Is my personal statement covering too many things?

[09ine]

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Without giving away too much, my PS opens up about a medical interning experience which also allowed me to reflect on my family's medical problems. The issue is that there were three big events in my family that shaped me and as of right now I stressed one majorly and tied the two others in in equal amounts.

Does that seem like too much? Should I just elaborate on one and hope that they're interested enough during secondaries? Also, does anyone have an opinion on whether it should be more factual and succint, or fluffy and easy/fun to read?

Edit:

My current setup:

1. Hook with medical internship
2. Family problems, seeing physicians help and talking about what qualities I liked and why I needed to become a doctor
3. Talk about first quality: mentoring and responsibility to others by using example of tutoring
4. Talk about another quality: thorough care, example of volunteer experience
5. End with saying how those qualities tie together and how my family influenced me again

 

[thlaxer]

Without giving away too much, my PS opens up about a medical interning experience which also allowed me to reflect on my family's medical problems. The issue is that there were three big events in my family that shaped me and as of right now I stressed one majorly and tied the two others in in equal amounts.

Does that seem like too much? Should I just elaborate on one and hope that they're interested enough during secondaries? Also, does anyone have an opinion on whether it should be more factual and succint, or fluffy and easy/fun to read?

I would stay factual, succinct and easy to read when talking about your family's medical problems. If you're being too emotional with these experiences and spend too much space on them (=fluffy?), readers might think you're fishing for sympathy. A few to several lines should be fine though. Just my thoughts 🙂.

 

[09ine]

Yeah I haven't gone overboard and it's pretty much to the point. So do you think addressing all three at once is good or should it just be one that's really emphasized?

 

[thlaxer]

Yeah I haven't gone overboard and it's pretty much to the point. So do you think addressing all three at once is good or should it just be one that's really emphasized?

Hard to say without knowing more specifics on how you incorporated them together. Addressing all of them at once though has a lot of potential for sounding 'whiny' imo. For me, I chose to only talk about one of my family experiences since the others, while being important medically, were not as relevant to "why medicine" for me. In the end though, you should do what you feel most comfortable with.

 

[Ironmandoc]

Yeah it's pretty much impossible to tell without reading what you've written...that's what everyone is going to tell you.

 

[semicharmed]

I would stay factual, succinct and easy to read when talking about your family's medical problems. If you're being too emotional with these experiences and spend too much space on them (=fluffy?), readers might think you're fishing for sympathy. A few to several lines should be fine though. Just my thoughts 🙂.

A good way to look at this is to see what is absolutely necessary for the paper to eliminate fluff. Think about what would happen to the message/theme of your statement if you removed one of these examples-would the whole thing fall apart? This kind of thinking can allow you to see the value of each section and edit accordingly to best bring out that value.

With PS, I would recommend structuring in chronological order...it can get really confusing if you're going all "Donnie-Darko" and bouncing around through time. Also, make sure at the end that you very clearly tie everything together in a nice little package to SHOW the adcom that everything you talked about had a purpose being in the essay.

Best advice is edit, edit and re-edit. Don't be afraid to start over or have a ton of people read them and make brutally honest comments about whether it's effective. In this game, you want to have the strongest application you can. Good luck

 

[09ine]

I've been searching through so many thread about PS it's not even funny. The outline I have now is a little more straightforward (I didn't realize that I was actually heading towards a Donnie-Darko structure).

Here's essentially my outlined form of what I've written. It seems convoluted here, but I think it's better the way it's describe in the paper. I didn't talk about my clinical work because its lacking and didn't want to point that out. Instead I focused on an internship, family health problems and touched on my main setback with grades. Is it still too ambitious for a PS?

P1: Opening about medical intern and how it related to family health history
P2: More about family health history and what I got out of it
P3: How the internship initially got me to think about science/medicine and reflect on how I got that far in the pre-med track
P4: Talk about my own setback with grades and overcame it to be more focused on medicine (debating on whether to throw in how it lead to how I teach so much, but that almost seems too laundry listy)
P5: Talk about what new and enforced reasons I had to pursue medicine by the end of the internship
P6: Conclusion talking about what I feel makes me different from people of my demographic/cultural upbringing

I tried not to make the internship the game changer for me. I just wanted it to be another step that made me look at why I wanted to be a doctor.

