Reapplying and Essays

[Medschoolripperoo]

Quick questions regarding reapplying. On 4 WLs, so I am prepping for the worst.

In terms of personal statement, activities, and essays, how much is really expected in terms of changing them? Since I got 4 IIs I know all of my writing wasn't poor, but I can certainly restructure things here and there.

That being said, does any school actually do a side-by-side comparison to your past application, or do they generally rely on a re-applicant essay in the secondary to see what you have changed? I have some essays I know were very strong that I honestly would only change maybe 5-10% of it to "clean" it up.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Catalystik]

Quick questions regarding reapplying. On 4 WLs, so I am prepping for the worst.

In terms of personal statement, activities, and essays, how much is really expected in terms of changing them? Since I got 4 IIs I know all of my writing wasn't poor, but I can certainly restructure things here and there.

That being said, does any school actually do a side-by-side comparison to your past application, or do they generally rely on a re-applicant essay in the secondary to see what you have changed? I have some essays I know were very strong that I honestly would only change maybe 5-10% of it to "clean" it up.

Most commonly, it is the PS that gets the side by side comparison, so be sure to freshen that essay up significantly, particularly the opening paragraph. Minor edits for the Activities section should be sufficient, but do change some vocabulary and sentence structure, just in case.

 

[deleted889094]

I believe some schools require you submit a "unique application" if you reapply. I completely rewrote my PS and I'm glad I did. I would consider it

 

[1nside]

Some of the schools I got post-ii feedback on seem to want me to change it. I have significantly re-drafted my PS and I am also re-writing all of my W/A essays based on the feedback. It may depend on the current strength of your content. I worked hard on mine as well but I think my perspective on things has grown over this year. If it is already strong, then I would just add some tweaks/polishing and then focus on interviews.

 

[Goro]

I get your point, I'm not an ADCOM nor do I know what they are thinking, hence why I am here asking questions, but that still doesn't answer my question as to is it necessary to tell an entirely new story, or is telling the same story in a different light just as good. I would think that would depend on the strength of the original PS, but perhaps I am wrong. I am surprised is all because everyone I have spoke to (anecdotally) made minimal PS changes and had much greater success because they knew where their deficits in their application were.

Another way of looking at it is: In the space of an entire year, nothing has changed? You have nothing further to add to these words???

 

[deleted889094]

On the off chance that a school would look unfavorably upon you reusing exact parts of your PS, is it really worth the effort you save not rewriting it?

I say at least reword things. That much can be done in a sitting.

For me personally, I realized my PS sounded really naive (because it was) so I redid it. I always think it's interesting when people say they have a good PS because it seems so subjective. I thought mine was good until a year later when I reapplied. But clearly people can write good ones for their first cycle

 

[EasyEveryoneWouldDoIt]

I thinking Hemingway once said “the first draft is ****”. Most writers are never content with their final a draft they are just sick of reworking it. For your PS it can be the same narrative but you can always improve it and make it better. The same narrative can be told a million different ways. I would keep your same outline but change your wording of it