What is one place that you absolutely should be looking if you are looking for
inspiration, whether you're working on an application, writing essays for your
application or secondaries, or whether you're preparing for CASPer, MMI,
or some other interview format? I'll tell you in just a second but first why
should you listen to me? Well my name's Dr. Sarah Kleeb and I'm an admissions
expert at BeMo Academic Consulting where I work with students every day on those
exact kinds of projects and help them think through ways to articulate their
narrative, present their best self, and demonstrate that they're a good fit for
the institution to which they are applying. So that one place that you
should look that not a lot of students think to look is at the statement of
mission, vision, and values of the institution to which you are applying.
Every university and most institutions have or has a statement of mission,
oftentimes also a statement of vision and values, sometimes these are all
together sometimes they're separated out, but it is really a remarkable place to
understand the institutional values of the place where you are trying to become
a student or continue your education and a good way to see what they're actually
looking for in applicants. If they're looking for someone who is a "good fit",
well what does that mean? That means that they want someone whose mission, vision,
and values align with their own. After all, one day when you finish your
education their diploma is going to be on your wall, their name is going to be
following you around so they want to make sure that you're going to be a good
representative of their institution, So I'll give you an example I went to
the University of Toronto and the University of Toronto's mission
statement, particularly their statement on the purpose of the university is
really fascinating to me so I'll read a little bit of it to
you and I'll talk just for a minute about how something like this might be
useful to you. So in their statement on the purpose of the university they say
the following: "Within the unique university context, the
most crucial of all human rights are the rights of freedom. Freedom of speech,
academic freedom, and freedom of research and we affirm that these rights are
meaningless unless they entail the right to raise deeply disturbing questions and
provocative challenges to the cherished beliefs of society at large and of the
university itself." The first time I read this I was actually in grad school at
U of T, I had been part of the institution for a little while but I've never read
it's mission statement and now that seems like such an odd thing to me that
we would align ourselves with these institutions, organizations and not know
what values they represent and so I frequently recommend to students at
every stage of the admissions process, look at their mission statement. Because
what does this say to me this says that ideally, ideally, institutions don't
always live up to our expectations or even their own ideals but ideally, this
would be an institution that values trenchant critical thought, that values
discourse around ethical challenges and things like that, and regardless of what
discipline you're going into, those kinds of ethical challenges are things to
which we must all contribute through our dialogue with one another and through
our practices as professionals. I was just doing a really great interview prep
with a student where we came across the this new idea of precision medicine
which is to say medicine that is customized at the individual genetic
level, so drawing on all kinds of genetic research to see if we can provide
treatments specific to that person's genetic code. And there are
all sorts of ethical tensions and ramifications around that. And I might
not have thought to even consider that if I hadn't looked at the organization
or the institution's mission statement to see what kinds of research they value
and prioritize. That let me down a little bit of a link rabbit hole where I ended
up with this which is this new initiative of this particular
organization. So it can be really fruitful if you even have just writer's
block I know that application season isn't here yet but you should be
thinking towards it if you're thinking in that direction so if you find
yourself with writer's block as you're doing your initial personal essays or
something like that check how your institution, your school's mission
statements, see if there's anything that sparks your interest or gives you the
the creativebug so that you can write a little bit more. If nothing else even if
you don't get inspired to write something by it, your search won't be
fruitless because you will know the mission, vision, and values of that
institution and therefore you'll know the mission vision and values of your
own that you need to really highlight, draw on, explain, and make accessible to
the admissions committee. Because they want you to be a good fit. And what does
that mean? That doesn't just mean that you got a good GPA, that you've done well
on admissions tests, that you've performed scholastically in any
number of different ways. You're probably already doing those things, but good fit?
That speaks to your core right that speaks to who you are as a person on a
fundamental level. And so to be able to consider their language and their values
and translate them back to the institution through your own narrative?
That's how you show you're a good fit. So I hope that you enjoyed this short video.
If you did please go ahead and like it, share it with a friend who might benefit
from it, and feel free to comment with any questions you might have.
Shortly after this session is over I'll ensure the video
is accessible for those purposes and if you'd like us to help you, please click
the link that should appear either above or below this video to schedule a free
consultation and we'll set you up with one of our admissions experts to answer
any questions you might have and to get you started on your preparations. We have
many different programs to suit your needs and we're happy to work with you
to determine which plan will support you most effectively. Thank you so very much
for your time, take care, and I'll see you next time!