How long is it? (Don't embellish)

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How long is it?

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I'm not so grump
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Just a fun little poll to enhance everybody's neuroticism. I just cut out the portion of my personal statement that talks about my weird grade trend (so that I can use it for secondaries), so I'm ~4000 without a conclusion. Feels weird.

Feel free to explain why, or not...
 
Who cares how long other people's personal statements are? Write the best personal statement for you. If you can accomplish everything you want to say in 4000 characters, so be it. Better to have 4000 characters of quality than 4000 characters of quality and 1300 characters of crap and filler.

But you should have a conclusion. Write one.
 
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Ismet said:
Who cares how long other people's personal statements are? Write the best personal statement for you. If you can accomplish everything you want to say in 4000 characters, so be it. Better to have 4000 characters of quality than 4000 characters of quality and 1300 characters of crap and filler.

But you should have a conclusion. Write one.
Click to expand...

I am writing one. I don't care how long other peoples' are, which I why I said this is just a fun topic (poking fun at the neuroticism of this forum).
 
Practically at the maximum. even with over 50 edits it's hard not to end up right at the maximum. There's so much to say and so little room. Expecting to sum up your entire lifetime reasoning of why medicine into a few experiences that say why medicine is infuriating and there's so much pressure if your explanation wasnt sound.
 
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Chillbo Baggins said:
I'm pretty sure 4500-5000.

Oh wait. We're not talking characters in Game of Thrones??
Click to expand...


SOMEONE'S DYING TOMORROW!!! Oberyn vs The Mountain Round 1!

My PS is about 5800 characters right now so I have to trim it down a little bit, which is tougher than I thought.
 
I wonder what the lengths of the shortest successful personal statements are
 
Mine was exactly 5000 characters when I put it in.
 
A long one only helps if you know what you're doing- otherwise, too much length you don't know what to do with just results in some pain on the part of the person having to deal with your efforts. A shorter one works fine as long as you know how to work it, and it's much harder to screw up if you're to the point and don't have all that superfluous length. If you don't know how to properly use the extra length, you aren't doing yourself any favors by having it, so just make it as long as you think you can handle properly and no longer, or else you risk a poor performance and the adcoms never calling you back.
 
Mine is far shorter than the maximum limit. I am sure I will add more to it in the next few passes. Precise yet concise, and all that. I see no point in boring admission committees with my drivel.
 
Mine was at 5000 for the longest time but ended up at being around 4300 when it was all said and done! Have you guys heard of the Hemingwayapp.com? Pretty interesting tool for some last minute editing.
 
teefero said:
Mine was at 5000 for the longest time but ended up at being around 4300 when it was all said and done! Have you guys heard of the Hemingwayapp.com? Pretty interesting tool for some last minute editing.
Click to expand...
Interesting. I plopped my PS in there to see what it said. It could be a useful tool to help refine, but definitely don't take its advice as Scripture.
 
If you have a spare 500 characters, why not just use it to at least tell another anecdote? This is one of the only places on the application that you can make yourself look unique and human.
 
teefero said:
Mine was at 5000 for the longest time but ended up at being around 4300 when it was all said and done! Have you guys heard of the Hemingwayapp.com? Pretty interesting tool for some last minute editing.
Click to expand...

Hmm, interesting. I put mine in for fun, and it was quite critical, XD. Nonetheless, I think my statement worked well enough for me. But it could definitely be a helpful polishing tool as long as you take the suggestions as just suggestions.

Oh, and my statement was pretty much right at the limit--I was fighting tooth and nail for every character at the end, haha.

EDIT:
I pasted in the first passage by Hemingway I found online, just for lols:

Grade 17 reading level (lower than 10 is ideal)
Readability: bad
5 of 18 sentences are hard to read.
8 of 18 sentences are very hard to read.
5 adverbs, aim for 1 or fewer.
5 words or phrases can be simpler.
5 uses of passive voice, aim for 4 or fewer.
 
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BeancheBlanco said:
If you have a spare 500 characters, why not just use it to at least tell another anecdote? This is one of the only places on the application that you can make yourself look unique and human.
Click to expand...
no-thank-you.gif

Your anecdotes shouldn't fill space like that. If it wasn't critical to the core of your PS to begin with, it's probably superfluous and a waste of time for both you and the adcom that has to read your PS.
 
