Your approach to Personal Statement

[surftheiop]

Everyone says the PS is a page but, anyone else a little surprised by how long 5300 characters is? I was happy to see its more like a page and a half and it seems to be plenty of space to say what I want to say.

Was curious what sort of approaches you all are taking to the personal statement? I know some people get really flashy/artistic/etc. with it, but that isn't really my style so I don't think I'll be taking that route.

What I have for my rough draft is something like this:

An opening paragraph talking about "Why Medicine" (I'm an engineering major, so figured I need to answer "Why medicine" right from the get go).

Then I talk about relation between my interest in engineering and medicine and how during my shadowing I have seen that certain parts of the engineering problem solving skill set (systems analysis) transfer really well to medicine.

Next a paragraph talking about my experiences volunteering at a children's hospital and how it helped me make the decision to pursue a career in medicine.


Was curious what approach you all are taking? It seems like there are about 1000 completely different ways to write the personal statement so I was curious how other people thought about it.

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[mvenus929]

I'm a reapplicant. So, I made that quite clear in my personal statement. I started out saying that I was the typical brainless pre-med, that I started pursuing this path when I was kid because it seemed like a cool idea. Once I got rejected across the board last time I applied, I took a long hard look to make sure that this was what I wanted to do. I detailed what I looked into, and why I decided that being a physician was ultimately what I wanted to do with my life.

I guess it worked, because I got 4 interview invites and two acceptances.

 

[sizillyd]

Check it out, pretty good format for personal statement.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=536199

 

[jc14]

5300 seemed pretty long when I started out, but I quickly filled it up and then some. Then it was just a matter of going back through and culling out parts that didn't sound as good or flow with my main track of thought. (I definitely had some good proofreading help from friends.) Your train of thought sounds good; like you said, probably best to address your interest/start on the path of medicine first off, given your major. Good luck!

 

[naijaboi]

Everyone says the PS is a page but, anyone else a little surprised by how long 5300 characters is? I was happy to see its more like a page and a half and it seems to be plenty of space to say what I want to say.

Was curious what sort of approaches you all are taking to the personal statement? I know some people get really flashy/artistic/etc. with it, but that isn't really my style so I don't think I'll be taking that route.

What I have for my rough draft is something like this:

An opening paragraph talking about "Why Medicine" (I'm an engineering major, so figured I need to answer "Why medicine" right from the get go).

Then I talk about relation between my interest in engineering and medicine and how during my shadowing I have seen that certain parts of the engineering problem solving skill set (systems analysis) transfer really well to medicine.

Next a paragraph talking about my experiences volunteering at a children's hospital and how it helped me make the decision to pursue a career in medicine.


Was curious what approach you all are taking? It seems like there are about 1000 completely different ways to write the personal statement so I was curious how other people thought about it.

I think that what you outlined is perfect. It certainly makes sense.