MSTP vs. MD personal statement

[Cognition]

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How are MSTP personal statements different than MD personal statements? Should I talk mostly about research and less on volunteer experience or what would make me a "good doctor?" I've been told by an MSTP admissions officer that some MSTP ad-comms only get applications after the MD ad-coms gives the applicant a secondary but at other programs both the MSTP and MD ad-coms get the applications seperately and make decisions separately. If the former is true, then a personal statement focused more on research would not look as appealing to an initially MD only ad-com. Thoughts?

 

[Neuronix]

The MD/PhD personal statement is all about three things.
1) Why MD/PhD?
2) Research Experience
3) More about you and anything else interesting including other modes of preparation

Write your personal statement as though you are writing it for the MD/PhD programs if that's what you really want to get into. The MD adcoms will know you are a MD/PhD applicant and interpret it as such. Besides, while it's true that applications could get reviewed first by MD adcoms, I would say that this occurs at a minority of programs and shouldn't be an issue.

 

[hockebob]

cognition,

for the md-only personal statement, you can probably cut out the nitty-gritty details of your research and just focus on why med school and then specifically why md/phd.

my thoughts,
aaron

 

[microTAS]

Just for clarification, when you say MSTP personal statement, this is the same essay as the one in the AMCAS? Or is this what you will receive in the secondaries? Thanks.

 

[Neuronix]

Just for clarification, when you say MSTP personal statement, this is the same essay as the one in the AMCAS? Or is this what you will receive in the secondaries? Thanks.

I now realize how confusing my earlier post was.

What I meant was, the MD/PhD personal statement is what I usually call the MD/PhD essay, and that goes on your secondaries. That has those three clearly defined objectives I posted before.

However, your AMCAS Personal Statement should still talk about your goals in patient care and research and what you've done in research in a more summary outline. You can go into more detail in your MD/PhD essay. You don't have a ton of room, so in that essay you can talk more about your life story or other activities you've done. What I was telling that op was don't be afraid to make it look like you want to be an academic in your personal statement. It's perfectly reasonable to the MD adcom to want to be an academic.

 

[microTAS]

Thanks for the explanation! 🙂