Can you allude to other essays in your personal statement?

[BlueScar]

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I want to expand greatly on one of my experiences without going off topic in the personal statment. Instead, should I say" I will talk more about this in another essay", or something in the like?

 

[longhaul3]

I say no. If the experience is critical to your interest in and candidacy for medicine, include it in the personal statement. If not, we (readers) can find out about it in the experiences section. I have a relatively consistent way of reviewing applications before the interview and would not be inclined to go read the other essay as directed in a personal statement.

I applaud your commitment to staying on topic and being concise. It is very hard to write concisely, and I am always impressed with applicants who are strong writers. This is a change of perspective I had after I used to be disappointed in applicants who are weaker writers, which over time I came to realize are the majority.

 

[deleted947265]

No. No offense, but " will talk more about this in another essay" is just tacky. You can talk about one of your experiences briefly in a sentence or two in your PS. You've got 500-700 words so you need to make them count. You don't know what a school's secondary prompts are going to be. It just doesn't belong.

 

[MedSchoolTutors]

Try and keep the personal statement independent of references to the rest of your application. If it's core to your identity that will come across if a large portion of both are dedicated to it. For example, EMS was core to my identity and was all over both my PS and AMCAS. Because it was, I didn't have to break the fourth wall and tell them it was important, they knew.

David D MD - USMLE and MCAT Tutor
Med School Tutors

 

[Goro]

I want to expand greatly on one of my experiences without going off topic in the personal statment. Instead, should I say" I will talk more about this in another essay", or something in the like?

And if don't get a secondary, and thus don't have a chance to refer to those essays,????????

 

[gonnif]

And if don't get a secondary, and thus don't have a chance to refer to those essays,????????

Even on the primary; the evaluators who read the PS may or may not be the same who read EC/MM