MD/PhD and Research Essays

[mulletmandan]

Just a quick question: I've spent quite a bit of time polishing up my personal statement. Should I spend an equal amount of time on the MD/PhD and Research essays? I'm obviously not going to submit an unedited first draft, but I'm just wondering how much time should be allocated to the other essays.

Thanks!

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[premedatheart]

I think you should spend a good amount of time on those essays as well. But as long as you are happy with your essays, that is all that matters. I am spending considerably less time on my MD-PhD essays than I spent on my personal statement because I have a better idea of what I want to say in these essays. Hope that helps!

 

[GWD]

I think the best thing you can do is have it reviewed/edited by your PI/and the post-docs you work around.

Afterall, they have way more experience in the field than you do, and they can probably offer a ton of helpful advice.

 

[mulletmandan]

Sorry to reopen this thread, but I have another quick question: should I mention research in the first essay (why I want to do MD/PhD), or should I mainly focus on personal skills and motivations for choosing the dual degree for that essay? I know I'm going to talk quite a bit about research for the third essay, so I'm not sure if I should mention that too much in the second.

Thanks for the input!

 

[premedatheart]

I think you should at least mention your research in the second essay (why md/phd). You should definitely talk about how your explorations of research have influenced your decision to pursue the dual degree. I just talked about how my own research experiences affirmed by desire to pursue the md/phd track, but didn't go into too much detail about my projects. Leave that for the third essay. These are just my opinions. Feel free to take them as you like. Good luck!

 

[ecoli]

by virtue of it being a hell of a lot shorter, I spent less time on my MD/PhD essay. It helped that I wrote that one first, and continued to like what I had originally said much later.