# Personal Statement/ Statement of purpose



## giulia (Oct 22, 2008)

Hi everybody!
I know the most common advice about personal statements is to be yourself and be honest, but since it's almost my first time I thought maybe someone has some more tips about it...
I'm applying to the UCLA Directing MFA at the moment, then I'll probably try NYU, COLUMBIA and CALARTS as well.
Do you know anything about the specific schools?
Do you think it makes sense to write a different Statement for each school?

Thanks for your help!!

Good luck everybody,

Giulia


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## barbsteele (Oct 23, 2008)

I think it's certainly good to _customize_ your essay for each school, but since they're all likely to be asking for a lot of the same things, you'd probably be fine writing one general essay and tweaking it for each.


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## Jayimess (Oct 23, 2008)

That's what I did.


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## Zumbi (Oct 26, 2008)

I wrote the same statement for USC and UCLA.
BUT, for UCLA i did it short, to fit in 2 pages.

This because I didn't find the orientation about the statement for UCLA. 

DOES ANYBODY KNOW THE PAGES or WORDS LIMIT FOR THE UCLA STATEMENT?


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## wannabe2 (Oct 27, 2008)

I believe it is 2 pages, however, my question is do you think they would mind if I submitted 2 pages double spaced?


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## giulia (Oct 27, 2008)

Thanks everybody!
I believe it's 2 pages at UCLA, and I'm having a hard time with it...
There is a paper in the "downloads" section where to write the statement of purpose and I'm not sure what to write anymore, 'cause there's a kind of introduction where they insist on diversity and these kind of things - but I don't understand if it's a question or just an example...
did any of u read it and can tell me something about it?

thanx again!

Wannabe: sometimes they want it to be double spaced, but at ucla they didn't write it, so I guess it's ok.


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## wannabe2 (Oct 27, 2008)

I'm glad that you agree. I did notice that they did not preface that, so I'm just going to go for it. The worst is that they can say is the applicant wanted to provide as much information as possible.


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## Jayimess (Oct 27, 2008)

Personally, I only double spaced when specifically prompted to.  2 pages double spaced isn't much information at all.

For what it's worth, I just ran down to admissions on behalf of a friend who was fretting because he couldn't find 8x10 envelopes for the photo essay and wondered if 81/2x11 would suffice.

The answer is yes, that's just fine...for those of you asking the same question.  According to the woman I spoke with, there have been many inquiries regarding the envelopes.

Try not to overthink the small stuff, guys, and best of luck!


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## barbsteele (Oct 27, 2008)

Heh, that made me giggle a little. But only because I also had a minor panic attack over the size of the envelope (though I didn't go so far as to call them)


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## xavier039 (Nov 11, 2008)

I actually did call them, after I ran around town all day looking for one.  They said just find something close to it.  The small things are always the hardest.


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