Personal Statement PLEASE HELP

[kov82]

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Hi guys, my personal statement does express that I want to be a dentist and that I will work hard while in school and all, but its GENERAL, one paragraph mentions a little about my family background, I wrote one paragraph mentioning other places I've worked, and two generally expressing how much I love dentistry, and a conclusion, when I call up the schools they basically say, "your personal statement is YOUR personal statement, its whatever you want to say to admissions" so not much help there, how much should I focus on dentistry and be able to make sure the letter "flows" well, 4500 characters is not much and I like what I have now, but if I had to criticize myself I'd say its a bit general, should I put in specifics? I think it would ruin the "flow" of my letter as I've written it now...

 

[Emmie]

Did you not see Doc Toothache's link?

 

[kov82]

Nope, but I guess I'll look for it now

 

[Jongho Yoon]

http://www.dmdstudent.com/

 

[amalgamgrillz]

Hi guys, my personal statement does express that I want to be a dentist and that I will work hard while in school and all, but its GENERAL, one paragraph mentions a little about my family background, I wrote one paragraph mentioning other places I've worked, and two generally expressing how much I love dentistry, and a conclusion, when I call up the schools they basically say, "your personal statement is YOUR personal statement, its whatever you want to say to admissions" so not much help there, how much should I focus on dentistry and be able to make sure the letter "flows" well, 4500 characters is not much and I like what I have now, but if I had to criticize myself I'd say its a bit general, should I put in specifics? I think it would ruin the "flow" of my letter as I've written it now...

I've been editing a lot personal statements lately - I could read yours and give you feedback/suggestions if you like.

 

[DMDpride2013]

...should I put in specifics? I think it would ruin the "flow" of my letter as I've written it now...

You should definitely put in practical real world experiences that affirmed dentistry is the career for you. If you have any clinical experience (which you should), include one case that dramatically affected your decision for dentistry. Like you said before, this is YOUR personal statement, you need to include specific aspects of YOUR decision and YOUR experience that gave you passion for dentistry.

 

[amalgamgrillz]

You should definitely put in practical real world experiences that affirmed dentistry is the career for you. If you have any clinical experience (which you should), include one case that dramatically affected your decision for dentistry. Like you said before, this is YOUR personal statement, you need to include specific aspects of YOUR decision and YOUR experience that gave you passion for dentistry.

I completely agree. Talk about specific clinical experiences that got you interested in dentistry. Try to NOT say "watching the dentist exercise precise manual dexterity as they carefully placed the patient's crown truly made me want to pursue dentistry" - that type of sentence is becoming so cliche and boring. Try to highlight your most unique experience to make yourself standout.

 

[Chrono]

did you guys address grades in the PS, for example if you had a couple of bad semesters...? Is this advised?

 

[DMDpride2013]

did you guys address grades in the PS, for example if you had a couple of bad semesters...? Is this advised?

I did address such issues. At the end of my freshman year, my GPA was 3.0. At the end of my sophomore year it was 3.5. I mentioned something along the lines of how my attitude and focus were not up to par my freshman year but since then I was continually dedicated to academic excellence and becoming top of class.

 

[amalgamgrillz]

I didn't talk about grades. Unless you have a really good explanation for bad grades, like a death in the family, or extreme illness...and then show an improvement in your grades after that, I don't think you should talk about it.

 

[Chrono]

I'm torn...I think it shows that u recognize that your performance was not good...and you sought to improve it. Surely this looks good?

Any other thoughts? Anyone.

 

[amalgamgrillz]

I'm torn...I think it shows that u recognize that your performance was not good...and you sought to improve it. Surely this looks good?

Any other thoughts? Anyone.

Well, you can talk about your passion and drive to do well..and how you can carry this over into dental school..and then use your school work as an example. Even though you struggled with X course, you had the perseverence to improve..blah blah, this and that. If you're going to talk about marks, I would definitely spin it in another light as well so that you're really overshadowing any negative aspects to your application that you choose to acknowledge

 

[MrKnowitall11]

I know a lot of things but writing my personal statement was difficult. The best advice I have is instead of trying to include everything (why you want to be a dentist, classwork, volunteer experience, etc.) grab one of those things and run with it. And then don't write too much about the experience, focus most of your time on what you learned or felt. During my interviews, the experience from my personal statement was asked about the most.

 

[karrotcake]

I know a lot of things but writing my personal statement was difficult. The best advice I have is instead of trying to include everything (why you want to be a dentist, classwork, volunteer experience, etc.) grab one of those things and run with it. And then don't write too much about the experience, focus most of your time on what you learned or felt. During my interviews, the experience from my personal statement was asked about the most.

what did you focus on for your PS?

 

[joonkimdds]

I'm torn...I think it shows that u recognize that your performance was not good...and you sought to improve it. Surely this looks good?

Any other thoughts? Anyone.

I disagree.

I think it will just sound like a lame excuse paragraph unless you can make it sound really nice 🙂

 

[dentrilla]

what did you focus on for your PS?

Yah I'd like to know aswell lol