how to start med school personal statement

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Don't underestimate the power of the medical school personal statement to make a strong, positive impression on an admissions committee. Combined with your interview performance, your personal statement can account for 60% (or more) of your total admissions score!

Medical schools want to enroll bright, empathetic, communicative people. Here's how to write a compelling med school personal statement that shows schools who you are and what you're capable of.

Personal Statement Topics

Your medical school personal statement is a component of your primary application submitted via, TMDSAS (for Texas applications), or AACOMAS (NB: If you are applying to medical school in Canada, confirm the application process with your school, as not all application components may be submitted through AMCAS).

These applications offer broad topics to consider, and many essay approaches are acceptable. For example, you could write about:

• an experience that challenged or changed your perspective about medicine
• a relationship with a mentor or another inspiring individual
• a challenging personal experience
• unique hardships, challenges, or obstacles that may have influenced your educational pursuits
• your motivation to seek a career in medicine

You'll write an additional essay (or two) when you submit secondary applications to individual schools. These essays require you to respond to a specific question. Admissions committees will review your entire application, so choose subject matter that complements your original essay .

Read More: Strategies for Secondary Applications

How to Write a Personal Statement for Medical School

Follow these personal statement tips to help the admissions committee better understand you as a candidate.

1. Write, re-write, let it sit, and write again!

Allow yourself 6 months of writing and revision to get your essay in submission-ready shape. This gives you the time to take your first pass, set your draft aside (for a minimum of 24 hours), review what you’ve written, and re-work your draft.

2. Stay focused.

Your personal statement should highlight interesting aspects of your journey—not tell your entire life story. Choose a theme, stick to it, and support it with specific examples.

3. Back off the cliches.

Loving science and wanting to help people might be your sincere passions, but they are also what everyone else is writing about. Instead, be personal and specific.

4. Find your unique angle.

What can you say about yourself that no one else can? Remember, everyone has trials, successes and failures. What's important and unique is how you reacted to those incidents. Bring your own voice and perspective to your personal statement to give it a truly memorable flavor. 

5. Be interesting.

Start with a “catch” that will create intrigue before launching into the story of who you are. Make the admissions committee want to read on!

6. Show don't tell.

Instead of telling the admissions committee about your unique qualities (like compassion, empathy, and organization), show them through the stories you tell about yourself. Don’t just say it—actually prove it.

7. Embrace the 5-point essay format.

Here's a trusty format that you can make your own:

• 1st paragraph: These four or five sentences should "catch" the reader's attention.
• 3-4 body paragraphs: Use these paragraphs to reveal who you are. Ideally, one of these paragraphs will reflect clinical understanding and one will reflect service.
• Concluding paragraph: The strongest conclusion reflects the beginning of your essay, gives a brief summary of you are, and ends with a challenge for the future.

8. Good writing is simple writing.

Good medical students—and good doctors—use clear, direct language. Your essays should not be a struggle to comprehend.

9. Be thoughtful about transitions.

Be sure to vary your sentence structure. You don’t want your essay to be boring! Pay attention to how your paragraphs connect to each other.

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10. Stick to the rules.

Watch your word count. That’s 5,300 characters (including spaces) for AMCAS applications, 5,000 characters for TMDSAS, and 4,500 characters for AACOMAS.

11. Stay on topic.

Rambling not only uses up your precious character limit, but it also causes confusion! Think about the three to five “sound bytes” you want admissions committee to know and remember you by.

12. Don't overdo it.

Beware of being too self-congratulatory or too self-deprecating.

13. Seek multiple opinions.

Before you hit “submit,” ask several people you trust for feedback on your personal statement. The more time you have spent writing your statement, the less likely you are to spot any errors. A professor or friend whose judgment and writing skills you trust is invaluable.

Read More: 12 Smart Tips for Your AMCAS Application

14. Double-check the details.

Always check for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. This goes for the rest of your application (like your activities list), too. A common oversight is referencing the wrong school in your statement! Give yourself (and your proofreaders) the time this task truly requires.

15. Consult the experts about your personal statement strategy.

Our med school admissions counselors can diagnose the “health” of your overall application, including your personal statement. Get expert help and guidance to write an effective personal statement that showcases not only your accomplishments, but your passion and your journey.

Want to get an edge over the crowd?

Our admissions experts know what it takes it get into med school. Get the customized strategy and guidance you need to help achieve your goals.

