Tips for writing your medical school personal statement
Having trouble writing the perfect personal statement for your medical school application? Don’t worry, so did I. In fact, I found writing the personal statement to be the most difficult part. After being admitted to medical school myself, I became involved the admissions department at my school and helped with interview days. This gave me the opportunity to speak with physicians and administrators about what they look for in personal statements from the students they interview. Here are the top ten things I learned about writing the medical school personal statement:
There is no perfect medical school personal statement. Further, the medical school personal statement is not the “make or break” portion of your application. The personal statement is merely your chance to convey your personality. This allows the schools to get to know the real you, beyond all of the otherwise objective data that floods your medical school application.
One of the physicians heavily involved in the interview process at my school told me she only remembers two personal statements ever, and remembers them for all of the wrong reasons. These were so poorly written that they left a lasting impact on her. So, if you write something that is genuine and true to who you are, reflects your dreams and aspirations in your future career as a physician, and is grammatically correct and without blatant errors, you will be okay.
There is nothing wrong with writing “I want to help people,” but you’ll need to expand on this. As physicians, we all go into medicine to help people and make a difference. But, regarding your personal statement, expand on this in such a way that your personal statement has some character. Have you seen a close friend or family member suffer from a medical illness? Writing about this is a reasonable approach. Additionally, consider that you can help people in numerous fields outside of medicine from engineering to social work. What are the things about medicine specifically that draw you to the field?
Proofread the personal statement. Grammatical errors are easy to avoid and look bad to medical school application reviewers. Send your medical school personal statement to multiple friends and family members for them to review. Get as many sets of eyes on your writing as you can. Using something like Grammarly is also helpful!
Be honest.
Be prepared to discuss the personal statement in your interviews. I recommend reading your personal statement every so often to remember what you wrote about.
The personal statement alone won’t get you into medical school (in 99.9% of cases), but it could certainly keep you out. As stated above, be honest, avoid grammatical errors, and write something from the heart. But, as a whole, you’ll need a well-rounded application to be admitted to medical school.
Start early! You’ll likely go through multiple drafts of your personal statement. So, it would be wise to give yourself plenty of time to write, re-write, start over, and write again. The best personal statements go through more extensive drafting processes. Give yourself plenty of time to go through the creative process.
Take input from other people with a grain of salt (including mine). Ultimately, you know yourself best. You know, more than anyone else, why you want to be a physician. A lot of people (college advisors, medical school administrators, friends, family) will potentially read your personal statement, and they will all have different opinions. If you intend to make changes based on what someone else is suggesting, make sure those changes align with your values.
You don’t have to know what specialty you want to do by the time you write your personal statement. Don’t feel pressured to mention a certain specialty, but you can if you want. Most people change their mind numerous times throughout medical school. I definitely did.