Writing a personal statement is no easy task. You can easily spend hours debating what to spend your precious 4500 character count on. What is important to me? Does my passion come through on this Google Doc? As much as you want to run away from it, you must start somewhere, and starting can simply consist of bullet points with possible topics.
Medical and dental schools interview you before they accept you (true passion comes through in conversation!). If you cannot think of a single thing to write about, try talking with a friend. Ask what they are passionate about and how they spend their time in or out of the classroom. Do they have a job? What are their hobbies? What’s a cause they care about? What is a perfect Saturday? Listen to what they have to say and start thinking about how you would answer those same questions.
Now it’s time to start focusing your brainstorm: what experiences in your life drew you to medicine or dentistry? One-on-one connections? Love of science? Want to serve your community? You can have more than one! Think of 2-3 stories that you may want to incorporate. It can be helpful to make a diagram and connect different facets of your life – these connections can be helpful for organizing paragraphs! What are you involved in? Do you volunteer in your local community? Do you do research? What was your shadowing experience like? Are there any memorable encounters from those experiences that stick with you to this day?
What do you want to share about your personal background and interests/experiences that drew you to healthcare? Maybe you overcame economic or cultural obstacles that shaped your unique path to medicine/dentistry or healthcare in general. Possibly a social experience or something you saw when you were out in your community. What drew you to this particular profession when there are so many to choose from?
Next take a look at your application as a whole. What do you want program sites to know about you that has not been disclosed in another part of the application? Maybe you’re a talented painter or you make jewelry on the side. Maybe you play in your school’s orchestra, or you learned guitar in your free time. This is a unique skill that shows you have interests outside of school, and it doesn’t hurt that it exhibits your manual dexterity! Maybe you come from a nontraditional educational background, what makes you unique and how can your experience be beneficial as a future healthcare provider?
Now it’s time to think big picture. What does healthcare mean to you? What healthcare disparities should we focus on? How can we advance diversity and why is this important? These are all questions that can provide insight as to what you are all about– and why you are a great addition to the field of medicine or dentistry!
There’s no one-size-fits-all formula to writing personal statements, nor should there should be! If that were the case, they would all be the same and boring to read. This is by no means a complete guide, but hopefully this can help you get started on writing a statement that best represents you.
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