To Premeds: General Advice on Personal Statements

[Lawpy]

Bumping this thread as the new application cycle approaches. Please use this thread to ensure your personal statement is solid.

In addition, I'm tagging more PS readers here as to see whether they can provide further feedback.

@syoung @ThinkReallyFast @22031 Alum @pobms4 @turayza @Shinobiz11

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[22031 Alum]

I posted this tip in the Readers thread, but it bears repeating. Remember your audience. By all means, have Aunt Carol help you with proofreading. But that lengthy explanation of disease pathophysiology you put in to help her understand? Is wasted characters for the med school faculty who will be reading your PS. Even worse are the declarations of things that may be revelations to you, but are obvious to practicing physicians. Don't tell us that teamwork is important, we know that. Describe the situation that made you realize teamwork is important.

 

[ThinkReallyFast]

*building off suggestion #13*

My suggestion: ensure the reader will enough information to answer your "why medicine" within the first few lines of the PS. If you want them to read the whole PS you have to sell them, not make the PS an easter egg hunt to find "why medicine." Everything following this will serve as support and clarify this "why medicine." If I *had* to read another twenty or thirty essays and you have failed to sell me in the first few lines, my interest in reading the rest thoroughly, if at all, will be gone.

Most essays I have read do not begin to clarify "why medicine" until one-quarter or one-third of the way into the essay. Many share a neat anecdote for their intro, but then fail to connect it to their "why medicine." The reader is not psychic and will not know why it is important if you do not tell them.

 

[Shinobiz11]

I AM NOT reading PS's anymore, super busy ATM. My tip of advice if it hasn't been mentioned; it's asking "why do you want to go to med school". Don't worry about all the little details and crap, give them a clear cut picture into your mind/situation/story and why you are pursuing such a challenging career. It's not enough to say I volunteered at the hospital and it was cool, you have to describe how that event impacted you, shaped you into someone who wants to care for others.

 

[sunshine02]

Can you use contractions in your PS? I've been strongly cautioned against this (saying do not instead of don't) etc.

 

[Alejandro]

I personally wouldn't. I don't know how many actually discount you on it, but better to be safe than sorry. Just read mine now and didn't have any contractions used.

if you're worried about space, there's usually a lot of stuff you can cut out. just remember: every word has to have a purpose. A lot of people just like to add sentences and clauses that really say nothing about you other than that you like to talk too much. haha. Keep it short, and again, make sure each word has a purpose. (aka what it says about you)

And thank you for the rebumps, and all of the contributors (there are so many of you guys)! When I'm done with the boards, I'll try to move everyone's contributions to the main post (so it's all in one spot) and give credit to where its due.

 

[Nypnny]

Thank you so much for all the great advice! Is it ok to not use chronological order but organize each paragraph based on "subtopics" under a unifying theme? I hope to show that I have learned to look at the same problem from different perspectives from my experiences, but the more "obvious" one is closely related to an event that occurred later...

 

[22031 Alum]

Thank you so much for all the great advice! Is it ok to not use chronological order but organize each paragraph based on "subtopics" under a unifying theme? I hope to show that I have learned to look at the same problem from different perspectives from my experiences, but the more "obvious" one is closely related to an event that occurred later...

Depends on how well you can pull it off. Chronological order will probably be easiest for your reader to follow. Remember, while you lived the things you're writing about, and the way they fit together is obvious to you, that has to be spelled out for your readers.

 

[sunshine02]

Is it ok to use one story to show multiple things? Or do adcoms prefer multiple little stories to illustrate different points?

 

[22031 Alum]

Is it ok to use one story to show multiple things? Or do adcoms prefer multiple little stories to illustrate different points?

Now you're overthinking. Are you picturing an adcom saying "Sunshine02 dared to claim that they learned more than one thing from a single experience??! AUTO-REJECT!!"

 

[sunshine02]

Now you're overthinking. Are you picturing an adcom saying "Sunshine02 dared to claim that they learned more than one thing from a single experience??! AUTO-REJECT!!"

This made me sad.
An adcom really did tell me that he hated it when people use one story to show multiple lessons learned. I thought the more stories we use the more disorganized it would be. However, he's an adcom at a school I want to go to so now I feel stuck in a hard place and stressed to change everything about my essay.

