I got in.

I will be starting Master's studies in September. Thank God I deleted my first letter of motivation. It was filled with me, me and me.

"I am the perfect candidate for your program."

Full of passive tone, that was supposed to portray excitement.

Talk about you but get to business

I spent the day writing about me. Focused on telling them who I am, instead of what I am to them.

Theoretically it was a good letter of motivation. All the example letters from Google sounded the same. ChatGPT commended me (the highest compliment comes from a robot).

But it also sounded like I was forced to apply.

It read like an essay trying to fill a page to satisfy the teacher. It made me sound like another soulless robot that fake promises to commit to the degree, but ends up flaking.

But for the time spent writing it, I was missing crucial ingredient. A dash of "what are you getting out of me?"

What's in it for them to accept me? That's the question I should've asked before even daring to let a blinking cursor into the Word document.

A glimpse of personality

Letter of motivation shouldn't read like homework. It should read like "this person will invest into the effort that our degree takes and graduate in time."

They need to see a glimpse of the personality that shows you're serious. It has to be genuine.

I had been stressing over sounding a perfect candidate, instead of being one.

What it comes down to

Obviously they'd love to accept everyone. Especially the ones they like.

However universities don't run on pure intellectual fuel, but money. Money equals value. Do you want my kind words or money? Money feeds the poor. You need to win their hearts by providing the value they need. You want something from them. What do they want from you?

For every paragraph and sentence — ask yourself — so what?

How I set myself apart

How could I set myself apart against a thousand other applicants? Easy to break down and give up. There is one thing you can do to set yourself apart as a top applicant:

Learn everything there is to know about the degree like their course program and which ones specifically interest you (and why). To show them you genuinely care about the degree and poured effort into understanding it. To learn what they actually offer. You do this before getting anything out of them.

I began writing the letter with the wrong intentions…

It wasn't until my partner called me out.

"This is good, but it isn't the best."

I had to understand how I can bring the best value to them.

Avoid being generic by breaking the rules

Rules. Don't let us hear them, so we can blissfully break them, right? There is no perfect formula. You can figure out what's the best course of action based on the context and who you are.

I learned the rules of writing a letter of motivation, but it sucked. Instead, I wrote a new one where I didn't care about the rules.

Obviously you need to sound intelligible.

Grammar? Check.

But don't follow rules into a pit of lava, when you know it's gonna kill you.

Understand the magic that folds people's attention

If I can sum this entire article into one sentence, it's this:

People start listening to you, once you start listening to them.

And listening isn't passive. You respond to their words with actions. Merely staring at them and having words flow through the brain doesn't generate value.

It doesn't convince.

Get to know them inside-out and tell them how you're going to help them reach their goals. They already know you're trying to reach yours.

Don't make it about you.

Make it about them.

You will be rewarded for it.

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