Writing and Speaking for Premed Personal Statements

Personal Statements

A tale of two statements...what do you think of each? Who would you rather study with for the next four years? Which makes it easier to know the student and make an admissions decision? Why?

#1 -- (An excerpt From Accepted.com)

    As the time approached for me to set my personal and professional goals, I made a conscientious decision to enter a field which would provide me with a sense of achievement and, at the same time, produce a positive impact on mankind. It became apparent to me that the practice of medicine would fulfill these objectives. In retrospect, my ever-growing commitment to medicine has been crystallizing for years. My intense interest in social issues, education, and athletics seems particularly appropriate to this field and has prepared me well for such a critical choice...
    I’ve been asked many times why I wish to become a physician. Upon considerable reflection, the thought of possessing the ability to help others provides me with tremendous internal gratification and offers the feeling that my life’s efforts have been focused in a positive direction. Becoming a physician is the culmination of a lifelong dream; and I am prepared to dedicate myself, as I have in the past, to achieving this goal.

#2 -- (an excerpt from a former student)
“Look at the person sitting to your left . . . now look to the right . . . now to the front, back, and every which way diagonally.”
   Each new, fresh-out-of-high-school Gator followed the professor’s instructions and acknowledged—with his or her own blend of straight “A” confidence and freshman cockiness—the other newbies in the lecture hall. The professor’s steel-faced smile, however, told me we weren’t in Kansas any longer: “Not one of these people will get into medical school.”    I had been a student of the University of Florida for exactly twenty-two minutes, and I had already decided to give up a goal I had defended for eight years. What would Pop-Pop say?
The Geriatric Neurology Unit of Naples Community Hospital may not be the destination of choice for an evening out—unless, of course, one mistakes “L-Dopa” for the newest import from Miami. Otherwise, it’s true: a hospital can be a sad place to visit—especially for a ten-year-old. However, when my Pop-Pop—my once-burly, sauerkraut-making, soccer-playing personal hero—was sidelined by both Parkinson’s and prostate cancer, I visited him every chance I could and hoped that my mother was right: “Laughter is the best medicine.”

Note: the AMCAS made changes beginning with the 2012 cycle that includes new essay information -- with regards to the personal statement, you need to be aware of the new "3 most meaningful experiences" section. This section frees you from having to include everything in the personal statement because you'll have the opportunity to write about your experiences elsewhere. This means the personal statement can focus more on motivation and qualities.

The Personal Statement

Keep in mind that all writing is READER-CENTERED and PURPOSE-DRIVEN.

Who are the readers here? An Admissions committee.
What is their job? To make yes/no decisions about admission into med school.
What do they want to know? They want to know what distinguishes you from the other hundreds of applicants who are also smart, well-educated, and interesting.
What is the purpose of your writing? To show this committee that you are more than a collection of admirable statistics—that you are a person worthy of cultivating, of educating, of eventually calling a colleague.
How do you fulfill this purpose? By telling the story of yourself.

To this end, here are some pointers on writing personal statements.

Show, don’t Tell. Demonstrate, don’t state. Relate, don’t Pontificate. In other words, give the reader the "hands-on" tour— you think that your diligent, hard-working, ambitious, compassionate, etc., then SHOW the reader this through an experience in your life that demonstrates this quality. Don’t just use the words; they’ve got no reason to believe you!
Related to above, but from the other direction…you have the wonderful experiences, but you don’t finish the task by telling the reader what you gained. Take the Admissions Committee through your experience, but don’t leave them to make their own conclusions. They won’t. They’re too busy reading personal statements. Show them what you want them to see about you.
Contextualize all information – if you give a fact, make it important to the story. If you use an adjective, show that it’s true.
Avoid clichés. After all, a "simple joy" implies such a thing as a "complex joy" and what is that?
Be careful of using faulty logic. Just because your family has sixteen medical professionals doesn’t really make it "natural" that you should become one. Your experiences in the emergency room don’t necessarily result in an interest in medicine. Lots of people have professionals in their families and they don’t run out to become doctors. Lots of women have babies and yet never become ob/gyns. If this is how it worked for you, then great! Say it simply then relate a particular experience that really demonstrates your interest in medicine.
Doctors are not the only ones on the planet who help people.
Don’t exaggerate. Nobody under 50 gets to claim "innumerable times" or "untold amounts" or "infinite varieties" of anything.
Not every noun requires an adjective.
Wanting to help people is an admirable quality. Be careful of sounding like the Super Savior of Humanity, though. Phrases like "less fortunate" and "down trodden" are patronizing. Instead, talk about wanting to help people with limited access to health care or setting up neighborhood clinics so that affordable health care is available to more people. Finally, when the readers are finished with your personal statement, do they know you? Life has got to mean more than a series of points on a resume. Is yours represented?
From Clark University: "... one can imagine at least three different styles of essays, including biographical, introspective, and inspirational. Biographical essays tend to be a chronological description of relevant life experiences, but such essays often lack flair or distinction. Introspective essays can be especially revealing, but may be very difficult to write or relate to practical aspects of medicine. The dramatic essays usually entail some sort of "I want to save the world" and should be avoided unless you can cite convincing evidence that you actually have saved the world (several times). Frequently, a combination of the biographical and introspective approach can be effective." (emphasis added)
And -- here -- is what AMCAS has to say about it!

Best Practices

"Best Practices" is a new fancy term for using techniques with a proven history of working well (sort of like "evidence based", but without the research requirement attached). There are a couple of them pertaining to personal statement writing that are missed surprisingly often. Here are a few of the biggies that will help.

Most Important Rule -- say nothing in your personal statement that isn't directly relevant to helping an admissions committee make a yes/not decision about your merit as a graduate student. This includes quoting other people (why should they care what Einstein or Maya Angelou or Luke/Mark/John or anyone else has ever said? What does it have to do with your ability to succeed?)

Be truthful. Do not lie. I know, this one seems obvious...but you'd be surprised. You can manage vocabularly choice (and you should), but you may not say something that isn't true.

Keep it positive. Do not write negatively about yourself or your profession or anyone else! If you need to explain a dip in grades, do so briefly and objectively; do not belabour whatever trauma/situation caused the problem. Also, do not to say things like "I went into CSD because I couldn't cut in organic chemistry, thereby destroying my dreams of being a pediatrician." Always find the "positive" (meaning not negative, not meaning ridiculously idealistic) way of communicating the same information. For instance, another way of expressing the previous example is -- "Though I'd planned on becoming a pediatrician, I found that speech pathology provides the sort of sustained, personal contact with children I really crave as part of my career."

Details sell. Lists do not. Do not rehash your resume. Instead, choose a few experiences that were particularly meaningful and/or can illustrate qualities that you want the admissions committee to know. To succeed as illustrative examples, experiences must have the following 3 parts (you can't expect the readers to fill in missing parts -- they have too many essays to read to spend time performing literary interpretation):

Tell the story (what happened)
Tell what you learned (what you got out of it)
Tell how what you learned applies to success in grad school or in your profession (why it matters).

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