How to start on personal statement?

[pf1996]

What resources did you use when crafting your personal statements?

I have two great ideas, but its hard for me to connect them and give my statement some sort of "flow". I'm applying for the upcoming cycle, but my dental mentor gave me until the end of february to have my first draft down. If anybody could PM me samples or resources, or comment any tips, I would really appreciate it!

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[deleted891901]

I read a lot of other personal statements first, just google them or ask other people.

I then approached mine kind of like it was a story, more specifically it was my story of how I decided I wanted to be a dentist. I started by writing out all the reasons the reasons I wanted to be a dentist, and then went through and added more details about how those reasons came about, or just more details in general.

That made it easier to craft a cohesive story with a logical flow.

 

[PreDent_Eagle]

I basically described my journey towards deciding to pursue dentistry and how I’ve changed throughout college.



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[PreDent_Eagle]

Was a long process though


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[Life of Pablo]

One tip of advice: just make it sincere. Don’t try to fake it because they can read through it.

 

[artist2022]

Here are a few, hope they help you 🙂 Best of luck! Personal Statement Example

 

[pf1996]

Here are a few, hope they help you 🙂 Best of luck! Personal Statement Example

I've read through all of these, but tbh I didn't find them too helpful! I'm trying to be as sincere/non-generic as possible!

 

[MK9595]

I'm finishing up my personal statement right now and one person I felt that really helped me get started was Zia aka dental school coach. He has some samples on his website and even a youtube video going over a basic framework of writing a ps. I hope this helps you as much as it did for me!

 

[FeralisExtremum]

I've read through all of these, but tbh I didn't find them too helpful! I'm trying to be as sincere/non-generic as possible!

If you want it to be sincere, why look at other personal statements in the first place? The most sincere personal statement you can write is going to come from you alone, not the structure or flow of anyone else's work.

 

[Likkriue]

I wrote one generic as hell personal statement and got into like 7 schools. Honestly these adcoms probably have seen just about everything. They to me are a formality at this point. Just be coherant and write about yourself.

 

[DentalNucleicAcid]

^Agreed. There's not as much emphasis on the PS as one would think.

 

[pf1996]

If you want it to be sincere, why look at other personal statements in the first place? The most sincere personal statement you can write is going to come from you alone, not the structure or flow of anyone else's work.

I guess I’m also worried about flow, which is hard to achieve

 

[weaselodeath]

Bukowski used to say, "write drunk, edit sober."

I don't recommend you follow his advice literally, but you can follow the spirit of it. Write some unstructured essays about yourself. Try to be honest and emotional. After you've written at least 2-3 times the length of the piece you will end up with, go back, pick out the parts you need (which are not necessarily all the best parts), and create an essay with some narrative. The structure should be pretty obvious after some experimentation.

 

[jttzz112]

"Alright listen up dweebs. I'm the best thing that your dental school has ever come across. I'm hotter than tacos bells new nacho cheese fries so you tell me why I should come to your school. Reply within 7 days. Your welcome"

 

[MLC45]

I was told by a Dean of Admissions he’s read tons of stories about what inspired someone to become a dentist. He said he didn’t care about any of that fluff. All he wants is “Hi my name is...I was this type of a person before and I’m this type of person now...I’d would be a great dental candidate because...“.

I will admit I put a couple sentences of why I wanted to be a dentist and what inspired me, but no more than a paragraph. They seemed to like it. Applied to three schools and received interview invites from two of them. With a 19 AA that’s not bad.

 

[Auntymarkovnikov]

Make an outline before you start writing

 

[grapefruit!]

I tried to read some examples before I started writing, but I didn't find anything helpful. It's supposed to be a personal exercise.

The best advice I can give you is to just start writing. I opened a word document and started listing all of the experiences I've had that led me to dentistry, in no particular order. Then I went back and filled in the details about each of them, and tried to fill in specific stories and events from these experiences, because stories make a personal statement more compelling to read

Don't worry about flow or cohesiveness yet. Once you start writing, it becomes obvious what is most important to you and what is most sincere, because that's what you'll want to write about the most. Since you already have two great ideas, just start writing both! You'll figure out pretty quickly where the two converge or which idea you like better.

The harder part is the revision process--you have to be pretty ruthless with your cuts. The good news is, even if it all doesn't make it in your personal statement (it won't), all this extra material comes in handy with the extracurricular descriptions, the secondary essays, and answers for interview questions. It REALLY doesn't hurt to spend some time self reflecting on your experiences as you start the application process.

If you have any trouble, I'd be happy to read over anything you want to send me.

 

[jhan17]

What resources did you use when crafting your personal statements?

I have two great ideas, but its hard for me to connect them and give my statement some sort of "flow". I'm applying for the upcoming cycle, but my dental mentor gave me until the end of february to have my first draft down. If anybody could PM me samples or resources, or comment any tips, I would really appreciate it!

I mean you have to start with something and write down what you can first. From then, show it to your friends and others and revise it. For me tho, I had so much help from Brian from Gurufi. My personal statement was not concise and unclear. I thought hard on whether I should invest that much money on it, but it was so much better and my PS sounded much much better. I can send you my PS if you want me to.