personal statement help!! need inspiration

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amyfubu

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i am working on the personal statement right now.. i know it seem late to apply. i am stuck with my PS it's so hard to write about it when i just recently decide to pursue dentistry. can some one help me? give me advices on wat to write? how to take approach? how to make it sounds persona?

the only experiences i have is to volunteer at free dental clinic , working with homeless ppl.
all i can think about why i pursue dentistry is
- i like art, and creation
- i am not scared of dirty teeth
- i like working with ppl, take care of health, and help ppl ( so cliche )
- i like the life style of dentist, have family, own time

what else can i write about? :eek: please help me go thru this hard time, it's time pressuring now...... :scared:
or is anyone willing to read my personal statment ? I am so appreciated about that!!!!


thank you

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Hey Amy,

I would love to help you, but from what you said...I can't tell you anything. Although I'm not asking you give any personal identifying info out, it would be helpful to know more about your experiences, and reasoning for becoming a dentist in order to tell you what to focus on.

Briefly...

Try to think of one experience in the free clinic that made you feel excited about doing dentistry as a career. It doesn't have to be "I watched my first tooth extraction and the tooth cracked and suddenly the dentist was forced to...and blood went...and the thrill made me..." It could just be a time when you spoke with the volunteer dentist about dentistry and he or she said something about the field that hit home. Or it could be talking to a patient one day before the doctor saw that person and the patient told you about their problem and how much it was a pain, and after the treatment you saw how much better they felt about getting treated and knew this profession was for you.

Remember the key things they want to understand about you from your statement are:

1. Why did you decide to become a dentist? What attracts you to the field?

2. What skills or experiences do you have that make you different and unique from about 75% of the applicants (I say 75% cause lets face it, almost all of us have 90% similar background experiences...there aren't that many truly unique experiences like nearly drowning at sea and rescued by a seafaring dentist who took you in as her own.)

3. What have you done to prove or test your interest in dentistry?

4. What have you done to show you can be a leader or team player in the field of dentistry?


I think if you try to answer even three of these, you will overflow you 4500 characters.

Like I said...I'd start off with a description of a point when you recognized how much this was the right field for you. Then go into some background information about yourself that highlight things that make you unique or things that show you are service oriented. Work up to how you discovered or decided to look into dentistry and what you've done since to test your interest in dentistry, and close with reasons you really love the field or ways you feel you can contribute to the field.
 
djeffreyt said:
Hey Amy,
I think if you try to answer even three of these, you will overflow you 4500 characters.

Yup, after I told the story of some dentists rescuing me out of a plane crash I addressed those SAME questions and I was at 11000 characters. It was extremely difficult to get it all down but it's well worth the time you'll need to take to make it great.

The previous post is very good and should give you a great start. Have lots of people read it and get their overall impression. Boring, interesting, enlightening, sappy, stupid, blah blah blah. Take their opinion seriously because they're people just like the ADCOMS.
 
as someone else said...there are so many pre-dents out there who are similar it feels like we're part of a giant peel 'n bake cookie cutter experience. some things that i did as i went through that creative process... i sat down and brainstormed what i felt was a good representation of who i am and then did the same with some of my best and close friends and asked them honestly what stood out about my personality, what they felt were my strengths and weaknesses, etc. these are people i trust to tell me the absolute truth without rose colored glasses. then i compared those lists to see what really shined through to everyone. ok, so i did this stuff mentally from talking with them and moments of introspection but you get the general idea... i already knew what i liked about dentistry and what it could do for me. at that point it was up to me to be able to tell adcoms what i could do for dentistry. after all, they already know why dentistry is great (why else are they the adcoms for a school???) i also realized i need to put a special something in my essay to put me apart from other people on paper--the key here is to understand how many of these PS's the adcoms read...at some point their eyes are likely to glaze over. my job was to keep that from happening. now i'm no roald dahl or dave barry, but i consider myself to have a good sense of humor even if some of my jokes are pretty corny at times. know your audience. human emotion is often a key element to writing so tap into that valuable resource!!! and realize that your first draft is just the first of several to come...usually at least 5 in order to get a really good product. if you still have trouble, just PM me. I'm no expert, like I said, but friends have been using me as an editor for years. :)
 
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