Personal statement

[TheBoneDoctah]

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I the activities section I wrote what I did at each place. Should I go into more or less detail in the personal
Statement?

 

[el_duderino]

Not really. The PS should be more focused than simply talking about your activities. It should be a reflection of why you want to practice medicine and the forces and decisions that have made you who you are. It should be about your vision, hardships you have overcome and learned from, that sort of thing.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Not really. The PS should be more focused than simply talking about your activities. It should be a reflection of why you want to practice medicine and the forces and decisions that have made you who you are. It should be about your vision, hardships you have overcome and learned from, that sort of thing.

So I shouldn't mention volunteering and research?

 

[el_duderino]

There's no one-size-fits-all answer to that question. The PS doesn't NEED to mention volunteering and such. That's already in your app. It's fine to talk about volunteering and such.

The PS shouldn't be a narrative of the things you've done that you think will make adcoms go "wow." It should be a personal statement.

https://www.aamc.org/students/aspiring/basics/284794/application16.html

"In personal statements committees are looking for insight, reflection, analysis, depth of experiences, and uniqueness. They understand that there are really common reasons why folks choose medicine, but they would really like you to focus on what your journey has been like and what medicine means for you. Like I said, make it passionate and interesting to read and you are halfway there. Committees read so many applications that when they find one that is passionate and refreshing, it gets some bonus love!

They do not want to read an elongated version of your résumé that details what you "did." They do not want a summary of your experiences because they already have that in your 15 experiences of the AMCAS application. They also usually don't take too well to hearing you talk about how great you are either. Share your experiences and let those experiences tell us the kind of person you are, the qualities you possess, and your passion for medicine."

 

[GSPhamily]

I the activities section I wrote what I did at each place. Should I go into more or less detail in the personal
Statement?

Don't repeat information that's already available somewhere else in your AMCAS. If you wrote extensively on an activity as part of a "Most Meaningful Experience" don't repeat what you wrote in your personal statement. Instead, you might what to add a personal touch by discussing on a specific and particular experience from the activity that profoundly impacted you that doesn't fit neatly in the activities section of the AMCAS. Was there a particular patient you met? Was there a instance that stuck with you? etc. etc.

As a rule of thumb, things that belong in the personal statement are things that don't fall neatly into other categories in your AMCAS. That can be your family, your experiences as a patient, your circumstances growing up, specific experiences within activities, you get the idea.

 

[Mmeow]

Can I ask you a quick question here? i think it's kinda relevant.
I wrote extensively about one experience (shadowing) in my personal statement so I don't have anything much to talk about it anymore in my activities section.
But still, it's my most meaningful experience (that's why I talked about it a lot in my PS).. should I still check it as most meaningful? If i should, should I bring up new things?

 

[Person0715]

Can I ask you a quick question here? i think it's kinda relevant.
I wrote extensively about one experience (shadowing) in my personal statement so I don't have anything much to talk about it anymore in my activities section.
But still, it's my most meaningful experience (that's why I talked about it a lot in my PS).. should I still check it as most meaningful? If i should, should I bring up new things?

I think it's best not to repeat things between the activities and PS. Of course, you can still mention shadowing in your PS as well as a most meaningful activity, but talk about the experience from different angles so it doesn't get repetitive.

 

[lobo.solo]

This is a waste of space. In the activities section: describe activity, what you learn from it and how does it relate to medicine. Did you grow in life because of such activity... You do this for each activity in that section.

The ps is about your journey into medicine. Why medicine? How life (maybe here some ECs, but not all) have shaped your perspective of medicine.