Serious PS question-LONG

[mark1989]

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Ok here’s the deal. I am trying to start on my personal statement but need some advice. Have had sort of a weird life so far. Let me just tell you about it and then I would appreciate advice on what if any to include when doing my personal statement. This is going to be long so if you’re not in the mood to read I understand. My father is a third generation Missouri farmer. My uncle, his brother, is also a farmer. When I was 8 years old, my family farmed close to 4000 acres between my uncle, my grandfather, and my dad. Times were good and we were somewhat “well off”. Well most of the land we farmed was owned by one man and we had been renting the land for at least 20-25 years. Advisors close to this man convinced him that the price of land would never be as high as it was right then and in the winter of 1997 he sold every acre he owned. Most of the land was bought by a paper company. They planted trees on all of it. My dad went from farming about 2000 acres to farming about 300 in one year. Needless to say we lost almost all our possessions. The financial struggles caused my parents to separate and before they got divorced they had to file bankruptcy. We lost what little land we owned, all but 2 vehicles, our cows, most of our tractors, and for a short time our house. The house was auctioned off on the court house steps. My brother was around 19 at the time and with backing from my grandfather was able to get a loan and buy the house in the auction. My dad left and was out of the picture for awhile. My brother couldn’t go to college because he had to make the house payment as my mother could barely afford the other bills. I was only 11 and wasn’t big enough to drive tractors on my grandfathers farm but my neighbor started a large vegetable farm and at 11 I got my first job. I did hard manual labor there to help pay the bills and buy school clothes and things. I worked on that vegetable farm for the next 3 summers until I got big enough to work on my grandfathers farm and have worked there ever since. During high school I didn’t just work the summer, I worked before and after school in the fall and spring. Even with that, I was valedictorian. I made the hard decision not to go off to a university and instead went to a community college for my first 2 ½ years. Meanwhile all those years my brother had had several jobs and currently worked for a company moving dirt with tractors. He was sent all over the country and was really home sick but still kept sending the house payment back. I had always been interested in medicine, ever since midway through high school when there was a wreck by our house and we helped the people to safety and I saw the emt’s work. I thought that I would never be able to be a doctor though so I just took a lot of classes at the community college that were prereqs to most degrees while I tried to figure out what I wanted to do. During the last semester I spent at the cc, my brother came home to visit. While he was home, he was offered a higher paying job working for a farm chemical company as an applicator. He took the job. He does most of all their custom spraying. He came to me shortly after and told me to quit working as much. He said to get my butt in gear and make something of myself and that he could handle the house. He also told me not to let him down. Well I had expending most of the resources that the community college had to offer so I immediately transferred to a university and declared my major in biochemistry and pre-medicine. That was the spring of 2010. Since then I have been very dedicated and have worked at a family clinic, volunteered, got involved in the university. I am determined to become a doctor and be somebody. Maybe one day I can help my brother out.

I have read that you should not really make your personal statement a “life history”, so my question is do I need to include any of this. Sorry it was so long.

 

[Xadorus]

You shouldn't include most of that background information about how you grew up. Only information pertaining to why and how you want to go into medicine should be written in your personal statement.

 

[Narmerguy]

