personal statement question

[504196]

is it necessary to tailor your personal statement to certain desirable residency programs? For example add an extra few sentences to your PS explaining why “X” program. Or will I be fine with one personal statement?

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[LABrondo]

One


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[funtertaining15]

is it necessary to tailor your personal statement to certain desirable residency programs? For example add an extra few sentences to your PS explaining why “X” program. Or will I be fine with one personal statement?

you can do either. if you do personalized, just do 1-3 of your top programs. or just send one, that's cool, too.

 

[DisorderedDoc417]

If you’re planning on staying near home and applying near home, I would have a little descriptor and include it. Have another copy for programs not near home. Minimal differences that likely don’t make a difference unless the programs you’re applying to want to know that you’ll be sticking around.

 

[Stagg737]

The one exception I'd say is if you have strong geographic ties to an area that program(s) are in which isn't obviously apparent in your app. For example, my home city has over 5 psych residency programs and at least half should have been within reach given my stats and letters. However, I went to med school in a different part of the country and there was nothing in my application that could show I had connections to that city (even though I spent the first 20 years of my life there and both my parents and my wife's whole family are still there). I got zero interviews in that city. Had a classmate who was also from that city with stats similar to mine and he got 2 or 3 interviews there. Only major difference was he said he had a separate PS that noted his ties to the area.

Beyond connections to a geographic area, I would just stick with 1 PS. Even if you did make 2, I would just add a brief few sentences talking about your ties, don't rework your whole PS.

Edit: disordereddoc beat me by 5 seconds

 

[DisorderedDoc417]

The one exception I'd say is if you have strong geographic ties to an area that program(s) are in which isn't obviously apparent in your app. For example, my home city has over 5 psych residency programs and at least half should have been within reach given my stats and letters. However, I went to med school in a different part of the country and there was nothing in my application that could show I had connections to that city (even though I spent the first 20 years of my life there and both my parents and my wife's whole family are still there). I got zero interviews in that city. Had a classmate who was also from that city with stats similar to mine and he got 2 or 3 interviews there. Only major difference was he said he had a separate PS that noted his ties to the area.

Beyond connections to a geographic area, I would just stick with 1 PS. Even if you did make 2, I would just add a brief few sentences talking about your ties, don't rework your whole PS.

Edit: disordereddoc beat me by 5 seconds

This is what my tired post call brain wanted to say...

 

[ridethecliche]

Wellpppp. I guess I'm adding a sentence or two talking about ties to a state where I want to end up.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

you can do either. if you do personalized, just do 1-3 of your top programs. or just send one, that's cool, too.

And make sure you edit before you hit 'send'...
Have had a couple of WTF moments with PSs that were apparently meant for someone else.

(And now I've given all of the tightly wound obsessional traits folks something else to fret about...)

But otherwise...this!

The one exception I'd say is if you have strong geographic ties to an area that program(s) are in which isn't obviously apparent in your app. For example, my home city has over 5 psych residency programs and at least half should have been within reach given my stats and letters. However, I went to med school in a different part of the country and there was nothing in my application that could show I had connections to that city (even though I spent the first 20 years of my life there and both my parents and my wife's whole family are still there). I got zero interviews in that city. Had a classmate who was also from that city with stats similar to mine and he got 2 or 3 interviews there. Only major difference was he said he had a separate PS that noted his ties to the area.

 

[SourceOfDenial]

And make sure you edit before you hit 'send'...
Have had a couple of WTF moments with PSs that were apparently meant for someone else.

(And now I've given all of the tightly wound obsessional traits folks something else to fret about...)

But otherwise...this!

It's always fun to read letters of rec that say the applicant is going into another field. Busted! And applicants can't see the letters.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

The one exception I'd say is if you have strong geographic ties to an area that program(s) are in which isn't obviously apparent in your app. For example, my home city has over 5 psych residency programs and at least half should have been within reach given my stats and letters. However, I went to med school in a different part of the country and there was nothing in my application that could show I had connections to that city (even though I spent the first 20 years of my life there and both my parents and my wife's whole family are still there). I got zero interviews in that city. Had a classmate who was also from that city with stats similar to mine and he got 2 or 3 interviews there. Only major difference was he said he had a separate PS that noted his ties to the area.
...

BTW--just let me reiterate--if this situation applies to you and you have not gotten an invite* from a program in a place where you want to be, where you do have ties--that is a perfectly appropriate time to call or email a program and ask. Otherwise your app WILL be buried in the vast pile.

*It's OK to wait a couple of weeks, though. Please don't start calling on Monday.

 

[ridethecliche]

BTW--just let me reiterate--if this situation applies to you and you have not gotten an invite* from a program in a place where you want to be, where you do have ties--that is a perfectly appropriate time to call or email a program and ask. Otherwise your app WILL be buried in the vast pile.

*It's OK to wait a couple of weeks, though. Please don't start calling on Monday.

Would you say that this is more or less effective than adding something in ones personal statement? I feel like throwing something like this into my personal statement would just make it read like doo-doo because it has nothing to do with anything.

"And this is what i learned from this oh so profound patient experience that I wasn't embellishing at all to make myself look/sound/smell good. Take me back to a place where I belong, west virginiaaaaaaaaa countryyyyy roadsssss! I believe this field is a good fit for me because my ego knows no bounds and I have learned the fine art of sleeping with my eyes open."

Emailing programs on the other hand. That sounds legit.

"Oh hi places within an hour or so from where I grew up! Being back near my folks is very important to me for this stage of my training. Even though I've been (stuck) in a totally different geographical area for over a decade, I really want to head back to the place where I first contemplated the virtues of becoming a mall rat. That way, I can spend any weekends off hanging out at hot topic and reliving simpler times. Kthxbai."

