Review and Revision
This is perhaps one of the most important essays you will ever write, so do not submit your first draft. Read it aloud, have a friend read it, then revise, revise and revise! While a few schools conduct personal interviews, in the vast majority of cases, the personal statement is your only chance to personally connect with the person who holds the decisionmaking power to admit you. Thus, if the essay does not feel right, never hesitate to revise once more. Make sure the essay has the overall content, tone and feel that you intend to convey to the reader.
Do not hesitate to analyze your essay line by line. Question whether each line fits and connects with the others. Ask whether it is concise, effective, and illuminates the general theme or supports an assertion. Make sure that all sentences follow the preceding ones in logical order. If something is not absolutely clear to you, it certainly will not be clear to the reader who knows nothing about you.
Eliminate all redundancies
Read over each paragraph and make sure that each is dedicated to a separate thesis or theme. Repeating the same topic or theme over and over again will bore the reader, and the essay will lack the professional feel that you are trying to convey.
Look at the essay as a whole.
Are there any missing parts which would aid your thesis? If so, go over your “paired” list (pairings of facts and personal attributes) and provide the material for the missing sections.
Support all assertion
Find any claims or assertions that are unsupported by facts, events, or other descriptive material. Compare “I am an enterprising individual” with “While going to college and taking a full engineering course load, a couple of friends and I decided to form our own software company …” If these gaps exist, use facts to link your particular experiences with the message you are sending. Every line should make logical sense, every fact must support and support your thesis.
Proofreading
The Final step of your writing process should be to have two or more people read your essay. One person should be someone very familiar with your personal background. If pertinent information is excluded in your essay, that person will be able to point it out. The second person should be someone who is casually acquainted with you. Since any areas in your essay which are unclear to this reader will also likely be unclear to the Admissions Committee, this reader should be able to point out the problems. Lastly, but very importantly, a third person should check for grammatical and spelling errors. You must make sure that there are absolutely no errors in your essay. After all, you are trying to convey a professional image of yourself. You’d be surprised how bad an impression a single spelling error makes on the reader. Reread, reread, and reread again!