Ok here’s the deal. I am trying to start on my personal statement but need some advice. Have had sort of a weird life so far. Let me just tell you about it and then I would appreciate advice on what if any to include when doing my personal statement. This is going to be long so if you’re not in the mood to read I understand. My father is a third generation Missouri farmer. My uncle, his brother, is also a farmer. When I was 8 years old, my family farmed close to 4000 acres between my uncle, my grandfather, and my dad. Times were good and we were somewhat “well off”. Well most of the land we farmed was owned by one man and we had been renting the land for at least 20-25 years. Advisors close to this man convinced him that the price of land would never be as high as it was right then and in the winter of 1997 he sold every acre he owned. Most of the land was bought by a paper company. They planted trees on all of it. My dad went from farming about 2000 acres to farming about 300 in one year. Needless to say we lost almost all our possessions. The financial struggles caused my parents to separate and before they got divorced they had to file bankruptcy. We lost what little land we owned, all but 2 vehicles, our cows, most of our tractors, and for a short time our house. The house was auctioned off on the court house steps. My brother was around 19 at the time and with backing from my grandfather was able to get a loan and buy the house in the auction. My dad left and was out of the picture for awhile. My brother couldn’t go to college because he had to make the house payment as my mother could barely afford the other bills. I was only 11 and wasn’t big enough to drive tractors on my grandfathers farm but my neighbor started a large vegetable farm and at 11 I got my first job. I did hard manual labor there to help pay the bills and buy school clothes and things. I worked on that vegetable farm for the next 3 summers until I got big enough to work on my grandfathers farm and have worked there ever since. During high school I didn’t just work the summer, I worked before and after school in the fall and spring. Even with that, I was valedictorian. I made the hard decision not to go off to a university and instead went to a community college for my first 2 ½ years. Meanwhile all those years my brother had had several jobs and currently worked for a company moving dirt with tractors. He was sent all over the country and was really home sick but still kept sending the house payment back. I had always been interested in medicine, ever since midway through high school when there was a wreck by our house and we helped the people to safety and I saw the emt’s work. I thought that I would never be able to be a doctor though so I just took a lot of classes at the community college that were prereqs to most degrees while I tried to figure out what I wanted to do. During the last semester I spent at the cc, my brother came home to visit. While he was home, he was offered a higher paying job working for a farm chemical company as an applicator. He took the job. He does most of all their custom spraying. He came to me shortly after and told me to quit working as much. He said to get my butt in gear and make something of myself and that he could handle the house. He also told me not to let him down. Well I had expending most of the resources that the community college had to offer so I immediately transferred to a university and declared my major in biochemistry and pre-medicine. That was the spring of 2010. Since then I have been very dedicated and have worked at a family clinic, volunteered, got involved in the university. I am determined to become a doctor and be somebody. Maybe one day I can help my brother out.

I have read that you should not really make your personal statement a “life history”, so my question is do I need to include any of this. Sorry it was so long.

Dude the length isn't that bad but use some paragraph formatting or something.

 

[aSagacious]

As mentioned above, I don't think that you should include your life story in your PS, just the parts that pertain to you aspiring to a career in medicine. The rest will be teased out by various prompts in the rest of the primary application:
- Financially disadvantaged applicant
- Born/raised in (presumably) medically underserved area
- Parent employment/occupation and education level
- Prompt in primary application for 'disadvantaged explanation'

...as you can see, you have plenty of opportunity to explain your circumstances outside of the personal statement.

 

[Avoidthetiger]

There's a childhood section on the AMCAS now where I believe you will be able to put must of the above information.

keep the PS focused on why medicine. You could potentially start with helping the family near your farm and seeing EMT workers for the first time. Then explain how you went from a farmer family, to considering medicine - clinical experiences you have had, volunteering, research, tutor/teaching, cultural experiences, ect.

 

[CuttingCorneas]

Dude the length isn't that bad but use some paragraph formatting or something.

And maybe a different font size...my eyes are all squinty.

But seriously, don't make your PS a sob story about your life. That's not what it's supposed to be. It's about why you want to go into medicine. If the adcoms ask you about something in your life that has inspired you, that's a good time to talk about home on the range. But not the PS.

 

[TheMightySmiter]

As mentioned above, I don't think that you should include your life story in your PS, just the parts that pertain to you aspiring to a career in medicine. The rest will be teased out by various prompts in the rest of the primary application:
- Financially disadvantaged applicant
- Born/raised in (presumably) medically underserved area
- Parent employment/occupation and education level
- Prompt in primary application for 'disadvantaged explanation'

...as you can see, you have plenty of opportunity to explain your circumstances outside of the personal statement.

This.

There's a childhood section on the AMCAS now where I believe you will be able to put must of the above information.

keep the PS focused on why medicine. You could potentially start with helping the family near your farm and seeing EMT workers for the first time. Then explain how you went from a farmer family, to considering medicine - clinical experiences you have had, volunteering, research, tutor/teaching, cultural experiences, ect.

And this.

