Strategy Consultant, Personal Statement Advice

[investmentdoc]

Hi all,

Just wanted to get some advice/ideas as I start to think about the personal statement that we'll all be writing in a few months!

I have a background in strategy consulting in a variety of industries working for a pretty well known consulting firm. I've done my due diligence in taking the pre-reqs, doing my MCATs (while working), and of course the standard volunteering & ECs such as shadowing, research, etc.

Would love to get some ideas from you all on how I can tie my work experience into my PS, and to show adcoms that I am interested in medicine and can somehow relate this experience in.

Thanks in advance.

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[Lya]

Discuss why you got into strategy consulting in the first place (it is perfectly acceptable to say you initially had no interest in medicine), what experiences or events made you change your mind and consider medicine, and why you envision yourself in medicine instead of consulting.

You may discuss in secondary essays about how your experiences and lessons from consulting will be helpful in medicine, but you do not necessarily have to do so in your PS, in my opinion.

 

[ponyo]

Fellow consultant here. I agree with @Lya above - I wouldn't make consulting the focus of your PS, unless it is directly the experience that inspired you to go into medicine. If it's not immediately obvious why it's relevant it's probably not relevant, except in the grander context as something that you are doing now and learning from.

Also good luck with applying while working a full time consulting job haha. It can suck at times...

 

[Mt Kilimanjaro]

Best advice I got about prior careers is make sure your app makes it clear that you're running towards medicine, not away from something else. You can be tactful about what was lacking in consulting that medicine holds for you, but have to work hard to avoid sounding negative. Also, be sure to have a well reasoned motivation for the change...they seem to raise the "motivation" bar a bit for people with previous careers.