UConn’s Genetic Counseling admissions committee feels that a Personal Portfolio is an important piece in a holistic admissions process.
Your Personal Portfolio titled “YouConn” will include a written personal essay and a short video presentation.
Personal Essay
We are looking to learn more about you and the process that led you to this application. To demonstrate knowledge about and active engagement with the genetic counseling profession, your personal essay will address the following two (2) prompts.
Prompt 1: What have been the purposeful steps you have taken since identifying genetic counseling as your chosen career toward achieving your goal of admission to UConn’s graduate program in genetic counseling?
Prompt 2: Successful graduate students have the resilience to persevere and can find ways around obstacles. Please provide a self-reflection about an authentic, impactful challenge in your life; the way you found a way past or around the challenge, and what you learned about yourself during the process.
Formatting
- no more than 3-pages in length addressing only the two prompts
- 1.5 lines or double spaced
- a Sans Serif font size no smaller than 10.5
- margins 0.75-inches to one inch on all sides
- applicant Match ID # in lower right margin/footer for each page
- do not include your name in the written document
Video Essay
We can read about your skills and accomplishments within all other documents in this application packet, however, we want to meet the “real you”. Your video essay will show how your “you” and UConn can come together to make your career goals a reality.
In a 2-minute video, you will:
- Introduce yourself,
- Share a facet of yourself that makes you special or unique, and
- Explain how this uniqueness can contribute to your future career goal successes.
Listed below are two very short examples that we’ve cut out from statements for a Health Care Genetics MS Program to give you an idea of types of “unique skills/qualities”.
- I can bake a 3D sculpted fondant cake that looks exactly like Spiderman while the kids are sleeping; recipes require strict attention to detail, remaining calm under pressure with little sleep, and answering many questions over and over again at the 4-year-old’s party with the same answer phrased in a different way.
- I like trying new extreme sports and pushing the limits of my own boundaries. This graduate educational program will challenge me and keep me motivated for the rigorous classes and training ahead of me.