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Including Personal Information in Your Academic Statement
The information that you include in your Annual Academic Statement draft can be as personal as you wish because the audience is primarily you. Your Annual Statement also can be seen by your faculty from your previous quarter and from any class you are registered for.
Including personal information in your Final Academic Statement is a highly individual choice because the audience is much broader. No one can tell you the right way to tell your story, and sometimes a little personalization can go a long way to leave an impression on those who may read your Academic Statement in the future.
When you should think carefully about including personal information: Some of your personal information is protected by law. These laws exist to prevent demographic profiling and discrimination in hiring practices and admissions to institutions of higher learning.
Your sex, gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, parental status, marital status, citizenship, immigration status, socioeconomic status, physical or mental health, ability, personal history with drugs or alcohol, housing status, and pay history (in some states) cannot be inquired about by potential employers, nor anyone making admissions decisions.
Even though some of these pieces of personal data are requested as part of the application process for university programs, they are still protected from some audiences. With the exception of financial information on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms, all demographic information is considered optional. Admissions committees do not have access to your FAFSA, and demographic information is redacted from the copy of your application that the admissions committee sees. This means that the only way they will know any of these things is if you tell them in the form of your admissions essay, letters of recommendation, in-person interview, or in this case, the Final Academic Statement in your transcript.
When including personal information may be beneficial: Sometimes, people’s identities relate directly to their academic study or professional work.
Someone whose personal experience adds expertise to a field they are pursuing may benefit from mentioning that experience. Examples of this might include someone who has gone through immigration, and as a result of that experience, was inspired to pursue immigration law, or someone whose personal exploration of gender identity inspired them to pursue becoming a social worker with a specialty in gender issues. If it directly relates to your field of study or professional pursuit, then you might consider including that information in your Final Academic Statement. Keep in mind, however, that anyone who requests your transcript will see this statement, and sharing such information may put you at risk of discrimination.
To share or not to share? Some questions to ask yourself:
• Would I be comfortable bringing this up during an interview or professional introduction? • If someone shared similar personal information about themselves in the first five minutes of meeting me in an academic or professional context, would it feel like they had crossed my boundaries or were oversharing? • Does this information need to be in this document? Can I share this information in another place such as a personal statement, cover letter, interview, or informal conversation? • Is there any chance I might wish to keep this information private in the future? • In ten years, will this still be true and applicable to my field of interest? If not, am I okay with looking back at my Academic
Statement as an artifact from a different time and place?
If you want to learn more about how to frame your personal information, see Essay Styles to Browse page 30 and What Genre is an Academic Statement on page 17. Every choice in this area is personal and wholly your own! Come chat with us at the Writing Center or talk to a trusted individual to get support.
