PS: at what point did you call it quits?

[cfx]

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I've only had three people read mine.

One (premed advisor) basically said my first draft sucked, so I rewrote it. Sent it back, and he really liked the second one and had no major suggestions for improvement.

A professor (who writes a lot letters and has read many statements) said he really liked it, and offered no suggestions for improvement.

My third reviewer was a previous applicant with incredible writing skills, and I really respect her opinion. However, her response was that a good-sized chunk of it was "boring". I kind of agree, the topic is boring, but I'm oddly fond of it and have a hard time rewriting it (I know, probably breaks rule #1 in revising your own work).

Should I just call it a day and hope adcoms will read it like my first 2 reviewers, or keep pushing with it?

At what point did you all just say "good enough" and let it go? Did you do this in spite of someone suggesting you change it first?

 

[getright]

You're probably going to keep on receiving mixed reviews from every person you give the paper to. I'd say call it a day when you truly believe that you cannot do any better.

 

[Jolt21]

keep going. 2 drafts is nothing. i had 8. you can always make it better. just leave it alone for a few days and come back to it. Also, if you keep reading it yourself, you will find things you dont like, so dont worry.

 

[NickNaylor]

You're probably going to keep on receiving mixed reviews from every person you give the paper to. I'd say call it a day when you truly believe that you cannot do any better.

This.

Some professors may love a draft and others may hate it. I ran into this problem myself with my PS. The best standard you have is your own. When you're happy with it and don't think you can improve it, then you're done.

 

[Amadelphous]

More than trying to write a certain number or quality...try to write something that really reflects you as a person. Lots of schools try to put together a class that works, so you want to give them an accurate (positive) representation of you so they'll see how you fit. Good luck!

 

[familyaerospace]

You stop editing when it is the best you can do.

I'm on version 5 draft 4 before I found that point and I've sent it off to people (over a dozen now) and they agreed that it was great no changes.

 

[Andy71600]

I wrote mine, pasted it into AMCAS, read it over once, and hit submit... none of this 23rd draft with 211 readers

.

 

[DirtyJustice]

I wrote mine, pasted it into AMCAS, read it over once, and hit submit... none of this 23rd draft with 211 readers

.

You must be a really good writer then. I had mine read by 3 people and had 5 drafts. The more people I gave it to read the more confusing and contradictory the commentary became. My advice, choose 2-3 people you completely trust and work only with them.

When you feel that you are arguing semantics... you are done.

 

[RogueUnicorn]

I wrote mine, pasted it into AMCAS, read it over once, and hit submit... none of this 23rd draft with 211 readers

.

cool story

 

[The Poet Sings]

I wrote mine, pasted it into AMCAS, read it over once, and hit submit... none of this 23rd draft with 211 readers

.

imagine if you had someone read it and they cried at how horrible it was 😱. lol jk jk. i'm sure it wasn't horrible (definitely not cry-worthy).

 

[Andy71600]

When you feel that you are arguing semantics... you are done.

Exactly. I knew that I said what I needed to give the adcom a good picture of who I was and what I hoped to achieve. I felt that by having other people read my PS it was no longer "mine," but a combination of everyone else's ideas.

 

[Andy71600]

imagine if you had someone read it and they cried at how horrible it was 😱. lol jk jk. i'm sure it wasn't horrible (definitely not cry-worthy).

Haha I hope not

 

[Andy71600]

I love you signature btw. That thread was awesome

 

[cfx]

Exactly. I knew that I said what I needed to give the adcom a good picture of who I was and what I hoped to achieve. I felt that by having other people read my PS it was no longer "mine," but a combination of everyone else's ideas.

I can understand this. At the same time, though, my first PS was definitely "mine," but an outside, unbiased reader was able to tell me that pieces of it were hard to understand, too vague, too academic sounding, wasn't vivid enough, etc. A fresh set of eyes can spot flaws pretty easily, and I would rather have them belong to anyone beside the adcom reader.

This is why I feel the need to keep having people look at it. Personally, I like it and would submit it right now if it wasn't for this.

 

[The Poet Sings]

Exactly. I knew that I said what I needed to give the adcom a good picture of who I was and what I hoped to achieve. I felt that by having other people read my PS it was no longer "mine," but a combination of everyone else's ideas.

by the time mine started sounding like someone else's, i decided to revert to a previous version and added the best elements from the later versions, since there were some bits i'm glad i was able to put together with everyone's help.

 

[vcfor3]

I had a director of admissions read mine, it was good enough in her eyes, she suggested some changes, which I made. I would go with that route too.

 

[cfx]

I had a director of admissions read mine, it was good enough in her eyes, she suggested some changes, which I made. I would go with that route too.

Yes, that would be great. But how many people personally know a director of admissions?

 

[boaz]

I called it quits when I heard my PS playing in my subconscious all the time. 😳

 

[Rickybobby]

I would be very hesitant of any reviewer who had no suggestions to improve regardless of the number of "drafts." Make it perfect to what you want to say and rely on other's opinion to ensure that what you are writing conveys your point.

