How to write a motivational letter

I am enthusiastic about higher education and its potential to not only enable people achieve their dreams, but also to contribute to the economy through the development of human capital. Therefore, I have always been glad to help people go about the procedures of applications and admissions to university education. This being a peak season for many universities’ admissions cycles, several colleagues have contacted me over the past month or so to help them, mostly to review and critique their motivational statement/letters. The more people I worked with, the more I thought about writing a general guide to help perhaps even more people go about the process of crafting a motivational statement that best presents their personality and hopefully helps them stand out from the huge crowd of applicants.

This piece is the result of my contemplation about this and I hope that you, or someone else in your circles, find it helpful. The advice below, and hence the examples or illustrations used, was created with university applicants in mind (masters) but some or most tips may apply to other situations including but not limited to; bachelors, PhD programmes, leadership training programmes, exchange studies, summer/winter schools and scholarship programmes.

Follow the specified requirements

I must begin by making it clear that different universities have different requirements and hence will usually outline some instructions to guide you on what to include in a motivational statement. These instructions are paramount and must be followed over any advice you may receive from anyone.

Some universities or programmes may ask you to write a few short responses to a series of specific questions ¹ while others will give more open-ended questions or instructions and ask you to submit an essay of about 1 page ². The tips below are designed mostly with the latter situation in mind, but some generalities apply to all cases. For those with open-ended instructions, I usually recommend thinking seriously about the arrangement of the essay so that each sentence builds upon the other in such a way that they together tell a compelling story. It doesn’t help to bundle in all sorts of facts about your life and how awesome you are if it is all not written in a way that will even be remembered. Yes, your essay must be comprehensive, but it should also make a good compelling story ³.

Craft a compelling story

To help people create a good story line, I usually recommend following the order in the outline below that I recently shared with a colleague who was applying to a space sciences (aerospace engineering) MSc program at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. If you are not from the space sciences field, you may replace everything related to space with your own field of study and also replace the university as appropriate. Each of the questions below can be answered with one or more paragraphs of text, to ensure a clear logical story line for a motivational letter.

• Why I want to work in the space industry
• Why I need a master’s degree to be able to work in the above industry
• Why I want to study at KTH (and not any other university!!!) for this master’s degree
• Why I should be admitted to KTH

So, in following the above storyline, you should start the essay with paragraphs focusing only on how you came to be interested in technology and space and how you think you can make the world a better place by working in the space industry. Here you may include the inspiration that came from experiences in your childhood or other experiences that you have gone through that shaped your interest in the specific industry that you want to work in. The inspiration could also have come from working with a mentor for example, or some role model or idol that you have had in your life who you want to emulate. Tell all that here.

Then follow the above by trying to convince the reader that you really need a master’s degree to fulfill your dreams of working in space. Show them the critical skills that you need which you don’t have yet and can only get by doing an MSc. I would expect that you have a clear picture of what skills you would gain from the master’s you are applying for and therefore you should state all those reasons here. Please avoid generalities and specialize in specifics. Remember that there are several other applicants and many of them will be writing the usual generalities “This maters will make me equipped to work in this field”, “This masters will enable me fulfill my long-life dream” “This masters will be a good opportunity” and so you need to stand out by being very specific about what skills you want to gain from this study opportunity. You may have to do some research about your field of study/work to be sure what to include here.

Then you follow that by elaborating why you have chosen KTH, and not any other university in the world that does space sciences. This is where you write about all the good teachers and professors at KTH (you need to mention names) and infrastructure (e.g. labs that the university has) which would give you a competitive advantage, compared to studying at other universities. You can also mention the university’s ranking here, especially in your subject area, if they are good enough so that you flatter the university a bit! In the case of KTH for example, you could also mention why it would be a great inspiration for you to be taught space sciences by the Astronaut Christer Fuglesang! This is the section where you also not only praise the university but the city where it is and the country because they need to know why it is beneficial for you to study in this city and not another city or another country. What would it add to your career and quality of life to study in Stockholm, instead of your home town for example? Again, I emphasize the importance of doing some good research about the university you are applying to and the city/country where it is so that you can be very specific in this area. Being specific and including some interesting stats and facts is what will get you shortlisted.

Finally, you finish on a strong note by convincing the reader why YOU, of all prospective students, should be admitted to this MSc program or to this university. This is where you need to “brag” about your personal ability, you past and present academic prowess, your ability to handle a huge workload or study routine, your timekeeping skills, your ability to mix well in an international crowd of diversity and also tell the reader what contribution you will make to the other students, so that people can really see that they will miss a lot if they don’t admit you into the class. You need to be specific and give examples and statistics, e.g. “I led a team of 10 researchers to successfully finish a three-year project ahead of schedule and within budget and we won “Best paper presentation” at the African Space Annual Conference” That would sound much better and more serious that simply saying “I have strong leadership skills and I am able to do good research”. Of course, you should NOT tell lies, but the little you have done, you should present in a more compelling way. For example, instead of saying I have taught laboratory tutorials for one year, you can instead say “I have given 8700 hours of laboratory tutorials to students”. Just before your last couple of sentences, you need to especially emphasize that you are hardworking (by demonstrating with some examples e.g. of the workload you’ve been handling at your previous work or studies) and that you can handle the workload expected of a student at the university. This is especially important if you are applying to postgraduate studies because they want to know that you are serious and not expecting university to be only one huge fun ride like it was at undergraduate level! Then you close by letting them know that you look forward to receiving a positive response from them.

The above arrangement of your story enables you to showcase your strong points all through and in a way that each sentence builds on the other and finishes by making a strong case for you. I would love to know if this story outline makes sense to you and if you find it helpful so please send me a comment by email and include your own tips for motivational letters. They may be helpful to other prospective students in follow-up posts!⁴

PS: What makes me qualified to give advice about motivational letters? Well, I am not a university administrator and have never managed an admissions process but I have been fortunate and blessed to get into a few very competitive international programmes/institutions that I applied to and whose admissions procedures involved writing motivational statements including; The Total Summer School, the Education Without Borders Conference and Festival of Thinkers, the Global Village for Future Leaders of Business and Industry, the MSc Environmental Engineering and Sustainable Infrastructure programme at KTH Royal Institute of Technology and the Swedish Institute Study Scholarship. The above tips are an attempt to share widely the few lessons I have gleaned along the way.