Example essays from non-traditional students

If you give me about a month, then I'd be glad to let you see mine.

I have to finish these finals first.

Then, yes, next on the list is this personal statement....

Lanced said:

I'm a non-traditional student applying this Spring. I've read some example personal statements to get some background before beginning actually write my own. I have "Medical School Admissions", and "Essays that Worked" but neither seem to contain many essays by non-trads.

I'm just curious to see how others present their career switch in the personal statement. I've been told its something that any non-trad should address.

Does anyone know of some example personal statements from non-trads? Your own would be great if you'd be willing to post it.

Thanks everyone

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I think those of us that are career switchers ABSOLUTELY have to address our career switch in the Personal Statement. Sorry that I don't have an example for you, but just answer the basic questions: What, When, Where, How, Why (esp. why) regarding your career change:

WHY are you switching careers, and WHY do you think medicine is the right career for you.

WHAT have you done to test that medicine is the right career for you so you don't switch out of medicine in "x" years, or worse, in the middle of Medical School. WHAT does medicine have that your old career didn't?

HOW are you going to manage all of the other responsibilities that you might have (family, etc) while you are in medical school. This includes financial.

....OK, I'm not real sure that there is a "when" question to answer, it's more of a "Why now?"

Hope that helps you get started. The advice that the books and this very website gives is still very relevant and you should still definitely talk about things that make you unique, etc in your PS. This part should be easier, since we have had more life expereince, and more time to reflect upon who we are. It's just that non-trad career changers definitely need to address their career change in their personal statement, as well.

This is all in my opinion. I haven't yet applied/been accepted to Med. School either!

Good Luck to You!

Jota

I suggest starting a journal too. This really helped me with my PS. After I volunteered, worked in the lab, had a random thought on why I wanted to do medicine/research, I wrote it down in the journal. My first draft of the PS was a lot of run-on thoughts, but I had tons of material and was able to edit it and cut some stuff out. If you have writer's block like me, it might help get you started. Just a suggestion...

jota_jota said:

This is all in my opinion. I haven't yet applied/been accepted to Med. School either!

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That has definitely been known to work.
Bear in mind that the only thing nontrads have in common is that they aren't going directly from high school to college to med school. (That and the fact that we are all really really good looking ). So there is not going to be any sort of typical formulaic essay used by the "average" nontrad.

Lanced said:

I'm a non-traditional student applying this Spring. I've read some example personal statements to get some background before beginning actually write my own. I have "Medical School Admissions", and "Essays that Worked" but neither seem to contain many essays by non-trads.

I'm just curious to see how others present their career switch in the personal statement. I've been told its something that any non-trad should address.

Does anyone know of some example personal statements from non-trads? Your own would be great if you'd be willing to post it.

Thanks everyone

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I came to my decision to become a doctor after a long convoluted process. I had to fail out of school and get a job working for a doc before I had an idea that I wanted to go MD. Even then, I only decided to dedicate myself after lots of thought and lots of clinical experience volunteering in an ER. But because I failed out and had low grades, it became an even more twisted path as I was rejected by med schools again and again. Finally it paid off.

My story, including how I failed out of school, was what I wrote about in my PS. How did you decide to chase this dream? If you're a non-trad, you probably decided to do something else for awhile. Why did you do that 'something else?' What made you change to MD? What things will you find in being a doc that you didn't have before?

You have all of these stories inside of you - just let them out. Then revision the heck out of them.

Law2Doc said:

...Bear in mind that the only thing nontrads have in common is...that we are all really really good looking...

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and if a brain's intelligence was manifested in size, then we'd all, like, have gigantor heads. So big, that we couldn't move. And stuff. Yeah.

I'm a non-trad upcoming dental applicant. In my essay I talked about how the skills I have aquired in my current position will translate to dentistry and how they have made me a stronger/more rounded applicant. Also, coming from a career, you will have a different and usually more mature perspective than a student coming straight out of undergrad, that is another topic you could tie in.

Talk with someone you trust about why you want to be a doctor, how you came about that decision, and how you supported that decision. Hopefully your friend (or family) will discuss things about you that they observe in your process. Also, they can help you pick apart reasons why you didn't become a nurse, PA, etc.

If you're still looking for essays, PM me and I'll send you mine.

Lanced said:

I'm a non-traditional student applying this Spring. I've read some example personal statements to get some background before beginning actually write my own. I have "Medical School Admissions", and "Essays that Worked" but neither seem to contain many essays by non-trads.

I'm just curious to see how others present their career switch in the personal statement. I've been told its something that any non-trad should address.

Does anyone know of some example personal statements from non-trads? Your own would be great if you'd be willing to post it.

Thanks everyone

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Ditto- if anyone is still looking for examples, PM me and I will send you mine.

i'm also having difficulty with this darn PS; i thought it'd be easy since i love writing! if anyone wants to share their PS, please send it my way!

I'm doing sort of a structured jounral. I'm writing several essays, each one with themes I think might work. I'm then going to have outsiders read them, and tell me which one, or which parts, are the most powerful, and go from there.

One tip. Don't directly connect your experiences to medicine right off the bat. Let your accomplishments speak for themselves. It makes for a more elegant essay, and less contrived.

rgerwin said:

One tip. Don't directly connect your experiences to medicine right off the bat. Let your accomplishments speak for themselves. It makes for a more elegant essay, and less contrived.

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Agreed and

vtucci said:

Ditto- if anyone is still looking for examples, PM me and I will send you mine.

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Hi,

Could you send me your essay?
thanks a lot

Hey,

Could you also send me your essay?

Thanks.

Y'all inspire me. I was about to settle on a different degree than the MD, but after reading the posts here, I'm going to give it one more shot.
Thanks.

I just spoke with my advisor here in post-bac, and I was surprised that I was being encouraged to talk with more passion, and more of a personal edge to my story. In crafting the essay, I was trying to be straightforward and objective, which you do need to do -- but the advice I got was to inject as much of that passion as possible, that sense of "aha, so THIS is the thing I was looking for."

That, and be specific about what you bring to the other side of the equation... sure, finding our purpose in life was nice, and we're dedicated people, but be specific about what we bring to the table. It's a huge advantage to us that we've gone through this process -- face it: how good could we have possibly been at introspection, at age 22? But then we need to meld that sense of being sure to specific things we know about ourselves -- which is good news because we have previous work history to tell us that.