How many words in the personal statement?

[Premed315U]

How many words is the personal statement for AMCAS?

Also, how many words are the secondaries, usually?

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[pwrpfgrl]

I think someone posted that last year the online AMCAS allowed 5300 characters for the personal statement (I assume that includes periods and comma's, etc).

I think secondary essays vary - some can be just a few sentance response, and others may require a full page as well.

Please anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!

 

[mpp]

Yes, last year the PERSONAL COMMENTS section allowed 5300 characters (including spaces) and the PRACTICE VISION allowed 3650 characters. Since the will not have the PRACTICE VISION essay this year, perhaps they will give you more room in the PERSONAL COMMENTS.

 

[A. Caveman]

ridiculous how they threw in that practice vision crap just for us, and now it's gone. what a worthless essay.

PS. your personal statement, as you know since before posting you surely looked it up, should consist of 7 words.

"Let me in or I'll kill again."

 

[jofrbr76]

Whoa!!!

No practice vision? was this that essay of "Where do you see yourself in 10 Years" sorta thing?

What are they gonna have us write about now? Personal comments? What's supposed to go there? (other than obvious "personal comments")

joe

 

[Rhiana]

Word to the wise from someone who went through this last year. Remember that microsoft word calculates character count different than the application itself did. After i got the perfect personal statement when I went to paste it on the app. I had to many characters and had to chop it.

 

[mpp]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by jofrbr76:
•Personal comments? What's supposed to go there? (other than obvious "personal comments")
•••••Personal Comments is the section that most people refer to as their personal statement.

 

[pwrpfgrl]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by Rhiana:
•Word to the wise from someone who went through this last year. Remember that microsoft word calculates character count different than the application itself did. After i got the perfect personal statement when I went to paste it on the app. I had to many characters and had to chop it. •••••oooooh, thanks for the tip.

I was wondering why my page and a half essay only had about 3600 characters. I was afraid I'd have to think of two more paragraphs.

 

[mpp]

You do not have to fill all the space. Just like everything else (except for maybe beer and tequila the night after you get that acceptance letter) quality is better than quantity.

A succinct well-written essay would be miles above a essay full of fluff because you wanted to use every last character.

Good luck on the essays...

 

[Doc AdamK in 2006]

I would use every last character. I had 5298 character and it wasn't fluff

Keep working on it, don't make it should like fluff like the last person said.

Mine read almost like a story, easy to read and it didn't seem long ( that's what most people said)

I suggest "40 essays that will get you into Med School" to get you started.

It put me on the right track, because when i started I was way off.

AK