I agree, and disagree.
I think PS's can be useful, but less so for making actual interview decisions. They can help with driving an interview topic / direction. Unfortunately, with the AI LLM's, it's now impossible to tell what's actually written by the student and what's generated by AI. I guess one could say that it's now a measure of how good a prompt someone can write - which I guess is something. Prior to ChatGPT, the story wasn't much different, since there was no way to know if the applicant actually wrote the PS or paid someone else to do so.
Regarding the four suggestions:
1. If the PS is a "learning opportunity" for the applicant, then what use is it to a program? Reading the full text, I don't understand what they are trying to get at here. They mention that the PS is a "solitary" and "competitive" thing. Well, yes, it is. It's your PS to write as you wish, and assuming it's used for decisions it's competitive. The authors vaguely suggest that it should be a reflective exercise -- which is totally fine. But I don't get what they are suggesting.
2. Fostering community and collan - totally fine if applicants want to peer review their PS's. Not sure this changes much.
3. More specific prompts - I think this is a slippery slope. If each program has a unique prompt, you're begging for AI essays. Who has time/energy to write a different one for each program? Or, the applicant will take their PS and morph it to fit the prompt.
4. Interview questions involving the PS - I expect many programs do this, if there's something of value to talk about in the PS.
Unfortunately in most fields, I expect that most PS's fall into a few groupings. In IM, most PS's are one of the following:
1. Let me repeat my CV in prose format. These usually start with "First, I was kindergartner of the year" and go from there. Invariably they name drop their research mentors.
2. Why I want to do IM. Guess what? I expect your reason is no different than anyone else's reason. And, not very exciting.
3. Let me show you I read what's on your website by parroting it back to you. Presumably this is to show me that you "did your homework" and that you'd be a good fit. But honestly, I can usually tell that from the rest of your app, or it's obvious that you're stretching things to fit.
4. Let me tell you about a patient I took care of. Why would you do this? I see patients all the time. Usually it's to try to tell me about this "moment" when you knew you wanted to do IM. Problem is, that's what everyone else's PS says.
5. Start with a quote. Honestly, this one seems to have fallen out of fashion. Was all the rage 10-15 years ago and has faded away. Why would I care about what someone else said? And usually, the rest of the PS has nothing to do with the quote.
All of these are "safe" PS's. They are boring. Guess what? The term "personal statement" has two words in it. One of them is "statement" and that's not a very exciting word. You don't want your PS to be a statement. You want your PS to be personal. Tell me about yourself. Don't say anything about IM, or medicine, or patients. Don't tell me anything about your research project. Tell me something interesting about yourself, about your experiences.
