Customizing personal statements in ERAS

[Socrates25]

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Most people use multiple personal statements because they are applying to multiple specialties, but thats not the case with me.

I'm only applying to one fellowship subspecialty, probably just a few programs, and I'm wondering how useful it would be to create customized personal statements for each program, especially my top 1-3 choices, obviously its untenable to create 30 different personal statements. The idea is that I could talk about specific faculty research interests and how I could fit in. I could also mention SPECIFIC program strengths that attract me, since almost all of the websites ask you to put something in there re "what are you looking for in a program" type thing.

Would this be helpful? Or would fellowship program directors frown upon it by seeing it as not flexible enough in terms of pigeonholing myself into specific research interests?

If I was a fellowship director I think a more personalized PS for my specific institution would be a lot more fun to read rather than a bunch of vague generalities, but then again I'm not in that position so I dont know how it will be perceived.

What's the peanut gallery verdict on this?

 

[HumbleMD]

Most people use multiple personal statements because they are applying to multiple specialties, but thats not the case with me.

I'm only applying to one fellowship subspecialty, probably just a few programs, and I'm wondering how useful it would be to create customized personal statements for each program, especially my top 1-3 choices, obviously its untenable to create 30 different personal statements. The idea is that I could talk about specific faculty research interests and how I could fit in. I could also mention SPECIFIC program strengths that attract me, since almost all of the websites ask you to put something in there re "what are you looking for in a program" type thing.

Would this be helpful? Or would fellowship program directors frown upon it by seeing it as not flexible enough in terms of pigeonholing myself into specific research interests?

If I was a fellowship director I think a more personalized PS for my specific institution would be a lot more fun to read rather than a bunch of vague generalities, but then again I'm not in that position so I dont know how it will be perceived.

What's the peanut gallery verdict on this?

It's 1) not expected. And 2) can go horribly wrong. There are too many stories out there of people intending to do this and uploading the wrong letter - it's not worth the risk. I could maybe understand if you had a SUPER compelling reason to attend a certain program. Other than that, a standard PS is the expected norm.

 

[J-Rad]

What's the peanut gallery verdict on this?

That nobody really cares about this. The PS is the most tedious and useless part of the application to go through. Your research interest will be elucidated in your CV and/or interview and "what you are looking for in a program" will be best laid out in the interview. Most of the time, when there actually is something spectacularly interesting in a PS, it comes to light from the person who had a few extra minutes and was bored and you were chatting and they said "Gee whiz, did you no that Dr. Socrates had one nut blown off in a tragic BB gun accident and that's why they want to be 'X'?" Write a reasonable, non-stupid PS, but I wouldn't expend much effort customizing for programs. One person's opinion.