Getting Into Med School 4
Aisa Osayuki Estelle
December 10, 2015
6
The personal statement is arguably the most important part of your med school application (depending on who you ask). You have 5300 characters max to explain why you want to go to med school (this is usually about a page and a half long). There are so many paths to take when writing your personal statement so how you write is completely up to you. This website has a few examples of the directions people go with their personal statement. I highly suggest you check it out if you're not sure how to start. I'm going to give some general tips about what to incorporate in your personal statement and then I'll tell you how I wrote mine.
Personal Statement Tips
- PROOFREAD! You should type your personal statement into Word or something with spell check before submitting it to AMCAS. But mistakes include more the misspelled words. For example, if you write about a patient you met and you used a fake name (to maintain their privacy), make sure you use that same name throughout the entire essay. Also check for grammatical errors.
- Have as many people possible look over your statement. They're probably going to catch things that you didn't.
- The essay can't be changed after you submit it so make sure it's perfect.
- Make sure it's not just a narrative form of your resume ("I want to be a doctor because I shadowed... then I volunteered... In 1995, I worked...").
- Keep it relevant. If you want to mention how Dr. So-and-so had a great impact on your decision to become a doctor, that's fine. But don't spend two or three paragraphs talking about his achievements. Keep the essay about you.
- Be unique. It's likely that you and many other applicants will have similar experiences. Think hard and ask other people. What can you say about yourself that no one else can? Yes, you'll have some things in common with other applicants, but you're still different and there are things about you that make you special.
- Don't get fancy with your writing. No writing in all CAPS or only lower-case letters. Don't write a poem either.
- Don't lie about (or exaggerate) your life and do not plagiarize someone else's work.
- Avoid controversial topics. You could risk alienating someone who does not agree with you.
- Think ahead. You might be asked to explain details during an interview so make sure you feel strongly about what you wrote.
- Include specific experiences and how they impacted you
- Things to consider including
- Significant hardships or obstacles that might have affected your education
- Explain bad grades if they aren't explained elsewhere in your application - don't apologize or give excuses though. Talk about what you learned from it and how you improved.
- Note: when it comes to bad grades, it's important to have an upward trend. It looks really bad to explain what you learned from your bad grade but show no improvement in your transcript. That tells the committee that you didn't actually learn anything.
- Questions to consider
- Who are you?
- Why do you want to be a doctor? TO HELP PEOPLE IS NOT A GOOD ANSWER. Not by itself anyway. Most professions allow you to help people in one way or another so that doesn't explain why you want to be a doctor. Be specific. What happened in your life that made you realize medicine is your passion? What helped develop your interest afterwards?
- What do you want medical schools to know about you that hasn't been disclosed in another part of the application?
- How do your experiences prove that you have the characteristics you say you have?
- Keep in mind that the readers are not medical specialists.
My personal statement was kind of like a story (with a tone similar to this one, but with a very different delivery). I tried to draw the reader in with my first sentence, a short, interesting description of the scene (the hospital). Then I gave some background information (how I got to that place in my life) and introduced the conflict (it was huge!). This kept the reader interested. I then went further back, describing my journey to how I realized I wanted to be a doctor and I described experiences that reinforced that realization. Most of my essay described my time in college. I didn't just write about what I did in general (like when you input your 15 activities), I wrote about specific experiences while I was doing those activities. For example, instead of saying something like, "I volunteered at health fairs." I would say something like, "While volunteering at ____ Health Fair, I was exposed to ___ and learned___" (not that simply written but you get the point). I described the most meaningful experiences that not only geared me towards medicine, but also discouraged me from pursuing a Ph.D (the path I was taking when I first started college). I wrote about obstacles I faced and how I overcame them (I heard that it was bad to write about obstacles/challenges if you never overcame them) and how they helped shape my character. I also made sure to include what I want to do with my MD degree (where I want to work and how I would impact my community). Throughout the body of the essay, I kept connecting what I was writing to the story I started. Though I wrote a lot, I had one overarching story and I made sure that was clear.
I ended my essay back at the original scene and described how my previously mentioned life experiences affected what happened there. I revealed the larger underlying internal conflict and how I was able to solve it while at the same time concluding the story I began.
- I hope that makes sense. It's hard to describe my essay without being specific. But I hope that helped :)
- By the way, it took like 10 drafts (probably more) to perfect my personal statement. I recently read over my first draft. It was horrible! So start early.
If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to leave them in the comment section below. Or you can email me directly using the “contact me” section at the bottom of my blog. Stick around for more tips and information about what to do after completing your primary application.