 

[Disinence2]

If you have to ask, it probably is.

Stick to 3-5 solid points.

You can use others as a part of your secondaries or interview topics.

 

[pietachok]

nix part 4. do not waste part of your PS explaining your academic setbacks. There are places in most secondaries to address special issues or poor grades. The PS is to sell yourself. When you use it to address weaknesses it's tantamount to going to a job interview &, when asked what strengths make you he ideal candidate responding with "x y z are times that show when I've been weak, but they are justifiable b/c...so I'm still great for A B C"

I know there are reputable contributors on SDN who disagree.with me, but this was based on my experience. I'm sure there are exceptional cases where it makes sense to spend the PS explaining a weakness, but I don't advocate it for most applicants. I had some piss poor grades in some undergrad classes, & for 2 application cycles mentioned how my mom's terminal illness impacted my academics. Only 1 interview. Next cycle, I removed it from my PS (& got rid of my committee letter) & got a bunch of interviews & multiple acceptances. I had included it based on advice from my postbacc advisor. However, a dean at the one Med school that interviewed me those first 2 cycles pointed out that at his school & some.others, GPA is never revisited after you make a cutoff to get the interview--that short bit in my PS put doubt in the minds of transcript-blind readers as too how bad the academic struggles.were, & I effectively sabotaged by own admissions at that school.

please ignore the typos...I'm on my phone & it's skeptical that I really like using spaces between words

 

[thlaxer]

It seems like all of your support is currently coming from your medical internship.. It might not sound very convincing if you basically imply that a single experience confirmed your desire to pursue medicine. Have you tried adding in a meaningful story from your volunteering and shadowing experiences (even if time-wise they are somewhat lacking)? If you can show that you got something meaningful out of the experience and tie it in with the rest of your narrative, it might help make your PS more convincing. You don't lose too much from trying imo.

 

[09ine]

I know there are reputable contributors on SDN who disagree.with me, but this was based on my experience. I'm sure there are exceptional cases where it makes sense to spend the PS explaining a weakness, but I don't advocate it for most applicants. I had some piss poor grades in some undergrad classes, & for 2 application cycles mentioned how my mom's terminal illness impacted my academics. Only 1 interview. Next cycle, I removed it from my PS (& got rid of my committee letter) & got a bunch of interviews & multiple acceptances. I had included it based on advice from my postbacc advisor. However, a dean at the one Med school that interviewed me those first 2 cycles pointed out that at his school & some.others, GPA is never revisited after you make a cutoff to get the interview--that short bit in my PS put doubt in the minds of transcript-blind readers as too how bad the academic struggles.were, & I effectively sabotaged by own admissions at that school.

please ignore the typos...I'm on my phone & it's skeptical that I really like using spaces between words

Hey nice success story though afterwards. Two questions:

1. So when you said it made them have doubts, do you mean they thought that you were over-exaggerating your problems?
2. I can see where you're coming from with the weakness and alot of people here say not to mention any weakness. In my case where it was a matter of misplaced studying and fixing my habits, is that still a "no-no" on the PS?

Originally I thought it would be good to mention it because being able to overcome my grades and gain confidence in my intellectualism helped me choose medicine...but if mentioning that is the reason I can't get into anywhere then I'll definitely drop it.


EDIT:

@thlaxer: Problem with my current app is that most of my volunteering has been categorized as non-clinical and with teaching. I could probably add it in or use it to replace another topic. Also I tried to not make the internship the big reason why I chose medicine, but rather an umbrella that I could use to look back on other reasons which led me to that internship (such as family, classes and interest in science)

 

[09ine]

Yeah I haven't gone overboard and it's pretty much to the point.

Would care to share how you chose the structure for your PS?

 

[thlaxer]

Out of curiosity, when did this medical internship occur (relatively to the rest of your activities) and how long did it last? What kind of things did you see or do there?

Also, did you do any non-clinical volunteering and/or teaching before deciding on pursuing medicine? If so, you can perhaps mention these things near the beginning and then say that you were initially attracted to medicine because of your interest in the sciences, your desire to help others, and your own family history blah blah blah. You can then talk about being involved in the medical internship and how the experiences there solidified your interest via X, Y and Z experiences and reasons. Would something like this work or is it chronologically out of order? Pretty cookie-cutter format and not very exciting, but it might provide a good frame to work off from.