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Great Medical School Personal Statement Examples (2024-2025) Insider’s Guide

A physician and former medical school admissions officer teaches you how to write your medical school personal statement, step by step. Read several full-length medical school personal statement examples for inspiration.

In this article, a former medical school admissions officer explains exactly how to write a stand-out medical school personal statement!

Our goal is to empower you to write a medical school personal statement that reflects your individuality, truest aspirations and genuine motivations.

This guide also includes:

• Real life medical school personal statement examples
• Medical school personal statement inventory template and outline exercise
• AMCAS, TMDSAS, and AACOMAS personal statement prompts
• Advanced strategies to ensure you address everything admissions committees want to know
• The secret to writing a great medical school personal statement

So, if you want your medical school personal statement to earn more more medical school interviews, you will love this informative guide.

Let’s dive right in.

Table of Contents

Medical School Personal Statement Fundamentals

If you are getting ready to write your medical school personal statement for the 2024-2025 application year, you may already know that almost 60% of medical school applicants are not accepted every year . You have most likely also completed all of your medical school requirements and have scoured the internet for worthy medical school personal statement examples and guidance.

You know the medical school personal statement offers a crucial opportunity to show medical schools who you are beyond your GPA and MCAT score .

It provides an opportunity to express who you are as an individual, the major influences and background that have shaped your interests and values, what inspired you to pursue medicine, and what kind of a physician you envision yourself becoming.

However, with so much information online, you are not sure who to trust. We are happy you have found us!

Because the vast majority of people offering guidance are not former admissions officers or doctors , you must be careful when searching online.

We are real medical school admissions insiders and know what goes on behind closed doors and how to ensure your medical school personal statement has broad appeal while highlighting your most crucial accomplishments, perspectives, and insights.

With tight limits on space, it can be tough trying to decide what to include in your medical school personal statement to make sure you stand out. You must think strategically about how you want to present your personal “big picture” while showing you possess the preprofessional competencies med schools are seeking.

When a medical school admissions reviewer finishes reading your medical school personal statement, ask yourself:

• What are the most important things you want that person to remember about you?
• Does your medical school personal statement sum up your personality, interests, and talents?
• Does your medical school personal statement sound as if it’s written from the heart?

It’s pretty obvious to most admissions reviewers when applicants are trying too hard to impress them. Being authentic and upfront about who you are is the best way to be a memorable applicant.

The Biggest Medical School Personal Statement Mistakes

The most common medical school personal statement mistake we see students make is that they write about:

• What they have accomplished
• How they have accomplished it

By including details on what you have accomplished and how, you will make yourself sound like every other medical school applicant. 

Most medical school applicants are involved in similar activities: research, clinical work, service, and social justice work. 

To stand out, you must write from the heart making it clear you haven’t marched through your premedical years and checking boxes.

We also strongly discourage applicants from using ChatGPT or any AI bot to write their medical school personal statement. Writing in your own voice is essential and using anything automated will undermine success.

The Medical School Personal Statement Secret

MedEdits students stand out in the medical school personal statement because in their personal statements they address:

WHY they have accomplished what they have.

In other words, they write in more detail about their passions, interests, and what is genuinely important to them. 

It sounds simple, we know, but by writing in a natural way, really zeroing in on WHY YOU DO WHAT YOU DO, you will appeal to a wide variety of people in a humanistic way. 

MedEdits students have done extremely well in the most recent medical school admissions cycle. Many of these applicants have below average “stats” for the medical schools from which they are receiving interviews and acceptances.

Why? How is that possible? They all have a few things in common:

• They write a narrative that is authentic and distinctive to them.
• They write a medical school personal statement with broad appeal (many different types of people will be evaluating your application; most are not physicians).
• They don’t try too hard to impress; instead they write about the most impactful experiences they have had on their path to medical school.
• They demonstrate they are humble, intellectual, compassionate, and committed to a career in medicine all at the same time.

Keep reading for a step by step approach to write your medical school personal statement.

“After sitting on a medical school admissions committee for many years, I can tell you, think strategically about how you want to present your personal “big picture.” We want to know who you are as a human being.”

As physicians, former medical school faculty, and medical school admissions committee members, this article will offer a step by step guide to simplify the medical school personal statement brainstorming and writing process.

