Should I focus my Personal Statement on some negatives?

[Medikit]

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One of the most glaring aspects of my march through school is probably the maturity I gained; this is evident in my increasing GPA. Should I center my PS on the maturation process? Is it too dangerous to talk about initial struggles with depression, doubt, and a complete lack of self worth? You can see how crazy my GPA looks here:

Freshman:
Total: 31 hours, 2.62
BCPM: 15 hours, 3.09
Others: 16 hours, 2.18

Sophomore:
Total: 30 hours, 3.23
BCPM: 15 hours, 2.78
Other: 15 hours, 3.68

Junior:
Total: 34 hours, 3.86
BCPM: 25 hours, 3.88
Other: 9 hours, 3.8

Senior:
Total: 32 hours, 4.0
BCPM: 25 hours, 4.0
Other: 7 hours, 4.0

I'm not sure what they are going to think about my initial lack of responsibility or how important it is to them that I managed to find out who I really was and what I really wanted through this process. I'm not sure how many other people have GPA's that do this, so I think this might be something that could make me stand out, although it may also be something that gets me tossed.

 

[Premedtomed]

Wow your avatar explains your lack of self-worth!

Talking about negatives is fine if it is restricted to one or two sentences.
I have been told that there is no need to do so. Let them ask you the questions in your interview. PS should be all positive.

 

[OnMyWayThere]

I am stuck in the same situation, would like to see what others have to say.

My approach so far is to have a part of my essay as "then" and then the rest of the essay as "now" and close it off positive...

 

[ih8biochem]

I always wondered about this too. A doctor I exchanged drafts of my PS with last year made me really focus on how my dedication to persue medicine was tested throughout my premed years and how the experiences would help me handle stuff like malpractice lawsuits and irrational patients. My PS ended up reading like I was a masicist or something. I believe it hurt my chances. I don't mean to hijack this thread or anything but how do you folks propose we convey that we have in fact encountered challenges that may have test our resolve to pursue medicine without sounding negative? Interesting problem.

 

[izzyfine]

Hey Guys,

I think that one can speak of challenges and difficulties in a personal statement, but please try and put them in a positive light. Also be careful of the types of challenges which you speak of. The pressures that you will be facing in medical school will be enormous and the adcoms are aware of this. You are applying for a very high pressure job, your personal statement should reflect the fact that you can take the heat. If you come off as weak it is all but suicide for your application. Any challenge better be a real challenge.

Now if the personal statement was written for a therapist as opposed to an adcom then it would no doubt read quite differently. However, in this situation you have to sell yourself as a person of certainty. They NEED to know that you want the MD with a passion. When an adcom finishes that essay they should come away with two things above all...Wow, this guy really wants this, and he has what it takes.
Please don't get me wrong...if you have a challenge and you overcome it to become a stronger person then more power to you, but you have to remember your audience. Sometimes what you consider a major challenge other people consider pretty standard stuff.

For example, suppose you say that learning to excel in college was very difficult but that in the end it made you a stronger person (a challenge many college graduates overcome), some people would say "wow, that is so inspiring" but others might be more of the mindset "So school was hard but you learned to study...big freakin deal, my son just got shipped off to Iraq." My point is that what YOU might consider to be a noteworthy accomplishment may not seem so impressive to a physician who deals with life and death on a daily basis. If you triumph over a challenge...well, it better be a BIG challenge (serious disease, family death or personal tragedy), study habits and the rigors of apartment hunting might not qualify.

But then again I don't want to be a hypocrite...I wrote about overcoming a learning disability, which many people would look at as pretty tame. I wrote about it because I thought it might distinguish me from others...was it a mistake? One of the people who interviewed me said that it was "brave" on my part to have included it but didn't seem too impressed, the other interviewer however loved listening to me talk about it and the disability/challenges of overcoming it ended up dominating the whole interview...I got waitlisted...take from that what you will.

I hope this helps.

Izzyfine-

 

[jlee9531]

if it shows your maturation and how it has influenced your decision into being a physician...then by all means. yes. dont be afraid to write your story. its yours. its what got you here.

 

[principessa]

I think it's okay to talk about pitfalls, but you shouldn't sound like you're making excuses or complaining. Tell them (briefly) what happened, what you learned, and why it motivates you to be a physician or will make you a better physician in the future. Then move on.

 

[Lux Aeterna]

x

 

[Medikit]

I really appreciate the responses. I'm kind of bummed that I can't really be as personal as I'd like to be. Interestingly enough as I was writing this I made a decision to drop a summer class that started tomorrow and take it in the spring in favor of shadowing and volunteering, something that may help in writing my personal statement.

