Personal Statement - VERY nontrad life

[treewalker]

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Compared to me most non-trads look pretty darn normal. I've had a rocky life story and would prefer NOT to highlight it, however given my situation I think adcoms will demand some type of explanation. My question is... what do I disclose and what do I keep to myself? Can I just save the explanations for my interview or do I need to address them in my personal statement? or is their another way to address them?

Here's the deal

I dropped out of high school at age 17 (got California highschool proficiency diploma). Then was in and out of community college from ages 19 to 24. During that time I sometimes enrolled in classes but didn't go, so I have many Ws and Fs on my VERY OLD transcripts. I also worked odd jobs and went clubbing alot. The really lame part is that other than one English class, all the 'Fs' are in Physical Education, which is ironic since I'm a fitness buff. Back then I would enroll in P.E. then figure it was not important and just not show up - instead I would go to the gym.

Many years later I returned to school to earn bachelors degree and graduate with a 3.95 gpa.

Beyond the grade situation, my teens and early 20s were a time in which I was a 'lost girl'. I do not wish to whine or feel sorry for myself, but I can tell you that I was one messed up girl back then as a result of years of various types of childhood abuse and an extremely mentally ill mother. Also from ages 17 to 22, after my parents divorced, my mother was in and out of mental institutions, which left me trying to help take care of my much younger sisters - not so much in financial way, but to make sure they were fed, dressed, etc. It was extremely traumatic to watch my mother 'lose her mind' (literally) over the loss of a man who is not worth the scum stain on the bottom of my shoe - and then to watch her go with yet another abusive jerk. Then from ages 23 to 24 I was in an abusive relationship that ended with me putting a restraining order on this person and having his child all at once.

So....

I came from one messed up home life and was a pretty screwed up young woman. I understand that even though I came from an extremely messed up situation, I am responsible for my decisions and I made some bad ones school wise and personally.

I was also a survivor. I went through years of counseling and now live a very nice life, have a wonderful husband and a strong family life. I've also demonstrated success in my career and in my dedication to community service. If you met me you would NEVER know that I came from such a screwed background. I have a nice family. We live in an affluent neighborhood. I'm seen as a community leader. I'm educated, articulate, intelligent and pretty normal. I've done some very good things professionally. Also when I apply to med school I will have an stellar science GPA and many good medically related volunteer experiences.

I really hate to dredge up my past, but given my years of grades that include As (when I went to class) and Fs/Ws when I didn't, I have to address the situation. I'm not talking about a bad semester or two, I'm talking about several bad years.

What would you do if you were in my situation? How would you handle it? I do not like to make excuses for myself, but at the same time I really do have valid reasons for my earlier failures. I am not going into the details... but let's just say my homelife was a combo of the movies Precious and Mommy Dearest - no exaggeration. How do I let adcoms know I have a valid reason for my past, without appearing to get on the pity pot or making them think I'm some kind of freak for coming from such a messed up home?


I think I should add that I feel my past has made me have a great deal of compassion for others. I am truly comfortable with everyone from having drinks with the CEO of a large firm to chatting with the mentally ill homeless guy who stops me on the street. I'm far less likely to judge people and far more likely to see their humanity.
I know that external factors do not define a person, and that no matter who a person is s/he has something beautiful to share and something not so beautiful that needs healing.

 

[Generici]

Wow, where to start...First of all, your distant past and mine are not all that different. While I don't come from an abusive family, I had my own issues that led to years of less-than-stellar academic and personal performance.

Your personal statement is probably not the place to bring up much of this, unless you can clearly tie these early experiences into your reasoning for why you want to be a doctor. The statement is your chance to sell yourself to the schools and should focus on the your reasons to pursue medicine, the strengths and abilities that will make you a successful student and doctor, and the life experiences you have had that pertain directly to this career path. Emphasize the positive and the relevant here, sell the person you are now and who you've proven yourself to be through your serious undergrad years and professional career.

Most of the secondary apps that I completed (including OHSU, as I see you're in OR) asked questions about overcoming adversity in your life. With your background, you can write a stellar response to this. You just need to frame and phrase your experiences in an appropriate way. Of course you went clubbing, what 18-25 year old doesn't? Forget it. You came from an abusive home, dropped out and cared for younger siblings. You were a teenager, a kid, exposed to terrible circumstances, how harshly would you judge another kid in the same spot? Don't berate yourself over the minutae of your teens/early twenties, find the positive themes of those years that led to your current situation. There was something inside you that led you to care for your siblings, that led you to a 3.95 gpa, that led you to the stable life you now have, and that is now leading you to medicine. That is what I would focus on to explain your early college grades.

I'd wish you the best of luck, but I suspect that with your background you've learned how to make your own!🙂

 

[nabeel76]

Not exactly sure how you would go about presenting your background, I would recommend hiring a personal medical school admissions consultant in your case to figure out how to best present your story.

I am pretty sure however, that you are going to have to discuss this in your personal statement as having many years of bad performance - no matter how long ago - is going to need to be addressed if you want a hope of getting an interview to begin with.

 

[nabeel76]

Wow, where to start...First of all, your distant past and mine are not all that different. While I don't come from an abusive family, I had my own issues that led to years of less-than-stellar academic and personal performance.

Your personal statement is probably not the place to bring up much of this, unless you can clearly tie these early experiences into your reasoning for why you want to be a doctor. The statement is your chance to sell yourself to the schools and should focus on the your reasons to pursue medicine, the strengths and abilities that will make you a successful student and doctor, and the life experiences you have had that pertain directly to this career path. Emphasize the positive and the relevant here, sell the person you are now and who you've proven yourself to be through your serious undergrad years and professional career.

