medical school interview

Personal Statement for Medical School

The Personal Statement for Medical School is a common tripping point for most applicants. Learn helpful strategies on how to write the personal statement to maximize your chances of success. The personal statement allows you to present yourself as a real person, rather than a resume and an academic profile. Applicants should include personal anecdotes and vignettes to create interest. For example, if you had an experience that was pivotal in developing your interest in becoming a doctor, you should include that in your medical school personal statement. Have the confidence to be yourself in terms of tone. This not the time to try to take on a different personality. You may also use the personal statement in order to explain anything unusual in your background. For instance, if you had a significant health issue during your sophomore year of college that negatively affected your grades, you might choose to include that fact here. That does not mean, however, that you should use the personal statement for medical school as an opportunity to explain an individual incident that ‘C’ you received in freshman Calculus.

Here is a list of the five most common mistakes to avoid in the medical school personal statement:

Writing a laundry list of accomplishments. Your resume should cover awards and other personal accomplishments. Using the medical school personal statement to write about accomplishments and accolades is a waste of space. You will have other opportunities to communicate those things to the Admissions Committee. Use the personal statement for medical school to tell your unique story.

Writing in the third person. Most people do not write about themselves in the third person. This is likely to be off-putting to the Admissions Committee and may create distance between you and them – certainly not something you want to do.

Rushing to complete the medical school personal statement. The process of writing the personal statement should not be underestimated. It requires a significant amount of self-reflection and should undergo multiple drafts. You may need to let the document sit for a couple of weeks before rereading it. In addition, you should ask someone you do not know well to read it to make sure that they can understand it. This may take some time to arrange. Your family and close friends may be too close to you to provide an objective opinion on it. We recommend giving yourself at least one month to write a high quality personal statement for medical school.

Not making the essay personal enough. Applicants sometimes choose to write about a major international or domestic issue or even a controversial topic, perhaps in an attempt to impress the Admissions Committee. However, this is not an academic essay. The personal statement should be focused on your life experiences and perhaps your professional goals. The Admissions Committees want to get to know you as a person, rather than your opinions or arguments regarding euthanasia or policies on global warming.

Not proofreading the document. You might be surprised by how many people leave careless spelling and grammatical errors in their personal statements. As much time as the entire medical school application process takes, you should take an additional ten minutes to make sure that your personal statement does not look sloppy or careless. Attention to detail is important.

Once your personal and creative medical school personal statement has been written and submitted, be sure to revisit it before your interviews. Admissions officers often refer back to the personal statement for interview questions, probing more deeply into an experience that you may have written about. For example, if you wrote about an experience that you had conducting research several years ago, you should revisit the details so that you are able to speak about that research with confidence. Good luck for Personal Statement for Medical School!

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