If I indirectly mention ADD in my personal statement, will I be asked about in interviews? avoid it?

[mrh125]

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Last personal statement question for a while because I think I have it under control after this and I'd like to thank everyone for their help in the process. I know directly mentioning ADD/mental illness is a big no-no, so instead I mentioned it indirectly in my personal statement. I said this "
My journey of why I chose medicine even though I always was felt emotionally drawn to medicine is a complex and introspective journey, where no one experience shaped me and helped me develop characteristics necessary in medicine, but an entire web of experiences laid the groundwork for my choice and character development. Before college I had difficulties keeping up in courses, focusing, and was told I wouldn’t be able to succeed because of my issues. I rose to these challenges at my university, hit the ground running, and succeeded in science courses compelled by fascination with the elegance and applicability of science, and appreciation for my ability to learn material that was once impossible for me to comprehend. Learning and succeeding was an emotional journey for me and was like bringing color to a black and white world due to the contrast with my past. Even setbacks such as in Winter 2012 when I had to withdraw from school and take a reduced load the next quarter were learning experiences, opportunities to reassess my goals, and I came back more determined, eager to learn, and ready to beat the odds. Once I liberated myself from the shackles of my deficiencies I wasn’t content standing idle because I knew that my situation was analogous to many other people’s circumstances and finding a way to help others with theirs so they could express their own potential became my universal goal and way of leaving my mark on reality. I discovered that my way of doing this was through medicine, as only medicine synthesized the scientific knowledge that captivated me, utilized my interpersonal skills and cultural recognition I developed, and gave me the responsibility I wanted to positively influence individuals’ lives. My experiences not only in medicine, but outside of it further reinforced my interest in medicine. "

This is the basis of my personal statement, best possible way I can think of explaining my issues indirectly, and the starting point of why I'm interested in medicine and have such an open-minded and positive outlook. The thing is I can definitely see med school interviewers asking me questions about why I struggled, had focusing issues, and how I overcame my circumstances, especially since it's such a big starting point in my essay. I'm fine answering them and explaining about ADD, unless it puts me at a disadvantage. Does it in this case and is this an appropriate way to explain ADD and my main theme? I can also explain it indirectly (I'm used to having to skirt around explaining my issues to people who don't understand). If I indirectly mention ADD in my personal statement like I did above, will I be asked about in interviews? thoughts? If I have to scrap this please let me know now 🙂. I prefer really blunt and sincere answers in this case because the adcoms won't sugar coat their response (no such thing as a polite rejection) and I need to know.

 

[TeethLikeGodsShoeshine]

Listen man, I totally understand that overcoming your struggle with ADD is a huge part of your inspiration to pursue medicine. I personally applaud you for that. Unfortunately there still exists a huge stigma against mental disorders in a professional and even medical setting. The real question is if an Adcom member specifically asks you how you overcame it, how are you going to respond? "My doctor gave me pills that make it all better" does not seem to me to be an enlightened and hard fought end to the struggle you are trying to frame your PS on. If you were able to overcome it in some other way ( not pharmacologically) please elaborate, because that would make an excellent story I think.

 

[Ismet]

Good personal statements make the reader feel like they are in your shoes, experiencing what you're experiencing. That's the "show, don't tell" advice that's often given. Your writing is a lot of "tell" and not "show." I personally wouldn't include ADD in the PS. I have seen a couple applicants address mental illness in the PS and it was done very well, so it's not completely taboo, but I still don't think it's advisable.

 

[Goro]

Anything in your PS is fair game to an interviewer. 100% agree with Ismet.

Last personal statement question for a while because I think I have it under control after this and I'd like to thank everyone for their help in the process. I know directly mentioning ADD/mental illness is a big no-no, so instead I mentioned it indirectly in my personal statement. I said this "
My journey of why I chose medicine even though I always was felt emotionally drawn to medicine is a complex and introspective journey, where no one experience shaped me and helped me develop characteristics necessary in medicine, but an entire web of experiences laid the groundwork for my choice and character development. Before college I had difficulties keeping up in courses, focusing, and was told I wouldn’t be able to succeed because of my issues. I rose to these challenges at my university, hit the ground running, and succeeded in science courses compelled by fascination with the elegance and applicability of science, and appreciation for my ability to learn material that was once impossible for me to comprehend. Learning and succeeding was an emotional journey for me and was like bringing color to a black and white world due to the contrast with my past. Even setbacks such as in Winter 2012 when I had to withdraw from school and take a reduced load the next quarter were learning experiences, opportunities to reassess my goals, and I came back more determined, eager to learn, and ready to beat the odds. Once I liberated myself from the shackles of my deficiencies I wasn’t content standing idle because I knew that my situation was analogous to many other people’s circumstances and finding a way to help others with theirs so they could express their own potential became my universal goal and way of leaving my mark on reality. I discovered that my way of doing this was through medicine, as only medicine synthesized the scientific knowledge that captivated me, utilized my interpersonal skills and cultural recognition I developed, and gave me the responsibility I wanted to positively influence individuals’ lives. My experiences not only in medicine, but outside of it further reinforced my interest in medicine. "

