The Personal Statement

Figure 1: How I feel when I read an old essay.

Before I wrote my personal statement I read the book Essays That Will Get You into Medical School (link is to the newest edition).  We all know how to write an essay, but the reason I decided to read this is to find out what successful applicants wrote.  When I read some of those essays, all I could think was ho.... ly... shit, these are some really really good essays.  And they were AMAZING, not all, but most.  You don't need to be that amazing though.  The book will give you some insight into how to take your essay from typical, to pretty good.  As long as the rest of your application is strong that's about as much as you need.

Now, you should not let your essay be typical.  Here's what a typical med school app essay focuses on: 

• Wanted to do medicine since I was a child.
• My grandparent died and I found out medicine was my true calling.
• My dad/mom is a doctor and I don't want to do anything else.

These are not BAD reasons to go into medicine, but they are typical, and will make for an uninteresting essay.  The admissions committee is skimming reading thousands of these, and I bet most essays sound the same.  Hopefully you've fostered other hobbies and interests, or you have had meaningful experiences outside of medicine that you can also talk about.   For to help pay for my college education, I worked every semester.  In my essay I talked about my work experiences and how I have been shaped by them.

With that said, the central focus of your essay has to be why medicine.  You need to show that you're not a premed robot, and illustrate that you're an interesting person, but you absolutely have to answer why medicine.  If your essay does not answer that question, it's pointless.

As a final note, your premed adviser will probably want to read your essay and help you with it.  I recommend you do this, but don't solely rely on them.  Talk to them to make sure the content and aim is correct, then seek out English writing professors for grammar and structure details.  

Good luck!

References: Figure 1