 

[22031 Alum]

This made me sad.
An adcom really did tell me that he hated it when people use one story to show multiple lessons learned. I thought the more stories we use the more disorganized it would be. However, he's an adcom at a school I want to go to so now I feel stuck in a hard place and stressed to change everything about my essay.

Imagining that he's not just being a prick, he might mean that it sucks when applicants make forced analogies out of superficial experiences: "My two days of shadowing truly parallel the entirety of human existence..." Or when they try to crowbar in something to fit whatever awkward extended metaphor they've decided to use: "Medicine is like a corn dog..." OR, when it's obvious that it's the only activity the applicant has.

I can't imagine a well-written account of a rich, meaningful experience being taken negatively compared to an AMCAS laundry list. But I'm no expert.

 

[nRomaleos]

I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING. More points:
10) NO AMCAS ACTIVITY SECTION REPEATS!!!! I'm saying what Alejandro already said, BUT I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. You already have space in your activities to talk for TWO paragraphs about why a certain activity was significant to you or special! If you don't have two paras, you at least have one! Most of the writers I've read have wasted soooo much space on their PS writing this-- and when I cross this off-- it's like their entire PS is gone!

Other than repeating word-for-word about an activity in your PS, how on earth do you talk about a most meaningful activity in your activities section, and then avoid talking about in the PS?

 

[tick_tock400]

" Other than repeating word-for-word about an activity in your PS, how on earth do you talk about a most meaningful activity in your activities section, and then avoid talking about in the PS?"

==> You can talk about the same activities in your PS, but what I meant by that point was that a lot of people simply regurgitate info in such a mundane way that sounds like it belongs in the activities section or on a resume-- not in a PS.

For my own AMCAS, one of my most meaningful activities was something I did abroad, and then my PS talked about that very time abroad for the vast majority of the PS, but in my PS, I talked about my time abroad in a way that emphasized certain character traits-- i.e. perseverance, empathy, etc, whereas my description of my activity on AMCAS emphasized the facts of what I did abroad. Hope that makes more sense!

 

[hellanutella]

" Other than repeating word-for-word about an activity in your PS, how on earth do you talk about a most meaningful activity in your activities section, and then avoid talking about in the PS?"

==> You can talk about the same activities in your PS, but what I meant by that point was that a lot of people simply regurgitate info in such a mundane way that sounds like it belongs in the activities section or on a resume-- not in a PS.

For my own AMCAS, one of my most meaningful activities was something I did abroad, and then my PS talked about that very time abroad for the vast majority of the PS, but in my PS, I talked about my time abroad in a way that emphasized certain character traits-- i.e. perseverance, empathy, etc, whereas my description of my activity on AMCAS emphasized the facts of what I did abroad. Hope that makes more sense!

+1

Perfectly put.

I read a few essays where people would write something along these lines in their personal statement: "During my freshman year at University of X I volunteered at UX Hospital in the emergency department for over a year. In the ED I restocked inventory, cleaned rooms, escorted patients, and observed procedures. Due to my exemplary work ethic, I was eventually promoted to be the ED's volunteer coordinator, where I oversaw over three dozen volunteers and managed shift scheduling." They would usually follow this up with another few sentences about another EC they had participated in, essentially stringing together activity after activity for 4,000+ characters.

NO. NO. NO. I don't want to read your CV or LinkedIn profile in narrative format. This is more fitting for an activity description. And for the love of all that is holy please do not mention the number of hours accrued doing X activity in the personal statement.

I can understand the desire to want to compress all your juicy accomplishments into the PS, but it is important to not fall into this trap. You don't need to cover the holy trinity of "volunteerism, clinical experience, and research" in your PS. Just tell the reader what lead you to medicine and why you want to spend your life in this field.

 

[nRomaleos]

" Other than repeating word-for-word about an activity in your PS, how on earth do you talk about a most meaningful activity in your activities section, and then avoid talking about in the PS?"

==> You can talk about the same activities in your PS, but what I meant by that point was that a lot of people simply regurgitate info in such a mundane way that sounds like it belongs in the activities section or on a resume-- not in a PS.

