Many school leavers in our country dream of quality education abroad. Some of them easily overcome difficulties and go to study in another country. Each European higher education institution has a number of requirements for foreign students. On the list of documents for admission to a higher education institution is a letter of motivation. Applicants are very wary of this item, as few people have experienced writing a letter of motivation. On our information portal Where to go, we will familiarise our readers with the concept of a letter of motivation.
What is it? When and how to write it?
It is a document in which the applicant describes his or her desire to study at the chosen university and why he or she should be admitted.
It is submitted together with the application package for admission to a foreign educational institution. We can say that this letter is the most important one among other documents. Why? Because the future student must describe his or her:
- abilities;
- principles,
- skills;
- their life stance;
- education;
- professional experience.
“Can I hire someone who can write a paper for me?”
The answer on the hundred percent is yes! You have to choose the most comfortable way for you.
The admission committee draws conclusions about the applicant from his or her application documents. It is the motivation letter that helps to build a picture of the student. Find out about his thoughts about his studies, his plans for the future, and about realizing his dreams through his chosen specialty and profession. And all this picture of a person is made by motivation letter. And it really is. The more informative and competent a letter is written, the more chances a prospective student has to reveal his or her personality, abilities, and experience, to emphasize his or her merits. After all, the aim of every higher education institution is not just to include smart people, but people who will charge others with their energy, motivation, experience, and knowledge.v
Algorithm of action
The job of an applicant is to write a motivation letter so that the admissions committee will pay attention to him/her, make him/her stand out among all applicants, and get interested. It is important to stick to this algorithm of actions when writing an essay:
Study the university’s requirements for writing a motivation letter. Each university has priorities, according to which the institution forms a list of its letter-writing requirements. The list contains the questions the admissions committee wants to see answered in your letter of application.
Create a structure for your letter of application. Before you start writing, you should clearly define for yourself the structure of the essay. Distribute what will be discussed in each of the parts. After all, you need to write about your goals, achievements, skills, and reasons for joining the chosen institution for this specialty.
Write a text. You need to write answers to all the questions that are among the requirements of the higher education institution to write a letter. Creativity will be a plus.
Check what you have written. Make sure there are no grammatical errors. Reread and make sure the text is literate and easy to understand.
How to write a motivation letter – tips for applicants
Before you start writing your letter, you are always thinking about how to make your letter special and different from others, and how to attract the attention of the admissions committee. For the essay to be successful, you should follow some tips:
- The motivation letter should contain as much information about the applicant as possible. After reading the essay, the admissions committee should feel that they got to know the person personally. Such an effect cannot be achieved if the information is laid out superficially and in an uninteresting way.
- Almost all educational institutions publish a list of questions that an applicant must answer in his or her motivation letter. It is better not to ignore these questions, but to give detailed answers to them.
- You should take into account all of the institutions’ requirements for writing your letter. Even if it is a request to write an essay by hand and the choice of ink color.
- Try to include in your letter questions about the choice of your country of study, university, major, and course of study. Put emphasis on why this particular institution will further your career goals. This is to give the college admissions committee an overall impression of the applicant and help it decide why he or she should be admitted.
- It is imperative that you present yourself in the best possible light in your motivation letter. Describe all your positive qualities, tell about your achievements and your plans for the future. Show your personality. You can describe examples from life. Such stories will tell more about a person than a list of her strengths and qualities. That would already be a good characteristic for an applicant. But, under no circumstances, you should not praise yourself too much. One interesting example from life will be enough.
- The writing style should be simple. The text should be clear, easy to understand, and well-written. Writing in English, which is little used in life, it is certainly difficult. But with a well-written motivational letter, there is an opportunity to improve your language skills while studying at a foreign institution. There is no need to exceed the limit set for motivation letters. Writing too much would be an indication that the applicant is not able to fulfill his goals.
- What would be superfluous in a motivation letter? It is not necessary:
- Add photos, pictures, and videos;
- Often use jokes in the text;
- Use an original format;
- Write about yourself in the third person.
Problems in writing a letter of motivation
It may not be possible to write a successful letter the first time. There are some problems to avoid when writing a story:
- Dramatic or arrogant statements;
- Unclear or vague sentences, and phrases;
- Listed achievements;
- Use of informal words, abbreviations, sayings, proverbs, and poems;
- Use of jokes. Members of the committee may not share the applicant’s sense of humor, so it is not necessary to make your motivation letter unusual in this way;
- Grammar and spelling mistakes. An essay with errors will give a negative impression of the applicant and his or her mental capacity;
- Long, difficult-to-understand sentences.
Checking the motivation letter
After you have written your essay, you should reread it several times. Pay attention to the style of writing, and grammatical, and punctuation errors. Sometimes, the author himself may not notice mistakes, so it makes sense to ask a professional to check the text. Or at least a person who knows the language and can check for errors in the text. And a professional consultant will not only be able to recognize mistakes but also indicate what can be tweaked in the structure of the text and suggest how to avoid standard, meaningless sentences.
So, the motivation letter is one of the most important documents submitted by applicants for admission to higher education institutions worldwide. Letters of motivation are carefully read by members of the admissions committee, which then decides whether or not the university needs the student. Letters of application should not be written at the last minute, but sooner so that you have time to think about every word you write and your decision to apply to a foreign university in a specific field of study