Question regarding personal statement

[goldngrl1611]

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Hey everyone-
I have a quick question. I know that there is no one angle with which you should approach the personal statement and that there is no formula. However, I have noticed that quite a few sample statements I have read highlight various extracurricular activities (not list them, but use them to highlight various experiences, skills developed, etc.). My statement does highlight a particular experience and mentions my clinical time in the hospital, but is more focused on the general outlook I have and why I want to be a physician. So my question I suppose is...are we supposed to be giving some mentioned to a majority of our extracurricular activities or at least the few most important ones, or does it really not matter? Thanks!

 

[dramaqueen14]

Hey everyone-
I have a quick question. I know that there is no one angle with which you should approach the personal statement and that there is no formula. However, I have noticed that quite a few sample statements I have read highlight various extracurricular activities (not list them, but use them to highlight various experiences, skills developed, etc.). My statement does highlight a particular experience and mentions my clinical time in the hospital, but is more focused on the general outlook I have and why I want to be a physician. So my question I suppose is...are we supposed to be giving some mentioned to a majority of our extracurricular activities or at least the few most important ones, or does it really not matter? Thanks!

I'm not sure what you're asking but do you mean whether you should mention several activities and how they affect you vs. just one activity? I think I did something similar to you- I mentioned one particular clinical experience and focused on what I took away from it and how it has given me an insight into medicine and helped me develop an interest in being a physician. Though I didn't talk a whole lot about what my responsibilities were and what I did, a lot of that was covered in my description for the work/activities section. I had a few people read it and they all said it conveyed my interest in medicine and my path towards my decision.

Edit: Oops I didn't see the last few sentences. So basically I don't think you need to mention a ton of activities. I wrote the majority of mine about one EC.

 

[familyaerospace]

Answer "Why Medicine."

The medical schools will have your list of activities in the Activities section of your application. When I was a reader, that was one of my biggest pet peeves.

 

[riverjib]

Answer "Why Medicine."

The medical schools will have your list of activities in the Activities section of your application. When I was a reader, that was one of my biggest pet peeves.

Wow! What school had pre-meds on the ADCOM?

 

[NotAsking4Much]

Wow! What school had pre-meds on the ADCOM?

It doesn't matter. Family Aerospace's blogpost /advice on personal statements is prob some of the best advice I've read yet.

If it's good advice, just take it - it doesn't matter where it comes from.

 

[NickNaylor]

It doesn't matter. Family Aerospace's blogpost /advice on personal statements is prob some of the best advice I've read yet.

If it's good advice, just take it - it doesn't matter where it comes from.

I'd agree.

OP, everything in the PS must demonstrate why medicine is a good fit for you. Note that this is different than why you are a good fit for medicine. The difference is subtle but significant. The PS is not a resume. By the end of your PS, the adcoms should believe that you know what you're getting yourself into and, despite that, you still want to do it. Even though you don't want to simply list your ECs, you do need to provide "evidence" that you know what you're talking about. This might be an anecdote or discussing a particular activity (but NOT dwelling on that activity unless it's not in your experiences section). Read through your PS many, many times, and after every sentence ask yourself, "does this say why I want to be in medicine?" If the answer is no, eliminate it. Rinse and repeat.

 

[familyaerospace]

Wow! What school had pre-meds on the ADCOM?

Fact 1: I make my living as a editor and periodic ghost writer. I have seen more bad writing than you will ever dream of. Suggestions 2-6, 12, 17-18 all come out of my own experience as an editor and to a much lesser extent as a writer. I also know I am very guilty of not following suggestion 4 unless there is a word count. That was, and still is, a huge problem of mine.

Fact 2: I was on an adcomm in graduate school for my department. My graduate director used to jokingly call me the "tie-breaker" because that is usually when I was called in. While that doesn't explain a lot about any thing particular to medical school, I have gotten quite a bit of advice from a former med school adcomm (which LizzyM's various comments have backed up about 90% of the time), and those form the basics of suggestions 1,8,9,10,13-15 with some of my commentary. The suggestion of how to start to answer "Why Medicine" was very similar to what I did.

Fact 3: I was on the pre-allo readers list and thus have read an insane amount of medical school personal statements. I averaged around 10 PSs a week although I had a few weeks of 2-3 requests per day. I lost count at 147 medical school personal statements which is when I begged to be removed from pre-allo (still helping NTs). At a certain point, your eyes start to glaze over when you read the same thing day in and day out. I partially wrote the blog entry because I realised I was copy/pasting some of the same things to various people and I wanted them all in one spot so I could tell people specific things they need to work on. Such as "Ok, follow suggestions 1-4, 8, then 17 and get back to me with your new draft."

If you don't like any of the advice I've given, you are free to disregard it. I will not be hurt or take it personal.

 

[familyaerospace]

It doesn't matter. Family Aerospace's blogpost /advice on personal statements is prob some of the best advice I've read yet.

If it's good advice, just take it - it doesn't matter where it comes from.

Thanks, I appreciate it.