okay NOT to mention research in PS?

[drowsy12]

is this a bad idea if im interested in applying to top 20 schools? i have 3 summers and 2 semesters of research experience, and i should have more by the time i marticulate so research is important to me and i can talk about it at length in interviews if needed, but I have more relevant stuff to talk about for my PS. does anyone have experience with a situation like this, becaue i know alot of the top tier school are really big on research. i just dont want them to assume i didnt care about research because its not in my PS.

Thanks!

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[KoreanMusicbox]

is this a bad idea if im interested in applying to top 20 schools?

Thanks!

yes, it is bad if you are applying to top 20. Those are mostly research-oriented schools!

 

[Yehosh]

agreed. If you have a lot of other stuff, have at least one paragraph focusing and summarizing your research efforts and achievements. But don't leave it out if you're aiming for top 20 schools.

 

[drowsy12]

anyone else?

 

[nick_carraway]

I didn't write about it even though I spent 2 years with bench research. It was just too hard to write about it in an engaging way and I didn't want to devote any more drafts to it. I'm a firm believer in the idea that if a topic doesn't fit seamlessly in your PS, you probably shouldn't put it in.

With my credentials, I'm only applying to a few top tier schools. I think I summarized my experience pretty well in the activity section, though, and an LOR from my PI will hopefully defer questions of why I didn't mention it in the PS.

 

[kevster2001]

Dont put it in if it feels awkward. Dont worry, the Top20s will read about your research from other parts of your app. In my opnion, most research paragraphs in PS's are dull and uninteresting and almost conclude the same : "I want more patient interaction so I'm pursuing MD instead of PhD" zzzzzzzz

 

[drowsy12]

Thanks kevster, thats a little source of relief. for some reason, this has got me all stressed all of a sudden. i guessed because i thought the major content portion of my PS was done and all i needed was edits.

 

[The Doctor]

Hey, I didn't put any mention of my research in my PS either, for the aforementioned reasons: it didn't really flow and fit the theme that I was trying to establish. I was able to discuss it earlier in the activities section. Your research, publications, thesis, and/or accolades can speak for themselves there unless you want to make research the focus of your PS.

 

[NJDIF]

i put it in, but i realized that AMCAS already gave me room for it. I realized my PS was turning into an elongated resume, so i took it out. The PS is for meaningful things you cant put on the work/activities section. The things with deep, meaningful turning points for me all happened in things outside of a laboratory. The things I could say about the lab experience seemed very dry and impersonal. waste of space for me.

 

[etf]

Thanks kevster, thats a little source of relief. for some reason, this has got me all stressed all of a sudden. i guessed because i thought the major content portion of my PS was done and all i needed was edits.

lol, it sounds like you already had your answer and just wanted validation from SDN. you didn't get it in the first few posts, but we came through for you in the end...

 

[mlle3000]

yeah, i think you're fine not including it. if you are worried, maybe just add one sentence to remind them...but you want to use your PS as a place to let the adcom become familiar with who you are as a person, etc. it's your time to include anything about you that isn't clear from the rest of your application.

i was in your situation. i had over 4 years of research experience when i applied. i didn't write about my research in my PS because i wanted to explain why i wanted to go into medicine about relate experiences that helped me go in that direction. i was accepted into a top 10 school.

good luck!

 

[ilovelucy]

I didn't put it in either. There are 1,325 characters to bore readers in the experience section.

Another way to look at it is that you NEVER want to be negative in your personal statement, and it may be difficult to convey the correct tone if you are saying something along the lines of, "I have done all this research but I DON't want to to make a career of it," while this may be true, it lead your readers to question why you stayed in a research position that you weren't all that interested in or didn't want to pursue .... this will distract them from all of the other wonderful qualities that you are discussing in your PS.

 

[alesdu1]

I wanted my personal statement not to be a narrative form of my resume, but to tell "my story" and how my life's experiences have led me to get to apply to med school. I did research after I decided I wanted to go to med school. I wasnt driven to become a doctor because of the "amazing" research experience I had, it was from my clinical experiences-- these are what i wrote about in my personal statement.

You will have the opprotunity to describe your research in immensly boring detail on the EC sections of AMCAS.

Id say writing about research in your PS will be a bore for the ADCOM, unless you truely feel (and you can convey) that participating in a research lab motivated you towards medicine.

just my 2 cents. Im appplying for 2008, so maybe all this advice will be totally wrong haha, but thats what im doing. best of luck

 

[bacalaca]

I am in the same situation. Research, though it was probably my largest time commitment, didn't make me want to be a doctor, it was my clinical work. Mentioning research outside of a sentence or two in my conclusion would have messed up the flow of my story. Its pretty clear that research is a large part of me in my activities section as several slots will be taken out by it. If you have research grants and publications, they will know about it. I figure I will just save my research business for the secondaries.

 

[ltrain]

One word of caution: If you want the opportunity to explain your research more deeply than you have space for in the activities section, you should put it in your PS. Some schools will have a secondary essay that lends itself to talking about research, but many do not. Many also won't have a supplementary essay that you could devote to research.

I ended up working a description of my research into an update letter about a new pub mid-cycle, but probably should have talked about it in my PS.

It depends how much you have to say about it.

 

[deleted212936]

Here's my case, I hope someone will help:

I thought I should put research in my PS to prove why I choose MD instead of PhD.
But the theme of my PS is "compassion." I spend my PS proving why I'm a good fit for medical career, etc.
So is it worth mentioning research in PS at all ?

 

[Evergrey]

You know, it's possible to be an MD and still very interested in research... in fact, the world needs people like this as much as they need people who are focused solely on clinical. I would say making research your ONLY focus would be a huge faux pas on an application, but I can definitely see how it could work to your advantage if you tied in medicine with research and the potential benefits of integrating them. That's exactly what someone in academia does and thus may be a better PS topic for people who want to go into a research-oriented medical school (such as many of the top-tier schools).

 

[deleted212936]

How about if I'm applying solely for MD ?

Are these Med schools research-oriented? How to know if a school is, though?
--> Boston U
--> University of Rochester
--> Tufts
--> Albany
--> Brooklyn