Most of the secondary apps that I completed (including OHSU, as I see you're in OR) asked questions about overcoming adversity in your life. With your background, you can write a stellar response to this. You just need to frame and phrase your experiences in an appropriate way. Of course you went clubbing, what 18-25 year old doesn't? Forget it. You came from an abusive home, dropped out and cared for younger siblings. You were a teenager, a kid, exposed to terrible circumstances, how harshly would you judge another kid in the same spot? Don't berate yourself over the minutae of your teens/early twenties, find the positive themes of those years that led to your current situation. There was something inside you that led you to care for your siblings, that led you to a 3.95 gpa, that led you to the stable life you now have, and that is now leading you to medicine. That is what I would focus on to explain your early college grades.

I'd wish you the best of luck, but I suspect that with your background you've learned how to make your own!🙂

If the OP has still managed to pull a 3.4+ cGPA incuding all those years of bad performance, well then what you describe regarding keeping it out of the PS and discussing it on your secondaries is the way to go.

However, if the years of bad performance pull the OP's GPA's into the 2.x range then unfortunately there is going to be no way around it. It is going to have to be discussed in the PS, as the OP is either going to get screened out prior to receiving a secondary or never get their secondary looked at at most of the schools that automatically send out secondaries.

The presentation of the situation in the PS would still need to be positive, possibly discussing the abuse which led to the bad grades, which then led to a desire for medicine - which also must be evident - but it would still have to be discussed none-the-less in my opinion. However, I would still advise discussing this approach with a medical adcom or a medical school admissions consultant that formerly sat on a med admissions committee to make sure she goes about it in the best fashion, as this could very well make or break her application.

 

[EdLongshanks]

What would you do if you were in my situation? How would you handle it? I do not like to make excuses for myself, but at the same time I really do have valid reasons for my earlier failures. I am not going into the details... but let's just say my homelife was a combo of the movies Precious and Mommy Dearest - no exaggeration. How do I let adcoms know I have a valid reason for my past, without appearing to get on the pity pot or making them think I'm some kind of freak for coming from such a messed up home?

I completely disagree that this should not be in the personal statement. It is gripping reading.... (Why do you think those two movies won awards?).

The key is to present it in a non-whining way. And your statement here does exactly that. The important part of your history is that you are now a community leader. There is a reason why you are a community leader, probably because your past leads you to connect with both with people's pain and their desire to excel.

My personal statement began, "At age 20 I was homeless." I believe that this single sentence got me an interview at Mayo. But the reason that it did so is that the essay went on to describe the homeless programs that I have started and what I have done to help others in similar condition.

Your "lost years" are key to your life, they are the negative impulse to force you to do better. This is key to your application. To you, empathy won't be like the medical student who told his teacher. "Oh, empathy, we learned about that last year. You just repeat the last 3 words that the patient said."

 

[FrkyBgStok]

what is your current GPA including every class that you have every taken?

 

[91W10]

I do not think one should give a committee a reason to say "no." I came from a rather unique background, not all if the the type of thing I would want the committee to know. The aspects that could be presented in a positive light, such as the unique hands on I got in Sadr City as a medic, I really emphasized. I was more interested in painting myself as a boring student living a monk's life now though.

You will have a chance to portray yourself to each school on the grounds you consider most important to that school. For your personal statement that every school will see though, you want to have something that appeals to the most people. I would not try to explain everything in one swoop.

 

[sgtbrushes]

The #1 rule, in my opinion, is to be positive. That doesn't mean you should completely ignore your weakness, but the vast majority of the statement needs to be positive. When you detail your weaknesses, they're merely there so that you can describe how much you've learned from it and how it has given you so much perspective.

 

[Generici]

Fair enough, I can see how this will most likely need to be addressed in the personal statement, so I concede the point.

The important part here is to frame your early issues into the context of your upbringing. Your behavior in the context you described sounds much more understandable to me than somebody who came from a stable family and just decided to party for a while. You really have a "Phoenix rising from the ashes" story to tell here, just find a find a good way to tie it to your desire and aptitude for medicine now, like Edlongshanks described. Show how your difficult years influenced your later success and describe the life lessons you learned along the way.

I definitely support discussing it with an admissions consultant as well.

 

[Gastrapathy]

Tell your story. Leave out your abusive relationship and restraining order. Be brief in discussing the academic issues and don't make excuses. Emphasize raising your siblings and let the essay show pride in what you've accomplished.

You will get in.

 

[Generici]

Do you take the skeletons out of the closet and dance with them?

😕
You talkin' ta me?

I pretty much had to take mine out and make them dance for my app. Like I said, my story is not that different from hers, and I had some explaining to do. It really led me to a lot of soul searching and forced me to re-examine stuff that I had not thought much about for half my life. All in all, after much freaking out, I came to some pretty comfortable conclusions. It's a strange realization when you find out what "perspective" can really mean.

 

[EdLongshanks]

Tell your story. Leave out your abusive relationship and restraining order. Be brief in discussing the academic issues and don't make excuses. Emphasize raising your siblings and let the essay show pride in what you've accomplished.

You will get in.

Ditto. To all of this. The abusive relationship is the only non-compelling part of your story. In the modern age I have yet to meet a female who has NOT been in an abusive relationship (reasons for this are left as an exercise for sociologists).

But the raising your siblings is attention grabbing. "While raising my siblings and dealing with my mother's commitment to a mental institution, going to college PE classes didn't seem important to me. This resulted in a severe hit to my lifetime GPA..."

 

[LingoLaine]

You've got a compelling story. Tell it.

 

[treewalker]

Thank you everyone for taking the time to read and respond to my post. Your comments, thoughts and insight have been helpful, both emotionally and in terms of helping me to devise a strategic approach to address this issue.