Premedical Advising: Writing Personal Statements

Most professional school applications ask for some form of personal statement. The AMCAS personal comments essay allows 5,300 characters, and statements for other professional programs are usually a little shorter.

Your statement is an important first impression! Most of your readers will be admissions committee members, often professional school faculty. If your GPA and test scores are marginal, your statement can affect whether or not you are even offered an interview. When you do interview, questions are often drawn from your essay. A well-written statement can also help recommendation writers, and, with some tuning, can be used to apply for related programs.

You will have other places in your application to list your courses, grades, test scores, volunteer and paid experiences, extracurricular activities, awards and honors, etc. Your statement should therefore be much more than another list! The statement gives you an opportunity to integrate, describe, explain, and share the meaning you attach to your activities. There is not one preferred format, but many ways of relating who you are to your interest in becoming a health care professional.


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Some questions to help you generate material for your essay (you don't have to use them all, just use the ones that help):

Hint: As you go, think of little stories from your life that help answer the following questions.

1. Who are you?

Who are the most influential people in your life, and how did they affect your development?
Where have you lived?
How have you changed over time?
What are the most important events in your life?
What are the most important activities in your life?
What are your core values - what is important to you?
How are you different from other applicants?
Would you describe yourself as coming from a disadvantaged background? If so, describe and explain the disadvantages you have overcome.
How have you demonstrated a strong work ethic, the ability to manage your time, communication skills, and management and leadership qualities?
How have you demonstrated teaching and counseling skills?
How have you involved yourself in community, cultural and social service activities?
How have you demonstrated the ability to live and work with people from different cultural backgrounds?

2. How have prepared yourself to become a health care professional?:

How did you decide to become a member of the profession?
How have you demonstrated your passion for the profession?
How have you worked with patients and health care professionals?
How have you been involved in scientific research?
How does the possibility of becoming a health care professional make you feel?
Do you intend to serve an underserved population or community? If so, how have you demonstrated your connection and commitment to this population?
What other careers have you considered?
What reservations do you have about entering the profession?
What can you do as a member of the profession that you could not do in other professions?
What are your professional goals?

3. If there are difficulties in your application, inquiring minds would like to know:

If you are re-applying, what have you done since your last application?
Why are there gaps in your academic and work records?
Why have there been changes in your academic performance?
Why have you attended numerous undergraduate institutions?
Why have you withdrawn from multiple courses?
Why are there inconsistencies between your academic record and standardized test scores?
What have you learned from experiencing these difficulties?

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Once you have some raw ingredients for your essay, hopefully several pages worth, here are some tips for mixing elements together:

Make your statement personal. Don't derive your statement from a friend's essay, or an example from a website, and don't use quotes or clichés. Use you own words!

Organize your statement. Let your structure flow from the content you have chosen. Many people organize chronologically. If you use this approach, maintain the flow. Don't send your readers from high school to college, then suddenly back to grade school. Many essays use both time and another type of element, e.g., a chronology of personal stories, life changing events, places you've lived, important activities, influential people, or recurring themes.

Show with true stories. Rather than telling your reader you are compassionate, show your compassion with little, descriptive vignettes. Well-written anecdotes are fun to read, memorable, and humanizing.

Provide details, examples, and explanations. Name the people (except the patients) and places (towns, schools, etc.), Describe how you were involved in research projects, What you did as a health care volunteer; etc. Who, what, when, where, how, and (sometimes) why?

Support your assertions. If you want to say you value helping people, try giving an example before making the assertion. If space is tight, it is usually better to give examples, and let your readers draw their own conclusions.

Write with feeling! Admission committee members are looking for a passion for the profession. One way to convey your passion, is to use emotional language. Write and talk about your feelings!

Go deep. Saying you want to help people and like science doesn't cut deep enough. It doesn't differentiate you from any of the other candidates who are applying, and doesn't differentiate the role you desire from the countless other careers that involve helping with science. What can you do as a member of the profession that you could not do in other professions?

Offer explanations for significant weaknesses. The line between explanation and excuse is very thin. Have some readers help you find where that line lies. Take responsibility for your decisions, especially regarding the use of your time.

Use everyday words. Rather than trying to show off your vocabulary by using obscure words, use a variety of appropriate words. If you must use technical terms, provide definitions. Try not to send your readers running to a dictionary. It is important for health care professionals to show they can communicate clearly with people from a variety of backgrounds.

Constructively fill most of the space you are given. This isn't a ten-page English essay, so you don't need a long, formal introduction or conclusion, or a lot of fluff, but you should try to usefully fill most of the space for the statement. If you leave three-fourths blank, selection committee members will assume you are not an interesting person, and that you have not done much to prepare yourself for the profession.

Avoid criticizing members of the profession. Some candidates try to argue that they want to become doctors, because they think they could do a better job than some of the professionals they have seen. This sets a negative tone, and invites a defensive reaction. Without being in a profession, you cannot fully appreciate the demands of the job, and the realities which often lead to less than ideal health care.

Avoid overusing "I's," or other words. When writing a personal comments essay, it is easy to use too many "I's," especially at the beginning of sentences. Some strategies for reducing I's include using other personal pronouns (e.g., we), chaining (e.g., I did this. I did that. I did the other = I did this, that and the other.), and removing unnecessary double I's (e.g., I believe I want = I want).

Avoid using contractions. The essay is a formal enough work that most writing guides suggest using full words rather than contractions (e.g., don't use "don't"). I have, however, seen a couple of essays in which the tone was so informal that contractions were a better fit.

Check your grammar. Some rules, like always putting subjects before verbs and never ending sentences with prepositions, are dated or never really were rules at all. Others, like getting your verbs to agree, are (not "is") still in effect. For the purpose of this essay, it's probably wise to follow both current and dated conventions. One of my favorite grammar links is http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/index2.htm.

Have readers review your statement. Have friends, parents, recommendation writers (including a member of the profession), a department advisor, and English teachers review your statement. The folks in KU Writing Center, www.writing.ku.edu, can also help.

If you are a KU student, I am one of the people who is willing to help you refine your statement. E-mail is not a good medium for this kind of conversation, or for scheduling meetings. So, if you would like my help, call 864-3500 (M-F, 8-5), and the person who answers the phone will find a time that works. I will be available throughout most of the summer. I would prefer to see a later rather than earlier draft, and am not willing to look at revisions. I will offer general suggestions, but will not give highly directive feedback, because I want your statement to be your own work!