HOW TO WRITE A GOOD MOTIVATION LETTER

WHAT IS A MOTIVATION LETTER & A PERSONAL STATEMENT? WHAT’S THE

DIFFERENCE?

A motivation letter explains the reason why you, as an applicant, would be the perfect candidate
for a university’s program/scholarship to which you are applying. It requires detailed research
into the university’s general academic environment and different programs from the student’s
part. Commonly speaking, the applicant would often mention his/her qualifications and
achievements in the past few years in a motivation letter.

A personal statement requires you to present yourself as a living, breathing person behind stacks
of transcripts and applications. Think of yourself as a reality TV show contestant and the judges
are the admission office at your desired university. Often, the contestants will usually tell
inspirational stories about themselves to impress the judges in order to have a chance to stay till
the final round. Likewise, you need to describe to your university about what kind of a person
you are and what happened in your life that led you to apply to this university. It also serves as
an informal ’guarantee’ that you will not be a future detriment to your university and that you
will fit into the university life just fine.

To some extent, a well-written motivation letter and a personal statement are almost
interchangeable since both serve the same purpose of maximizing the student’s chances to be
admitted/ to be considered as a strong candidate.

However, the main focus of a motivation letter is relatively more ‘practical’, which requires the
student to be more realistic while listing out his/her past achievements, qualifications and goals.
Meanwhile, a personal statement emphasizes on more ‘vague’ things such as personality,
ambitions and preferences.

ANALYSIS OF SAMPLE MOTIVATION LETTER

Part 1. Opening

Sample motivation letter template

Motivation letter tips for students in Finland

The opening line of a motivation letter should always state your purpose of application along
with a following line introducing yourself.

You can also combine the two lines in the form of ‘I am a xxx-year xxx major student/graduate
at xxx university and I am writing this to apply for xxx.’

The final line can be in various forms, e.g. a brief summary of your current state, what intrigued
you to apply or how is this application related to your current state.
Part 2. Main body ½

Motivation letter layout for new students

The second paragraph of your letter should focus on ‘selling yourself’.

Subtly mention all of your past achievements, academic performances and positive attitudes at
the early stage of paragraph

If you have limited academic/professional experiences, try to bring up your intangible merits
such as a can-do attitude, good language skills and people skills

Part 3. Main body 2/2

third part of a motivation letter template

The third paragraph should emphasize on your understanding of your prospective study
environment. The general purpose is to convince the admission office that you know what you’re
getting yourself into and that you have your own academic goals to achieve.
Add some personal tone at the latter half of the paragraph so that you can develop your persona a
bit further

You can choose to present your determination of application at either the final line, or the first
line of the last paragraph

Part 4. Final statement

Letter template

Sample layout of motivation letter

The main purpose of the final paragraph is to ‘ask’ the admission office to invite you for an
interview. Depending on what you are applying to, it may not be a deciding factor of the success
of your application.

If an interview is mentioned in the admission criteria, you should ask for an interview in
whichever way you are comfortable with, e.g. face-to-face, Skype and/or phone interview

Remember to enclose your accurate contact information

QUICK TIPS ON WRITING A MOTIVATION LETTER

Keep it concise

Although many websites encourage listing out all of your academic achievements and
professional experiences to add more advantage to your application, it is not often necessary.
During admission season, every university’s admission office would receive hundreds of
applications per day. If your motivation letter is too long and contains too much information,
most likely the admission recruiter will skim through your letter while missing out the main
points you were trying to establish in the letter. Therefore, write about your most noticeable
achievements, use abbreviations whenever possible and only give out the most relevant
information.

A mixture of professional undertone and personal background

As mentioned above, a motivation letter and a personal statement can sometimes be

interchangeable due to their similarities in content. Therefore, try to take both practical
information and coherence of the texts into consideration when you are writing. It will help
prevent your writings from being too tedious or boastful.

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