Personal Statement

What everyone writes for the AMCAS application:

• Personal statement (5300 characters, spaces count)
• Activities descriptions (700 characters, up to 15 allowed)
• Three descriptions of most meaningful activities (an additional 1325 characters for each activity)

What some people write on the AMCAS application:

• Institutional action explanation (1325 characters)
• Disadvantaged status explanation (1325 characters)
• MD/PhD essay—Why MD/PhD? (3000 characters)
• MD/PhD essay—Significant Research (10,000 characters)
• What you write beyond AMCAS--Secondary applications

TIPS in writing personal statements:

1. Personal statement - The prompt for this is “Use the space provided to explain why you want to go to medical or dental school.” Keep in mind that for the average applicant who might apply to 20 schools, this essay will likely be read by somewhere between 40 and 200 people. In general you are trying to hit many singles with your personal statement rather than focusing on hitting a home run. Memorable personal statements can be great. Risky ones are not so great.

• First, good editing is good writing. Be prepared to go through a lot of drafts. Do not worry if your first draft is too long. There will always be things to cut. Do not get too attached to your first idea. Often you will not be able to figure out how something will sound until you write it first. You can always change it if it does not seem quite right.
• Get feedback, but not too much feedback. Asking 10 people to read it may leave you confused. In the end, it needs to be your voice coming through. Listen to advice when a trusted reader tells you that something seems off. It will hit some medical school admissions committee members the same way.

Here are some general issues to think about as you start to write:

• How do you know that you want to be a doctor or dentist? How have you demonstrated this interest?
• How has your interest in medicine or dentistry changed and developed over time?
• How did you overcome your doubts?
• Why medicine or dentistry and not other career fields, such as teaching, science, public health, nursing, etc.?
• Have you faced any obstacles in your life (for example, economic, familial, or physical)? How did you handle these?
• How have you been influenced by certain events and people?
• Recall a time when you had a positive impact on another person. How did you and the person change as a result?
• What were major turning points in your life?
• What do you want the committee to know that is not apparent elsewhere?
• Use a concrete anecdote or experience to draw the reader in; perhaps circle back to it at the end to create bookends.
• Approach the essay as a chance to share the arc of your journey to this point.
• Consider whether to discuss fluctuations in performance, hardship affecting academic record, and/or a personal or medical situation.

Remember that if you write something in your personal statement, you may be asked about it in an interview. If you do not wish to speak about it in an interview, do not write it here.

Here are some specific “Do’s” for writing the personal statement.

• Tell a story.
• Keep it interesting by using specific examples and anecdotes.
• Provide information, insight, or a perspective that cannot be found elsewhere in your application.
• Describe experiences in terms of what they mean to you and what you learned.
• Make sure the reader learns about you, not just what you did.
• Use strong action verbs and vivid images; paint a picture.
• Be concise. Make sure every sentence needs to be there.
• Describe what you learned in your research, not the details of the specific research project (unless writing the MD/PhD essay).
• Allow plenty of time to write, revise, reflect, and revise some more. Step away often so you can revisit your essay with fresh eyes.
• Spell checking will not catch everything! Then, proofread again and get someone else to do the same. Read the essay out loud to catch typos your eyes may have missed.

What not to include in your statements:

• To impress the reader with the use of overly flowery or erudite language.
• Directly tell the reader that you are compassionate, motivated, intelligent, curious, dedicated, unique, or different than most candidates (“Show don’t tell”).
• Focusing only on childhood or high school experiences.
• Use slang or forced analogies.
• Lecturing the reader, e.g., on what’s wrong with medicine, what doctors should be like.
• Making excuses for poor grades.
• Beginning every sentence or paragraph with “I”.
• Overworking the essay to the point where you lose your own voice.
• Using generalizations and clichés.
• Following the advice of too many people.
• Trying to share everything there is to know about you.

2. Activity descriptions—For medical school applications you are allowed up to 15 activities in this section and for each activity you are allowed 700 characters to describe the experience. This amounts to about 5 or 6 sentences. Some activities will not require that much description. From the AMCAS 2018 manual (accessed via aamc.org): “Medical schools receive all text entry responses as plain text. This means that formatting options such as bulleted lists, indented paragraphs, and bold/italic fonts do not appear for reviewers.” Because of this formatting issue and just for the ease of the reader, it is preferable to write these descriptions in sentences rather than using a resume style of writing.

3. Most meaningful activity—You are allowed to designate three of your activities as “most meaningful.” For these three, you will write the 700 character description, but then are allowed to write an additional 1325 characters to discuss why it was most meaningful. Again, this should be in sentences and should be error free. This may give you an opportunity to speak about an experience in detail that is not part of your personal statement.

Other topics that applicants may need to discuss.

1. Disadvantaged status explanation—If you believe you grew up in a situation that could be described as disadvantaged, you are allowed to explain this. If you are unsure if you qualify, this is also a good topic for an advising conversation.

2. MD/PhD essays—Candidates for combined MD/PhD programs are required to write two additional essays. You can get advice from your research mentors as you write these essays. The first focuses on why you want to get the combined degree. The second, much longer essay, focuses on your research experiences, including your supervisor, the nature of the problem studied, and your contribution to the project. These essays are sent only to the schools where you select the MD/PhD option.