I thought of things that were important for me to share, and over a couple of weeks, I would jot down single thoughts, ideas, and sentences. I put each on on it's own line, then, when it came to putting my PS together, I figured out how to smoothly connect those ideas by filling in around them and moving them around. Then I pared it down, and sent it to every one I could think of that was good at editing, then refined it a bit more, and ended up with a statement that held sparks of information with more polish than I could have created myself.
I didn't have any luck with sitting down and writing it out, so if you find yourself stuck that way, just jot stuff down as it comes to you. This allowed information that was important to me to surface. I realized that I wanted to share my gratitude of my parent's interests and creativity which coalesced to provide me with unique experiences, my perspective on veterinary medicine in a global setting, my willingness to explore and try new things, my love of a puzzle, and my ability to hold my own under extreme stress. It came out as a story from my travels that I opened the essay with, then kept touching back on throughout the rest of the PS. So, essentially, I started with an encounter that represented everything I felt was important in vet med, delved into my history to related why it was so valuble, then explored the recent past and the oppurtunities that experience had provided and why vet med is the next step on this path. I only had one admissions offer, but I have met quite a few people who remember my PS over a year later, here and at another school.
