Personal Statement Reviewers (Need help? Want to help? Read this!)

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My personal statement writing guide is now ready. It could be posted immediately.

However, I should inquire about ethics first. I did use completely anonymous examples from submissions from the past 2 years. Would anyone at all have a problem with this? Although people and place names have been removed, a familiar statement could pop up. Conversely, there could be a concern about examples being stolen and integrated into real personal statements. Whole statements are never used...only excerpts from paragraphs are taken at most, and never from the same statement. I am 100% positive these small bits could NEVER be traced back to the author.

My own personal opinion is that if you e-mail a complete stranger from a forum your personal statement, you are willing for it to be on the internet. I could be wrong.

If anyone is for or against a guide being posted, please let me know.
 
dantemac said:
My personal statement writing guide is now ready. It could be posted immediately.

However, I should inquire about ethics first. I did use completely anonymous examples from submissions from the past 2 years. Would anyone at all have a problem with this? Although people and place names have been removed, a familiar statement could pop up. Conversely, there could be a concern about examples being stolen and integrated into real personal statements. Whole statements are never used...only excerpts from paragraphs are taken at most, and never from the same statement. I am 100% positive these small bits could NEVER be traced back to the author.

My own personal opinion is that if you e-mail a complete stranger from a forum your personal statement, you are willing for it to be on the internet. I could be wrong.

If anyone is for or against a guide being posted, please let me know.
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I would consider contacting people directly regarding the usage of excerpts from their personal statement.
 
I would do that except there is no way to trace back the file names to the e-mail addresses. I use all Word files for review.
 
Bump. Re-opened this after a comment regarding it not existing, I assumed it was past its use for this cycle. At some appropriate time before the next cycle, a new one will need to be made though.
 
Edited list; let me know if you want to be removed (reviewers). If this doesn't get utilized past this point (bumped at all), I'll be letting it die for good and someone (we, whoever) can start a new one when the next cycle starts getting hot.
 
I'm willing to lend my advice on personal statements. Feel free to PM me!
 
I am also available to read personal statements. Send me a PM, I'll send you my e-mail address and I'll get back to you with comments. Usually, it takes me 2 days per statement. Hope everyone's application is coming along fine!
 
The current lıst of revıewers has only one pre-dent to my knowledge, ıf you or anyone else ıs uncomfortable wıth that person revıewıng theır PS, they have the optıon of not sendıng theır PS to them, ıt's that sımple! If that ıs a concern and you're not aware who ıs a pre-dent and who ıs not, then just ask when you PM the revıewer and make your decısıon to utılıze them or not.
 
I can help out again. Last cycle I read nearly a combined 40 personal statements from the pre-health club at my school and a good number of members on SDN. It's great to see many of them succeed this cycle.

Please be polite to all the reviewers and be patient. Many of us are also full time working and/or in school. Reply and let the reviewer know whether you got the edit or not. Two of my edits got lost and I had to resend.
 
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Send it to me I can read and give advice.
 
Just saw this thread now. Great idea. I'd love to have my ps reviewed, so i'll probably pm a few people. 🙂 I would also be happy to lend a pair of eyes if you're comfortable with it, just send me a pm and I'll get to it when I can.
 
Yea I just saw it too, and coincidentally I also just finished my personal statement and was hoping someone could review it? This thread is kind of old so I'm not sure who wants to look at it. Would just kind of prefer a dental student who has gone through the whole process. Any help would be much appreciated!
 
PM me I'll read some. I'm not the best on grammar and spelling but I think I am good with content and structure.
 
I have had mine reviewed by 3 adcom members from 2 different schools, i have heard from their mouths, what they personally are looking for. Obviously it differs from school to school and member to member, but the guidelines are the same.

I am happy to read over anyone that wants theirs edited. I read about 20 last year and am happy to help this year.
 
I have a knack for finding bad grammar and am happy to read a few personal statements. I've been accepted to D school, so I won't be applying this cycle (no ulterior motives).
 
I'll put my name in here and say that i'll offer to read and critique.

BUT BE WARNED NOW: I don't believe in giving you a bunch of fluff like, "Oh, well I think you're on the right track" and "Good effort" and blah blah blah. If your statement is bland, I'll tell you. If I have no interest in it, I'll tell you. If it's poorly written (meaning poor grammar, poor punctuation, poor spelling), I will rip you a new one and will not read anything else from you.

