Questions regarding personal statment?

[fintrak]

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Hi everyone, I just have a quick question. I have a most meaningful experience which is a story and is the reason why I want to become a physician. Should I talk about this again in the personal statement? Or should I avoid repeating the most meaningful experience? Any suggestions are appreciated!

 

[Gwynbleidd]

Not an adcom, take my advice with a grain of salt. I have read conflicting advice about this so IMO it boils down to how you frame it. 3 activities I talked about in my personal statement are also my 3 MMs. I used the MM slots to talk more specifically about each activity - what my tasks were, why the activity was important, and (if I had enough room for all of this) a brief anecdote that was NOT in my personal statement. Basically, I avoided repetition/overlap as much as I could and tried to use each space efficiently. These activities were very meaningful for me in so many different ways that it wouldn't feel right to exclude them just because they were in my personal statement. If it's important enough to you, I would include it for both, just talk about it in a different way.

 

[Warder]

All 3 of my most meaningful experiences were also in my personal statement. I used the extra characters allowed for the MM explanation to dive into a different direction from my personal statement - my personal statement focused on why I wanted to be a physician using these (and some other experiences) while my work/activities/most meaningful focused on the characteristics I developed and things I learned about from participating in these activities (with the subtext of everything I learned would be advantageous characteristics for a physician to have).

 

[LindaAccepted]

Hi everyone, I just have a quick question. I have a most meaningful experience which is a story and is the reason why I want to become a physician. Should I talk about this again in the personal statement? Or should I avoid repeating the most meaningful experience? Any suggestions are appreciated!

Some of my response is dependent on what else you would discuss in the MME essay, but if you have experiences to discuss in the MMes that are still meaningful and were not mentioned in the PS, that would be my recommendation.

If you don't, then yes you can discuss an experience in both the personal statement and MME, but make sure that you approach it from a different angle in the MME, go into more depth, and add to what you present in the personal statement. Don't waste valuable application real estate by merely repeating what's in the PS.

Best,
Linda

 

[Deltasidearm]

You just need to be careful to make sure that every essay stands on its own merit, provides novel and useful information about who you are, and doesn't needlessly repeat information. It's definitely okay to mention them in your PS, in my opinion, especially if they fit the narrative. The problem comes if you just end up repeating the same story and information again.