 

[Mute98]

I wrote mine, pasted it into AMCAS, read it over once, and hit submit... none of this 23rd draft with 211 readers

.

i basically did this as well though I showed it to a friend beforehand and made (very small) changes. I tend to write what I want the first time around, but it takes me forever to get that first draft haha

 

[DCBFan]

I wrote mine, pasted it into AMCAS, read it over once, and hit submit... none of this 23rd draft with 211 readers

.

After seeing how much mine has improved since the first draft, I am very happy that I've gone through the revision process.

 

[DCBFan]

I would be very hesitant of any reviewer who had no suggestions to improve regardless of the number of "drafts." Make it perfect to what you want to say and rely on other's opinion to ensure that what you are writing conveys your point.

This is true, even if it were a great PS any dedicated reviewer would at least have some opinion on content or style.

 

[cfx]

I would be very hesitant of any reviewer who had no suggestions to improve regardless of the number of "drafts." Make it perfect to what you want to say and rely on other's opinion to ensure that what you are writing conveys your point.

It's not that they had literally no suggestions, but they were all "edits" (i.e., cut out this sentence, change this phrase, etc.), as opposed to any major content revisions.

 

[Hifey]

I only had two other people read it, my sister and my best friend. Both are brutally honest and my best friend is an english teacher. We worked together on it to make it flow better and and get words that saved space but in the end it was still "me". I was happy to press submit on that bad boy cause I was sick of looking at it.

 

[FlowRate]

I believe I got up to "revision 16" with 5 readers. I quit on June 1.

 

[surftheiop]

I just had one friend read mine (english lit/lawyer type of person) and they said it "sounded just like me" so I just left it at that.

Probably spent about 8 hours on it total, we will see how it turns out.

I'm an engineer and naturally write in a straightforward style as would be expected, if I tried to get too fancy it would have been obvious I was misrepresenting myself and/or putting on a show

 

[TACMON]

I think everytime I revised one draft, someone found something to bring up as suspect. After draft 18, I decided that I was OK with it, but I made sure as hell there were no grammatical mistakes.

 

[zwitter]

It will never be perfect. The fact is the "perfect" personal statement doesn't exist. Some will love it, some might hate it, some might nothing it. Make sure there our know gramatikal airs and kall it gud.

 

[mdeast]

Just go with it. I agonized over it for a month. At the end, it wasn't necessarily changing for the better or worse, just changing....so I gave up and submitted it. Inevitably you're gonna look back it at a year from now and probably hate it. I personally think the PS is less of a factor than other things...more or less a way to eliminate people with terrible communication skills. So don't stress too much if it isn't perfect.

 

[cdmarshbu]

As an advisor I have a couple of ideas and observations. Typically after 3 or 4 drafts the differences between one essay to the other are so small they probably won't make a difference after a point. At some point you are just going to need to "draw a line in the sand" and just tell yourself that regardless of how "perfect" the essay feels, you'll just need to go ahead and submit it.

A point is reached that no amount of editing, changing ,or laboring over a sentence structure or tiny word choice is going to make a difference. At some point the delay in the submission of your application can hurt you worse than the perceived perfection of your paper. You can spend so much time getting your essay "right" that other applicants are submitting their applications and moving forward.

Don't mistake personal statement eloquence with the length of time and number of drafts it takes to get there.

 

[familyaerospace]

I would be very hesitant of any reviewer who had no suggestions to improve regardless of the number of "drafts." Make it perfect to what you want to say and rely on other's opinion to ensure that what you are writing conveys your point.

Unless you finally found something that worked. My final draft was read by about a dozen (everything from other premeds to doctors including one or two med school faculty to professional editors) and I was hoping that they found something.... anything to improve. It took that long to convince me to move on to the next essay LOL.

When it comes to writing, I'm a perfectionist.

 

[familyaerospace]

I will also say it helps if you start very early. 🙂

 

[xPersephone]

If you are happy with it, then submit.

My only suggestion would be to have some sort of writing major review it for grammar, as science brains often do not have the best grammar. An english major gave me some of the best suggestions (small ones, never suggesting a major rewrite). After I took some of their advice, I was finally satisfied and completely sick of writing.

 

[Narmerguy]

Don't mistake personal statement eloquence with the length of time and number of drafts it takes to get there.

Good advice. Some people are just more inclined to write that way and the effort it takes to match them if you're not so inclined is probably detrimental to the rest of your application and maybe even your PS. I wish I could write that way 🙁

 

[gujuDoc]

I've only had three people read mine.

One (premed advisor) basically said my first draft sucked, so I rewrote it. Sent it back, and he really liked the second one and had no major suggestions for improvement.

A professor (who writes a lot letters and has read many statements) said he really liked it, and offered no suggestions for improvement.

My third reviewer was a previous applicant with incredible writing skills, and I really respect her opinion. However, her response was that a good-sized chunk of it was "boring". I kind of agree, the topic is boring, but I'm oddly fond of it and have a hard time rewriting it (I know, probably breaks rule #1 in revising your own work).

Should I just call it a day and hope adcoms will read it like my first 2 reviewers, or keep pushing with it?

At what point did you all just say "good enough" and let it go? Did you do this in spite of someone suggesting you change it first?

The more you have people read your essay the more you will get mixed reviews. Keep in mind that I would trust 1-2 people and they are the ones who've read personal statements a lot to know what is needed in a decent one. This is not meant to be a published book but a personal statement.