An admission essay to apply as a medical student consists of 5,300 characters. That is how much you have to convince the selection committee that you will become a good doctor. Here are some tips on how to get the best out of this opportunity.
Pieces of advice on personal statement writing
How to edit my personal statement you ask? Easy. Any personal statement, or admission essay for medical college or university requiring professional editing and proofreading is possible by means of an editor working for essay-editor.net service, who is ready to edit any college paper as soon as the order is made.
Carefully choose your strengths and develop them to the end
Imagine arriving for an interview at your favorite school of medicine and finding yourself in an elevator with the dean of admissions. You have thirty seconds to state your position. What points will you emphasize and what will you leave out? This concept is usually associated with the business world, but is of similar muscle in school of medicine admissions. While it is unlikely to happen for you to turn out to be in the elevator with the dean of admissions, at some point an admissions officer will present you to the admissions office, beginning with a brief overview of the strengths (and weaknesses). The best option to sell your CV is writing a personal statement.
It should contain a cohesive story that matches the area of strengths and highlight points that fit what you wrote. If your professional strengths are in scores and laboratory research, and you are preparing to become a future medical scientist, then focus on this, and not on your volunteer work. Don’t deviate from the topic – 5300 characters is not that much. Stick to a clear story.
Answer key questions
Each successful university applicant must reply two questions to the selection committee: “What is the reason why you want to be a doctor”? and “What are your plans for your medical career”? Although it is undesirable to start an essay with the following: “I feel like becoming a doctor because …”.
It is often quite easy to answer this question organically, but the second one can be more difficult. The key is to convince the selection committee that you view school of medicine as a means to an ambitious goal, not an aim in itself. There is no need to plan one’s whole life, but you should have some vision for your service so the one who views your resume has an idea of where you see yourself in 20 years.
Be creative, but not too much
An essay should be interesting to read and try to grab the attention of the reader, but in case you have no idea what you are doing, try not to overdo it. Excessive literary expressions will bewilder the reader than to impress. If creative writing is not your cup of tea, standard chronological storytelling is fine.
On the other hand, avoid clichés. If your essay begins with the sentence: “I have always been fascinated by the human body”, the person who reads it may have just read 5 other essays that use the same first line. There is a strong possibility that your writing will go straight to the trash.
Get different feedback and leave time for editing
After writing your first draft, send it out to as many people you know as possible especially if you are not an editor. By getting feedback from different perspectives, you can be sure that you cover all aspects.
Editing takes time. Be sure to submit your draft as early as possible so you have time to receive comments. Read them carefully and edit your essay accordingly. You will go through several rounds of feedback and review before you are ready to ship. Set a deadline well before the submission date… to finish your essay. Proceed from this date.
One last note about editing and proofreading: make sure at least one of your editors is a grammar expert. Don’t rely on automatic spell checking.
Be careful with sensitive topics
Certain topics, including religious and political issues, personal health issues, relationship status, and plans to have (or not to have) children, are off-limits and job interviews and are generally not discussed in medical college interviews. However, whatever you include in your essay will be the subject of the interview.
We are not saying that you must not include these topics, but think carefully before doing so. For instance, if you had a personal experience with an illness that had an impact on your decision to get involved into medicine, feel free to express it. All you need is to be prepared to talk of it at the job interview.
Composing a strong personal statement let alone an application essay is difficult and requires considerable study and time, but the benefits it will bring are worth it.
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