Personal statement question

[Doe22]

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Second time posting this week (with a personal statement question). So, I wrote my personal statement about a positive experience I had with an illness. I'm currently in the process of editing. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, but there is a small problem that I didn't think of until now. I have this one science professor who wrote one of my LORs. Before writing the letter, they asked for a meeting and wanted to know the reason why I want to go to med school. I talked about how I have faced illness myself and how illness has affected my family (here I started talking about a very negative experience, which ended in the death of a family member). By the end of the meeting, the professor asked me if they can talk about this certain story in the letter. I didn't feel like that it would be an issue and was happy that the professor agreed to write the letter. However, now I have come to realize that I may have created a problem for myself. Does this sound like it would create an inconsistency between the letter and the personal statement?

P.S.: I already told the prof about my personal statement and why I chose not to mention the negative experience.

 

[Monkeymojo]

Personally, I don’t think it should matter that much and you’ve done everything you can already by reaching out to the professor. People are multifaceted and the desire to go to medical school often stems from a culmination of experiences rather than a single event.

 

[KnightDoc]

Personally, I don’t think it should matter that much and you’ve done everything you can already by reaching out to the professor. People are multifaceted and the desire to go to medical school often stems from a culmination of experiences rather than a single event.

True, but that's not OP's dilemma. His problem is that his PS has one spin on dealing with illness while the story he told his prof has the exact opposite, which could very well call into question whether one or both of his tales are fictional.

I don't have good advice here, since there is no way to know whether the same people will even be reading all parts of the app, but it is a legitimate concern in this case.

 

[Doe22]

Personally, I don’t think it should matter that much and you’ve done everything you can already by reaching out to the professor. People are multifaceted and the desire to go to medical school often stems from a culmination of experiences rather than a single event.

I had a meeting today with another professor who's also going to write a LOR for me. They suggested that I incorporate the story in the PS and they offered to review the statement once it's done. I'm also hoping that the prof who wrote my last letter used the story in a context different than what I would in a PS (for example to talk about the challenges that I have faced and how this particular experience could make me a good candidate for med school). I'm thinking about contacting them again when I update the PS to make sure that we're on the same page.

 

[Doe22]

True, but that's not OP's dilemma. His problem is that his PS has one spin on dealing with illness while the story he told his prof has the exact opposite, which could very well call into question whether one or both of his tales are fictional.

I don't have good advice here, since there is no way to know whether the same people will even be reading all parts of the app, but it is a legitimate concern in this case.

Exactly! But as I mentioned above, I have decided to talk about both stories. I will communicate this to my recommender. fortunately, they are very approachable and would even rewrite the letter if necessary.