I will finish a passable personal statement tonight

[harposnarpo]

Now that I've said that, maybe I'll stop avoiding writing the silly thing.

I'm at 4500 characters right now, but not good characters.

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[amph119]

I remember saying that about a month ago.

...

MAYBE I'll be submitting tomorrow.

lol :]

 

[135892]

Good Luck!

 

[harposnarpo]

Thanks for the wishes. As I'm at to 5419 characters, I still need them.

Worse than that, there's no unifying theme and no conclusion. And most of my points are only half-made.

Plus, I need to interject another experience.

 

[chad5871]

Thanks for the wishes. As I'm at to 5419 characters, I still need them.

Worse than that, there's no unifying theme and no conclusion. And most of my points are only half-made.

Plus, I need to interject another experience.

You can always just start over. I worked on my original on and off for about 4 months and ended up re-writing it about 2 weeks ago. It was the best decision I made in regards to my PS.

And I just submitted 10 minutes ago!

 

[harposnarpo]

You can always just start over. I worked on my original on and off for about 4 months and ended up re-writing it about 2 weeks ago. It was the best decision I made in regards to my PS.

And I just submitted 10 minutes ago!

Congrats! ! I wish I had your foresight to attempt anything 4 months in advance.

I'm trying to get this done ASAP so I can move on the ECs and submit by the 20th.

 

[harposnarpo]

Since I'm under a time crunch, I shut the rewrite-option out awhile ago.

 

[harposnarpo]

YES! I just found a huge unifying theme to my essay. Just have to edit a few paragraphs and it will be soooo much more golden.

 

[Kingfish]

Think early july is still a decent time to submit?

 

[LikeClockWork]

Think early july is still a decent time to submit?

Yup, still decent. Of course, it's in the bulk of application season, so things will take longer. Right now it looks like people are averaging 7 days between submitting AMCAS and verification. That'll only increase as more applications pile up into July. Screened secondaries will be much the same.

 

[harposnarpo]

Bleh. I had a passable statement and then copied and pasted a file over it. Long story short, I lost most of my work last night.

However, I now know the direction I'm giong in, and am working on finishing up round 2. Also, I've got like 1000 characters to play with.

 

[Dulcina]

bah, sorry you lost your work, i HATE when that happens!

I'm stuck at 109 characters too long, and no matter how i edit, I cant seem to cut them . More scary is the feeling that i dont have a unifying theme either! eeek

 

[harposnarpo]

bah, sorry you lost your work, i HATE when that happens!
I'm stuck at 109 characters too long, and no matter how i edit, I cant seem to cut them . More scary is the feeling that i dont have a unifying theme either! eeek

{insert cliche about applicants with >35 MCAT having no real worries here}

 

[ButImLETired]

Hey Harposnarpo, how's the PS coming? I've been following your saga.

 

[Vihsadas]

{insert cliche about applicants with >35 MCAT having no real worries here}

{Insert personal anecdotal evidence about how everyone should be worried}

 

[pianola]

{Insert personal anecdotal evidence about how everyone should be worried}

[Insert general pre-med anxiety ]

 

[MCAT08]

I finished an Okay PS two weeks ago to give it to my professors for LOR and now I am too lazy to fix it cuz anything I take out makes the whole thing out of place so I'm like ok ok ok this is pretty good and then leave and my PS has been sitting there!! it was easier starting from scratch!!

Good Luck ya'll I don't know when if ever my PS will be PERFECT

 

[Flaxmoore]

bah, sorry you lost your work, i HATE when that happens!

I'm stuck at 109 characters too long, and no matter how i edit, I cant seem to cut them . More scary is the feeling that i dont have a unifying theme either! eeek

Contractions, maybe? A semicolon can be used to link two related thought streams, thus saving two.

 

[Maxwell Edison]

bah, sorry you lost your work, i HATE when that happens!

I'm stuck at 109 characters too long, and no matter how i edit, I cant seem to cut them . More scary is the feeling that i dont have a unifying theme either! eeek

If you don't have a theme, it doesn't matter how much over/under you are. Don't count your necklace beads unless you've got a string.

Kill adjectives, adverbs. Generally they are superfluous. Watch your commas, too.

 

[Raryn]

{Insert personal anecdotal evidence about how everyone should be worried}

{Insert statement over how people who have >35 MCAT probably shouldn't be worried if they're on top of the game and are planning on submitting in June}

 

[Vihsadas]

{Insert statement over how people who have >35 MCAT probably shouldn't be worried if they're on top of the game and are planning on submitting in June}

{Insert statement over how...} Ah forget it. I don't wanna play anymore.

 

[Depakote]

Here's my advice from another thread for revising your Personal Statement... Pay special attention to the part about not working in all your ECs, that's a big space saver.

Breathe.

You're still very early and you've got plenty of time.

Here are some suggestions if you're trying to trim down your PS.

A lot of people try to recap their ECs in one way or another. This is totally unnecessary. If your ECs are in your EC section, leave them there unless they dramatically impacted your motivation to become a physician...

It would be fine to talk about specific times you volunteered/shadowed if they were meaning for you, but talking about your research doing plasmid convections and how it impacted your motivation is not going to add a thing. In fact, it distracts from the root of your statement.

Go through your PS and cut out any paragraphs that do not directly address the following:

-intro
-"why medicine?"
-support for "why medicine?"
-any problems/gaps in education along the way that really should be addressed in PS
-conclusion​

Ideally this should all be tied together with some overarching theme... doesn't have to be anything too flashy, just something you can reference in the start/finish. Don't do what I did (I'm not even linking you to it), that was a bit of a 3rd round Hail Mary that paid off.

Other PS advice:
-Don't use the word "fascinating". Probably 80% of statements I reviewed last year used it, very cliched and got to be vomit inducing.
-just use a single line between paragraphs, don't try to indent
-don't use more than 1 space between sentences
-re-read it for any sentences that could be re-worded more efficiently, then have someone else do it. Brevity is key.

 

[aunt ethel]

-don't use more than 1 space between sentences

This is such simple and good advice. I don't know when it was drilled into me to put two spaces after my sentences, but it is totally unnecessary, and when I realized I was doing it, it cut dozens of characters out of my PS! But I also ended up cutting out two entire (small) paragraphs that were nice, but not essential.

Try to get someone you don't know very well to read it, it will make you feel much better to get their feedback than to have someone you love tell you that you're awesome, because you already know that they think that.

Good luck!