Including school name in PS Forum

[tpj070]

I have my PS drafted but I did not include a part about why I want to attend school X. Is this something that should be in all PS and if so should I write a part about that for each school I apply to?

[phillywc]

You absolutely don't need to.

Most people don't.

[mino]

You definitely don't need to. I know plenty of successful applicants to YHS who didn't include the name of the school in their PS. I'd actually say it's riskier if you do because there's a higher chance of you sending the wrong statement to a school and hurting your chances there (a lot of admissions offices talk about how often they get personal statements addressed to different schools).

[hill1334]

You definitely don't need to. I know plenty of successful applicants to YHS who didn't include the name of the school in their PS. I'd actually say it's riskier if you do because there's a higher chance of you sending the wrong statement to a school and hurting your chances there (a lot of admissions offices talk about how often they get personal statements addressed to different schools).

I would also add that I think that you can really take away from a well written personal statement by trying to tack on a paragraph regarding "Why X School?" at the end. Doing so can really detract from the flow of the statement, and frankly, particularly for the T14 schools, the main or only reason you want to go somewhere is often their ranking and high employment outcomes, which are not really reasons you need to tell the school about (though good reasons for attending they may be). If you have a really compelling reason you want to go to a school (e.g., your wife is getting her masters there or you are desperate to work in a particular city), then you should likely just submit a separate "Why X School?."