 

[beriberi]

Every sentence in the PS should make them want you. There are ways to say triumph over adversity" in a way which makes you more desirable. One of the ways you should evaluate your PS is sentence by sentence and make sure that everyone puts you further in the door.

"When I was in the depths of my depression, I found it hard to go to class. Nothing seemed to matter. I let things slide. I have worked diligently to offset the effects of my illness for the last three years." A few of those sentences are clearly working against you.



"When my grades slid, I panicked to see my dreams sliding too. I took drastic (and aggressive) steps. Instead of having the lassiez-faire attidude that had served me well during high school, I became an active participant in my educational process. As my college education comes to a close, I think of how I changed from the absent, uninterested student, to the tutoring coordinator for the science department, TA of the year and honor roll student. It happened because..."

This is not making excuses but shows you are a person of action. Grades are not the only thing that changes--make that part of the picture. Things should be incredibly personal (so that your statement doesn't sound like the rest). Personal however, does not mean that it should portray you in anything but the best light.There are a hundred stories of bad beginnings and inspried dedication; better make yours good.

 

[Amy B]

By all means deal with your slow start and how you improved throughout your 4 years. I was told when something is glaring in your application, an adcom will go stright to your essay to get an explaination. If they don't read one in the essay,they will question why you didn't talk about it. It can't be whiny or blaming other things. Just a short explaination.

I got 3 Cs and 1 A during one semester. They were the only C's I had ever gotten. My grandmother died during my final exams and my performance on my exams brought down all my grades that semester. I simply wrote that I handled her death poorly and that I knew I would have to have better coping skills as a physician. I think I wrote about 4 sentences about that semester. It also affected my MCAT so I included that in the statement and followed that up with pointing out that I improved my MCAT the next time.

Since you have shown a great improvement, I would definitly write about how you matured and got stronger as a student as you went along. Turn the negative start into a postive story.

Good luck.

 

[SaltySqueegee]

...Tell them (briefly) ...

Exactly, I had a similar GPA and school hickup (I dropped out), that I explained in two sentences.

"Blah, Blah, had a hickup, blah, allowed me to revaluate my goals on life, blah, made me more sure of my goal to become a doctor, blah."

Hope that helps. blah 😀

 

[Trashino]

focus: NO
mention briefly: YES

Remember to put a positive spin on it when you do mention your troubles, being sure to show how you've overcome them.

 

[rebeclette]

Personally I wouldn't focus on it at all. In some cases the person reading your statment might not pay that much attention to your grades specifically, so it seems like it would be a bad idea to draw their attention to that fact. Some schools your interviewer will only see your final GPA, and your PS. maybe you could just mention that your desire to become a doctor caused you to focus on your grades in the last two years and earn high marks. I would not draw anyones attention to anything bad about yourself.

I wrote about being scared and frustrated when my mom was in the hospital when I was about 13, and how this turned my interests toward wanting to understand medicine and being able to help people. It was just a small part of my essay.
And I'm not sure if this is their real reason, but said that my use of too many "nervous" words, and the fact that I was very nervous in the interview led one medical school to belive that I was too nervous to functon, and thus they waitlisted me. So I would be very careful about metioning anything negative about yourself in the essay, even if it was in the past.

 

[jlee9531]

I really appreciate the responses. I'm kind of bummed that I can't really be as personal as I'd like to be. Interestingly enough as I was writing this I made a decision to drop a summer class that started tomorrow and take it in the spring in favor of shadowing and volunteering, something that may help in writing my personal statement.

make it as personal as you want. there are things in my ps my friends dont even know and will most likely never know.

interviewers were genuinely interested in my ps and wanted to talk about it and led to some nice conversations.

 

[WatchingWaiting]

Based on what you've written, you'll be applying with a 3.44 cum gpa and a 3.56 science gpa. The fact that the science is higher is a good thing. However, your gpa is still a little lowish for MD schools. It will be noticed at all open-file interviews and by all screeners deciding whether to give you an interview. You need to mention it at least a little bit to provide some kind of context. It's not like people aren't going to notice that you have a 3.44 cum. gpa and your couple of sentences to one paragraph in the essay is suddenly going to be a strike of lightning making it clear. Also, note that the AMCAS very nicely breaks down your gpa by year, and so your first two-years will be very clearly noted.

Don't view this is a drawing attention to the negative (you're not-- all adcoms look at your academic qualifications first and fore-most, then look at how convincing your personal story is), so much as providing context of past weakness and how great you are now. You don't have to specifically mention your gpa, just whatever struggle you had that made those tough years. Just make sure you have a good flow showing that those things were aberrations.

