Focusing on Your Disability When Writing a Personal Statement
One of the most important things you have to think about when writing a personal statement is the topic that you're going to focus on. If you have a disability, you might want to consider this when you write your personal statement. You can write your personal statements with your disability as the theme. You have to consider, though, whether writing an essay that focuses on your disability will work for or against your favor. Remember that you have to make your essay sound confident and positive, instead of turning it into a sob story that makes you seem like you're only appealing for sympathy and pity.
Relating your disability to your goals
One good way to write about your disability is to relate it to your goals. Ask yourself questions regarding your disability and how it has affected your life. Have you always had that disability? If so, how did it make you different from others? If you weren't born with your disability, how did it change your perspective in life? Did it make you change your goals, or did it make you even more determined to pursue the goals that you already have? When writing a personal statement for law school, write about how your disability has influenced your decision to become a lawyer.
What to highlight and avoid when talking about your disability
When it comes to discussing your disability in personal statements, be wary of listing down all the obstacles you have come to face because of your disability. It is a given that admission officers already know that you had a hard time with your disability and that you are coping with the disadvantage of dealing with that disability, something that other applicants won't have to do. It is, however, important that you avoid stating many details about your disability that won't really let admissions officers gain insight into your personal side. For example, you might write about how you were discriminated against because you were different, or that you only had a few friends because others stayed away from you. But what would be better is if you would write about the insights that you gained from these instances, and not just give details about the instances itself. It would be good for you to write about what you learned and how the discrimination has changed your perspective about the world, and how having few friends make you value the ones that have stuck with you through time. This way, you will not only be talking about the adversities that have come your way, but also about how you handled them or what you learned from them.
Other subtopics that you can focus on regarding your disabilities
Just because you've chosen your disability as a theme for your personal statements doesn't mean that you can't talk about anything else. You can, for example, choose to write about your role model and how he or she has helped you deal with your disability. It can be someone who has inspired you to choose the program you'd like to take up. You can also choose to look at various sample personal statements so that you can gain ideas regarding subtopics that other disabled people talk about when writing their personal statements. Keep in mind, though, that although you can gain ideas from looking at a sample personal statement, you shouldn't copy it, and it's important that you keep your own personal statement unique and personal.