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shinchan

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Another thread about writing. This time I apologize in advance and hope not to offend anyone regarding writing style.

Again, because many of you must be good writers so I post it here. A friend who is in a law school (not a 1st tier school, but nevertheless....) thinks it was worth it for her but.... when I looked at the samples of Essayedge's critique works, particularly that about a salon owner's sick child, I am not impressed. I thought they just rearranged the storylines a bit.

On the other hand, I may be the one out of touch. Is it in vogue to write tearjerker like that for med school now? Many books I have seen (not by Kaplans or Princeton) all demonstrate essay style like that, a life story.

I want to write briefly about my reason for medicine, then quickly move onto the broader perspective of my vision for medicine and health research forged by my experience.

If you can chip in your two cent, that'll be great. Thanks in advance.

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shinchan said:
On the other hand, I may be the one out of touch. Is it in vogue to write tearjerker like that for med school now? Many books I have seen (not by Kaplans or Princeton) all demonstrate essay style like that, a life story.

You are not out of touch. If you try to make the adcoms cry, then they will probably try to do the same to you. You can tell them your story, but be professional, mature, and rational. Give concrete reasons for wanting to become a physician-scientist and not emotional ones.

I haven't heard any rave reviews about this essayedge thing, can anyone else comment? I have, however, had good luck with other SDNers reading my essays.
 
I would write in whatever style you feel comfortable with; don't try to fit a mold. I, for example, wrote about why I became interested in medicine and, subsequently, why I became interested in MD/PhD programs. I refused to write one of those tearjerker stories because to me most come off as overly dramatic and fake (though I have read some that are very well written and come off as very sincere). I just wrote what I felt was most important for the adcoms to hear and what was most like my normal writing style.

***I'm using the generic "you" in the following paragraphs, I'm not refering to you specifically, shinchan, and I don't mean to sound so pedagogical***
I've never used a service like EssayEdge, but they strike me as being a rip-off and dishonest (they will rewrite your essay for you, so that it is no longer YOUR essay). Why don't you instead visit your college's Writing and Career centers? Not only are these services free, but the people who work there are more than willing to work with you on a regular 1-on-1 basis. I must say that I'm biased because I've worked as a Writing Tutor at my college's Writing Center for the last 3.5 years.

Keep in mind that in addition to writing the AMCAS statement, you'll have to write numerous secondary essays and short-responses, and I doubt anyone would pay for a service like this to work with every essay. It is usually very easy to pick out a change in writing style, so I would imagine that if you use a service like EssayEdge where someone rewrites a portion of your essay for one essay, it could stick out to adcoms.

I also second tedrik's suggestion of asking fellow SDNers. There are quite a few people on here (including myself) who would be willing to read essays.
 
I actually used one (not essay edge, I don't remember what) that my mom paid for because she was worried. The service she paid for was for me to talk on the phone with a person for ~30min to go through and pick out possible topics and constructions and then I wrote up 3 outlines and he read them all and we talked again for~30min about which one seemed best and how to flesh it out. It was useful. I did then go to our writing center to check over the grammar.

Just to add another point of view, that they don't all just rewrite your essay. I think I could have done about as well on my own, but I think it would have taken me a lot more trial and error.
 
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