personal statement help!

[Colorado1989]

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So I am writing my personal statement and I am having "trouble" laying out all my thoughts. There are SO many reasons why I want to be a doctor, but more or less, they all deal with independence, leadership and wanting to be in charge. Is the latter an OK reason? It's the truth. I love being in charge and I love people coming to me with questions, but I don't want to come off as selfish.

What do you guys think?

 

[Ohyeah]

Just start writing things down! You don't have to start at the beginning. You don't even have to start with a concise understanding of why you want to be a doctor.

Like you, I had a ton of reasons and I had NO idea where to begin. I started by listing experiences and things I gained from them, including lessons about the nature of medicine in all of its aspects (gotta do this for the app anyway, right?). I also made a bulleted list of reasons I wanted to be a doctor -- just wrote them as they popped into my head (and not necessarily all in one sitting).

Eventually you'll see how you can piece together these reasons and your experiences into a compelling narrative about how you've developed your perspective of medicine and why it motivates you to embark on this challenging path.

And yes I think it's fine to want to be in charge. Whether you come across as selfish depends on how you phrase things, but wanting to be a leader and a source of solutions for people is a great thing to include.

 

[1cor1311]

So I am writing my personal statement and I am having "trouble" laying out all my thoughts. There are SO many reasons why I want to be a doctor, but more or less, they all deal with independence, leadership and wanting to be in charge. Is the latter an OK reason? It's the truth. I love being in charge and I love people coming to me with questions, but I don't want to come off as selfish.

What do you guys think?

The latter reason might be appropriate to address in a paragraph discussing leadership. You could easily articulately demonstrate why leadership characteristics befit you, and how you have proven (through experiences) how you can excel in a position of responsibility. If you havent at all commenced writing, i would suggest referring to the 2013-2014 applicant sticky threads regarding personal statements. If you need someone to read it over feel free to PM me. I worked on mine for months, with the help of many qualified readers. I can pass any wisdom i absorbed along. Best of luck

 

[HH8911]

I'm working on mine too- I've found the people at my school's writing center to be surprisingly helpful at helping me with the flow and organization of it. If your school has one, maybe try it out, if for nothing else just to see if you are getting your points across effectively to complete strangers.

 

[commander1]

I'm working on mine too- I've found the people at my school's writing center to be surprisingly helpful at helping me with the flow and organization of it. If your school has one, maybe try it out, if for nothing else just to see if you are getting your points across effectively to complete strangers.

In terms of "flow" and "organization".... Find a story. Sounds like a simple idea, but I think the reason adcoms said they enjoyed mine was that it was a cohesive story with a main idea. It took me a long time to find that thread to weave through, but it will make your PS much more memorable. Sadly, most PS's that I've read have sounded vaguely similar (shocking, right?).