Have you ever considered what your values are? This might mean what you value (family) or be understood as character traits you’d use to describe yourself (determined or resilient). Discovering your top values (or at least the ones you’d want colleges to know about you) is crucial to writing your college essays. 

Are you proud of your creativity, curiosity, and loyalty? Do you admire philanthropy and service? Are you invested in saving the environment? If so, these are your values, and they belong in your essays. Your personal statement should showcase at least four different values. 

Remember: Correctly conveying your values will communicate what you can bring to a college as a future student. They help you “sell” yourself to the Admissions Officers. 

Consider: If it were up to you, wouldn’t you like to have a persistent, open-minded student who has learned the importance of teamwork attend your college? How about a committed friend who thinks outside the box? Sounds good, right? Well, you need to start thinking about what kind of student you want them to see when they read your essay. 

However, by setting this goal, we don’t mean you should litter your essay with sentences like, “I am a loyal person.” “My strongest value is my faith.” In these cases, you would be TELLING rather than SHOWING.

Showing: Uses strong verbs, sensory details (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch), body language, and dialogue to immerse the reader in the scene. 

Telling: Offers a straightforward explanation of events, often using adverbs and adjectives to name emotions without showing them through actions.

So, how do you SHOW your values? By using anecdotes and specifics! Share a particular story that demonstrates your value or why and how you developed it. 

Start the essay writing process by deciding on your top ten values. Then narrow those down to your top five, then your top three, and then your number one. 

Next, you might ask yourself why creativity is important to you. Is it because drawing your own comics helps you process complex situations? Did you feel pressure to become a doctor, so you took solace in writing songs? Give an example of this in your essay. Site a particular drawing or song and the circumstances surrounding it using detail.

Do you have several different examples that all demonstrate one central value? This value could be a great connecting thread or theme of your essay overall. 

No matter what, values are an essential part of brainstorming for and writing a personal statement. Need help deciding which values to highlight or how to show rather than tell? 

Contact us here.