The personal statement is called that for a reason. You have to do it on your own.
Me? I talk too much (you may notice my long posts lol), and when I write, it's usually long (but fairly good according to my MCAT, SAT, or writing course scores 😎 ).
One of the best - maybe the best - English teachers I ever had, Mr. Lahti for Honors 11 back in high school, had a max word limit on essay assignments (unlike 95% of other teachers at that level who have a minimum word/page count). The guy was great: easily smarter and more influential than most college language instructors I had afterwards.
Anyways, long story short(er): I'd finish his darn assignments, run a word count, and I'd be at 2-3 times the max. Well, you live and learn. One trick I picked up was that the first sentence of a paragraph is usually the most important one (the "topic sentence"); the last one is often pretty important also. That only holds true if you are a good writer... not being mean, just serious. Use that strategy and try to pare down your personal statement.
FYI, that first/last sentence trick also goes for speed reading, a very good skill for health professions students. Keep it in mind when you are reading good authors or well edited works that will have clear and imortant points made in the topic sentences; unfortunately, mediocre and poor authors will have more poorly structured texts. Example: I read about a dozen journal articles today (most good authors), and it helps me to use the topic sentence strategy: if the topic sentence is engaging or talking about something I don't know much about, I will then read the whole paragraph. If it's not, then I move on to the next topic sentence.
GL with the statement
