Name: 5 Tips for University Applications: Essays, Letters, Statements, etc.
Uploaded: 2025-07-27T18:36:39.000Z
Duration: 24 min 30 s
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Hi everybody, welcome to www.engvid.com, I'm Adam.

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Today's video is mostly targeting people who are going to be applying to universities in English-speaking countries, Canada, US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, but also some other countries that have English-based schools that have a similar application process.

Now, those of you who are applying to these schools, especially graduate schools, but even undergraduate schools, you understand that the application process includes a sample writing.

Now, every school will have their own requirements, the things that they want from you, but all of them will have general basics that you need to send, and all the things I'm going to talk about today apply to any of the things that you're going to need to write.

So, first, what are the types of things you're going to need to write as part of your university application?

Some schools will ask for a personal statement, others will ask for a statement of purpose, especially graduate schools, or a letter of intent.

A statement of purpose and a letter of intent are essentially the same thing, okay?

Some will ask for a cover letter, just like you were applying for a job, you send a cover letter, they want a cover letter with your application.

This is more similar to the personal statement.

Some of them will just give you supplementary essays, so a lot of the applications will have an essay question, or they'll automatically ask for a personal statement, and then each university will give you a few more questions that you have to write short essays for.

So, make sure you know exactly what you need to submit.

Now, it's very, very important that you do not underestimate the importance of these pieces of writing.

Your application consists of transcripts, your resume, the actual application you're filling out, all these things, and a sample of your writing that shows who you are, what you want to do, why the university should accept you instead of someone else.

Sometimes this is what's going to decide whether you are accepted to a university or not.

If you're applying and there's a lot of other applicants with similar grades, similar experiences, similar extracurricular activities, what is going to make you different from the others?

This, the extra piece of writing that you need to submit.

So, the most important tip, I'm going to give you actually five major tips, but the most important thing that you need to understand right now, give yourself time to work on these writing pieces, okay?

Now, I've helped a lot of students with their application writing.

It's amazing how many people contact me and say, can you help me with my personal statement?

Next week is too late, like if you haven't already thought about things, you might not have enough time.

American students, Canadian students, UK students, etc., when they know they're going to be applying for university, they start writing these things a minimum of six months before the application deadline or before they're ready to submit.

Some people start writing them a year before.

Don't leave it until the last few days or the last week or two.

Give yourself two, three, four months, as much as possible.

Now, I'm going to start with a few general tips, and then I'm going to get into some more specific tips that you need to know.

Do not underestimate the value of good writing, and good writing is built on good vocab, good grammar, good structure, etc.

You can't write a sloppy statement or letter and expect the university to be impressed by you.

You can't have mistakes, grammar, vocab, or otherwise, and you have to be very clear, you have to be very convincing, and you can't be boring.

All of this has to do with language, so make sure the English is very good.

Do not write a personal statement or a statement of purpose and then send it.

You should go through five, six, seven drafts before you have your final draft to send.

Definitely don't send your first draft or your second draft.

Make sure you understand exactly what they're asking for.

Is there a word limit, like a word count limit?

For example, they say write no more than 1,000 words.

If you wrote 1,100 words already, you've already lost the opportunity to go to this university because they're not even going to read your application.

If you can't read a simple instruction, how are you going to understand complex instructions from your professors?

Make sure you understand what you need to do.

Some of the supplementary essays will say in 300 characters or less.

Characters means each letter and space and punctuation.

Make sure you know how much you're allowed to write.

If they say 12 font times in your Roman, times in your Roman font, 12 point size, make sure you don't write with a bigger font or a different font.

Make sure you know exactly what they're asking you for, otherwise you're showing that you're not a very serious student.

This is a personal essay, so it's okay to use the pronoun I, and you don't need to worry about fancy vocabulary, and you don't need to worry about transitions and all these things that you would use for the, you would need for the IELTS or TOEFL.

This is more of a personal story, so you don't need to be too academic.

You can be, you could use I, although you can use I in academic essays anyway, too, but don't be afraid of the I, okay?

Now, let's look at some more specific things.

Okay, so let's start looking at these statements and letters, etc.

The most common mistake I see when people send me their draft of what they wrote, what they want to submit, is that people repeat a lot of information that the admissions officers can see elsewhere.

So, don't forget, when you're applying, you're not only sending the statement, you're also sending your transcript, you're sending your CV or resume, for most schools ask for this, and you're sending a reference letter.

Somebody recommended you, like a professor or a co-worker or a boss, I mean, etc., so make sure that anything that I can see here, I shouldn't see in your personal statement.

Don't tell me about your grades, because I can see your transcripts.

Don't tell me about the job you had and how long you were there and who was your boss, I can see that in your resume or your CV.

Don't tell me that your boss really liked you, because he will have said that in the reference letter.

If you say your boss really liked you, but your boss didn't write you a reference letter, that makes you look very bad.

Either you're lying or maybe you misunderstood your boss's feelings, right?

Anyway, all of these things, the admissions officers will see first, before they read your statement or letter.

So, don't merely summarize something that they already know.

You have to make every word count and do something.

It has to have a purpose, it has to lead to some effect on the reader, okay?

Then, and this is another thing that a lot of people fail to do, I think.

When you're applying to a seat in a classroom in a university, it's very, very important that you remember that hundreds, maybe even thousands of other people are applying for that same seat.

Let's say for, in some programs, let's say they have 25 seats opening every year. 2,000, 3,000 students apply.

That means that close to 3,000 people are not going to be accepted.

So, you have to ask yourself what makes you different from those hundreds or thousands of other applicants.

Now, I'll give you a bit of a case study.

I've helped a few students from a particular country.

All of them applied to a particular program in the US, the same program.

Different students, same country, all wanting to go study the same thing in the US.

And I, this were different times, like different years and all this stuff, but every single one of them did the exact same thing.

She told me about her experiences and how they were very valuable and how they changed her perspective, then her work experience, and then what school she wants to go to, what she wants to study.

But each of these students, three completely different students, all wrote the essentially same thing.

So, imagine how many hundreds of others are also writing the exact same thing.

There's a crowd of students all saying the same thing.

You need to stand out and say something different.

Now, saying something different might sound easy to say, it's a very difficult thing to do.

You have to think very carefully about what makes you different, right?

And this is especially for the statement of purpose, but when we come to the personal statement, which I'm going to talk about next, the personal statement, a lot of people forget the word personal.

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5 Tips for University Applications: Essays, Letters, Statements, etc.

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