25 Personal Statement Tips
March 13, 2018 - Abdi
There are three things you want to accomplish with your Personal Statement:
Who are you? What makes you unique or an interesting person? This is one of the main reasons why your personal statement shouldn’t sound like a resume…because your shadowing, volunteering, research, etc will not make you standout or be memorable.
Why medicine? When you read over your personal statement, make sure that you answer this question. You will be surprised at how many statements do not.
Why are you qualified? In what ways have the experiences you’ve had prepared you to matriculate at a School of Medicine? Why should a school take you?
HERE ARE 25 TIPS FROM ACCEPTED MEDICAL STUDENTS ON HOW TO WRITE YOUR BEST PERSONAL STATEMENT:
About Getting Started
1. Your personal statement should take about a month or more to write. It is your life and aspirations in a piece of paper; make sure it tells your story.
2. If you’re early in your pre-med career, keeping a journal can be a great way to document your feelings about and reactions to experiences while they’re still fresh. This can help keep any PS anecdotes more real and personal. It’s also just a great way to manage the stress and work through challenging moments on the pre-med journey!
3. Write down as many stories as you can about particularly impactful moments in your life, and what they taught you about yourself and your interest in medicine. The more content you have from the get-go the easier it is to craft primaries/secondaries.
4. Play around with different ideas in the beginning — you don’t need to commit to one direction right away. In the end, I would choose an approach that reveals something important about your background, values, or worldview, and shows why you have been drawn to medicine.
5. You can read over other people’s essays, but ultimately you will find a structure that is most conducive to allowing you to craft your story.
6. Writing the personal statement is hard. When you feel like you’re experiencing writer’s block, try to step away so you can come back with a fresh mindset.
About Finding a Narrative
7. Take the time to find your narrative!
8. When you’re reflecting upon your experiences, try to find the common thread that will weave them together for your Personal Statement.
9. Be honest with your strengths and weaknesses.
10. Write in the way you would tell a story.
11. You don’t have to fit the generic formula when it comes to writing a personal statement.
12. But speak your truth even if it sounds cliche because sincerity shines!
13. While personal anecdotes about your family or a sick relative can really resonate with your readers, remember to focus on reflecting on what this experience meant to you and what you learned from it.
14. In your AMCAS application you are required to describe three “significant” activities, so avoid “double dipping” with these activities in your Personal Statement. If you ultimately decide to include one of your significant activities, try to describe the activity in a different way.
15. If you discuss a vulnerable topic in your personal statement, be prepared to defend it in interviews.
16. The personal statement is not a place to justify or explain the shortcomings of your application. Don’t talk about why your GPA or MCAT is not as high as you would like. You do not want their takeaway to be your statistics. Exception: some people’s theme for their personal statement is reinvention, so if you struggled early on and then something happened then that can be an effective topic if you can connect it to “why medicine.”
17. One trick that helped me was telling my narrative out loud to someone else. If you’re the type of person who tries to fit way too much in a very short essay, telling your story out loud without a script and hearing feedback can give you a sense of the natural climax of the story, and what to focus on.
18. One of the most crucial pieces of advice I received while drafting my own personal statement was “SHOW, don’t TELL.” You’re passionate about working with underserved communities? That’s great, but writing that sentence in your Personal Statement means nothing. Talking about specific experiences with those communities will be how you show the reader that.
19. The actual experiences are only a small part of the equation; your reflection on how those experiences impacted you and how you grew from them is what will set you apart.
About Revisions
20. It’s okay to re-write and re-write and re-write. The final draft that I sent to medical schools was my 10th, and it was the one over which I felt the strongest ownership.
21. Get people you trust to look over your Personal Statement. Other people’s perspectives will help you identify your blind spots.
22. Try to find a theme to work into every paragraph that is stated in the opening and closing sentence. Keep in mind that some readers will simply read the first sentence of every paragraph in order to understand what the personal statement will be about.
23. Keep it simple. Personal statement is not where you should take risks
24. You do NOT want to have typos or other mistakes in your personal statement. Once you submit your primary application, you cannot edit it.
25. The personal statement is a time where less is more. Think of the character limit as a maximum and not a minimum. You want there to be no words that you could remove without impacting your sentences.