Anyone else having problem writing their personal statement? I spent 2 days and only wrote like half a page of what I considered crap, and I have been spending last 2 hours starring at the screen....
Arg Personal Statement is so hard!
- Thread starter Spiker
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Personal statement is not suppose to be easy. It should not be done in only two days let alone two weeks. Take your time to really craft it into a piece of work that best exemplifies you and your desire to become a physician. Then proofread, proofread, and proofread.
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It is a difficult endeavor, but once you turn out something of quality, you'll be extremely proud. What I did is I drafted bullet points of what I thought were moments that affected me throughout my life from as far I can remember. Helped me see how my persona was shaped. Not for everyone, but it helped me. Good luck!
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Oh, I forgot:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=536199
if you want some tips.
100 post milestone celebration!
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=536199
if you want some tips.
100 post milestone celebration!
ha thx I already read that numerous times 🙂
Btw For those who are having similar problems, writing it on paper seems to help me....
For some reason writing on paper is less formal to me therefore easier for me to write random stuff down! 🙂
Btw For those who are having similar problems, writing it on paper seems to help me....
For some reason writing on paper is less formal to me therefore easier for me to write random stuff down! 🙂
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and pictures. 😉
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Congrats!
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The good news is you have already started and put some thought into it. If you are anything like me, you won't think anything that you write will be worth a darn. You are going to have to trust other qualified people's opinions and let them edit for you. Just keep working on it. You have a lot of time to make your statement really stand out. I took me forever too.
Yeah man I'm totally with you, I'm also trying to get mine done during the holidays and it is proving difficult. But keep in mind alot of people write a draft and end up going back and erasing it and starting over, its just all part of the brainstorming.
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just to offer up some encouragement...you guys are starting really early (much earlier than I did), so nicely done. even with all the backtracking you'll get there with time to spare.
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Chill out, most people take months writing their personal statement! It should be a carefully crafted piece, not something you just spit out in a couple of days. So don't worry if it takes a while. 🙂
ill tell you that what you feel will never change. i felt like my PS was crap, all the little mini essays for my applications were crap, my interview was crap, and my thank you cards were crap. all crap. but i got in. still feel like crap though.
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I had to write a personal statement for my institution's pre-med committee process, and to be honest I didn't find it too difficult with respect to getting a general outline together. Now polishing the piece and making sure everything sounds great is a different ballgame, but just look at your experiences and identify which ones have been the most influential on your decision to become a physician. I'd simply spit out a draft and work on polishing it later; if you find that you can't meaningfully improve it, then write another draft. Now if you're having trouble coming up with things to write about, well, that's a little more difficult to fix...
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But it's such an odd question in my opinion. This is the first time I've had to rationally explain why I chose to embark on the journey of becoming a doctor... and worse, in 4000 characters or less. 🙁
Question: Who did you have edit your PS? I've heard of English teachers doing it, pre-health advisers, family members, etc. Just wondering...
Question: Who did you have edit your PS? I've heard of English teachers doing it, pre-health advisers, family members, etc. Just wondering...
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I know someone who had a lawyer edit his final draft (friend of family's I guess?)... It's def important enough, so why not? I'm having a few professors give me feedback as well as some med students and maybe some people on here...
That is of course after I WRITE IT.. I'm in the same boat as you, OP 🙁
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wow. It's interesting to see how many people have trouble writing their personal statement. I think something that would probably help, to those still in the process of building a strong application, is to think about what you are doing right now (with your ECs) and why, how it makes you feel and what you have gotten out of it. If you can't explain why you want to become a doctor, even in your own non-clever way, I think that's a huge problem. Your experiences in the clinical environment should help you understand yourself and why you are pursuing this road, especially since you are somewhat experiencing the field first-hand. From what I have gathered reading some of these posts, that seems to be one of the biggest issues.
I can see why it would be difficult writing the PS though, in general. Expository writing can be difficult and trying to set yourself a part from the pool is tricky.
I can see why it would be difficult writing the PS though, in general. Expository writing can be difficult and trying to set yourself a part from the pool is tricky.
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get down to brass tacks, think about why you even wanted to pursue medicine in the first place, then let ideas flow, as the year goes on, you can add to it...this is very early to be writing a ps so you ll be fine!
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Notice there's a list of volunteer PS readers stickied to the top of the PreMed Allo Forum. An old English teacher or writing center staff are ideal persons to ask to be sure your mechanics are right. A premed advisor is good to ask for content, as might be a friend who got accepted in recent years. A parent is good to ask if you just want positive feedback (J/K).
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If your school has a writing center-I'd suggest seeing if they will help you out. I didn't take mine because I didn't think of it then, but I brought a paper of mine to be looked at and heard a PS editing session going on. They sound like they really know what they are talking about. (at least at my school) Plus-it is free!