Would care to share how you chose the structure for your PS?

That user is a spam bot.

 

[09ine]

It occurred near the end of most of my activities and last for a month of shadowing a surgeon.

I was pretty much on the medicine track before college so the teaching was something to do to help others that were struggling. The more I hear about PSs, the better it seems to be safe than try to stray away from the formula. I think I could write up another version of it following a chrono order in a couple hours tomorrow and send it off to someone to read.

I wish PS had a strict format, I'm really not a big fan of creative writing when its related to an admissions process.

Honestly, I thought that user was being another pretentious pre-med dick. If they're not a bot I don't care at this point.

 

[pietachok]

Hey nice success story though afterwards. Two questions:

1. So when you said it made them have doubts, do you mean they thought that you were over-exaggerating your problems?
2. I can see where you're coming from with the weakness and alot of people here say not to mention any weakness. In my case where it was a matter of misplaced studying and fixing my habits, is that still a "no-no" on the PS?

1. Since the adcom at that school couldn't see my grades, when I mentioned the weakness in academics, they didn't know how bad it was. (e.g. did I get a 2.0 for 1.5 years & make.it past the GPA cutoff with A's in extra community college classes?). When they have the option of so many "perfect" applicants, there is no reason to take a gamble on the one who might have to repeat a year of med school or fail out if the stressor from undergrad recurs. If you can do it without sounding contrived, there are things you can say in all purposefully positive language: "as I entered more specialized courses in the later semesters of college, I discovered within myself more motivation & passion to succeed" or "I haven't gotten over.the grief of X, but one day I noticed that X had become an unexpected source of.inspiration in my goals" (forgive the cheesy/silly example) sounds a lot better than "I screwed up so much when I was a freshman, b/c socializing seemed more important than classes & I spent my whole sophomore year wallowing in self. pity instead of homework b/c my mom died"

2. I don't understand what you mean (misplaced study habits?). It probably falls into my response to 1

 

[09ine]

K I'm slightly stuck now.

So my order is this now:
1. Hook with medical internship
2. Family problems, seeing physicians help and talking about what qualities I liked
3. Talk about first quality: mentoring and responsibility to others by using example of tutoring
4. Talk about another quality: thorough care, example of volunteer experience
5. End with saying how those qualities tie together and how my family influenced me again.

I'm getting confused on how some people say use one theme, others say don't use one story. I don't even know what a theme is anymore. I guess mine is, family had problems and I tried to prepare myself to be the doctor I want to be?

Advice? Readers?

 

[mimelim]

I've been searching through so many thread about PS it's not even funny. The outline I have now is a little more straightforward (I didn't realize that I was actually heading towards a Donnie-Darko structure).

Here's essentially my outlined form of what I've written. It seems convoluted here, but I think it's better the way it's describe in the paper. I didn't talk about my clinical work because its lacking and didn't want to point that out. Instead I focused on an internship, family health problems and touched on my main setback with grades. Is it still too ambitious for a PS?

P1: Opening about medical intern and how it related to family health history
P2: More about family health history and what I got out of it
P3: How the internship initially got me to think about science/medicine and reflect on how I got that far in the pre-med track
P4: Talk about my own setback with grades and overcame it to be more focused on medicine (debating on whether to throw in how it lead to how I teach so much, but that almost seems too laundry listy)
P5: Talk about what new and enforced reasons I had to pursue medicine by the end of the internship
P6: Conclusion talking about what I feel makes me different from people of my demographic/cultural upbringing

I tried not to make the internship the game changer for me. I just wanted it to be another step that made me look at why I wanted to be a doctor.

P1-4 can be one paragraph. P1 - Do not waste PS space explaining what can be put in your activities section. Admissions committees care little about specifics of activities, and the little that they care can be explained in that section. (that activity's IMPACT is the important part) P2 - This can be a personal hook, but again the content is not that important. P3 - Fluff. P4 - Good topic, but off topic.

P5, P6 - Your description is generic, but this should be the meat and potatoes of your PS and should not be single paragraphs. Do not focus on events/activities/people, detail is only necessary so that how those things impacted you makes sense.

