personal statement advice!

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[it.]

ok, so i finished my personal statement, and in it i basically told one complete story from beginning to end which was my father's illness and the people i met along the way in dealing with his illness and what i learned from them.

my advisor says it's a good essay, but that med schools want to see you talk about more than one thing in your PS - snapshots of different experiences rather than just one experience.

so the question is, do you agree with this? am i doing my application a disservice by just talking about this one experience? did anyone else write their personal statement on one single event and how it shaped them as a person? or did you incorporate a bunch of different experiences?

thanks for all the help people.................

i also had one big story, but i tried to throw in some little irrelevant-to-the-big story-anectdotes. i like my ps, and i'm confident the adcoms will too...go with your gut

 

[jammin06]

From what i've heard, the PS should accomplish two things:

1) show that you have a serious interest in pursuing a career in medicine
2) show that you have a background to get an understanding of what you're getting yourself in to.

I think as long as you can accomplish both of those, you will be fine. One thing that you could do (which i think already might be the case) is to isolate a few unique instances and develop a mini-story around each of those, and then use your father's illness as an over-arching storyline that everything ties back into. I used a similar format where i tied back into a central metaphor (rather than storyline), but i did as your advisor suggested and had stories about my various experiences. PM me if you have more specific questions. hth

 

[Lythanh]

I've read many people's personal statements here on SDN and one of the problems I saw was placing way too many experiences into the PS. Yes, they were able to give the adcoms snapshots of their experiences but that was it--snapshots. Not much detail. As a result, it made it seem as though many of these experiences weren't that important and since they had so many, I began to forget about some of them towards the end. In addition, it made their PS seem not unified. In my PS, I focused on one specific event at the hospital that was really important to me and I described it in detail (to show that I am an observant preson) and then wrote what I learned from that experience. And then I just gave a very short anecdote about another experience that was also very important to me and then a very short explanation of howt hat affected me. And how those two experiences tied together. To me, it is better to pick out at least two very important experiences that will make you stand out and write a great, elaborate PS on them.

 

[speranza]

I'm also writing one big story for my current draft of my PS. I have a very short bit (like two sentences) about my research and I may include an equally short anecdote about a clinical experience, but right now, I'm just focusing on one clinical experience that was very important to me. My first draft of my PS was about like four different experiences and I didn't like it much. That was just too much to include in a 5300 character statement. I think going into detail about one or maybe two experiences is better. Although I have read some great statements that incorporate three or more experiences, so it can be done.

 

[Mixtli]

I haven't finished my personal statement, but from what I have read, I believe the strongest personal statement accomplish

1) SHOW why you are interested in medicine
2) SHOW what is unique about you
3) SHOW strong personal characteristics such as maturity, understanding, hardwork
4) SHOW what you have learned in your experiences

 

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[AxlxA]

You can write all you want about an experience but if i were the adcom, i want to see you show me how those experiences changed you or shaped you into the way you are. I'm sure throughout that one story, you have many different parts that can show different attributes about you. If you have done a good job with showing them who you are, then i say SUBMIT! Besides, people reiterate too much from their activities/volunteer section. I didn't even mention about my 2+ years of research anywhere on the PS, research didn't shape me into who i am.