For my own AMCAS, one of my most meaningful activities was something I did abroad, and then my PS talked about that very time abroad for the vast majority of the PS, but in my PS, I talked about my time abroad in a way that emphasized certain character traits-- i.e. perseverance, empathy, etc, whereas my description of my activity on AMCAS emphasized the facts of what I did abroad. Hope that makes more sense!

How do you keep the character traits discussed in your PS separated from the trans formative experience as your "most meaningful?"

 

[tick_tock400]

How do you keep the character traits discussed in your PS separated from the trans formative experience as your "most meaningful?"

Because multiple things can happen abroad that transform you-- apart from you did as a volunteer/employee. My most meaningful activity was what I did work-wise in a place abroad and my PS talked about how being there changed me. That's vague I know-- but the most in-depth I can go without going too specific

 

[familyaerospace]

Other than repeating word-for-word about an activity in your PS, how on earth do you talk about a most meaningful activity in your activities section, and then avoid talking about in the PS?

None of mine were in my personal statement. I wanted to study medicine because of the things in my personal statement. My most meaningful just built on that.

 

[Gladiolus23]

10) NO AMCAS ACTIVITY SECTION REPEATS!!!! (@tick_tock400 )I'm saying what Alejandro already said, BUT I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. You already have space in your activities to talk for TWO paragraphs about why a certain activity was significant to you or special! If you don't have two paras, you at least have one! Most of the writers I've read have wasted soooo much space on their PS writing this-- and when I cross this off-- it's like their entire PS is gone!

Thanks for your post! It was very helpful! Could you please explain what you mean by this? I wrote about a volunteer experience working w/kids on my PS (about a paragraph - which I also used to gradually transition from this experience to my love for peds) and then used this as one of my most meaningfuls because I have a lot of stories to tell about this activity (did it for a long time…lots of things learned). Should I not do this? Even if I have great stories to tell, should I still avoid repeating the activity?

 

[tick_tock400]

@Gladiolus23 , you just have to keep in mind that you write about why an experience is meaningful to you in your AMCAS-- no need to say again why that particular activity was meaningful to you in your PS for more than like a line max. I can't answer your particular question because it all depends on how you write it-- your PS editors should hopefully be able to help you with that specific question of yours.

 

[hoihaie]

Thanks for your post! It was very helpful! Could you please explain what you mean by this? I wrote about a volunteer experience working w/kids on my PS (about a paragraph - which I also used to gradually transition from this experience to my love for peds) and then used this as one of my most meaningfuls because I have a lot of stories to tell about this activity (did it for a long time…lots of things learned). Should I not do this? Even if I have great stories to tell, should I still avoid repeating the activity?

tell the story that pertains to how it influence you to pursue medicine. Don't include descriptions of your activity that isn't necessary.

For example, consider a possible paragraph from your personal statement:

" I worked at Summer Camp X for 5 years where I was the counselor for 40+ 10-13 year olds. I led them in various activities such as woodcraft, survival skills...etc. In the last 2 years, I was promoted to camp manage and was in charge of 20 other counselors and the overall logistics of the camps. I remember this one time, Johnny the Kids fell off a tree and I was able to use the FirstAid skills I learned as counselor to save his life. Through these experiences at Camp X, I learned how to work with kids and my peers as well as the importance of communication and groupwork. This resulted in my gradual transition to my current passion for pediatrics."

This paragraph has a lot of information describing what you did at the Camp, your responsibilities, the skills your learned... etc. This reads like what you would write for the experience section of AMCAS. It does not say anything important about "why medicine?". Instead you should focus on how and why working at this camp allowed you to realize your love for peds.

 

[nRomaleos]

tell the story that pertains to how it influence you to pursue medicine. Don't include descriptions of your activity that isn't necessary.

For example, consider a possible paragraph from your personal statement:

" I worked at Summer Camp X for 5 years where I was the counselor for 40+ 10-13 year olds. I led them in various activities such as woodcraft, survival skills...etc. In the last 2 years, I was promoted to camp manage and was in charge of 20 other counselors and the overall logistics of the camps. I remember this one time, Johnny the Kids fell off a tree and I was able to use the FirstAid skills I learned as counselor to save his life. Through these experiences at Camp X, I learned how to work with kids and my peers as well as the importance of communication and groupwork. This resulted in my gradual transition to my current passion for pediatrics."

