Question about Personal Essay

[Dsgrntldbadger]

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Hey everyone. I've been lurking around these forums for a long, long time, and finally made an account to talk to people about the Pre-Optometry ordeal.

Anyways, I've been working on my Essay on the OptomCAS, and I've just got a general question about the format that other people use in their essays.

I've seen sample essays (for medical school) that are written like a story: open with dialogue, have action, etc...and yet, other sample essays that is just a narrative about themselves and the work they've done. Anyway, since these are essays for medical school, I was wondering what most people do for optometry school essay. Do you guys also structure it like a story, or just a normal essay?

 

[lookitsme]

It is your personal statement so you can do any format you want, there's no restriction. I am working on mine too (not opening with a sob story), just stating past experiences and how it makes me a good candidate. If you look on optomcas you can find the prompt, I think if you answer all those questions you should be okay.

 

[tubatu111]

What kind of narrative style you wish to employ is completely up to you. However, what does not change are questions that need to be answered through your writing. Why Optometry, motivations, career goals, personality, are you going to be a person that makes a good doctor, how sure you are in this decision, etc.

What I can tell you is unless you are a very advanced writer it will take many drafts and edits to produce a quality essay. We only get 4500 characters so economy is key. You want the point you are making to be clear. Admission has to go through hundreds of application so they won't have the whole day to figure out what you mean. Avoid airing out dirty laundry as much as possible. Don't waste precious real estate with a sob story rather than selling yourself. Its the one instance in the whole application package where you come off the page an is not represented by letter grades and numbers.

I spent a whole semester editing with several professors so I am very experienced with this. Let me know if you have any questions