Personal Statement

[jregan]

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I keep hearing "I have a strong personal statement" and " make sure you have a god personal statement" what does that exactly mean? So does that mean well written, or what. I haven't applied yet but I will be this year. I don't even know where to write the ps ,is it a section on Pharmcas or, are people referring to supplemental applications? I'm guessing I will be writing about why I want t be a pharmacist or something of that nature. But, what else do you write about? Should you include any hardships you have had to endure throughout your life or education or does that sound bad? Will admissions boards think you are just looking for sympathy or take into consideration how far you have come? Basically I need for someone to break down the whole personal statement aspect of the admissions process to me . Thanks a lot in advance.

 

[abt04]

I keep hearing "I have a strong personal statement" and " make sure you have a god personal statement" what does that exactly mean? So does that mean well written, or what. I haven't applied yet but I will be this year. I don't even know where to write the ps ,is it a section on Pharmcas or, are people referring to supplemental applications? I'm guessing I will be writing about why I want t be a pharmacist or something of that nature. But, what else do you write about? Should you include any hardships you have had to endure throughout your life or education or does that sound bad? Will admissions boards think you are just looking for sympathy or take into consideration how far you have come? Basically I need for someone to break down the whole personal statement aspect of the admissions process to me . Thanks a lot in advance.

umm good PS means you dont BS so much. that its straight forward and to the point. dont get too wordy or long winded. it's basically telling your reason for why do you wanna be a pharmacist in an effective way which tells adcoms that this guy is a good choice.

umm well, i just wrote about how my experiences led to be ultimately choose pharmacy as my career goal. i talked about my shadowing a pharmacist, my extracurricular experiences and how they somehow molded me to do pharmacy and how they each became a benefit to me and how they also became somewhat personal experience. that is the gist of my essay, others may write about their hardships, but i dont see too much of that in the pharmcas essay. hardships are more for the secondary (supplementals) application.

hope that helps a little. believe me, this is basically applying to college for undergrad alll over again. if you havent experienced it, its a "fun" ride.

 

[evilolive]

I don't think you should be so quick to judge eloquence for grandiloquence. Good writing is about the evocation of ideas and the manner in which it is expressed. If it is artistic, it is beautiful. My essays had a lot of personal touches that were unique to me. My essays were special because they were effective at communicating what I felt; on the other hand, the moment clarity of thought is lost, the personal statement ceases to be effective.

 

[sdn1977]

There is a sticky at the top of the pre-pharm forum about the whole application process. If you go there, about half way down, there is a link to what to write on your personal statement.

I think this breaks down what you were asking - what should the personal statement cover?

As to "how" to write it - it covers some of the dos & don'ts there as well.

The important thing about writing it - it should "sound" like you. It should not sound like a lecture abstract nor should it sound like background information for a soap opera plot.

If eloquence comes to you easily as it does to evilolive - great - use it. But, if you have to "work" at that...your difficulty will come through and your specific information will get lost in verbage.

An important point is get someone to read it!!!!! If it is a family member - be sure that individual has some experience in the work world - ie has made or read resumes. Altho mothers love their children immensely, we are not the best judge of their personal statements unless we can pull ourselves out of the mother role. (I know....I read about 30 ps's of my daughter's when she applied to medical school!!!).

One more important point - the individual who reads your statement for editing needs to be fluent in written and spoken English, particularly if English is not your first language. This is the first time a school will get to meet you & since communication is vital in our field, your ability to communicate needs to be impeccable. I no way intend multilingual folks not to apply - we absolutely need many backgrounds & many languages to be spoken - and hopefully professionally as well. But, you don't want your application to be tossed by the first reader due to grammatical or linguistic mistakes.

Good luck & come back if this doesn't help.