This paragraph has a lot of information describing what you did at the Camp, your responsibilities, the skills your learned... etc. This reads like what you would write for the experience section of AMCAS. It does not say anything important about "why medicine?". Instead you should focus on how and why working at this camp allowed you to realize your love for peds.

I agree with @hoihaie . When I stopped treating the most meaningful as a "mini personal statement," my mind was allowed to think of other thoughts that show personal growth in other aspects.

 

[Alejandro]

tell the story that pertains to how it influence you to pursue medicine. Don't include descriptions of your activity that isn't necessary.

For example, consider a possible paragraph from your personal statement:

" I worked at Summer Camp X for 5 years where I was the counselor for 40+ 10-13 year olds. I led them in various activities such as woodcraft, survival skills...etc. In the last 2 years, I was promoted to camp manage and was in charge of 20 other counselors and the overall logistics of the camps. I remember this one time, Johnny the Kids fell off a tree and I was able to use the FirstAid skills I learned as counselor to save his life. Through these experiences at Camp X, I learned how to work with kids and my peers as well as the importance of communication and groupwork. This resulted in my gradual transition to my current passion for pediatrics."

This paragraph has a lot of information describing what you did at the Camp, your responsibilities, the skills your learned... etc. This reads like what you would write for the experience section of AMCAS. It does not say anything important about "why medicine?". Instead you should focus on how and why working at this camp allowed you to realize your love for peds.

Totally agree with this. Maybe I'm letting the cat out of the bag, but I usually like to include reflection.

Maybe this is too 'abstract' for the straight-shooting premed, but its about what you learned. If you only learned that the blankets are 5 feet and 4.15 inches above the ground, in an stainless steel blanket warmer behind trauma bay 5 that denotes a temperature at 83 degrees but only maintains this at 81.5degrees and that the emergency department can hold up to 55 patients at once, with a waiting room of 48, with a demographic spread of 30%%AA, 10%Hispanic/latino, 10%Asian, 40% white and 10% other...that really says very little about you. Cool story bro. You have identified the blanket warmer and told me information about your hospital.

A possible more profound reflection is how people from all-walks of life come into the hospital and while you may feel that providing a blanket is paltry compared to the interventions physicians and nurses make, but there is something awesome as a volunteer that you get to do: Provide comfort. After all, hippocrates (i think?) said "to cure sometimes, relieve often, and comfort always." a lot can be done with just saying hi and a blanket.

Now i feel like I let the cat out of the bag and everyone is going to talk about the same blanket story. LMAO. I may rescind this later. lol

 

[swimmingxxx657]

http://www.studentdoctor.net/2008/01/essay-workshop-101-lesson-4-question-specific-themes/

I'm a little unsure about whether or not I'm addressing the "why medicine" question enough in my statement. I used the above link for guidance and it mentioned that your statement can take on three themes. My essay uses the third theme ("why I am a qualified person"). I discuss what initially got me interested in medicine in my introduction, but then I spend the rest of the essay reflecting on important experiences that gave me personal growth relevant for becoming a physician. I also discussed how I hope to use these values as a physician. Does that count as addressing "why medicine"? Thank you!

 

[turayza]

I am backpacking abroad so unfortunately not reading any more statements.

Love the blanket story @Alejandro

How I avoided repeating my ECs in my PS was by telling a specific anecdote (2-3 sentences, keep it short) from experiences to demonstrate whatever about medicine I liked. For example, when I discussed the continual learning aspect of medicine, I talked about my 3 month long failed experiment in research as an experience that really made me appreciate the work that goes into new scientific developments. Of course I won't write about my extensive screwup in my ECs. But your ECs don't have room for anecdotes, and anecdotes are the most powerful way to illustrate what you are saying about why medicine/why you are a good fit for the profession.

 

[studyfordo]

not sure if anyone added these, but...

PASSIVE VOICE: If you dont know what this is, you're most likely using it in your essay!
USE ACTIVE VOICE. Passive voice makes things alot more confusing to read and also stylistically unpleasant to read.

Dont be too colloquial.

 

[AvacadosAtLaw]

And if you are like me and somehow made it all the way through high school without really understanding passive voice, a good trick I learned is that if you can insert "by zombies" after the verb, its passive voice.

