Successful Personal Statements

[Mr. Darcy]

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Perhaps a thread where folks who have gotten in somewhere post their AMCAS personal statements? Could be helpful to those who are applying or looking for ideas. Perhaps this exists already 🙂?

 

[DrThom]

I've gotten complements in interviews about my PS.

If you wanna read it, just PM me.

 

[Sundarban1]

Perhaps a thread where folks who have gotten in somewhere post their AMCAS personal statements? Could be helpful to those who are applying or looking for ideas. Perhaps this exists already 🙂?

Most people are not willing to post their personal statements on a public forum for people to criticize. Not only are there plagirism issues, but issues with "hey, my personal statement was better than yours and I got rejected from school X."

A good tool for you would be "101 essays that will get you into medical school" by Barrons. You can get a copy at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc..In it you will find resources on how to develop your statement from start to finish..and also provides statements from students accecpted to medical school from all backgrounds.

 

[FrauBlucher]

I agree that that's a helpful book, but be careful. It's good in that it points out what can work and what can't, and helps you put life experiences and ideas into a short essay. However, if you follow those guidelines you'll be creating a cookie-cutter essay that's similar to the other 4,000 essays the adcoms are reading. My advice would be (and I've also had interviewers tell me my ps stood out and they remembered parts of it) to just be yourself. Say what you want to say how you want to say it. Also, what really helped me was having an older MD where I work review it (several times). I figured he was representative of who would be reading it, so I wanted to make sure it worked. Good luck!

 

[curiouslygeorge]

Perhaps a thread where folks who have gotten in somewhere post their AMCAS personal statements?

no.

 

[Sundarban1]

Also, what really helped me was having an older MD where I work review it (several times).

Great point! Knowing that ADCOMS are often made of physicians it was an INVALUABLE resource to me to have an MD read my PS. MD's have a way of seeing things you may say different form say, another student, advisor, etc. who may not have gone through the process or currently exposed to the medical profession. 👍

 

[funshine]

I've gotten complements in interviews about my PS.

If you wanna read it, just PM me.

i pm'ed you

 

[8744]

Keep your personal statement short, pithy, and free from cliches or stilted prose. Trust me. Before I started writing my personal statement for ERAS (for residency application), I went back and read my AMCAS personal statement.

It was painful. I can't believe I actually wrote anything so pompous, so mind-numbing. I want to find every admission person who read it and offer them my apologies.

My goal in writing my ERAS personal statement was to not write anything I would look at five years down the road with disgust.

 

[japhy]

My goal in writing my ERAS personal statement was to not write anything I would look at five years down the road with disgust.

that seems to be a very reasonable standard. i will have to keep that in mind.

 

[DubZteR]

Perhaps a thread where folks who have gotten in somewhere post their AMCAS personal statements? Could be helpful to those who are applying or looking for ideas. Perhaps this exists already 🙂?

If anyone is interested in personal statements .. please send me a PM.

Thanks