This is the basis of my personal statement, best possible way I can think of explaining my issues indirectly, and the starting point of why I'm interested in medicine and have such an open-minded and positive outlook. The thing is I can definitely see med school interviewers asking me questions about why I struggled, had focusing issues, and how I overcame my circumstances, especially since it's such a big starting point in my essay. I'm fine answering them and explaining about ADD, unless it puts me at a disadvantage. Does it in this case and is this an appropriate way to explain ADD and my main theme? I can also explain it indirectly (I'm used to having to skirt around explaining my issues to people who don't understand). If I indirectly mention ADD in my personal statement like I did above, will I be asked about in interviews? thoughts? If I have to scrap this please let me know now 🙂. I prefer really blunt and sincere answers in this case because the adcoms won't sugar coat their response (no such thing as a polite rejection) and I need to know.

 

[Viscousbike]

I wrote two secondary essays on having ADD. Directly mentioned how I felt scared to write about it because of the prejudice associated with the disorder. Was brought up in both of my interviews and I also got accepted to both schools. Both of my interviews with MDs and they both agreed with me that prejudice against people with mental disorders was a problem.

 

[mrh125]

Good personal statements make the reader feel like they are in your shoes, experiencing what you're experiencing. That's the "show, don't tell" advice that's often given. Your writing is a lot of "tell" and not "show." I personally wouldn't include ADD in the PS. I have seen a couple applicants address mental illness in the PS and it was done very well, so it's not completely taboo, but I still don't think it's advisable.

Thank for your post. I just have one question, how do I show and not tell? I'm having a lot of trouble understand this even after reading some other people's persona statements. It's also really hard not to summarize because of the limited length.

I wrote two secondary essays on having ADD. Directly mentioned how I felt scared to write about it because of the prejudice associated with the disorder. Was brought up in both of my interviews and I also got accepted to both schools. Both of my interviews with MDs and they both agreed with me that prejudice against people with mental disorders was a problem.

That's really good to know. 🙂 I'm glad you were able to write about your experiences and have them respected by adcoms because not writing about ADD would be very difficult for me and the supposed prejudice med schools have really worries me.

 

[NontradCA]

This is the third thread you've made on your personal statement within 2 days , on 3 different topics. Maybe you should sit down for a while, away from the internet and assess what has really lead you to medicine. It's a PERSONAL statement.

Take your amphetamine.

 

[Godspeedyou]

This is the third thread you've made on your personal statement within 2 days , on 3 different topics. Maybe you should sit down for a while, away from the internet and assess what has really lead you to medicine. It's a PERSONAL statement.

Take your amphetamine.

 

[mrh125]

Listen man, I totally understand that overcoming your struggle with ADD is a huge part of your inspiration to pursue medicine. I personally applaud you for that. Unfortunately there still exists a huge stigma against mental disorders in a professional and even medical setting. The real question is if an Adcom member specifically asks you how you overcame it, how are you going to respond? "My doctor gave me pills that make it all better" does not seem to me to be an enlightened and hard fought end to the struggle you are trying to frame your PS on. If you were able to overcome it in some other way ( not pharmacologically) please elaborate, because that would make an excellent story I think.

You have a good point, so i'll explain how I would respond. It's a bit long, but this is what it became when I sat down and reflected and a lot of these thoughts are from what I wrote over the years. This is very personal to me, and sometimes hard for me to open up about. Being treated by a psychiatrist and receiving medicine is meaningful to me, but there's far more to ADD than just receiving the meds. The meds allow to focus and think clearly, but if I was not driven to overcome my circumstances all the focus in the world wouldn't help me. Not to mention I had significant gaps in my education and catching up to do. Imagine growing up and struggling immensely with reading (having to reread everything many times to get any meaning out of it and constantly misinterpreting things), struggling not just academically but socially, always feeling like you were the weak link in the chain, being considered spacey and weird, and wondering why you were the way you were. Imagine being thought of as intelligent and having curiosity that was recognizable, but flickered away so evanescently like a candle in the middle of a hurricane because you were unable to show it and being constantly told that you were lazy, unmotivated, and no matter how much you tried to learn and study the information you needed to know slipped from your mind like disappearing ink in a book. Imagine the hurt and anguish of constantly letting your family down who wanted to sacrifice anything for your success even though they and yourself didn't understand why you were this way. Imagine them trying to pick up the slack for you, trying to pass you off of as something you were not, ad-hoc tactics you had to rely on, and how flimsy and fabricated the reality they tried to create for you felt, as well as circumstances like being taken out of school because of how much you floundered. Now picture how the summation of all these experiences would sculpt your life growing up. Developing anxiety, feeling alone, depressed, trying to hide yourself, very vulnerable, and overwhelming frustration with tasks such as reading turning into bitterness because I was like a desk with a missing leg, I could not stand on my own and felt like I was in total free-fall in a bottomless abyss. Pushing past these circumstances and making something of my life that I was never able to before were what sculpted my motivations.


