It's approaching another cycle for medical school and residency applications, and that
means getting the dreaded personal statement in order.
I'll show you how to make your personal statement stand out.
What's going on guys, Dr. Jubbal, MedSchoolInsiders.com.
Arguably the most daunting and challenging part of the application process is writing
your personal statement.
While your GPA and test scores are already set in stone and are very objective measurements
of academic performance, the personal statement is a creative expression of you as a person.
The personal statement can make or break your Application.
A great one can open the door to an interview for a mediocre applicant and a bad one can
rule out even an applicant with top scores.
And unlike your grades or MCAT or Step 1, you have complete control over your personal
statement at this point.
In this video, we'll go over tips to make your personal statement stand out.
If you haven't already, be sure to check out our personal statement blog posts on the Med
School Insiders website.
Link is in the description below.
They have some additional information that is not included in this video.
First, answer the prompt.
Before putting ink to paper, it's important that you consider the reason you are writing
the personal statement.
The questions you should be answering are going to be some variation of the following:
for medical school applicants; Why do you want to go to medical school and become a
doctor and what makes you a good fit to be a doctor?
For residency applicant: Why do you want to go into this specialty and what makes you
a good fit?
Everyone has their own unique and personal reasons.
Figure out what yours are and be sure that your essay is focused around supporting these
reasons.
Number 2, read examples.
The hardest part in writing your personal statement is just starting.
It's important to just write something, anything and not judge yourself in the process.
You can always go back and make edits.
Getting ideas down on paper is the most challenging part, but it is also the most crucial part.
Everything else will just open up from there.
That being said, I also found it incredibly helpful to find example personal statements.
Look at the good, the bad and the ugly and curiously examine what makes an essay good
or bad.
What aspects did you like?
What aspects did you not like?
I've placed a link in the description below to some books with personal statement examples.
This is a great place to start.
Number three, Organization is key.
This may seem obvious but it is often overlooked.
Treat your personal statement like any other English essay you have written.
In other words, frame It around a thesis, with body paragraphs corresponding to support
the thesis and then closing with a conclusion to bring it all together.
Without proper organization, Personal statements come off as loosely thrown together and readers
quickly lose interest.
Number four, show, don't tell.
Admissions committee members are reading thousands of personal statements.
You want to tell an engaging and captivating story.
One way you definitely won't is if you tell the reader how motivated driven and passionate
you are about medicine.
Instead, tell a story or an anecdote and use that to demonstrate desirable qualities you
wish to portray.
I have a friend who wrote a killer personal statement that centered around her practice
of the violin and how that made her an excellent applicant.
It was memorable, unique and told a story of how violent would make her a great fit.
She did not just list qualities.
Number five, simple is sometimes better.
Don't feel like you have to write the best personal statement the world has ever seen.
Students sometimes get too creative and end up with a personal statement that does more
harm than good.
Your main focus should be presenting a coherent piece on why you want to go to medical school
and why you will be a good physician.
Focusing on complex sentence structure and extravagant word choice will only take away
from convincing your reader.
Admissions committee members can easily spot when you're using a thesaurus and it doesn't
reflect well on you.
Number six, get eyes on your paper.
Reviewing is arguably the most important part of the process.
Everyone knows that they should have a few people read their personal statement for feedback.
While sharing it with your friends and family is definitely useful, after writing both my
medical school and residency personal statements, I have learned that friends are inherently
biased.
They usually want to be nice and supportive and they can give good general feedback and
grammatical fixes but they aren't the ones that are going to tear up your essay, be honest,
have the experience and tell you what you don't want to hear.
And some times we need that.
While friends and family are helpful, there are two important groups that you should get
your personal statement reviewed by.
The first is a mentor of some sort.
Ideally you want to find someone who has served on the admissions committee in the past.
They understand what makes a good or bad personal statement from experience.
They know you on a professional level but they aren't as invested as friends.
I was lucky to find a faculty member who read through hundreds of personal statements every
single year.
He was also known for being somewhat of a scary person, but that's a good thing.
Many people told me that my essay was good, but he was brutally honest and told me to
rewrite the whole thing.
This was just days before it was due, and I'm glad he did because after rewriting it,
the essay was much much stronger.
It's important not to take harsh feedback or criticism personally as this usually is
the most useful feedback you will receive.
The second group would be a professional essay editing service.
Again, I made the investment and my essay came out much stronger in the end.
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That is it for this video.
Thank you all so much for watching.
If you liked the video, make sure you press that like button.
Hit subscribe if you have not already and I will see you guys in that next one.