Example:
The patient was eaten alive (by zombies). Passive Voice
The zombies ate the patient alive. Active Voice

 

[Save a life]

THAT IS WHAT AMCAS IS FOR. YOU LIST YOUR ACTIVITES AND DESCRIBE WHAT YOU DID. YOU HAVE LIMITED REAL ESTATE FOR YOUR PERSONAL STATEMENT, AND ITS YOUR CHANCE TO TALK ABOUT WHAT IS PERSONAL OR REFLECTIONS ABOUT A FEW EXPERIENCES THAT CONVERGE ON A COMMON THEME/THESIS FOR WHY YOU WANT TO GO TO MEDICAL SCHOOL. WHY WOULD YOU WASTE THAT ON BEING REDUNDANT?

Nice

 

[ChrisMack390]

A piece of advice from another premed: Edits and feedback from others are great and necessary, but at some point you need to be the one who likes your personal statement. I've sent the exact same statement to different people and been told it's great and ready to submit, it's an incoherent piece of crap, and literally everything in between. In its current form, I like my statement - I think it reads well and earnestly expresses why I want to be a doctor, so outside minor grammatical tweaks I am done.

 

[Nintendraw]

No AMCAS Activity Section repeats!! You already have space in your activities to talk for TWO paragraphs about why a certain activity was significant to you or special! If you don't have two paras, you at least have one! Most of the writers I've read have wasted soooo much space on their PS writing this-- and when I cross this off-- it's like their entire PS is gone!

Hmm; the second theme of my personal statement (draft) (besides the usual science/helping people) is writing/communication/language, but writing can definitely (?) go into the activity section. Low-key wondering if I should've filled out a mock AMCAS app prior to drafting...

 

[Neuro244]

Sorry to rebump an old thread, but I've been working quite meticulously on my PS and am editing it now for the 5th time or so. In regards to point # 7, "address why medicine", what's the consensus on talking about how you shadowed many other health care professionals and how that helped you eliminate each one and brought you back to medicine? Another person mentioned in my feedback that if you write about them it may come off as negative if you don't word it write and they might/probably will interview you about that "why not nursing" and there's little room for error, which makes it tricky.

I'm a non-traditional student myself and a big part of my journey was taking the proper time to shadow other professionals such as Physical therapists, pharmacists, nurses, and a couple of other professions. I'm looking for advice on if I should mention that in my statement, and if so, how to talk about it without seeming "negative" about other careers. Also, would you mention that earlier on in the essay? The way my PS is structured, that doesn't come up until the 4th paragraph. Please get me back to me as soon as you can, as I have to submit my primary application by this Sunday. Thank you.

Also, if I do end up incorporating this information, how would it sound if I started the paragraph by saying "As a non-traditional student, a crucial factor that allowed me to confirm my decision of becoming a physician...."? Should you mention anywhere in the essay that you're a non-traditional student?

 

[jaket]

I've read essays where students focus on 'show not tell', but fail to indicate in the end why they are interested at all in a career in medicine. For example, I distinctly remember one essay where a student talked about how he loved being a camp counselor. He did a great job showing that he was a compassionate and empathetic person, but failed to really convey why he wanted to be a physician. Even medically oriented essays fail to do this sometimes.

I almost feel like it's necessary in this essay to 'tell' rather than 'show', although you probably do need a good balance of both.

 

[TravelingMedicine]

Anyone know if you can end a PS saying what you want to do as a physician or is that generally looked down upon since you are currently not a physician?
IE As a physician, I want to bring XYZ into my patient's rooms.

 

[Alejandro]

Aspirations aren't bad, but you don't want to seem like you're being delusionally grandiose. I think if you said you hope to be the compassionate, empathic doctor that your experiences shaped you, i don't think its too much. Just don't say "i am inevitable". lol

 

[Moko]

Great post and a timely rebump

 

[Alejandro]

So, super random rebump, although I feel its timely. Haven't been on SDN since probably MS4/R1. Glad to see that everyone is still alive and well!

One thing I'd want to mention, after being an adcom this year: The stuff above is all still relevant.
Thanks to all of those who contributed to this to make it happen.