Oh, and no one is going to respond with, "My son is in Iraq, your gpa problems are petty." 90% of personal statements would be dumpstered as trash if adcoms used that kind of logic.

 

[izzyfine]

Oh, and no one is going to respond with, "My son is in Iraq, your gpa problems are petty." 90% of personal statements would be dumpstered as trash if adcoms used that kind of logic.

Maybe WatchingWaiting is right. However, during the whole interview thing I was very impressed with the people I was interviewing with. Many of them had done really interesting things with their lives (some of them truly exceptional). Lets just say that it was a very humbling experience for me. I would imagine with competition like that...well, GPA woes might not seem that noteworthy. I'm sure you probably have other arrows in your quiver though.

On the other hand, I guess significant gaps in your application do need to be explained.

 

[late inthe game]

i would tend to agree with izzyfine and others. my sense during the whole application affair was that GPA becomes a really small deal really fast. As long as you've got the minimum to pass through initial reviews(which I think you do for most schools), it seems to get irrelevant, I don't think you want to much of your PS to talk about your grades, it's just not that interesting.

Remember, your application might show up on somebody's desk in the same stack as the person who wrote about the women's health center they helped establish in Uganda, or the kid who has been supporting himself since he was 14, or the fellow who started a successful aeronautical engineering firm in the 90's and is now ready to become a doctor. (these are all people I actually met while interviewing).

 

[WatchingWaiting]

i would tend to agree with izzyfine and others. my sense during the whole application affair was that GPA becomes a really small deal really fast. As long as you've got the minimum to pass through initial reviews(which I think you do for most schools), it seems to get irrelevant, I don't think you want to much of your PS to talk about your grades, it's just not that interesting.

Remember, your application might show up on somebody's desk in the same stack as the person who wrote about the women's health center they helped establish in Uganda, or the kid who has been supporting himself since he was 14, or the fellow who started a successful aeronautical engineering firm in the 90's and is now ready to become a doctor. (these are all people I actually met while interviewing).

I'm afraid this just isn't true. The person applying with a 3.9/35 who has done a bit of clinical work, a volunteering bit gig, has a leadership title somewhere, did a couple of summers of research, will beat the guy who established the women's health clinic in Uganda and has supported himself since age 14 but is applying with a 3.5/30 at every top 25 school, assuming both are non-URMs. Compelling experiences definitely count when you're applying with good stats, but the cookie-cutter pre-med who has jumped through the hoops, has some decent experiences beats out Joe with average stats but awesome experiences 9 out of 10 times.

 

[Medikit]

Based on what you've written, you'll be applying with a 3.44 cum gpa and a 3.56 science gpa. The fact that the science is higher is a good thing. However, your gpa is still a little lowish for MD schools. It will be noticed at all open-file interviews and by all screeners deciding whether to give you an interview. .

Thanks for actually breaking down my GPAs, you gave me some more to think about. As for the 3.44, I'm very thankful for it, I was planning on applying after my junior year and before that year started I had just reached a 3.0 cum. ! By the time I actually get into interviews my GPA will probably be 3.5 since I'm a double major and will have one more year of school to finish that.

I'm glad I made this thread, thinking about this made me realize that I'm missing some EC's so I canceled summer school and will be shadowing a pediatrician tomorrow and volunteering again at the hospital next week!
This also added like $540 to my bank account.

Thank you guys very much.

 

[late inthe game]

Sure, I agree that strong stats make a great impression at top schools (er, make that all schools). I guess my point was that if you do have more mediocre stats writing about them in your PS isn't going to make them go away. I just think it makes sense to focus on the really cool things you do in your personal statement, and if there's a special section about weak grades or whatever deal with it there.

Caveat: unless your weak grades happen to have something to do with one of the really cool things you do, in which case i would say: write away!

I'm afraid this just isn't true. The person applying with a 3.9/35 who has done a bit of clinical work, a volunteering bit gig, has a leadership title somewhere, did a couple of summers of research, will beat the guy who established the women's health clinic in Uganda and has supported himself since age 14 but is applying with a 3.5/30 at every top 25 school, assuming both are non-URMs. Compelling experiences definitely count when you're applying with good stats, but the cookie-cutter pre-med who has jumped through the hoops, has some decent experiences beats out Joe with crappy stats but awesome experiences 9 out of 10 times.

 

[madcadaver]

One of the most glaring aspects of my march through school is probably the maturity I gained; this is evident in my increasing GPA. Should I center my PS on the maturation process? Is it too dangerous to talk about initial struggles with depression, doubt, and a complete lack of self worth?

