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RDtoMD106 said:
Hi all,
I recently finished the first draft of my PS (inspired by narrative medicine) and received pretty divided comments. One physician said that "you're not writing a story or a book", while another physician commented "very lovely and personal". I have several years of clinical experience (paid employment) so I centered my PS around patient encounters (my own+through shadowing). I plan to apply broadly but I'm very interested in programs that offer training in narrative medicine and humanities. Am I being too optimistic (delusional) thinking a narrative/story format would stand out? Appreciate your input!
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Your goal should not be to stand out. Your goal needs to be to clearly communicate your motivation and passion for pursuing a medical career and the experiences you have had that will make you an appealing candidate. Your goal is not to have an exquisite set of prose. Assume your personal statement will be read for a total of 2 minutes because your application will be reviewed in between patient appointments/procedures/late at night/early in the morning.

Your goal should be to craft a clear personal statement that is easy to understand by being very explicit.
 
GreenDuck12 said:
Your goal should not be to stand out. Your goal needs to be to clearly communicate your motivation and passion for pursuing a medical career and the experiences you have had that will make you an appealing candidate. Your goal is not to have an exquisite set of prose. Assume your personal statement will be read for a total of 2 minutes because your application will be reviewed in between patient appointments/procedures/late at night/early in the morning.

Your goal should be to craft a clear personal statement that is easy to understand by being very explicit.
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Wrong. You always want to stand out ( if you don’t, it is most likely sound like the rest of PS and will end up in trash pile) but stand out can be bad or good. Goal is to stand out in a good way, leave good impression and deliver a clear message why medicine? Why you? What will you bring? Etc. I am here have clinical experience prior medical school and I wrote my personal statement as a story. Everyone loved it and one school even quoted it in my acceptance letter.
 
RDtoMD106 said:
Hi all,
I recently finished the first draft of my PS (inspired by narrative medicine) and received pretty divided comments. One physician said that "you're not writing a story or a book", while another physician commented "very lovely and personal". I have several years of clinical experience (paid employment) so I centered my PS around patient encounters (my own+through shadowing). I plan to apply broadly but I'm very interested in programs that offer training in narrative medicine and humanities. Am I being too optimistic (delusional) thinking a narrative/story format would stand out? Appreciate your input!
Click to expand...
What the hell is narrative medicine?
 
frenchyn said:
Wrong. You always want to stand out ( if you don’t, it is most likely sound like the rest of PS and will end up in trash pile) but stand out can be bad or good. Goal is to stand out in a good way, leave good impression and deliver a clear message why medicine? Why you? What will you bring? Etc. I am here have clinical experience prior medical school and I wrote my personal statement as a story. Everyone loved it and one school even quoted it in my acceptance letter.
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Most folks who try stand out end up doing so for the wrong reasons. If you had read my post I wrote that OP should “clearly communicate your motivation and passion for pursuing a medical career and the experiences you have had that will make you an appealing candidate” which seems to be the gist of what you wrote, reinforcing my point. Thank you !
 
GreenDuck12 said:
Most folks who try stand out end up doing so for the wrong reasons. If you had read my post I wrote that OP should “clearly communicate your motivation and passion for pursuing a medical career and the experiences you have had that will make you an appealing candidate” which seems to be the gist of what you wrote, reinforcing my point. Thank you !
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I would not say most folk stand out for bad reasons. Why else would school pick someone to interview over others? They stand out for good reasons lol. Personal statement is a way for you to sell yourself Prior to medical school...you want to stand out instead of sounding generic...lol...and cool if that makes you happy lmao...even if I disagree to your answer...
 
frenchyn said:
I would not say most folk stand out for bad reasons. Why else would school pick someone to interview over others? They stand out for good reasons lol. Personal statement is a way for you to sell yourself Prior to medical school...you want to stand out instead of sounding generic...lol...and cool if that makes you happy lmao...even if I disagree to your answer...
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Clearly you’ve never been involved in application review when substantive numbers of applicants are involved and that’s fine. From experience, most essays that stand out do so for wrong reasons - they tried to be too creative or failed to hit their points or come across as having a savior complex. Those essays tend to get pushed to the side or rejected outright. Most essays that get moved forward in the process are not exceptional pieces of writing that should be published on their own. Instead, they tell the story with authenticity and it helps make a candidate appealing to interview further. Remember, we aren’t looking for the next Nobel laureate in literature. Some essays do truly stand out - excellent prose generated from truly compelling substance that make you feel as though there is something exceptional about the applicant. Like the applicant I accepted who wrote about recovering from the trauma of being evacuated from her study abroad program with her cellphone service being canceled by her older sister because her father murdered her little brother and mother and the sister wanted to tell the applicant in person instead of getting text messages from friends and neighbors. Or the applicant I accepted who grew up in a studio apartment in Dorchester with ten members of her family, learned a new language, attended the best public high school in the country after self studying for the admissions exam, only to find out at the start of her senior year that she was undocumented. Four years of doing app reviews for many thousands of applicants, and those two still stand out. The problem is, most folks don’t have those experiences in their background and would be wise not to make relatively trivial difficulties more significant to make the applicant seem substantive. The point is, conveying your why for medicine, clearly and concisely is exactly what an app reviewer is looking for.