I will give you honest criticism (praise doesn't help anyone who's trying to make a better personal statement), but if you're going to ask me for my time, then you had damn well better put in your effort first. If you send me something that looks like you just cobbled it together 30 mins ago or is basically anything less than a "submission worthy" piece in terms of spelling and grammatical correctness, then I'm not going to waste my time with you. I think it's fair to say that anyone who is offering to review your PS is doing you a HUGE service, so you need to be respectful of that and send us something that represents your best effort.

Having said that, let's see what you got!
 
P.S. I would prefer to receive any statements in .doc or .pages format. I read much better from paper and like to write my responses in ink. Afterwards I'll scan it and send it back to you.
 
tommyinVA said:
P.S. I would prefer to receive any statements in .doc or .pages format. I read much better from paper and like to write my responses in ink. Afterwards I'll scan it and send it back to you.
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You is so old skool:laugh:
I just track changes in the document
 
I'll help out if anyone wants some brutally honest critique.

PM me, prefer doc file to track changes.

UOP 2016
Navy HPSP
 
I'll read some as well! I had 2 professors review my own personal statement as well as numerous peer critiques. In an interview, the dean quoted a line from my personal statement... so I'm guessing he liked it (and I got into said school 😉). I also got accepted to my top choice school so I'm happy to give back to SDN! PM if you want me to critique your personal statement. I guess most people on here are pretty stern in their critiques. However, I'm just not a stern personality haha, but I will give you a lot of suggestions and rephrase some sentences if they disrupt the flow of the paper. I also won't tell you I think your paper is awesome and well-written if it isn't. I think constructive criticism is very important in the personal statement writing process, but I also know that a lot of people get offensive if some one slams their statement because after all it is "personal." Therefore, I'll just add things that you should work on. I don't think it's necessary to put people down because, from experience, I know it takes countless hours to generate a personal statement. Anyways, like I said, I'd be happy to look at a few in my spare time because I only have one final 😀
 
Deddy117 said:
are you guys doing this for free?
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Of course. That's how you keep SDN going. We were "mentored" by people when we first got here, and now we like to pay it forward.

I'd be happy to look over anyone's statement.
 
I used Gurufi to have my personal statement edited, and they did an awesome job with my essay. Transformed it completely actually. I would highly recommend their service, and specifically an editor named Mirinda. They're also the cheapest service that I have been able to find!
 
festivalcord said:
I used Gurufi to have my personal statement edited, and they did an awesome job with my essay. Transformed it completely actually. I would highly recommend their service, and specifically an editor named Mirinda. They're also the cheapest service that I have been able to find!
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At what point a "transformed" ps ceases to be a "personal" statement?
 
The content was unchanged. The part of their service that I found most helpful was their suggestions on how to better communicate what I was trying to say.
 
Glimmer1991 said:
I absolutely agree that a "transformed" PS can still certainly be personal. Even for myself, a best friend who is an outrageously skilled writer (and who also knows a lot about my personality and my life) was able to revolutionize mine in certain areas--but it was still VERY much personal. He stuck with the meat of my paper, but helped me convey some of my supporting details in a more compelling manner.
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Maybe in ds there will be an "outrageously skilled" classmate who will "tranform" the clinical requirements.
 
Glimmer1991 said:
Maybe so. However, this situation isn't quite parallel to mine, since my friend isn't a simply a classmate. He writes for the Wall Street Journal, so I figure he's more on the "expert" level. Having quite a few front page articles within just a few months of employment puts him there, at least in my book.

I thought you left out the "s" in transform to mock a typo I may have made, but I see that isn't the case... Hm.
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:corny::corny::corny::corny::corny::corny::corny:
 
Glimmer1991 said:
Maybe so. However, this situation isn't quite parallel to mine, since my friend isn't a simply a classmate. He writes for the Wall Street Journal, so I figure he's more on the "expert" level. Having quite a few front page articles within just a few months of employment puts him there, at least in my book.I thought you left out the "s" in transform to mock a typo I may have made, but I see that isn't the case... Hm.
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"Hm" indeed.
 
I can read over some PS if someone needs help or advise. People helped me during my application process so I am willing to pay it forward.
 
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I also used Gurufi, but Brian helped me. Honestly I had a really hard time putting my personal statement together, but Brian was very helpful in editing what I had. If you guys are really struggling check them out.
 
I gambled a bit and wrote my PS in a letter format when I was applying. Got accepted to 4 dental schools & one of the interviewers found it interesting. Now I'm kinda chilling before I start at Penn. Recently finished editing an Indian dentist's PS. I haven't read that many personal statements but I'd love to help out! It's a big sdn dent fam so I just want to contribute and help. Shoot me a PM if you've questions/concerns/etc
 
Sometimes acceptances are in spite of rather than because of a personal statement.
 
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