Opinion on my personal statement idea

[mreyno18]

I have two ideas for my personal statement, any advice or help picking between the two would be awesome! I have one that I think is better than the other, but I will not be sharing it because I want yall's unbiased opinions! I know that the writing makes a personal statement special and can make or break it, but I'm just trying to figure out the subject first...

1. Love for teaching and Learning

• From a young age, learning was something I loved and was obsessed with (would spend days in the library, read many books, did school lesson books during summer, I would read nonfiction books that I found in the local library and then share all the information to my parents)
• Love of learning all throughout middle and high school (especially the sciences -- thinking about what I want to be, unsure)
• Went to school with so many interests in science and wanting to do so much (initially chose engineering)
• Explored more about what a career centered in life-long learning could be (medicine was always an interest of mine and after exploration, I decided "let's go for it!")
• Became a double major in chemistry and biology
• Spent time with multiple physicians during shadowing that shared their same love for learning and how physicians can use their love of learning and teaching in order to serve their community by sharing their knowledge
• My passion for pursuing learning and teaching has led me to take on certain roles (got into tutoring youth and college peers, being a teaching assistant for multiple classes, teaching Sunday school and being a small group leader for youth (religion but still teaching), being a small group leader for my peers (sharing knowledge about God, again religious but....), volunteering during afterschool programs to share my love of learning with disadvantaged and troubled youth and encourage them to attend college and reach for the stars, mentored a young disadvantaged teen and changed her mind about college and the importance of education, got into research, etc)
• I want to continue to learn more and use my love for learning and pursuing knowledge to serve my community, especially the youth.

2. Serving

• Background: I have a love for serving others
• Connection to medicine: Physicians are caring, compassionate individuals looking to care and help others in their community
• Servant leaders are drawn to a purpose greater than themselves and are great listeners that have empathy for the well-being of others
• Proof:
  • volunteering since I was very young (elementary school) and continue to serve my community in many different ways today (over 1200 hrs from college / continued in college)
  • Always wanted to have a job in which I could communicate with others
• Story Points:
  • Tutoring a kid that was so embarrassed to be seen tutoring that we would meet at school 1.5 hours early so that he wouldn’t be seen getting help. No other tutor had been willing to do that for him, so he was failing almost every single one of his classes.
  • I volunteered at a nursing home and every week I went there I spent time with the same resident. She had dementia. Her stories were super epic - getting lost in the middle east, hosting her own local TV show, being an author, etc. However, every time I visited her, she would tell me the exact same stories in the same way and we would read the same part of her book. I went there every week for 2 years. It got old, but her face lit up when she shared and when I read, so I kept doing it, every week.
  • Working as a CNA and PCA and caring for people all day during work

So what do yall think? Does one seem better than the other?

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[stickgirl390]

If I’m being honest, this entire thing sounds like the same thing every premed writes. The only part that stood out to me was the elderly person who kept telling you the same story but you continued to go because it made her happy: that speaks to me the most about what it means to be a doctor. The rest of your ideas tell me that you know what it means to “want” to be a doctor, but not to actually be one.

 

[aceegreene]

If I’m being honest, this entire thing sounds like the same thing every premed writes. The only part that stood out to me was the elderly person who kept telling you the same story but you continued to go because it made her happy: that speaks to me the most about what it means to be a doctor. The rest of your ideas tell me that you know what it means to “want” to be a doctor, but not to actually be one.

So what is one supposed to write? And how can premeds write in a way that differentiates between showing the “want” to be a doctor vs actually being one?

Because I imagine doing the latter is probably quite difficult considering the limitations of one’s experiences as a premed.

 

[stickgirl390]

So what is one supposed to write? And how can premeds write in a way that differentiates between showing the “want” to be a doctor vs actually being one?

Because I imagine doing the latter is probably quite difficult considering the limitations of one’s experiences as a premed.

Something specific to yourself. Everyone likes learning, everyone likes helping people. I think those two topics in particular are overused the most.

You don’t have to tell me you like learning: your competitive GPA and MCAT will do that. You don’t have to tell me you like helping people: your CV will show me that.

 

[agirlwithdrdreams]

Something specific to yourself. Everyone likes learning, everyone likes helping people. I think those two topics in particular are overused the most.

I also have this problem and just wrote a thread about it, but I don't have anything that is that "one moment" that made me know that I wanted to be a doctor. I haven't known that I wanted to be one my whole life (major / career change in college). I don't have a particularly unique experience or reason why. Not that I am unsure -- I am very sure due to my extensive online research and clinical experiences, but that's not interesting/unique/compelling to adcoms. Some of us are in a pickle like that...

 

[stickgirl390]

I also have this problem and just wrote a thread about it, but I don't have anything that is that "one moment" that made me know that I wanted to be a doctor. I haven't known that I wanted to be one my whole life (major / career change in college). I don't have a particularly unique experience or reason why. Not that I am unsure -- I am very sure due to my extensive online research and clinical experiences, but that's not interesting/unique/compelling to adcoms. Some of us are in a pickle like that...

Whatever caused you to have that major/career change, you should probably write about. That’s something that an admin won’t be able to gather from other parts of your application.

Generally, it’s a good idea to share specific, detailed experiences and explain what you learned and how those experiences will make you a better doctor.

 

[stickgirl390]

I totally understand where you are coming from. For me the change happened because I hated engineering. And what got me switched is hundreds of hours of laying on my bed researching blogs/articles/videos/etc. of what MDs do and what their daily lives look like. I'm not sure that's going to be compelling enough for admins to say "YES!"

You have good insight. I definitely wouldn’t say “well, I hated engineering and MD looked cool from my phone”

Do you have any experience working with patients or shadowing doctors? I would write about that.

 

[LunaOri]

I do have shadowing experience in winter 2020 and also patient care but only super recent. I think it would be a red flag to use my patient care experience as my defining moment since I literally just started in December as a CNA and that's less than 6 months from applying (that's kind of suspiciously took recent, would've known before that). I guess could use my patient experience, but again nothing crazy happened. Nothing happened in which someone was dying and was revived or a surgery almost went wrong, etc. just normal daily medicine.

It's not wrong to say that your interest started with your online research, and tell what you have done to explore that interest. It's also okay to talk about your volunteer/teaching/service experiences in areas other than medicine, and how what you learned from those experiences is applicable to medicine, or contributed to your interest in medicine.

 

[deleted1063986]

Spent time with multiple physicians during shadowing that shared their same love for learning and how physicians can use their love of learning and teaching in order to serve their community by sharing their knowledge

Physicians are caring, compassionate individuals looking to care and help others in their community

I volunteered at a nursing home and every week I went there I spent time with the same resident.

Working as a CNA and PCA and caring for people

These quoted ideas could all be incorporated into a PS. Talk about how/why these experiences led you to pursue this career path.