AMCAS Personal Statement question

[DocDrakeRamoray]

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Anyone knows the exact question they ask when they ask you why medicine?

maybe last year applicants can look it up, copy and paste ? I would greatly appreciate it, I plan on starting to write my PS soon.

Thanks

 

[KeyzerSoze]

"Use the space provided to explain why you want to go to medical school. The available space for your response is 5300 characters, or approximately one full page."

 

[STLINI]

I'm just going to throw another random PS question on this thread. How formal do most people make their essays? An MD who has served on an adcom in the past told me they didn't need to be real formal, so I wrote mine with this in mind. Now a couple of my friends have read it, and they each said it was good, but very informal. So I'm wondering, assuming I use proper grammar and spelling, if its ok to be rather conversational and informal. Thanks!

 

[Appless]

If you send it to me I will review it for you and let you know if it is too informal or not. It is hard to say without knowing what it says. alternatively, you can look in books like Barron's medical essays book or The Princenton Review's Essays that get you into medical schoo book for examples of past successful applicants' essays.

The princeton book is excellent imo. It provided a large amount of essays from a lot of different types of applicants. Its a really great resource. Some of theother books are useless because every applicant got accepted into like harvard, duke, adn mt sinai...not everyone is a top student who has some once in a lifetime amazing event or expereince that occured to them. Not all of us were archelogists who traveled to sudan to find dinosaur bones or some crap (I remember one essay like this from a harvard grad).

 

[DocDrakeRamoray]

Thanks a lot.

 

[Bromination]

Is 5300 characters really only about a page? My personal statement is sitting at almost 2 pages right now. What should I do about this?

 

[BlueElmo]

Is 5300 characters really only about a page? My personal statement is sitting at almost 2 pages right now. What should I do about this?

Try using the MS word count.

 

[Bromination]

Just did the word count and I am at 5900 characters

I like everything ive got in there, but I guess back to the drawing board.

 

[DocDrakeRamoray]

Anyone knows if 5300 characters include spaces?

 

[aznb0y129]

Anyone knows if 5300 characters include spaces?

Yes, it includes spaces.

 

[Appless]

Keep in mind that the line between each paragraph is not counted on MS word but it is counted as a whole character on AMCAS. Just wanted to let you know. I just cut out the lines between paragraphs cuz I didn't want to delete anything.

I seriously have no idea how to cut it down. Ive had 3 of my teachers look at it and they each said that they like it the way it is and cutting any out would effect my essay 🙁. I guess its time to start using small words saving a character or two here and there.....thats all i can think of.