Question about reapplication and rewriting

[pleasehelpme12]

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Hi all, while I am still on one waitlist, I fully expect to be a reapplicant this coming year.

I think that I made several mistakes my first time around which negatively impacted me, including but not limited to, poor writing in my work and activities section, a top heavy school list, lack of non-clinical volunteering, and sub-par interviewing skills. I am confident I have, or know how to, correct all these issues, but there is still one roadblock I would like some advice on.

Having had several people read my primary, one of the universal comments was that my personal statement was excellent. I have been told multiple times it is among the better ones people have ever read. I feel like this puts me in an awkward position since I plan to reapply to a few schools, most importantly my state school. As far as I understand it, resubmitting without substantial changes is more or less a death sentence, since it shows a lack of growth and critical self-reflection. At the time however, I don't feel my motivation for practicing medicine has substantially shifted. It feels like a waste to rewrite a quality personal statement for the sake of change itself.

Posed as a formal question,

Will I be penalized for a structurally and narratively very similar personal statement if I have made substantial changes in writing to all other areas of my application?

thanks for the feedback : )

 

[wysdoc]

Don’t fall in love with your own prose.
You can make the same main points but different wording.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Posed as a formal question,

Will I be penalized for a structurally and narratively very similar personal statement if I have made substantial changes in writing to all other areas of my application?

What would a plagiarism detector say, especially if a school has access to your previous PS?

The best applicants I know can write two or three different PS's. If you apply to UCSD, you will have to.