 

[OldPsychDoc]

Would you say that this is more or less effective than adding something in ones personal statement? I feel like throwing something like this into my personal statement would just make it read like doo-doo because it has nothing to do with anything.

"And this is what i learned from this oh so profound patient experience that I wasn't embellishing at all to make myself look/sound/smell good. Take me back to a place where I belong, west virginiaaaaaaaaa countryyyyy roadsssss! I believe this field is a good fit for me because my ego knows no bounds and I have learned the fine art of sleeping with my eyes open."

Emailing programs on the other hand. That sounds legit.

"Oh hi places within an hour or so from where I grew up! Being back near my folks is very important to me for this stage of my training. Even though I've been (stuck) in a totally different geographical area for over a decade, I really want to head back to the place where I first contemplated the virtues of becoming a mall rat. That way, I can spend any weekends off hanging out at hot topic and reliving simpler times. Kthxbai."

I'm going to say that the email, if sincere, brief, professional, and polite, is going to be more effective--simply because it is direct. There's still no guarantee that your personalized PS will be read--unfortunately we can't search on the text to find useful key words--so if you don't float to the top of the pile, it's entirely possible we'll miss your heartfelt sentiments about coming home.

 

[NickNaylor]

For what it's worth, I just send the same PS to all programs when I applied. Granted I didn't get interviews at a few places at which I didn't have any clear geographic ties (from the south, did medical school in the midwest... why am I applying to the northeast?), but it didn't seem to matter at other places (e.g., programs on the west coast and Pacific northwest). If you're willing to put in the time and effort to do additional personal statements, great, but I don't think it's necessary, strictly speaking.

I agree with sending an e-mail to program directors/their administrators rather than crafting a PS. In fact, I went to AAP last week and went into a workshop on dealing with the increased interest in psychiatry (read: more applications to sort through). Several PDs were quite candid that receiving an e-mail from a student expressing interest in their program was hugely helpful and would cause their application to be reviewed when it otherwise might be rejected immediately (due to, for example, no clear geographic ties to the area, no clear reason to apply to that program specifically, etc.). As @OldPsychDoc says, it doesn't need to be anything extensive - just a quick message expressing your interest.

 

[DisorderedDoc417]

Poor OldPsychDoc is going to have 1000 emails on Monday with 10 paragraphs a piece detailing the deep geographical ties to the area. With this post alone we added like 40 hours for every applicant who will now neurotically write separate notes to each of the 40 places they over-apply to. But, perhaps that will tire them out and fix the hyperapplying issue.

 

[yanks26dmb]

Speaking of personal statements... if I were to update my personal statement over the weekend and then reassign the updated personal statement to all of my programs, am I pushed to the back of the pile? Is there any disadvantage to doing this? Thanks!

 

[OldPsychDoc]

Speaking of personal statements... if I were to update my personal statement over the weekend and then reassign the updated personal statement to all of my programs, am I pushed to the back of the pile? Is there any disadvantage to doing this? Thanks!

When a PD logs in, the default sort is alphabetical. I don't know of any who care to sort by nanosecond of last update.
I personally sort by things like "last med school attended", and then look for my favorites*.

*(No--I'm not telling.)

 

[aim-agm]

When a PD logs in, the default sort is alphabetical.

Cue threads about whether it's worth it to legally change name in order to be sorted higher.

 

[yanks26dmb]

When a PD logs in, the default sort is alphabetical. I don't know of any who care to sort by nanosecond of last update.
I personally sort by things like "last med school attended", and then look for my favorites*.

*(No--I'm not telling.)

Fair points. So ultimately, uploading a second PS won't cause any harm at this point?

 

[OldPsychDoc]

Fair points. So ultimately, uploading a second PS won't cause any harm at this point?

None whatsoever--as long as it is well-edited and appropriate.

 

[Crayola227]

I don't know that emailing/calling a program to which you have ties to try to garner an interview, means that one cannot/should not put in a holla in their PS. Yes, clearly you need to figure out how to do this with some.... grace.

 

[Crayola227]

When a PD logs in, the default sort is alphabetical. I don't know of any who care to sort by nanosecond of last update.
I personally sort by things like "last med school attended", and then look for my favorites*.

*(No--I'm not telling.)

Ha, I've been telling applicants for a while that sometimes a pipeline exists from their school to somewhere else, and it's not always clear why.

"Why do so many of these applicants from New Mexico end up in Alabama? This seems odd" assuming you detect the pattern.

Always fun interview day to have the Alabama PD say, "So how is my bestie that I went to school with in New England, that is now the PD from your home school's program in New Mexico, doing these days? I should give them a call."

Never underestimate what a small world medicine can be.

 

[ridethecliche]

Heh, I added something in for ties at the last minute fueled by coffee, desperation, and likely the assistance of some celebratory liquid courage with my housemate as I hit the submit button. You'd think that it would atleast trigger some sort of celebratory gif, but alas, the process remains soul sucking.

I'll likely take the advice and send an email as well. I think I should have just left things as is and only done the email because of the risk of sending the wrong essay to a place. Yeesh.

Hopefully my last minute addition was helpful.

Also, @OldPsychDoc , I'm a bit disappointed that you don't have reviewers search for the key phrase of 'mall rat'. I thought that was my sure shot at getting an interview. I mean how could you not interview someone with such a keen insight into the human experience!?

Edit: I should probably talk to one of the psych attendings at my institution and let her know that I reconsidered what I said when I told her that I wanted to get the hell out of current state. I'd actually rank staying at my home program up there with moving closer to home. I had done my psych rotation at an affiliated hospital elsewhere and have really loved the rotations I've been doing at my home program. Who woulda thunk

Edit 2: Now I have something else to ruminate and fret about re: putting something in PS last minute instead of just emailing later. GAHHHH!!!

Edit 3: It has begun!