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I know, I know, everyone says you shouldn't write about study abroad, but I actually felt like mine was unique and so I wrote about it. Now as I'm going through articles, I can see that there pretty much is a consensus that applicants shouldn't write about it and now I have no idea what to write about. It's december. I'm waiting for my scores and my PS is finished but now I feel like maybe I shouldn't have written about Study Abroad?

My essay basically talks about my semester in Italy. I talked about taking a huge risk by enrolling in an Italian University where the courses were in Italian and I had to take oral exams (my Italian was primitive at best, but it was the only program available that my full scholarship would cover) But I went anyway because I've always wanted to study in Italy. I'm a history major and I'm a sucker for all the history embedded in the land. Anyway, I really struggled. I was the only student from my school who went and my roommates couldn't speak English, I'm a dark skinned African American and I experienced some hostility (I'm not straight off the boat from Africa, but the average Italian couldn't seem to tell the difference really), school was extremely difficult because, like I said, lectures were in Italian and I couldn't even communicate well with the students or make friends. I was miserable. But long story short, I pushed myself to the limit to learn the language and customs. I made friends with other exchange students and we formed study groups, went out and made friends with locals. I also met the love of my life (in my essay he's just a friend haha) who not only indulged me in the culture, but acted as my private tutor. In the midst of this, my grandmother succumbed to a heart attack and I had to leave the country and then come back just in time for finals, which, though I was suffering extreme emotional distress, I aced after months of extreme immersion into the culture and language. I came back nearly fluent and my professors in Italy were so impressed when I told them everything.

Anyway, that's just a summary of the statement. I want schools to take from this that I'm a risk-taker, persistent, curious, diligent, highly motivated, disciplined, open-minded, and outgoing.

What do you guys think?

Seems like it has the potential to be better than the typical study-abroad statements. However, it will have to be very good to overcome the eye rolling and bias that will take place as soon as the adcom realizes that it's another statement about study abroad. If it's well written and persuasive while bringing out the best aspects of your character then it will probably be fine. It's not like a personal statement matters much anyway unless you write it like a first grader

Whither the hate on study-abroad personal statements? I wrote mine on that and it didn't seem to hurt one bit.

acr wrote:Seems like it has the potential to be better than the typical study-abroad statements. However, it will have to be very good to overcome the eye rolling and bias that will take place as soon as the adcom realizes that it's another statement about study abroad. If it's well written and persuasive while bringing out the best aspects of your character then it will probably be fine. It's not like a personal statement matters much anyway unless you write it like a first grader

Thanks for your advice. The way the statement opens doesn't give it away that it's about study abroad at all actually. I had hoped to get them so engaged first that by time I get to the actually studying abroad part, they won't do any "eye rolling" lol. And I thought the PS is the most important after LSAT and GPA?

Vursz wrote:Whither the hate on study-abroad personal statements? I wrote mine on that and it didn't seem to hurt one bit.

Well that makes me feel a lot better. I don't get why there is so much hate. I get it if you went to an English speaking university, hung out with Americans and was pretty much a tourist your entire study abroad. That's pretty cliche. But I felt that my experience really affected my life in a way that no other undergrad experience has.