Don't focus heavily on ANYTHING negative. As others have said, if you think it is important, you should mention it. But there is no need to pound into anybody's head the fact that you have a lowish GPA. The vast majority of the essay should be devoted to things that demonstrate how STRONG a cancidate you are.

I wrote a personal statement with some negative themes and looking back on it I would do it differently. I got a few very positive comments about it but I think overall it is not a good tactic.

Also, I agree with others that "I didn't focus and I had a low GPA" does not make for a very enthralling "trials and tribulations" type personal statement. I have read a lot of PS's, as has anybody else evaluating your app, and that particular theme sounds kind of silly when there are so many stories of real sacrifice and strife in the same stack.

This is the toughest part of the app; best of luck.
MadC

 

[Medikit]

Maybe I should post some more about myself. I don't have a lot of EC's as I said. I'm still looking for a better hospital to volunteer at since my local hospital appears to be geared more towards RN's and High School students. They have me in low patient interaction positions and I can't seem to find a place with greater interaction (I'm going to start working in a new place on Mon.). My main non-academic work has been in computers and tutoring. I spent about two and a half years as a payed tutor and I've volunteered my hours for about a year and a half through the Chemistry club. I'm trying to get out of computers because that was my primary studying distraction during the early years.

For my PS I'm trying to come up with examples relating computer and tutoring work to my desire to become a pediatrician. With computers I really enjoy diagnosing hardware problems, going in and fixing it, although with trouble shooting we have a lot more freedom with a computer than say a human being, although it's not nearly as exhilirating since all the computer does when its fixed is boot up the operating system. As for tutoring my favorite part is finding weak building blocks in the foundation of my student as well as new ways to present material that for whatever reason they cannot understand in its traditional form.

Also, I agree with others that "I didn't focus and I had a low GPA" does not make for a very enthralling "trials and tribulations" type personal statement. I have read a lot of PS's, as has anybody else evaluating your app, and that particular theme sounds kind of silly when there are so many stories of real sacrifice and strife in the same stack.

It wouldn't come out like that, basically I couldn't focus and I didn't know why, I went in to get tested for ADD and was diagnosed with a specific form of clinical depression. I struggled with it while still attending school, but through counseling, exercise, medication, and maturity found the focus and personal value that I needed and actually found out that I was actually pretty good at the whole student thing. Probably the funniest part was during Organic Chemistry where I went from the student everyone made fun of one semester because I always fell asleep in class to setting the curve the next semester.

 

[SaltySqueegee]

Regarding the Computer troubleshooting anecdote. This is how I incorporated it into my personal statement:

"I can remember the first time I saw that iridescent apple-green cursor blinking before my eyes. It was a TRS-80 Model 1, a "beast" straight out of the late 70's, with 4KB of ROM and 16KB of RAM. It didn't have any floppy or hard drives to speak of, instead it had an after-market hacked together tape drive that was nothing more than a cassette-voice recorder. The computer was about ten years old, putting me at an age of nine when I first became acquainted with it. My father purchased it for approximately $50 from a school that was upgrading their computer lab. He thought it would be a good investment for my education. Who would have thought that computer would play such a pivotal role for my future career in medicine?
When my sophomore year of high school came around, I was already working in the "Industry" as a computer technician for the semiconductor corporation, XXXXX. Since my first encounter with the "beast," I had devoured volumes of computer manuals. This insatiable appetite for the knowledge of how computers work, led me to be part of a prestigious program at my high school, the XXX (XXX XXX XXX) program. I also participated in a one-year program at the XXX (XXX XXX XXX XXX), where I learned the intricacies of digital network management. These programs provided me with an in-depth understanding of the world of computers and invaluable experience in troubleshooting problems and issues with complex systems that have multiple points of failure.
It was the logical choice for me to pick Electrical/Computer Engineering as my focus when I entered XXXX XXXX State University as a freshman. However, I quickly found myself dissatisfied with my focus in Engineering. This compounded with financial constraints led me to withdraw from my first semester at XXXX XXXX State University. This period in my life allowed me to re-evaluate my goals in college. As a result, I decided to focus my education on understanding the ultimate computer/machine--the human body."


Notice in the second paragraph, how I didn't mention how it pertains to medicine?

It doesn't need to be explicitly said, they will understand that it is an important skill to troubleshoot problems. And will assume that you can make the same application in medicine. Good luck, and I hope this helps. Also becareful, you may get asked to troubleshoot your interviewer's computer. I did, and I fixed it 👍 . Good for the ego .