Personal Statement Resubmission

[MD2B in 2010]

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Last year I applied for regular MD admission and then later realized that I wanted to do the MD/PhD and had limited funds to continue the cylce so I decided to not submit any of the secondaries that I received from schools after the primary step. I figure that most schools do not screen and just send secondaries to a majority of their applicants for profit gain and do not scrutinize an applicants application until the secondary and other supporting materials (recommendations, "secondary", etc..) are submitted. Based on this, I was wondering if it would be okay to re-use my personal statement since it was actually never put to use by my standards. Also I mean, I have to write two other essays for this particular track anyways right? So I mean how much harm could this to do to me? Should I even consider myself a re-applicant in this cycle since I did not submit any secondaries?

Guys I would really appreciate a plethora of ideas on how to resolve this situation, because I feel my current personal statement is pretty good and has garnered pretty good praise from a diverse audience telling me not to change it. Help me out here, thanks.

 

[StIGMA]

MD and MD/PhD admissions look for different things. You need the personal statement to very strongly back up your clinical intentions/experiences, but it should also contain some element of your research background or future in research. I included 1 paragraph of my lab experiences that flowed with the rest of the essay and my intentions to be a physician/physician-scientist. The essay should be written with the MD admissions committees in mind, but do not neglect your scientific interests.

 

[JHopRevisit]

Yea, send it in, not a big deal. Even if they read it no one would remember.

The "Why MD-PhD" essay might be a good time to tell them the story about how you came to decide on MD-PhD. Don't have any advice as to whether you even mention that you started MD apps and bailed, it could go both ways. Again, probably not a big deal.

 

[MD2B in 2010]

Yeah because I am very tempted on the application part when it asks have you ever applied to our school, (MD or MD/PhD I believe) to say that I have never applied and not consider myself a re-applicant, because I never actually sent in any secondaries to any schools. I just do not want to cause any problems in the process by saying that I am not a re-applicant, when in fact, I possibly am.

I was also assuming that it would not be a big deal to just send in the personal statement since it addresses both my research and clinical very well and was never actually formally rejected on its merit or my other qualifications.

 

[nystargate]

I think that you are not a re-applicant since you only sent in your primary and never completed the secondaries. It basically seems like you withdrew your application for your own reasons and since you never sent in secondaries and LOR's, you were never verified as complete, your application never went under review, you were never rejected .... therefore you're not a re-applicant.

Even though you will write two more essays for MD/PhD (research and why dual degree), I would suggest that you do include something in your personal statement about research at least. You don't have to throw in the typical "physician scientist" or "translational research" or "bench to bedside" (save that for MD/PhD) but definitely talk about your research and what you learned. This would include aspects such as analytical and technical skills.

 

[LadyLightning20]

Do we need to put something in our PS about research? I thought that since we had an entire other essay to describe why we wanted the combined degree and another essay to talk about research, I didn't have to talk about research in my PS at all. I just talked about volunteering and clinical experience.

 

[itsallthesame]

MD/PhD programs are looking for people who want to be researchers, not only clinical doctors. The point of the open ended personal statement for all MD applicants is to give the committee a self-portrait. If that picture doesn't have both a stethoscope and a pipette... you may encounter some doubters. You should make it clear that you are going to medical school to participate in the science of medicine. People won't know your intentions if you talk about shadowing clinicians in one essay and then talk about working in a basic science lab in the next.

Then in why md/phd (as opposed to md or phd) you need to back that up, specifically ANSWERING that question and in research you need to demonstrate your ability to approach an interesting scientific question (or 2).