Advice and Guidelines

(compiled with the input and advice of Janet Eissenstat, Director of the President’s Commission on White House Fellows)

	Be consistent: The application should be a consistent whole. If there are apparent contradictions, explain them.
	Be clear and explicit: This holds true particularly with regard to your goals and aspirations. After reading your application, a reviewer should have no difficulty telling what your basic values are, what motivates you, and what you think about the issues you address.
	Make sure you “summarize” clearly and favorably: Reviewers read many applications and come to think of applicants in terms of one-sentence summaries (e.g., the ex Army officer Boston attorney who’s concerned with women’s health). Think of how you would summarize yourself, and write your application with that in mind.
	PROOFREAD AND SPELL CHECK: Such trivial errors won’t get you automatically disqualified, but they certainly do not endear you to the reviewers. The same goes for the word limits.
	Reign in your muse: Essays should be interesting, but don’t try to get too creative. Stick to the basic essay format.
	Be brief: If you can say what you need to say clearly and concisely in 150 words, don’t write another 50 or 150 just to fill up the word count.
	Questions 11-15 should stand alone: If someone were to read them out of the context of the rest of the application, they should still be cogent and comprehensible. However, the application is considered as a whole, so the disparate sections must be consistent with one another in context as well.
	Don’t send unrequested material: Supplemental information will not be considered, so don’t bother to send it.

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