reapplicants, what did you do to your essay??

[geldrop]

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I don't think I'll apply to any of the same schools, but am not happy with my personal statement after a year. However it worked at getting me a bunch of interviews and would save time to just keep it. I wonder if i should just fix it up, or approach the personal statement totally differently...


Anyonen got any advice.

 

[aquaboy]

I rewrote my P.S. this last year and received a lot more interviews (however that may be due to the migher MCAT score). I had some recurring themes in my new P.S. but it was different and I thought it sounded much better. If you don't like it, change it! It may be beneficial to atleast change a little bit of it because you may ernd up wanting to reapply to some similar schools.😱

 

[Angeliqua]

I kept the core of the essay essentially the same and changed/updated anything that needed to be or that I thought didn't sound too great. Basically, my essay begins with a story about a very defining experience in my life that greatly influenced my desire to become a physician...a year later this experience is, of course, still the reason I am pursuing medicine. Therefore, I kept that the same (but cleaned it up a bit, revisions can ALWAYS be made). At my interviews this year, I received a lot of positive feedback on my essay and the experience I wrote about, since I am applying to a couple of the same schools, I thought totally changing that might look a bit strange.

However, in the past year I have gone much further in both my research and clinical experiences so I highlighted this in the new essay. Basically, upon reading last year's essay I noticed a lot of "fluff" pertaining to my experiences and how they make me feel about medicine. This time around I have a lot more concrete examples and info to share, so I feel this portion of my essay is much better. I am a better candidate than I was last year and I think this is conveyed through this years essay, especially when compared to last years.

If you are re-applying to any schools (which you should if you received interviews from them last year), just make sure you do not contradict anything you said in last year's essay.

Good luck.

 

[sunflower79]

The second time I started from scratch. I felt my PS the first time was OK but it wasn't true to my underlying reasons for becoming a doc. That I discovered only after applying once, not getting in and taking time off to think about it. Hence it was much more personal and I think that made it a better PERSONAL statement. 🙂

I also incorporated recent experiences to back up my main ideas. That probably helped a little.

With re to reapplying to the same schools, I think you can and should reapply to the ones that you really liked and know the reasons why you like them. I think it worked in my favor (I reapplied to Pitt) 🙂

good luck 🙂
sunflower79

 

[UCLAMAN]

Haven't you already asked a similar question about reusing personal statements already?

Anyhow...If you aren't applying to the same schools maybe you can get away with not changing anything. However, if you are unhappy with it then you could probably make it better if you rewrote it.

I understand that revamping a personal statement can be very time consuming. Sounds to me as if your just kinda feeling lazy about reworking the essay when really you know you could make it better and be happy about it.

I'd say your future is riding on this essay...why not put your all into it? That means reworking it until you are completely satisfied with it. And you just said in your post that you are unhappy with it.

If you got quite a few interviews with the old personal statement , maybe a revamped and improved ps will allow you to garner a few more interviews that you otherwise wouldn't have gotten with the old ps.

good luck