Can any adcoms comment on the best personal statement they've ever read?

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Ronaldihno517

Ronaldihno517

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I've always heard that the personal statement is one of the least important aspect of applications, with a few exceptions. Nonetheless, I've always been curious as to what makes a personal statement exceptional.
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I believe that no one has a true story about why medicine!! No one does!!. Frankly, some residents told me that so I really do not know what make ones exceptional.
 
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gyngyn said:
They can definitely be deal breakers. They are rarely deal makers.
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What's the best essay you've ever read? When was an essay a deal breaker (if you can elaborate on the contents of the essay that made it compelling, that would be really appreciated!)?
 
northernlights15 said:
What's the best essay you've ever read? When was an essay a deal breaker (if you can elaborate on the contents of the essay that made it compelling, that would be really appreciated!)?
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A blow by blow description of an illicit sexual experience is probably not a good idea.

Haiku is really hard to pull off.

Self destruction is a hard topic also.
 
Oh. My. God. lol

Did that person garner an acceptance or II anywhere that cycle?
 
northernlights15 said:
My bad, I thought you were able to see where everyone applied/interviewed/got accepted/waitlisted and all that jazz that after April 30 or something.
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If we had interviewed them, we could see acceptances.
 
gyngyn said:
A blow by blow description of an illicit sexual experience is probably not a good idea.

Haiku is really hard to pull off.

Self destruction is a hard topic also.
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Did that essay make you laugh, or did it make you cringe?
 
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I'd imagine the best PS to be something like this:
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After a while they all look alike. Your question is like asking "what was the best pumpkin pie you've ever had?"


Ronaldihno517 said:
I've always heard that the personal statement is one of the least important aspect of applications, with a few exceptions. Nonetheless, I've always been curious as to what makes a personal statement exceptional.
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Goro said:
After a while they all look alike. Your question is like asking "what was the best pumpkin pie you've ever had?"
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You've never had any pumpkin pie that you would call "exceptional"?
 
I'd say the best ones are the ones that answer "why am I choosing medicine" without being pretentious, overly labored or, as gyngyn said, inappropriate/irrelevant. There isn't really one thing that makes a PS great (besides answering the right question), but there are a whole lot of things that can introduce a lot of suck.
 
There's not much of a difference between a good pumpkin pie and a bad pumpkin pie.

Although one Thanksgiving, my sister-in-law made a veggie pumpkin pie that was, frankly, revolting. No mean feat.


Ronaldihno517 said:
You've never had any pumpkin pie that you would call "exceptional"?
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There's no such thing as an excellent personal statement. There's only "good", "average", "weak", and 13 levels of "ZOMG don't interview this person EVER".

(or so I've heard)
 
Occasionally, an interviewer will mention a "well written" or "beautifully written" essay.

I've never seen one pull a marginal candidate from wait list to accept, but I've definitely seen bad ones sink a candidate.

I suppose we'll just have to endure the idea that a PS can somehow magically get you accepted as a pre-med urban legend.

Spinach Dip said:
There's no such thing as an excellent personal statement. There's only "good", "average", "weak", and 13 levels of "ZOMG don't interview this person EVER".

(or so I've heard)
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Goro said:
I suppose we'll just have to endure the idea that a PS can somehow magically get you accepted as a pre-med urban legend.
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The more luck (or the illusion of luck) is involved in an activity, the greater it will become acquainted with various superstitions.

See: superstitions in baseball
 
The best PS I read was from an applicant who suffered a high spinal cord injury in high school and talked about that experience within the context of his/her decision to become a physician. It was genuine, meaningful, and made clear that he/she had done some serious reflecting on both his/her own experiences and what "being a physician is" at its core level.

Obviously I'm suggesting that in order to write an excellent PS, you must first suffer a spinal cord injury.
 
Goro said:
There's not much of a difference between a good pumpkin pie and a bad pumpkin pie.

Although one Thanksgiving, my sister-in-law made a veggie pumpkin pie that was, frankly, revolting. No mean feat.
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I disagree with Goro on this. There is a world of difference between good pumpkin pie and bad pumpkin pie. But it is an apt analogy for the PS.

A really good one is not much better than an acceptable one. Even the most exceptionally awesome examples are just doing it right... approaching a standard of quality that you expect. There isn't any GOOD way to make it stand out that haven't all been done before a dozen times, so that they are all just pleasant variations on a theme.

Bad ones, though... usually someone has tried some "novel" approach, broken some of the unspoken rules in the pursuit of a product that will be memorable in some way. If you can recall it, it is probably because it wasn't very good at all. The more easily you can recall specifics, the more likely it is to have been remarkable... for its failure.
 
Moving away from our culinary diversion, what my learned colleague mentions is 100% true. We will often look at secondaries in Adcom meetings and they can salvage a borderline candidate onto the accept list.

The secondary essays seem much more important now then the primary PS[/QUOTE]
 
gonnif said:
I thank the right honorable gentleman from West of St. Louis for his kind remarks and now Mr. Speaker, I yield the floor (far too much coffee this morning though it would have gone well with pumpkin pie)

BTW, my favorite secondary question from last cycle and one which advisee had the most trouble with was

"What was the most fun you had this past year"
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I remember that one. I said San Diego Comic Con. Didn't get an interview, but hey, it was honest!
 
gonnif said:
I thank the right honorable gentleman from West of St. Louis for his kind remarks and now Mr. Speaker, I yield the floor (far too much coffee this morning though it would have gone well with pumpkin pie)

BTW, my favorite secondary question from last cycle and one which advisee had the most trouble with was

"What was the most fun you had this past year"
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USC.....
 
