Essays in Applications

[FLCBRUIN84]

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For all those who have already applied in previous years, you know that there are essay questions for all applications. Most specifically SCCO, there are three questions:

What are your reasons for Applying to SCCo and how does SCCO fit your needs for an educational setting?

Why do you wish to become an optometrist and how did you reach this decsision?

What professional goals do you hope to acheive after recieving the Doctor of Optometry degree?

Typically, how long do you think these essays should be? It says to use a seperate page for each question, so no more than one page for question? The same goes for personal statements in other applications, how long should they be? Let me know please! Thanks!

 

[al-majhul]

For all those who have already applied in previous years, you know that there are essay questions for all applications. Most specifically SCCO, there are three questions:

What are your reasons for Applying to SCCo and how does SCCO fit your needs for an educational setting?

Why do you wish to become an optometrist and how did you reach this decsision?

What professional goals do you hope to acheive after recieving the Doctor of Optometry degree?

Typically, how long do you think these essays should be? It says to use a seperate page for each question, so no more than one page for question? The same goes for personal statements in other applications, how long should they be? Let me know please! Thanks!

Personal statement lengths are really pretty much dependent on whatever you need to say. Just make sure you're not saying way more than you need to. Don't be afraid to ask yourself, "Is this paragraph really relevant to the question?" If not, feel free to cut it. You want to be concise, but also don't omit important details.

That said, when I applied to SCCO last year (and yes, we had the same questions), my essays for those questions were 373 words (~1.2 pages), 1,614 words (5 pages), and 396 words (~1.25 pages), respectively. As you can see, length depends on what I needed to get across. I should mention that my essays must have been somewhat acceptable, as I did receive an invitation to interview -- although I declined to interview, so I don't know for sure if I would have been accepted.

 

[polkadot]

I used a different approach. I just took my standard PS (1.5 pages) and broke it up/rearranged it to fit into the 3 questions. I expanded a little bit more, esp. on the 1st and 3rd q's, to provide a more precise answer, but none of my responses were over a page long.
As long as you are able to convince them that you want to go to SCCO, I'm not sure that al-Majhul's way or mine is better. I was also accepted there.

-p.dot

 

[al-majhul]

I used a different approach. I just took my standard PS (1.5 pages) and broke it up/rearranged it to fit into the 3 questions. I expanded a little bit more, esp. on the 1st and 3rd q's, to provide a more precise answer, but none of my responses were over a page long.
As long as you are able to convince them that you want to go to SCCO, I'm not sure that al-Majhul's way or mine is better. I was also accepted there.

-p.dot

Actually, I used the same method. I just ended up expanding a LOT for the second question.

 

[star777]

For all those who have already applied in previous years, you know that there are essay questions for all applications. Most specifically SCCO, there are three questions:

What are your reasons for Applying to SCCo and how does SCCO fit your needs for an educational setting?

Why do you wish to become an optometrist and how did you reach this decsision?

What professional goals do you hope to acheive after recieving the Doctor of Optometry degree?

Typically, how long do you think these essays should be? It says to use a seperate page for each question, so no more than one page for question? The same goes for personal statements in other applications, how long should they be? Let me know please! Thanks!

What exactly is the third question asking?? Is it asking where I want to practice when I graduate or is it asking what I hope to achieve as an optometrist (with patients)? Thanks!

 

[al-majhul]

What exactly is the third question asking?? Is it asking where I want to practice when I graduate or is it asking what I hope to achieve as an optometrist (with patients)? Thanks!

I answered this question in two parts. I talked about:

(1) what sort of practice I wanted to work at -- making sure to mention why this particular type of practice was a good fit for me and my personality;

(2) what other sort of contributions I could make to society via my OD degree (aside from the usual humdrum of what I would do at a regular practice).