I’ll leave it for the OP to decide how they want to write their essay, but standing out because of the style of writing is a poor strategy - it relies too much on the reader appreciating what you are trying to do.
 
The essay is not the most important part, imho. Focus on making EVERYTHING else in your application perfect--as well as the essay. Just my $.02.
 
I will concur with others in this thread. You don't want to stand out. One well-known adcom here on SDN stated something to the tune of 10% of essays they read each cycle stand out and 90% of the ones that stand out end up being to the severe detriment of the application. The adage is that your personal statement won't get you into med school but it will keep you out. I think it was @Goro that noted the key place where the essay can come into play is getting off a waitlist but your goal should be to avoid being waitlisted, to begin with.
 
GreenDuck12 said:
Clearly you’ve never been involved in application review when substantive numbers of applicants are involved and that’s fine. From experience, most essays that stand out do so for wrong reasons - they tried to be too creative or failed to hit their points or come across as having a savior complex. Those essays tend to get pushed to the side or rejected outright. Most essays that get moved forward in the process are not exceptional pieces of writing that should be published on their own. Instead, they tell the story with authenticity and it helps make a candidate appealing to interview further. Remember, we aren’t looking for the next Nobel laureate in literature. Some essays do truly stand out - excellent prose generated from truly compelling substance that make you feel as though there is something exceptional about the applicant. Like the applicant I accepted who wrote about recovering from the trauma of being evacuated from her study abroad program with her cellphone service being canceled by her older sister because her father murdered her little brother and mother and the sister wanted to tell the applicant in person instead of getting text messages from friends and neighbors. Or the applicant I accepted who grew up in a studio apartment in Dorchester with ten members of her family, learned a new language, attended the best public high school in the country after self studying for the admissions exam, only to find out at the start of her senior year that she was undocumented. Four years of doing app reviews for many thousands of applicants, and those two still stand out. The problem is, most folks don’t have those experiences in their background and would be wise not to make relatively trivial difficulties more significant to make the applicant seem substantive. The point is, conveying your why for medicine, clearly and concisely is exactly what an app reviewer is looking for.

I’ll leave it for the OP to decide how they want to write their essay, but standing out because of the style of writing is a poor strategy - it relies too much on the reader appreciating what you are trying to do.
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I think the problem here is we have different opinion on "stand out". For you, and maybe it is true that most people stand out for bad reason...but for me, "stand out" just means there is something about the candidates that I want to get to know more, aka I want to interview the person. So those who get interviews stand out more than others. If all the candidates sound the same and some don't "stand out" then how do you decide who to interview. Re-reading your post and mine, I think we may just look at the word "stand out" from different perspective. For me, as I explained above. Sure, I have never been involved in application review, but I have been through a lot of job interviews and such, those who sound generic Idk if I will even finish reading their personal statement let alone picking them.
 
frenchyn said:
I think the problem here is we have different opinion on "stand out". For you, and maybe it is true that most people stand out for bad reason...but for me, "stand out" just means there is something about the candidates that I want to get to know more, aka I want to interview the person. So those who get interviews stand out more than others. If all the candidates sound the same and some don't "stand out" then how do you decide who to interview. Re-reading your post and mine, I think we may just look at the word "stand out" from different perspective. For me, as I explained above. Sure, I have never been involved in application review, but I have been through a lot of job interviews and such, those who sound generic Idk if I will even finish reading their personal statement let alone picking them.
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The med school application process is substantially different. I hired and fired people for 2 decades before going to medical school and academic medicine is functionally insulated from the machinations of the private sector. Although no school will reveal their modality in entirety, the statistical analysis clearly points to MCAT score and GPA as the predominant factors for interview invites. Probably the fastest way to turn an auto-invite into an auto-reject is to have a whack-a-doodle essay.
 
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