Your personal statement on your medical school application should grab the attention of the reader and will be one of the key factors in your acceptance.
When filling out your medical school application, you’ll invariably encounter a section labeled “personal statement” or something similar. This seemingly benign area actually has tremendous impact on whether you will be accepted to the school of your choice. Therefore, it is imperative that you know how to write a compelling personal statement.
What is your personal statement?
Your personal statement is an integral part of your medical school application. However, while most of the rest of the application is geared toward providing the admissions board with academic achievements and reasons to consider you, the personal statement and essay portion will provide their first glimpse into you as an individual.
Your personal statement essay provides the admissions board with insight into your motivation and your driving goals. It gives them information about why you want to be a doctor, about where you see yourself and what you have achieved or hope to achieve in life. As such, it’s quite important.
What should it include?
First, your personal statement should provide a glimpse into the real you. You’ll find that most schools take great pains to stress the fact that you should write as yourself, rather than simply restating what you think the school wants to hear. This is important because your personal statement, along with your medical school interview, provides them with vital information about who you are and where you’re going to go in your career.
However, while you should certainly write as yourself, you must ensure that your personal statement is well-written, polished and professional. It should not be devoid of personality, but neither should it be riddled with grammar, spelling and punctuation errors. In essence, it should be you, but a highly professional version of you – or at least that is the image you want to convey with this portion of the application.
As such, you should consider having your AMCAS essay professionally edited, especially if grammar is not your strong suit.
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Other resources for your personal statement
The AMCAS (Amer ican Medical College Application Service) offers help with personal statements.
Medical school application personal statement information from StudentDoc.com can help you learn more about writing medical school personal statements.
There are also good options for getting AMCAS essay editing from companies that specialize in medical school applications.
The AMSA (American Medical School Association) offers help with formatting and bulletproofing your medical school personal statement, as well.
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