’t be personal. AI-generated content is based on patterns and data from various existing sources, and those cannot reflect your unique experiences, motivations, and personality. For example, if you let ChatGPT write a personal statement for an application to law school, it might output something like this:
As you can see, this statement is well written but lacks content—it is made up of common key words and platitudes that could describe anyone eager to become a lawyer. What the admission committee wants to know, however, is where your “passion for justice” came from. Is a relative of yours a jurist and has inspired you? Or has your family suffered some kind of injustice and you are now determined to become a professional and put things right? ChatGPT does not know such details and cannot add examples or personal flavor to your text.
AI tools may also not understand the specific context or requirements of an application, and may generate content that is irrelevant or inappropriate for your purpose. This can lead to your application being sorted out early on in the selection process.
What AI tools can help you with, however, is the generation of ideas to draft your statement or the correction of the grammar, flow, and style of your text.
How to Use ChatGPT and AI Tools to Write a Personal Statement
ChatGPT and other AI tools can help you generate ideas, draft your statement, and revise it. Just make sure the rules and regulations of the school or funding organization you apply to allow AI assistance and declare it honestly if necessary. It is also always advised to ask human teachers or mentors for feedback before you submit your application.
1. Use ChatGPT to make your personal statement draft unique
Instead of using AI personal statement writers to produce very generic statements that don’t describe who you are, you can let ChatGPT figure out what might be unique about your life story if you are unsure where to start: Feed your CV into the bot and ask it to extract interesting and notable details. Since ChatGPT is trained on a large set of existing texts that includes such essays, it can come up with useful ideas that might really help you stand out from the crowd.
2. Write a personal statement outline and let AI tools like ChatGPT fill in the details
If you need more hands-on assistance with developing your writing, feed an outline (maybe bullet points) of the aspects you want to include in your statement into ChatGPT or a similar bot, and then ask the tool to connect the points with well-written sentences. Make sure you check for accuracy, because ChatGPT is prone to making things up if there are gaps, and revise the text as often as possible so that it reads like your own voice.
3. Edit and paraphrase your personal statement with AI tools as you draft
If you are looking for help with correcting and improving your writing, there are more specialized tools than ChatGPT (which is more of an all-rounder). As these specific tools, such as the Wordvice free AI Writing Assistant, rely on more human input, they do not pose any ethical dilemma. For example, you can simply draft your own statement and then use the Wordvice free AI Proofreading Tool, free AI Paraphrasing Tool, and free AI Summarizer to help you correct your grammar and improve the clarity and flow of your text.
AI Personal Statement Examples
Look at the below personal statement examples created for different types of applications/purposes and see how ChatGPT and other AI tools can help you improve them.
AI Common App personal statement example
Let’s say you chose the following prompt for writing a college personal statement that is part of most college applications:
What challenges/obstacles have you faced? How have they influenced your personal growth?
An AI bot can only write a generic reply to such questions, but you need to generate a statement that reflects your unique story. You therefore need to list all the important details that you want to feed into your essay, and let it connect the dots. For example, if you tell ChatGPT to explain how moving to the US from South Korea at age 6 and having to learn English while also starting school has taught you grit and self-reliance, it might come up with something like this:
You can now play with this draft, add more details to your story, and revise and rephrase until it sounds like you.
AI medical school personal statement example
Medical school admissions committees want to understand an applicant's motivation and potential contributions to the field of medicine. A common motivation to become a doctor is a sick family member who has left one with a passion to help others, as reflected in the following example statement:
Title: A Journey of Compassion and Determination
Growing up, I witnessed the profound impact of multiple sclerosis (MS) firsthand as my grandmother battled this poorly understood disease. Her struggle to find effective treatment and support left an indelible mark on my heart and ignited my passion for medicine.
In those challenging times, I became her advocate, accompanying her to countless doctor's appointments and researching treatments. My role as a source of comfort and information revealed to me the power of empathy and the need for more compassionate, patient-centered care.
This experience drives my unwavering desire to become a doctor. I aspire to bridge the gap between science and humanity, to provide answers and solace to families facing medical uncertainties, just as I did for my grandmother.
I am committed to advancing our understanding of complex diseases like MS and ensuring equitable access to healthcare. My journey alongside my grandmother has shown me that medicine is not just a profession; it is a calling to alleviate suffering and bring hope.
As I embark on this journey to medical school, I carry with me the lessons of empathy, determination, and the profound impact of compassionate care. My goal is to make a meaningful difference in the lives of patients, just as medicine has done for my family.
However, what sometimes happens when we are reflecting on our past and reframing parts of it for a specific purpose is that we get lost in our memories and can’t really judge anymore whether our text has a logical structure that a reader can follow.
The Wordvice free AI Text Summarizer can help you in such a situation, as it can check the logical connections between paragraphs and the overall logical flow of your medical personal statement: Copy-and-paste your statement into the left-hand box and click “Summarize,” and the AI will give you a list of the main points:
The author witnessed the impact of multiple sclerosis (MS) on their grandmother.
They accompanied her to appointments and researched treatments.
This taught them the power of empathy and need for compassionate, patient-centered care.
The author's goal is to become a doctor and bridge the gap between science and humanity.
They want to provide answers and solace to families facing medical uncertainties.
They believe medicine is a calling to alleviate suffering and bring hope.
Their goal is to make a difference in the lives of patients, as medicine has done for their family.
Now you can easily check the overall flow of your text and the connections between points and paragraphs, and can add or remove details as necessary.
AI resume personal statement example
A resume personal statement, or a career summary, is a brief section at the beginning of a resume that provides an overview of your qualifications, skills, and career goals. Its primary purpose is to grab the attention of potential employers, and it is therefore essential that it is intriguing, concise, and absolutely flawless. The free AI Proofreader can help you with the fine-tuning of this statement: paste it into the left-hand box, choose your correction level (light - standard - intensive - concise) and click on the flagged errors to receive feedback and make corrections:
Using AI Tools and Human Editing for Your Personal Statement
Even if you follow all these tips and make use of all that AI tools have to offer, it is a good idea to let a professional human editor proofread your personal statement AI-assisted version before submitting your application. Wordvice’s Editing and Proofreading Services, especially our Personal Statement Editing Services, are all you need to perfect your writing.