Personal statements are your narrative. When I read personal statements I would look for two things, passion and why that applicant is 'special'. Translated into question form: Why medicine? And, why you?

 

[09ine]

P1-4 can be one paragraph. P1 - Do not waste PS space explaining what can be put in your activities section. Admissions committees care little about specifics of activities, and the little that they care can be explained in that section. (that activity's IMPACT is the important part) P2 - This can be a personal hook, but again the content is not that important. P3 - Fluff. P4 - Good topic, but off topic.

P5, P6 - Your description is generic, but this should be the meat and potatoes of your PS and should not be single paragraphs. Do not focus on events/activities/people, detail is only necessary so that how those things impacted you makes sense.

Personal statements are your narrative. When I read personal statements I would look for two things, passion and why that applicant is 'special'. Translated into question form: Why medicine? And, why you?

I changed the format to the one I listed above your post.

I took out the grade setbacks and some the stuff you listed as fluff, but I listed some of my activities as examples for why I did things.

 

[mimelim]

K I'm slightly stuck now.

So my order is this now:
1. Hook with medical internship
2. Family problems, seeing physicians help and talking about what qualities I liked
3. Talk about first quality: mentoring and responsibility to others by using example of tutoring
4. Talk about another quality: thorough care, example of volunteer experience
5. End with saying how those qualities tie together and how my family influenced me again.

I'm getting confused on how some people say use one theme, others say don't use one story. I don't even know what a theme is anymore. I guess mine is, family had problems and I tried to prepare myself to be the doctor I want to be?

Advice? Readers?

Starting with the topic of a theme. A theme is a central concept that you are trying to convince your reader of. Without a theme unifying your personal statement, your thoughts tend to wander and the reader will have difficulty keeping up. Think about it this way. Admissions committee member Bob reads your application and personal statement and needs to present you to everyone else. Your file will be open so that everyone can see your grades and scores at first glance. Bob is then given the floor, it is obvious from your numbers if you are above, below or at average for a given school. Bob's job is to sum up everything else in your application and convince everyone that no matter where your numbers are that you belong at that school.

A well structured application will not only have tons of ammunition for Bob to use, but will be easy for him to use. A personal statement will present a central theme that will be supported by LOR, experiences, activities and hobbies. When people ask questions or doubt something, Bob should be able to say, yes, but that isn't the only reason he says he has *Insert good future physician trait*.

Examples:

Theme: I'm a problem solver who will produce in any circumstance.
LOR: Highlight applicants ability to produce in a research, education and administrative environments.
Experiences: Lists what LOR mention and other things that necessitate problem solving.
PS: What makes me a good problem solver and sets me apart from others. And, why medicine needs more people like me.

Theme: I'm compassionate and it drives me to make a difference.
LOR: Highlight applicants humanistic qualities and how their zeal pushed them to accomplish in the volunteer and clinical setting.
Experiences: Lists what LOR mention with a focus on accomplishments, additionally lists hobbies/activities that are consistent with someone who spends their time working for the betterment of others/society
PS: Short philosophical background about compassion with items that made a personal impact, brief reference to a mentioned experience with a discussion of its impact on myself and others. Closing with why medicine needs more physicians like me with reference or quote about morality.

I just made those up, but you get the idea. Be thankful that personal statements are as creative as they are. (they really aren't 😛) While a small part of an application, they let you say what YOU want to the admissions committee. It also will likely set the tone of your future interviews.

If you are stuck with your PS, answer this: Why should we accept you to our medical school? Why are you special? Can be in this thread or just in notepad for yourself, but that is a pretty good starting point.

 

[09ine]

Thanks for the response, that does clear up alot of things for my whole application.

I think since my first draft, I've definitely addressed

"Short philosophical background about compassion with items that made a personal impact, brief reference to a mentioned experience with a discussion of its impact on myself and others. Closing with why medicine needs more physicians like me with reference or quote about morality." in a similar manner.

Also I know there is a thread for this, but almost everyone seems busy with other statements to respond, so are there any accepted students or med students that would be willing to look over my statement for content and flow?

 

[09ine]

Bump for anyone that would be willing to read

 

[NewYorker9]

I'm applying this cycle as well but I'd still be willing to give it a quick look over. PM if you want, it may take me a few days because I'm going away to the land of no wi-fi for some R and R