Self plagiarizing personal statement?

[esob]

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So, I know typically that self-plagiarism involves submitting work as new that was previously published. But the dictionary has a bit broader definition:

• To commit literary theft: present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

So here is the scenario. My school requires us to turn in a health pre-admissions packet that asks things such as "name your best traits" and "why do you want to be a physician?" This packet is important because it is used by the committee to "rate" you as an applicant, so it is in no way a blow-off writing exercise. However, there are some sentences that I have put a lot of thought and effort into crafting (literally since I started this journey) and I would hate to use them in this packet and then not be able to use them in my personal statement or secondaries, etc.

I know it's probably overthinking it, but there was an incident with Fareed Zakaria not that long ago that involved something similar and the literary world was all in a fuss about it. The last thing I want is to put myself in an awkward position by having someone (most likely from my own school looking over my personal statement) say, "oh, didn't you use that exact same sentence in your HPAC application?"

 

[HomeSkool]

Have you ever written a message, then copy-pasted it and just changed the name of the recipient and a couple key details? That's, like, every "thank you" note I've ever written. And at least half of the stuff I send my mom.

Plagiarism is when you submit an essay for a grade, then make some edits and submit it again for a second grade: you're double-dipping to get two rewards. In this case, however, you're using your own copied words twice in pursuit of a single reward. It's akin to sending several nearly-identical cover letters to various potential employers, and it's legit.

This isn't plagiarism, it's field-testing your personal statement with your premed admissions committee. Go for it.

 

[lovehate]

My school's pre-med committee asks for the same thing, I used my amcas PS and everything was fine. All my friends did the same.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

My school's pre-med committee asks for the same thing, I used my amcas PS and everything was fine. All my friends did the same.

Same here. We were told they wanted our amcas ps. It is definitely not plagiarism.

 

[NickNaylor]

If it's content that you originally wrote yourself, I don't think you're in any jeopardy with respect to being accused of plagiarism.

 

[btuck]

If it's content that you originally wrote yourself, I don't think you're in any jeopardy with respect to being accused of plagiarism.

It is possible to plagiarize yourself, this is what OP was talking about. However, I do not think that this would be a case of that - per HomeSkool's reasoning, both of these pieces of writing serve the same purpose and are a response to the same 'prompt.'

 

[Lucca]

After your premed committee does it’s work, precisely 0 people will read what you wrote in that packet. Even if they did, I don’t think this counts as plagiarism.