The following personal statement is written by an applicant who got accepted to graduate school of education. Variations of this personal statement got accepted at UPenn, NYU and UCLA. Read this essay to understand what a top personal statement in education should look like.

You might also be interested in reading this Sample Ed.M. Statement of Purpose that got admitted to Harvard.

Sample Personal Statement in Masters in Education

I remember volunteering for a non-profit. I counseled six girls from underprivileged families. Nasika was one of my favorites. I also remember aimlessly dunking my teabag in a flimsy paper cup, only to be interrupted by Nasika’s sudden but very crude observation. She wished to drink from my cup in hopes of morphing her dusky skin to a paler tone like mine, which had an eerie resemblance to our colonizer. And despite being from the same region, the skin wasn’t the only difference between Nasika and me.

Access to the internet, mobility, familiarity with the colonizer’s language, socio-economic background, and global awareness were all avenues where Nasika and I were opposite poles of the same magnet. And the one fundamental right that the two of us deserved equally was the right to education. Yet that, too, was polarized between public and private education.

Hence, I realized that policies for providing quality equitable education to children must be introduced. I helped intelligent and ambitious girls like Nasika learn the importance of a positive attitude and gratitude. I enlightened them about careers that they were previously oblivious to. In this process, I realized how much I enjoyed helping students, especially girls, with an unfair disadvantage.

To this day, the watertight compartmentalization of class within the education sector continues to worry me. My business degree has equipped me with the problem-solving skills necessary to confront our most vulnerable education challenges.

An elective I took called “Entrepreneurship and innovation in Education” introduced me to various education models. For example, the “Finland” model inspired me to work for the crimping state of the education sector. Thereon, every walk to class felt exhilarating. I learned about the operations of the education sector and investigated solutions to educational inequities in the public and private sectors.

Despite getting two job opportunities right before the COVID-19, both employers froze their hiring amidst the pandemic. However, I was motivated to learn and increase my skill set, so I took multiple volunteer initiatives. This period not only honed my soft skills but also strengthened my resolve. Similarly, my active contribution to societies like AUNUM allowed me to interact with myriad people and enabled me to communicate effectively.

My experience outside of my coursework made me grow fond of the education sector. I took the initiative to work at “Teach for America” and “The Citizen Foundation” to understand the most pressing needs of underprivileged children. Insightful discussions with the “Care Foundation” informed me that the government’s policy of providing tablets to students didn’t increase students’ understanding of concepts; rote learning was still present. The irony was that students were engaged with the device, not the content. The epidemic of rote learning is something I observed growing up, where I remember my geography teacher making us copy paragraphs from our textbook verbatim and telling us to rote learn concepts.

After graduation, I became a Research Assistant for a course titled “entrepreneurship and innovation in education”. This experience taught me that while technology can play a crucial role in providing a level playing field for students, in developing countries technology exacerbates educational inequities.

I know the inequities around quality education are too complex to solve quickly. However, small steps to alleviate them will help me get closer to my goal. With a degree in education policy, I plan to work in program development for nonprofit schools and create equitable solutions to deliver quality education.