Personal statement tips: Every single sentence should add something and be vital to the flow and structure of your piece. Every word should have a purpose (absolutely no filler words). If you remove a sentence, it should feel jarring. Everything most flow from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph.

Finally: make it interesting. Grab the readers attention early on and don't let go. I'm sure they're at risk of falling asleep so wake them up a bit if your background allows. Active voice etc.

Basically all your standard writing tips that everyone seems to throw out the window, with an emphasis on being exciting or interesting.
 
gonnif said:
BTW, my favorite secondary question from last cycle and one which advisee had the most trouble with was

"What was the most fun you had this past year"
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I didn't know schools went out of their way to encourage applicants to make **** up. Are they judging applicants based on their ability to lie and not get caught?
 
gonnif said:
Trying to find out if students are well rounded. Like a hobby, a trip, something other than cramming for MCAT and the rest. Holistic admissions is real, we dont want any ****, Dip
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Sry. I'm sure there is a reason (which you explained), but to me the question just screams "lie to us (1000 character limit)"
 
gonnif said:
6) Lastly, which I will credit to my freshman english TA years ago. Write it WITHOUT the words "I", "Because" "Also" "However" "Additionally" and similar. BTW I mentioned this to dean of admissions at the UC Davis Conference a few years ago and he said they started word count for "I" in essay.
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How does one write a personal statement without using I? Genuinely curious what you mean by this.
 
gonnif said:
Well some students actually do fun stuff or at least dont perceive lying as the first response to a career that places a high value on ethical behavior.
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I don't think it's about being honest or dishonest. It's about appropriateness. It could be that the most fun one had all year was getting ****faced at a party or going to Coachella but why would anyone say that in an interview?

Also, I mean one can easily say the highlight of his or her year was building homes for Habitat for Humanity or playing bingo with residents at a nursing home but would you believe them?

I feel like most adcoms will have a "-_-" type of reaction to it but will let it slide.
 
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northernlights15 said:
I don't think it's about being honest or dishonest. It's about appropriateness. It could be that the most fun one had all year was getting ****faced at a party or going to Coachella but why would anyone say that in an interview?

Also, I mean one can easily say the highlight of his or her year was building homes for Habitat for Humanity or playing bingo with residents at a nursing home but would you believe them?

I feel like most adcoms will have a "-_-" type of reaction to it but will let it slide.
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I am now very tempted to begin my answer to this question with, "the most fun I had this year involves putting certain body parts into certain orifices, and is highly inappropriate for polite company, let alone a medical school admissions committee. The most fun I had that meets the required standards for decorum is..."
 
is it really that hard to come up with a normal answer for "The most fun you had" question...?
 
Unrelated to original post but related to USC's secondaries....I personally find the nickname question to be the hardest. :arghh:
 
One of the deans mentioned that one of the most memorable personal statements they read opened up with "I bear the burden of a privileged life." It sounds like a super dangerous way to open up a PS but the way this kid wrote their PS focused discussing how he/she didn't really have any true hardships and his/her struggle with understanding and being able to truly relate to those less fortunate than her.
 
But see, the question does not ask what you do that's outside of being a pre-med; it asks what was "the most" fun. That one gets intoxicated at a party could easily qualify. What if said premed had had a surprise party organized by friends who wanted to to something special, and at the end of the party he ends up drunk? Or becomes intoxicated enough to do something he wouldn't normally do, like sing loudly off-key in front of strangers? What if after the alcohol subsides, he realizes that even though it's a rare occurrence, it was actually a fun one? Or it made him realize the kind of friends he has, who would organize a party to cheer him up? Or is that not "fun" too?

Or should we subscribe to the idea that we should have fun, but it should be medical school approved as well? I hadn't given much thought to the question before, but it does seem to me that this sort of question might not be a very useful one.
 
Just look at this http://summa.stanford.edu/resources/samplestatements.doc. It is a collection of personal statements of students who were accepted by Stanford (perhaps real since it's from Stanford's .edu domain) The subjects people write about in their PS vary highly.

Before I wrote my PS, I read through these to get an idea of what I might write. Some of them were extremely interesting to me. Some of them put me to sleep.
 
blink3 said:
How does one write a personal statement without using I? Genuinely curious what you mean by this.
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I don't think it is essential to avoid any use of the word "I," but it can be overused, and that may say something about the person.

There was a strong case made that excessive use of "I" in writing denotes a subordinate position, while its relative absence indicates a writer of higher status. http://jezebel.com/5906235/what-your-pronouns-say-about-you-and-power
or http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304626104579121371885556170
 
After having 5 different professors read my personal statement, none of them commented or even mentioned anything about using the word "I". My personal statement talks about a lot central to one theme, and I used the word I many times throughout. Is this some unwritten rule that I shouldn't have it in my personal statement? Now I'm starting to get paranoid, especially after having refined my personal statement probably 50 times by now.
 
HybridEarth said:
After having 5 different professors read my personal statement, none of them commented or even mentioned anything about using the word "I". My personal statement talks about a lot central to one theme, and I used the word I many times throughout. Is this some unwritten rule that I shouldn't have it in my personal statement? Now I'm starting to get paranoid, especially after having refined my personal statement probably 50 times by now.
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The use of "I" (or not) sounds like it depends on the reader.

I've never heard of this "rule" until today.
 
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