My PS plan of attack was just to write what I wanted to write, then cut it down to size. IMO it's better to be cutting out stuff that's not absolutely essential than to be sitting on 4000 characters and pondering whether you should tack on some more (which you probably shouldn't if you're happy with what you cover in 4000 characters).
 
Mad Jack said:
Your anecdotes shouldn't fill space like that. If it wasn't critical to the core of your PS to begin with, it's probably superfluous and a waste of time for both you and the adcom that has to read your PS.
Click to expand...

In an essay, you have a theme with general points. You give evidence so that the reader will believe your general points. Anecdotes are a form of evidence that everyone has. With such a short essay (1 page), I don't think drowning the reader in repetitive evidence would be an issue. I think everyone can find a couple small stories that show unique things about the applicant and give a more wholesome reason for the reader to believe your general points and theme. I'm not talking about filling space for the sake of filling space. I'm saying that everyone should be able to find enough meaningful evidence to bring up in only 5300 characters. That's just my opinion.
 
BeancheBlanco said:
In an essay, you have a theme with general points. You give evidence so that the reader will believe your general points. Anecdotes are a form of evidence that everyone has. With such a short essay (1 page), I don't think drowning the reader in repetitive evidence would be an issue. I think everyone can find a couple small stories that show unique things about the applicant and give a more wholesome reason for the reader to believe your general points and theme. I'm not talking about filling space for the sake of filling space. I'm saying that everyone should be able to find enough meaningful evidence to bring up in only 5300 characters. That's just my opinion.
Click to expand...
What you're missing is that the PS shouldn't be an essay, it should be a story. It should have a key focus or event and a beginning, middle, and end. Anything stretching beyond that focus will be obvious to a person that reads hundreds of personal statements as a pointless addition. It is very difficult to add a meaningful, well-integrated anecdote to a narrative using only 500 characters without disrupting proper narrative structure.

Every time I read a personal statement that looks like a list of accomplishments and events that might as well be bullet points, my soul dies a little.
 
Mad Jack said:
What you're missing is that the PS shouldn't be an essay, it should be a story. It should have a key focus or event and a beginning, middle, and end. Anything stretching beyond that focus will be obvious to a person that reads hundreds of personal statements as a pointless addition. It is very difficult to add a meaningful, well-integrated anecdote to a narrative using only 500 characters without disrupting proper narrative structure.

Every time I read a personal statement that looks like a list of accomplishments and events that might as well be bullet points, my soul dies a little.
Click to expand...

that's why you should write the essay with the intention of overshooting, and then cut it down by eliminating wordiness, weaker sentences, etc. I agree that you shouldn't write a 4500 character essay and then slip in a poorly transitioned, out-of-place, 500 character anecdote.
 
snowflakes said:
Hmm, interesting. I put mine in for fun, and it was quite critical, XD. Nonetheless, I think my statement worked well enough for me. But it could definitely be a helpful polishing tool as long as you take the suggestions as just suggestions.

Oh, and my statement was pretty much right at the limit--I was fighting tooth and nail for every character at the end, haha.

EDIT:
I pasted in the first passage by Hemingway I found online, just for lols:

Grade 17 reading level (lower than 10 is ideal)
Readability: bad
5 of 18 sentences are hard to read.
8 of 18 sentences are very hard to read.
5 adverbs, aim for 1 or fewer.
5 words or phrases can be simpler.
5 uses of passive voice, aim for 4 or fewer.
Click to expand...

HA! Ya I had spots like that. It just made me read it over more. It's like anybody's advice though. you just take it for what it is but don't necessarily alter your essay! I found the passive voice tool pretty good though being I was trying to paint a vivid picture so that helped a lot.

Hahahaha, I'm sure your PS is great. I cannot wait to never look at mine again. I read others on that medapplicants website and after the first sentence I'm like NOPE. Don't need to compare myself right now.
 
It's like 5100 (840 words), after cutting out a lot of stupid stuff. For some reason it seems like I need to say a lot more than I needed with undergrad essays (which were usually all 400-700 words long).
 
Last year 5288 and that was with some trimming, I'm still working to come up with the refresh this year but I anticipate it will be somewhat shorter. Id rather it be more tight and concise than say a lot of the things I want to say but having a tougher time connecting them (if that makes sense)
 
teefero said:
Mine was at 5000 for the longest time but ended up at being around 4300 when it was all said and done! Have you guys heard of the Hemingwayapp.com? Pretty interesting tool for some last minute editing.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the app! It's pretty cool and somewhat useful
 
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