Q, I am curious. Have you sat on an admission committee? I ask this b/c you have gone into some detail on this.
Yes, this is my third year serving as a student adcom. I read apps (including PSes!), interview applicants, attend adcom meetings, and vote on apps.
About the latter person's statement, I've found that people can be judgmental at times about other people and what they presume the person is about in whatever they are saying and writing. People can project in the negative from within themselves. It's the other person or the writer, not perhaps their biased or limited or negative perspective. That's hard, but it's a subjectivity that clouds things. Communication occurs on two ends, even if the onus for the message comes from the sender. Plus there is all kinds of static and other types of interference.
People are judgmental about other people the majority of the time, not only "at times," and I don't hesitate to include myself in that judgment.
If your argument is that I'm being judgmental by suggesting that quoting a famous person is intellectually lazy, I'll grant that. But in my defense, the PS is your opportunity to show yourself off in the best possible light. To emphasize this point: it is your opportunity to show *yourself* off in the best possible light. I don't have a ton of sympathy for most people who don't put the time and effort into writing an organized, grammatically correct essay. You know exactly what question you need to answer; you can think about what you want to say for months, even years; there is no chance that you might freeze because of being asked an unanticipated question; you are not under a strong time pressure to get the essay done; and you have the opportunity to use spell check and ask anyone else you want to read it. Presumably, you want to attend med school badly enough that you're willing to jump through multiple hoops to get here. I don't understand why expecting people to write a decent essay is too much to ask.
The benefit of sharing in person is that people can sense the non-verbal communication to get a fix on the person's level of sincerity and such. This can be much harder to do in writing. And then there are those that seem to achieve this, but then when you interview them in person, you get a different sense. I guess that is why a multi-tired approach is best in this whole application process. I like to cluster data when I evaluate things. I'm more holistic too in that I try to take in the whole person and define what may be influencing me. If the interview isn't matching up with the PS, I think it will come through. Chessy seems like it's a straightforward kind of thing; but that is not necessary so. That's all I'm saying; hence, chessy is as chessy does.
I agree that a person's written versus verbal vibes may be completely different, and that's why we interview people in the first place. However, you have to get through the screening first in order to be extended an interview. How sincere you might be in person is irrelevant in this context if you never make it to the interview stage in the first place.
Q, I genuinely appreciate your cerebral, straight-up style.
Well, my intentions are good, even if I'm not always as tactful as I could be.
Hmmm, maybe I'm oversimplifying this whole PS business. I honestly can't see stressing too much over it.
No, I don't think you're oversimplifying it. The general concept is very simple: explain in a properly written essay why you want to go to med school. Now granted, that's sometimes easier said than done. But hopefully anyone who is capable of earning a college degree is also capable of A) coming up with a reason why they want to go to med school, and B) writing about it in a coherent essay.
I guess I really do think we can over think writing the PS, at least initially. One thing we try to do with students is to get them to write honest feelings or positions, and they later work on content and other editing.
IMHO no one that is truly a writer does so without editing, editing, and more editing. But people can kill any kind of flow state by having all that pre-editing anxiety. I say go for honest flow and then go back after to cut, edit, re-word. After that you go back at least a dozen more times. When you are done with that, you let others tear it apart only so that you can go through this whole process all over again. LOL It's exhausting and humbling.
This is pretty much the same procedure that I follow when I write, too. Usually, my first draft of an essay is way too long, way too repetitive, and way too wordy. I end up moving half of it around to other places, cutting out large chunks, etc.
Well, let's see how's this for an essay? Seriously.
"I want to become a doctor because after working in the medical arena and some serious introspection I've decided that's the career for me."
It's rather simple and matter of fact. I'm not suggesting I'd write that, but it's certainly succinct and lacking in floweriness.
You know, AR, the best response to one extreme is not usually the opposite extreme.
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