 

[SEE13]

Other people have said this, but it's worth repeating. Focus only on answering the question presented in the prompt, which is "why medicine?". You mentioned only two things in that whole story that motivated you toward a carer path in medicine, which are 1) the car accident and 2) you want to help your brother. I wouldn't mention reason #2, because that is not specific toward medicine (you could help him out financially as a businessman or pretty much any other career if you are successful).

I have also had a somewhat dramatic family life, but I did not find it appropriate to mention it in the PS because it didn't have anything to do with why I want to be a doc.

However, on some of my secondaries, I have had prompts such as "describe an obstacle that you had to overcome, how did it affect you?". In that case, I did mention my family issues and how they made me a more compassionate person. In that case, they want to know about things that have happened in your past, and it would be just fine to mention your difficulties growing up.

Good luck

 

[LizzyM]

The theme of the AMCAS personal statement is how you came to the decision to pursue a career in medicine, including how you tested that decision (through clinical experiences, research experience, other careers considered, and so forth).


Your employment should be listed in the experience section. Most people don't include things that were during or before HS but in your case, I think that the work in the vegetable farm were formative and are informative and should be included in your 15 experiences if at all possible.

The economic hardships of your childhood go in a separate section of the AMCAS and that section was developed for cases just like yours where there were circumstances in childhood that the adcom should take into consideration when evaluating your application.

 

[LizzyM]

My father is a third generation Missouri farmer. My uncle, his brother, is also a farmer. When I was 8 years old, my family farmed close to 4000 acres between my uncle, my grandfather, and my dad. Times were good and we were somewhat "well off". Well most of the land we farmed was owned by one man and we had been renting the land for at least 20-25 years. Advisors close to this man convinced him that the price of land would never be as high as it was right then and in the winter of 1997 he sold every acre he owned. Most of the land was bought by a paper company. They planted trees on all of it. My dad went from farming about 2000 acres to farming about 300 in one year.

Needless to say we lost almost all our possessions. The financial struggles caused my parents to separate and before they got divorced they had to file bankruptcy. We lost what little land we owned, all but 2 vehicles, our cows, most of our tractors, and for a short time our house. The house was auctioned off on the court house steps. My brother was around 19 at the time and with backing from my grandfather was able to get a loan and buy the house in the auction. My dad left and was out of the picture for awhile. My brother couldn't go to college because he had to make the house payment as my mother could barely afford the other bills.

I was only 11 and wasn't big enough to drive tractors on my grandfathers farm but my neighbor started a large vegetable farm and at 11 I got my first job. I did hard manual labor there to help pay the bills and buy school clothes and things. I worked on that vegetable farm for the next 3 summers until I got big enough to work on my grandfathers farm and have worked there ever since. During high school I didn't just work the summer, I worked before and after school in the fall and spring. Even with that, I was valedictorian.

I made the hard decision not to go off to a university and instead went to a community college for my first 2 ½ years. Meanwhile all those years my brother had had several jobs and currently worked for a company moving dirt with tractors. He was sent all over the country and was really home sick but still kept sending the house payment back.

I had always been interested in medicine, ever since midway through high school when there was a wreck by our house and we helped the people to safety and I saw the emt's work. I thought that I would never be able to be a doctor though so I just took a lot of classes at the community college that were prereqs to most degrees while I tried to figure out what I wanted to do. During the last semester I spent at the cc, my brother came home to visit. While he was home, he was offered a higher paying job working for a farm chemical company as an applicator. He took the job. He does most of all their custom spraying. He came to me shortly after and told me to quit working as much. He said to get my butt in gear and make something of myself and that he could handle the house. He also told me not to let him down. Well I had expending most of the resources that the community college had to offer so I immediately transferred to a university and declared my major in biochemistry and pre-medicine. That was the spring of 2010. Since then I have been very dedicated and have worked at a family clinic, volunteered, got involved in the university. I am determined to become a doctor and be somebody. Maybe one day I can help my brother out.

with better font

 

[NYBills987]

Wow.. everyone else is giving you good advice, but I just want to say that your story is very interesting and I think if you can include a lot of it into your application it will make you stand out. Good luck! You also have an interesting reason and specific event confirming your interest in medicine. Maybe you can expand on that one topic and try to pepper your upbringing into the story.