medical school personal statement examples

medical school personal statement examples

Crafting a Compelling Personal Statement for Medical School

1. Introduction to the Importance of a Personal Statement in Medical School Applications

Amid the heavyweights of the medical school admissions process, such as a passion for science and enviable grades on the top of a positively sumptuous CV, the importance of the personal statement can sometimes be overlooked. This is a grave error. For amidst the 4000 characters (including spaces) lies a wonderful opportunity to humanize yourself, to differentiate yourself from hundreds of similarly impressive applicants, to convince us of your passion for medicine, your commitment to study, your clarity of purpose and to present just one more reason for inviting you to interview. Poor personal statements – whether they be poorly written, lacking in self-awareness or jingoistic – certainly won’t rule you out; those that are personal, sharp, motivated, thoughtful and revealing, however, will help convince us of your suitability.

We are living in an era in which “soft skills” – empathy, the ability to communicate, personal characteristics and situational judgment – are being increasingly recognized by employers and FTSE100 companies are now beginning to test for such qualities, over and above academic achievement. We’re also living in the NHS University’s era, in which compassion for the patient (the “person” as far as Glasgow is concerned), the ability to communicate and the appropriate earning of respect have been re-emphasized. If you can’t communicate, if you lack self-awareness, a sense of responsibility, empathy or enthusiasm, we’re certainly not going to specify an interview.

2. Key Components of a Strong Medical School Personal Statement

When writing a personal statement for medical school, the ultimate goal is to create a narrative that brings the applicant to life for the admissions committee. Admissions tutors year in and year out read thousands of personal statements, many of which are lackluster or filled with clichés, overused personal experiences. Or it’s an excellent and beautifully written piece, but with no information on the prospective career or specialty. What we are trying to point out here is that any doctor can write a personal statement, but not every doctor can write a compelling personal statement.

Between your GPA, MCAT score, letters of recommendation, and extracurricular activities, medical schools spend a great deal of time and effort crafting a class of interesting, passionate future physicians. As much as it’s a clear-cut target for a doctor, writing is an art, an art to communicate, and we are here to help you take your narrative from blah to wow! The personal statement you are about to write is not going to be perfect, at least not yet. But by carefully choosing one’s words and telling a story like no one else will, it could be the big reason as to why you got in, in your dream institution. You with this part of the application.

As you start the most critical portion of your journey to medical school, take the time to integrate these key components into your medical school personal statement and make the admissions committee want to meet you. The desire to help other people is the first component of a strong medical school personal statement. Direct experiences in meaningful community service will be important to many admissions committees because they show commitment, empathy, and that you can function effectively on a team. The strongest applicants experience frustration, loss, or challenges and learn how to dust themselves off and try again. Reflecting on these experiences makes you a strong candidate.

3. Structuring and Writing Tips for an Effective Personal Statement

Crafting a compelling and cohesive personal statement can make all the difference when submitting an application for medical school. When considering how to begin drafting your personal statement, the first step is to establish your goals while assembling your application. What are the most significant aspects of your background, experience, and/or skill set that the application reviewers should know in order to fully appreciate your qualifications and your capacity for making a meaningful contribution to the UICOMP medical school community? To assist with this process of reflection, this chapter offers some strategies for guiding your introspection regarding your professional identity.

Structuring and Writing Tips In your personal statement, structure equals clarity. Avoid a thematic structure that meanders, fails to tell a complete story, or does not provide a broad sense of narrative from the outset. Instead, use the structure of your essays to introduce your points and make your subsequent examples or explanations more impactful and more easily understood. Above all, do not lapse into lists or bullet points. Applicants may consider drafting a significant amount of narrative before attempting to craft a beginning and an ending. You may even start with the chronologically first thing you want to say about yourself, then jump to things from the middle or end of your storyline, and pull them all together at the end. Doing so can help to disperse the writing anxiety and assist with understanding the best way to start writing and how to develop your essay with a sense of narrative order that can be effectively matched by the introduction and conclusion. Indeed, the introduction and conclusion are often the very last parts of the essay to be written, and are then finely tuned to match the body of the text.

4. Examples of Successful Medical School Personal Statements

The final touches on the personal statement can elevate it exactly as it is. This is not to say that the statement is anywhere close to perfect; the writer is fresh and inexperienced and readily admits, for example, that they do not practice surgery as a medical student. But most importantly, it’s possible that a medical school admissions officer could read the essay and remember it. The writer provides concrete details using their five senses and fully participates in events instead of merely observing them, performing the basic tasks of medical care (doling out medication, providing comprehensive physicals, offering counseling and comfort). By confirming, through example, that the writer acknowledges basic aspects of the profession, they are free to turn their interest, humor, and elbow grease toward convincing my admissions committee how exceptionally suited they are.

Straight out of the sixth grade classroom, a preteen I had just rooted around in her ear sat on the papered patient table, watching me remove her cerumen plug with the same intensity and experience of a surgeon’s core fellow level of concentration. I have to admit I made a terrible show of subduing my grin. Her parents, aunts and cousins all in the room were craning their necks in the same way; it was the old entertain-the-children technique. As for the patient, whose split lip was already disappearing into a wide, sign-of-the-cross grin, I hadn’t yet told her that more often than not, big kids like her resemble all the other patients I’ve seen in my first year of medical school – scared, if possibly hiding it. He’d pulled out a pea-sized accumulation of debris on a whisper of gauze. Then, always the teacher, before turning to chuck her jug of homogenized milk into the trash, “If this ever happens again, dear, try flushing out your ear with mineral oil.”