It’s a process
Let me tell you how I got to the final draft of my personal statement. This was not something I typed over night, or a week, or a month. For me it was more like a year in the making. Because I had originally applied to medical school when I was a junior in college, I worked on my essay for about 6 months prior. Due to having to reapply to medical school and considering applying to PA school, I kept working on my personal statement to enhance it and make it the best representation of me as much as possible. I visited my schools writing center a million times, and a specific person who worked with students and their personal statements. This helped me tremendously because he would read it, and tell me things I should add that I never though were important. If I showed you what I started with and what the final draft was you would be surprised on how different and how touching it became.
Tell your story
Everybody has a story to tell and that’s what makes you unique. Make sure to make your self stand out in between thousands of applicants. Everybody shadows, volunteers, works, takes pre health courses, and we all do many other things we are required as pre-health students Never list or say things you have done in your personal essay, they can see this in all of your activities part of the application. Instead, focus on telling your story, why do you want to be a PA or MD? What makes you a good candidate? Tell them your qualities and explain how you demonstrated these while caring for others.
Be compassionate and use words that show your feelings towards others' emotions and towards those you take care of. Give specific examples of things you did when you shadowed, volunteered and make those stand out by reflecting who you are and the type of provider you will be. If you want to target specific types of schools and align your essay with their mission, totally go for it.
For example, I really wanted to stay in FSU and I know their mission is to serve the underserved and provide care to minorities and rural health. In my personal statement I focused on what I did, why I was passionate about this, the type of provider I wanted to be, and my future goals as a minority PA, and why I was a great candidate.
Show feelings and be compassionate
Make sure your personal statement has feelings to it. This is key to making sure your reader stays engaged, makes a connection with you, and really feels why you should be accepted an interview. This is difficult to do, and this was the hardest part for me. What I ended up doing was adding things like “ I could feel the sense of loneliness when I visited my patients room, and took it upon myself to accompany my patients for a walk” this shows you can understand feelings and take action by having an initiative to enhance your patients feelings.
Use your own words
Do not worry about using big vocabulary words or being too wordy in your personal statement. The key is to be yourself in the simplest way possible. If it doesn’t sound like something you would say, simply do not use it. Be clear and concise, and cut off all the clutter and words that are unnecessary to get your point across. It can be hard to have a limited amount of words since most of them have a specific requirement. My advice will be to just write everything you want them to know about you and your story that is NOT mentioned anywhere else in your application, and then begin to cut down on your word limit.
Proofread
Having other people read your essay is essential. I remember I sent mine to different mentors, friends in medical school, my advisor, my brother, and just went to other places to have it looked at, such as the writing center and career center at FSU. The way you read your essay is not the same way others will read it. That’s why it’s important to get their opinions and feedback to make it even better and clearer.