pa school essay tips

pa school essay tips

Effective Strategies for Writing a Compelling Physician Assistant School Essay

1. Introduction to the Physician Assistant School Essay

Remember, in your essay, that all of your readers will not be experienced practitioners in the medical field or intricate researchers. Many will be experienced in working with patients, but have not worked with a PA, or they may be in the personnel and budget administrative area where most of their contact is with employed staff. Therefore, your essay will be looked at to reveal what kind of a person you are to work with, your preparation and experience in communication and relational skills, and the depth and breadth of your educational background in the field to work with patients, and the discipline and motivation you have to complete the program. All of this in about 1000 words! It’s a pretty tall order when you think about it in this manner. Don’t despair. Not everyone will write a masterpiece, but we can help you write an essay that expresses your thoughts succinctly, effectively, and grammatically correct. Let’s begin the journey to complete a winning essay.

In some ways, your essay for physician assistant school will be similar to the essays that you have written in your English courses. You are going to put on your teacher’s hat and show how well you have learned the concepts, theories, and practices that are associated with the medical field. In addition, you need to communicate with your audience and impress them with your ability to work with and relate to others, who can all take turns being the teacher. However, your essay is also going to be different from your others because you are going to be in the role of the student describing yourself and your willingness to continue in the learning process.

2. Understanding the Prompt and Requirements

Understanding the Prompt and Requirements One of the first steps in forming your essay would be to understand the essay prompt. While many prompts overlap, there will likely be differences either in formatting or in content. You should understand how the essay will be evaluated and what they are looking for in the responses. This will help guide your essay planning and writing process. Follow the requirements outlined in the application. The PA programs are very specific about what information they want in the personal statement and it is important to follow their exact directions. While your opening paragraph is important, you do not need to spend time focusing on the lead sentence. Simply introduce yourself and get to the fulfillment of the prompt as necessary.

Physician assistant programs receive an abundance of qualified applicants each year. In order to differentiate you from other interested candidates, you will need strength in all parts of the admission application. A key part of making your PA school application competitive is a strong personal essay. Unlike typical essays that can be submitted in advance and reviewed multiple times, the personal statement essay is a fluid work and nearly impossible to do exactly right on your first submission. Therefore, it’s important to start early and work on your essay for multiple weeks.

3. Crafting a Strong Thesis Statement and Outline

Your thesis statement is simply a concise sentence that communicates your argument, the points you will be making in your essay. At the most basic level, a thesis often contains this statement: “I believe that (main point), (sub-claims to back up the main point), with supportive evidence/arguments. When writing your thesis, it is incredibly important that you take the time to ensure all of your key points are concise. Think of your thesis like a roadmap for your sentences, which lets the reader know which points you will be making and the sequence in which you will be making them. As a consequence, a thesis statement guarantees the reader a signpost for navigation through the essay. With a strong thesis statement come stronger ideas and arguments. Your thesis statement is what guides the reader and provides them with a clear vision of what to expect, influencing the direction.

Once you have a topic in mind, it’s essential to devise an outline in order to lay your ideas out in a structured manner before writing. Sketching out a rough outline initially allows for more organized thoughts. Use this outline to include your most important key points. You will want to boil your points down to just the key essentials. This isn’t to say you should avoid providing context and evidence, but you want your content to be as concise as possible. Once you have constructed a rough version of your thesis and penned out your key points in your outline, you are set to begin drafting your essay.

4. Writing Strategies and Tips for Clarity and Impact

The majority of pre-PA applicants pass through five broad stages of development on their way to writing their essays: Writing about themselves as if they were completely egocentric, Expanding their self-centered approach, Genuinely taking into consideration who holds the essay from each PA school, Sharing their experiences by adding personal language. They must first be self-centered to be able to think analytically about themselves and the relationship they have with their experiences and insights before expanding their self-centered approach. They should then understand your audience. What is important to you, the person who will read your essay? Lastly, they should learn how to communicate their experiences. Each of these strategies will help pre-PA applicants distill their insights and know about themselves into a compelling projection of themselves in the first chapter/introduction of their essay. Remember the three C’s. Complete information creates a clear image and a captivating topic.

Strategically highlight the knowledge you already have to leverage that strength in your writing. You gained many of your experiences and much of your exposure to healthcare while working, volunteering, or observing. You bring more to the table than the mastery of academics. Don’t sell yourself short. Your perspectives are unique. How you feel about what you have learned about life and the healthcare field from these activities is important. This reflection demonstrates your ability to think critically and is uniquely yours. Whether you are outlining the stages of your lifelong dream of becoming a physician assistant, or you are recounting your challenger and its consequences on your initial perceptions of healthcare, or your narrow escape from danger and the potential health risks of travel in a third-world country, remember: Sharing experiences with your audience is a very fine way of establishing a bond, a connection that is the primary purpose of any essay that addresses that mysterious “big question”: What unique qualities will you contribute to your physician assistant class and to the profession?

5. Editing and Revising for a Polished Final Draft

Revising is looking back to a larger picture of your writing. The revising stage of the writing process focuses on more than the big ideas, purposes, and audiences for your text being addressed. Revision means looking again. It comes from the French word “réviser,” meaning to “look at again.” It is seeing what you needed to do in an essay that you didn’t see in the drafting stage. Rather than working on spelling errors, dangling modifiers or other writing-level mistakes, revision allows us to think about the work in the largest possible sense. Writing always has a larger purpose than fixing these technical issues. In revision, we get back to focusing on our larger goals, which are to connect with our specific audience and achieve a specific purpose according to our primary theme. Entry-types.

The most frustrating part of revision is the number of times you should be reviewing your draft. Revise early and often, and use all types of revisions (add, remove, reorganize, repurpose) to apply big ideas and themes, not just the grammar, spelling, and style issues. Take breaks and find walk-away time. Allow the ability to see each draft in new eyes and hear different things out of them each time. Finally, keep an open mind, be curious, and take advantage of revision processes as an opportunity to be self-aware and open to change.