Oh yea, as Catalystik pointed out-there are a group of SDNers who volunteered to read and edit PSs (including myself).
I am proud of my own PS but it did not take me weeks and weeks to write it or edit it. However, my minor requires that I write eloquently, concisely and clearly about very complex ideas-so I have had a lot of practice. What I can say is that when you feel you are done-put it away for a week or so. Come back to it and if you still feel it is done-you got yourself a sparkly new PS.
Oh yea, as Catalystik pointed out-there are a group of SDNers who volunteered to read and edit PSs (including myself).
I am proud of my own PS but it did not take me weeks and weeks to write it or edit it. However, my minor requires that I write eloquently, concisely and clearly about very complex ideas-so I have had a lot of practice. What I can say is that when you feel you are done-put it away for a week or so. Come back to it and if you still feel it is done-you got yourself a sparkly new PS.
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i applaud your initiative. I wrote my PS within a couple of weeks to submit with my primary app. At the time, any serious changes people recommended to me had to be dismissed b/c I didn't have any time to rewrite. As hard as it is to put words on paper, you'll find it's much harder to keep under the character limit. I highly recommend getting other people to read your personal statement which includes counselors, premeds, and writing centers. The only thing is that chances are that they don't have a really good idea what the adcom's are looking for either most of the time, so they can't tell you what points you should bring up. They can tell you though if you need to elaborate more or if the tone of the paper is different than what you're striving for. This also includes things like a confusing overall theme or obstructed flow.
Some people will give you really good advice though, so you need to pay attention.
For example, for my PS, a friend and pre-med student, told me that it's not enough to write about how much I care but also that I'm qualified to be a doctor. In other words, I need to find a way to bring up my skills and abilities. That was the best advice I got bar none even from other SDNers who I asked to proof read my paper.
Some people will give you really good advice though, so you need to pay attention.
For example, for my PS, a friend and pre-med student, told me that it's not enough to write about how much I care but also that I'm qualified to be a doctor. In other words, I need to find a way to bring up my skills and abilities. That was the best advice I got bar none even from other SDNers who I asked to proof read my paper.
i got a lot of compliments on my PS at interviews and by my friends/family that read it. here's how i wrote mine:
sat down with a pen and notepad. made a list of everything i had done/thought about/seen/enjoyed/hated/whatever that made me think of medicine or doctoring. added to that list with important formative experiences/activities/whatevers that may or may not have been related to medicine or doctoring.
took a crayon (no joke) and circled the ones that seemed easiest to write about in purple (my favorite color). circled the maybes in blue (second fave). busted out the laptop and did stream of consciousness for the purples. some things were paragraphs or stories, and some were just phrases or ideas. did the same with the blues. printed it out. chose the best from all of those paragraphs/stories/phrases/ideas and tried to identify central themes.
tried to flush out the best of the best purples and blues into coherent vignettes or paragraphs or whatever. tried to string these together with a central theme. basically... wrote my first real draft.
got a lot of feedback. edited. feedback. edited. edited. got some space for a week or so. edited. feedback. edited. eventually i was done.
notes: feedback was from mom (a writer) and dad (a lawyer), and my mostly useless pre-med advisor. also some from peeps on SDN. this whole process took me about 3 weeks.
so... that's how i wrote my PS.
i'm happy to edit no matter what stage of the process you're in. check out the official PS readers thread if you want my "creds." 🙄
oh, and i should add that in the final product, i still had words/phrases/chunks from those original blues and purples.
sat down with a pen and notepad. made a list of everything i had done/thought about/seen/enjoyed/hated/whatever that made me think of medicine or doctoring. added to that list with important formative experiences/activities/whatevers that may or may not have been related to medicine or doctoring.
took a crayon (no joke) and circled the ones that seemed easiest to write about in purple (my favorite color). circled the maybes in blue (second fave). busted out the laptop and did stream of consciousness for the purples. some things were paragraphs or stories, and some were just phrases or ideas. did the same with the blues. printed it out. chose the best from all of those paragraphs/stories/phrases/ideas and tried to identify central themes.
tried to flush out the best of the best purples and blues into coherent vignettes or paragraphs or whatever. tried to string these together with a central theme. basically... wrote my first real draft.
got a lot of feedback. edited. feedback. edited. edited. got some space for a week or so. edited. feedback. edited. eventually i was done.
notes: feedback was from mom (a writer) and dad (a lawyer), and my mostly useless pre-med advisor. also some from peeps on SDN. this whole process took me about 3 weeks.
so... that's how i wrote my PS.
i'm happy to edit no matter what stage of the process you're in. check out the official PS readers thread if you want my "creds." 🙄
oh, and i should add that in the final product, i still had words/phrases/chunks from those original blues and purples.
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that's a pretty creative process, dw. seems like it worked well too.
