personal statements

[chuwoods]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Any advice on personal statements?
I've heard not to be too creative but you want it to be interesting to read, right?

 

[napoleondynamite]

I really sweated and toiled over my PS. After the many drafts and long hours I spent writing it, you know how many interviewers brought it up? ZERO. I really don't think very many even read it..in fact, I know they didn't because my entire PS was centered around one experience that I had during my paramedic days..then I'd bring up somewhere during my interview that I was a paramedic/firefighter and they'd be like, "Really??" totally shocked like, when if they'd read even the first line of my PS they would have known that for sure..

I remember when I was writing mine I was at MD Anderson on an away rotation. One of the residents there told me that his feeling was that the PS probably can only HURT you in radonc. It very seldom can HELP you. I thought this was nuts at the time..but in retrospect I wonder if he wasn't right..

I consider myself to be a decent writer and I had a pretty damn interesting personal statement..but in the end, I don't think it would have mattered if I would have submitted a completely plain one.

 

[achybrachy]

I really sweated and toiled over my PS. After the many drafts and long hours I spent writing it, you know how many interviewers brought it up? ZERO. I really don't think very many even read it..

I'm not sure I agree that no one reads them. I am currently doing a rotation at a top 10 program and I sat down with the program director yesterday for feedback about my PS and he read it very intently. I asked half jokingly if he read them all this thoroughly and he said he absolutely does. Now whether they are really all that important is another question.... you know they say the PS can't really help you that much but it can hurt you, so it's probably better to err on the side of writing too boring and cliche rather than having a really wild creative one that raises eyebrows regarding your sanity.

 

[G'ville Nole]

I'm not sure I agree that no one reads them. I am currently doing a rotation at a top 10 program and I sat down with the program director yesterday for feedback about my PS and he read it very intently. I asked half jokingly if he read them all this thoroughly and he said he absolutely does. Now whether they are really all that important is another question.... you know they say the PS can't really help you that much but it can hurt you, so it's probably better to err on the side of writing too boring and cliche rather than having a really wild creative one that raises eyebrows regarding your sanity.

From a resident's perspective, I read all of the PS's of all invited interviewees. I don't see the other ones, so it's hard to speak to their role in selecting candidates for interview. I HAVE seen several boring ones, so those apparently pass the test. The things that can hurt you the most are poor spelling and grammar, so do yourself a favor, and proofread them thoroughly.

I think that what makes many personal statements boring is a tendency to simply rehash what is already present on your CV. While it's perfectly appropriate to use the PS to allude to some of the strengths on your CV, it pays to remember that the reviewers already see that information; beating them over the head with it is not likely to impress us more. The PS is a good opportunity to give programs a sense of what you're like as a person, rather than as a paper application. A recounting of the experiences that ultimately drew you to the field are always a good idea, as is a description of what makes you excited about the prospect of being a radiation oncologist (now is probably not the time to say "bankers hours and boatloads of cash, booyah!", even if that's what you're thinking🙂).

I guess my conclusion is this: The PS has more capacity to hurt your app than help it, but it does have some capacity to help.

 

[DOCTORSAIB]

I'm not applying for Rad-Onc but what do you guys think about writing your PS about something that makes you "you"- some talent that you have, unique hobby, a life changing experience (note: 3rd yr rotation in respective field as a "life changing experience" is TOO damn cliche at this point), etc. Isn't the PS a perfect opportunity to let the programs know who you are as a human being? And don't you think writing about something that interests you will make for a great interview topic?

IMO, writing that _____ field is great b/c of X, Y, Z reasons must be REALLY boring to read. Don't the PD's already why their field is great and don't you think the hundreds of other applicants will probably take the same approach?
No wonder some people don't even bother reading the PS. For the most part, they all sound the same!

I'm just throwing out ideas that I've read here on SDN (thanks to aProgDirector) and elsewhere. What do you guys think?

 

[Thaiger75]

I agree that the PS is not a critical element of your application. I think it can hurt or help you, but will not make or break you. I know for a fact that at more than one PD did ready my PS and one even highlighted interesting portions of my PS (I sneaked a peek over the desk while being interviewed). On the same token, a faculty at my current institution pretty much axes a candidate if he catches any misspellings or sore grammatical errors.

So my advice would be make sure there are absolutely no errors in it, don't be too wacky or left field, and throw in interesting tidbits about you if there are any...in addition to the usual stuff you put in a PS.

 

[IRISH22]

at my home program I know that the PD doesnt screen applicants by the PS. Its only the people who get interviews that have their's read by a resident. Some of the other faculty have said they dont even touch the file prior to interview--they just want to find out what type of person you are during the interview, so they do it off the cuff with the thought that they know you are good enuf on paper or else you never would have gotten the interview.

and about the significance of it...I suspect that LORs (and who they're from) prob means more than the PS. I think its sad but true: most of the PDs care less about your volunteer work in Chile or your tiresome work as an ER tech before med school than they do about your letter from some hotshot radonc.

 

[radfield]

One way to think about the app process is what things will rule you in vs rule you out of either interviews or getting placed high on the rank list. In my opinion, for example, a board score can rule you in or out. So can research experience. But the personal statement is mostly something that can rule you out (but only rarely). Reasons to be ruled out with it include: misspellings, grammatical errors, not being able to write simple, concise english and sounding like a wierdo. Again this doesn;t happen much, but if you say you keep rodents as pets, or enjoy tasting your petri dishes, people will throw your application in the trash. In perfect world, PS would be used to define who you are, why you are interesting/ different etc. Maybe for family medicine. But for many fields, people want you to sound like a worker who is reliable w/o risk. Err on sounding conservative, and not like a social radical, even if you prefer the latter and perceive yourself as such. Also, its easy to write something thinking you are making one impression, only to actually be making a completely different one. For example, if you talk about how much you love playing chess because of the strategic thinking or basketball because of some reason, keep in mind people may think you just want to play chess or ball, and not get the job done.

Personal statements are a huge source of stress for applicants. This is stupid because they don't matter much. But as some have alluded to, you never know who will read it and care about it. So keep it short, sweet, and make yourslef sound like you will deliver on the tasks demanded of you.

 

[IndyXRT]

I end up reading the PS's for applicants that I interview (only a small portion each year). My impression is as stated above by others: the personal statement is unlikely to help you, but can hurt you if it is poorly written. I have only seen one truly bad personal statement; it was strange, and it was peppered with poor spelling and grammatical errors. My advice: don't stress too much about the PS. Produce something plain but well written. It will not help you, but it will be almost guaranteed to not hurt you (and will remove some of the stress of writing it).