Tips for Writing Your Medical School Personal Statement

For any medical school application that you send out, you will have to write a medical school personal statement. This is the only part of the medical school application that is not based off your grades or test scores and actually shows who you are as a real person and not just numbers. The medical school personal statement gives you the chance to show the admissions board who really are and why you want to practice medicine. It has nothing to do with your MCAT scores or your grade point average but should use it to show your motivation, dedication, and definitely your personality.

There are plenty of potential medical students who have trouble writing their personal statement. Some people may find it hard to express themselves in words while others may just not be the best writers. If you find that you are having trouble with your medical school personal statement, then here are some helpful tips to write the best statement that you can.

Don't procrastinate and leave the essay until the last minute. Be sure that you start planning out your writing early. Your medical school personal statement should not be done on a whim in 20 minutes time. This also gives you time to accurately proofread your statement and even get opinions from others on your statement.

The easiest way to start writing your medical school personal statement is to brainstorm. List all the impressive skills that you posses. List all the relevant experience that you have had. Other things that you need to think about are your goals, motivation, and any mentors that you have had in your life. Make sure that you are specific and you just don't give generic information.

Be sure that you actually answer the questions that you are being asked in your personal statement. On the medical school application they will have the questions that they want answered in the statement and if you don't answer them that could mean that your application is denied even though your statement is well-written. For example, most applications will ask you why you are choosing a certain field of medicine. You need to answer the motivation behind you picking that field and not just how you are qualified or your experience in that field. Keep a copy of the questions in front of you as you write your essay. You can even cross them off as you answer them in the essay.

Keep it short and simple. Most personal essays are around 250-500 words or one typed page. This means that you have to be focused if you want to get all your information in the essay and avoid unnecessary fluff. Each paragraph in the essay should be focused on one idea or question. Do not go off on tangents or else you may find yourself editing a 1000 word essay in half.

Always proofread and revise your personal statement. In fact, you should even have other people proofread and revise your essay. If you are lucky enough to have a writers center at your current college, you can even take your essay there and have them help you revise and proofread and let you know what you can do better and what you did that was good. They will not write your essay for you. In fact, you absolutely need to write your own essay so do not even think about having someone else write it for you.

When you do proofread your medical school personal statement, there are certain things to look for. Misspelled words, run-on sentences, fragments, improper usage of words, and bad grammar are the main things to look for. Simply running your essay through spell check is not proofreading.

Get creative with your essay. You know how many personal statements that the college has to read through? You want to stick out to them but it must be done in a professional way. Creativity can be used in the opening and ending paragraphs but try to keep the main body of the essay straightforward. Make sure that you come across as yourself and not as some "perfect" applicant that the college just has to have.

Writing your medical school personal statement does not have to be so difficult. Simply write down who you are and want you want from your career and just be sure that you do in a professional manner.