Being treated was just the first step of the process and that was when my work really started because I had to make the most of my difficult circumstances and deep down inside I wondered if I could ever do it. Being treated for ADD doesn't suddenly wipe away the issues you face or change the past, that is something I had to do on my own, and at first it felt like playing baseball and knowing you would strike out, but still taking the courage to go down swinging anyway. I remember the first few days of focusing clearly, not being constantly distracted or losing everything, being able to balance and keep track of my schedule, and just being able to sit down and take the time to do my own work and even follow lectures in class (though a lot of it didn't make that much sense). It felt like bringing color into a black and white world. This was in college and I was failing all my classes and close to just giving up because I didn't know up from down. I was missing not only the material being taught in these classes, but the basics from previous courses. There were no clearcut answers, but I found a way after promising myself that no matter what I did I would be true to myself, not be defined by past or be victimized by it, and make something of my own circumstances in a way that was right for me in my own way and if there was one thing I had on my side it was time and to be able to learn I had to invest more time into the material than most people. That didn't bother me though because I was overwhelmed with happiness by the fact that I had the opportunity to really learn like everyone else. I began by learning about more basic material, searching for ways to learn that worked for me (mainly auditory learning at first and I was actually able to utilize visual learning and picture things in my mind with practice), practicing reading (I still had issues misinterpreting information and my reading comprehension was very weak) and utilizing my knowledge of the one subject that clicked for me before (math), and pushing myself to understand and comprehend a little of each class' material each day.


I also started asking questions in class, which took a lot of courage, and I remember the first time I did people laughed at me, but I didn't let that discourage me as I was powerfully immersed in a desire to understand the material in each of the classes I took, even if it felt like thrust myself head first into a brickwall. Slowly, yet surely I started gaining forward momentum because I put myself out there and slowly yet surely chipped away at the obstacles I faced. I remember heading into my second college midterm that quarter for biology not with fear, despair, and hopelessness but determination to make something of my circumstances. I received a 79% on this test, but that 79% was more meaningful than any grade I received previously because I was actually able to make a plan to study and follow it, and more importantly learning about biodiversity really interested me. I also knew that even if I got a C in every single subject in college from now on that would mean more than anything before because I was able to find ways to teach myself, learning entranced me, and I was making the most of my circumstances. This was my own work, and it stood for itself. I felt empowered and even more determined to succeed. In english, after hours of trying to learn to write and putting my thoughts on paper, and going to office hours I received a passing grade on a paper, which was my first academic paper. This was just the beginning and by the end of the quarter, I did the unthinkable I pulled a 97% on my biology final. What shaped this was the revelation that even though I wasn't caught up and didn't know as much as others, I could teach myself the material in a way that worked for me and I could make something of these circumstances. Every day I also imagined myself defeating my ADD and beating down on my issues by doing what I was once not capable and end at the end of the quarter I received two As. This was miraculous given how much I struggled. My experiences although intellectual were more emotional than anything, feelings of how new everything was, accomplishment, and appreciation for my reality. The next few quarters were difficult because I was still learning to balance responsibilities, catch up, and I was so eager to learn that I took too many difficult science classes, so I had to withdraw from school, and the next quarter I took a reduced unit load and exposed myself to other opportunities I wasn't able to take on like a part time job. My experiences made me realize that we all have difficulties and obstacles in our lives and with a lot of hard work and recognition we can overcome them or deal with them, and instead of feeling alone and alienated I felt closer to others and developed real genuine empathy and emotional intuition. I wanted to change the lives of others like I had done to my own and let them express their own potential. I didn't want anyone to have the fear I had, or deal with the circumstances that I had. My potential was no longer a flickering light, but a roaring bonfire. I knew life was full of difficulties, but these difficulties could be made manageable and that is what I wanted to do for others.

tl;dr: I overcame my circumstances through recognition of my deficiencies, slow baby steps, taking the courage to address my issues and receive feedback from others, even when I felt hopeless, or went out swinging. I keep coming back to what I struggled and never let me deficiencies drive me away. I'm like the fly that keeps buzzing around everyone and no matter how much people swat it, it keeps coming back. I also acknowledge the fact that I was incredibly lucky in the first quarter I got two As, but there's more to it than luck.

This is the third thread you've made on your personal statement within 2 days , on 3 different topics. Maybe you should sit down for a while, away from the internet and assess what has really lead you to medicine. It's a PERSONAL statement.

Take your amphetamine.

Haha that actually made me laugh lol 🙂. Part of ADD is having lots of goods ideas, but not being able to follow them through to the end for me. ADD and realizing that we also have difficult circumstances and overcome them together, like I did with my ADD is what originally brought me to medicine. If I could just explain that indirectly I wouldn't have to use any of the other topics. Every time I write my thoughts down on paper about why medicine it begins with ADD.

 

[Mt Kilimanjaro]

I'm like the fly that keeps buzzing around everyone and no matter how much people swat it, it keeps coming back.

👍

 

[mrh125]

👍

Had a feeling a few of you would like that. 😛 I don't go away until I find a way to accomplish what I want, not just for myself, but for others. I knew what it's like to be truly defeated and the reward of progress. As a doctor, this can do a lot, I believe.