By following the proven strategies outlined in this article, you will be and to write a personal statement that will earn you more medical school interviews . This proven approach has helped hundreds of medical school applicants get in to medical school the first time they apply!

Learn the 2024-2025 Medical School Personal Statement Prompts ( AMCAS , TMDSAS , AACOMAS )

The personal statement is the major essay portion of your primary application process. In it, you should describe yourself and your background, as well as any important early exposures to medicine, how and why medicine first piqued your interest, what you have done as a pre med, your personal experiences, and how you became increasingly fascinated with it. It’s also key to explain why medicine is the right career for you, in terms of both personal and intellectual fulfillment, and to show your commitment has continued to deepen as you learned more about the field.

The personal statement also offers you the opportunity to express who you are outside of medicine. What are your other interests? Where did you grow up? What did you enjoy about college? Figuring out what aspects of your background to highlight is important since this is one of your only chances to express to the med school admissions committee before your interview what is important to you and why.

However, it is important to consider the actual personal statement prompt for each system through which you will apply, AMCAS, AACOMAS, and TMDSAS, since each is slightly different.

Getting into a medical school has never been more competitive. Let the experts at MedEdits help you with your medical school application materials. We’ve worked with more than 5,000 students and 94% have been admitted to medical school.

Need help with your Personal Statement?

Schedule a free 15 Minute Consultation with a MedEdits expert.

2024 AMCAS Personal Statement Prompt

The AMCAS personal statement instructions are as follows:

Use the Personal Comments Essay as an opportunity to distinguish yourself from other applicants. Consider and write your Personal Comments Essay carefully; many admissions committees place significant weight on the essay. Here are some questions that you may want to consider while writing the essay:

• Why have you selected the field of medicine?
• What motivates you to learn more about medicine?
• What do you want medical schools to know about you that hasn’t been disclosed in other sections of the application?

In addition, you may wish to include information such as:

• Unique hardships, challenges, or obstacles that may have influenced your educational pursuits
• Comments on significant fluctuations in your academic record that are not explained elsewhere in your application

As you can see, these prompts are not vague; there are fundamental questions that admissions committees want you to answer when writing your personal statement. While the content of your statement should be focused on medicine, answering the open ended third question is a bit trickier.

The AMCAS personal statement length is 5,300 characters with spaces maximum.

2024 TMDSAS Personal Statement Prompt

The TMDSAS personal statement is one of the most important pieces of your medical school application.

The TMDSAS personal statement prompt is as follows:

Explain your motivation to seek a career in medicine. Be sure to include the value of your experiences that prepare you to be a physician.

This TMDSAS prompt is very similar to the AMCAS personal statement prompt. The TMDSAS personal statement length is 5,000 characters with spaces whereas the AMCAS personal statement length is 5,300 characters with spaces. Most students use the same essay (with very minor modifications, if necessary) for both application systems.

You’ve been working hard on your med school application, reading medical school personal statement examples, editing, revising, editing and revising.  Make sure you know where you’re sending your personal statement and application.  Watch this important medical school admissions statistics video.

2024 AACOMAS Personal Statement Prompt

The AACOMAS personal statement is for osteopathic medical schools specifically. As with the AMCAS statement, you need to lay out your journey to medicine as chronologically as possible in 5,300 characters with spaces or less. So you essentially have the same story map as for an AMCAS statement. Most important, you must show you are interested in osteopathy specifically. Therefore, when trying to decide what to include or leave out, prioritize any osteopathy experiences you have had, or those that are in line with the osteopathic philosophy of the mind-body connection, the body as self-healing, and other tenets.

Medical School Application Timeline and When to Write your Personal Statement

If you’re applying to both allopathic and osteopathic schools, you can most likely use the same medical school personal statement for both AMCAS and AACOMAS. In fact, this is why AACOMAS changed the personal statement length to match the AMCAS length several years ago.

Most medical school personal statements can be used for AMCAS and AACOMAS.

Know the Required Medical School Personal Statement Length

Below are the medical schools personal statement length limits for each application system. As you can see, they are all very similar. When you start brainstorming and writing your personal statement, keep these limits in mind.

AMCAS Personal Statement Length : 5,300 characters with spaces.

As per the AAMC website :   “The available space for this essay is 5,300 characters (spaces are counted as characters), or approximately one page. You will receive an error message if you exceed the available space.”

AACOMAS Personal Statement Length : 5,300 characters with spaces

TMDSAS Personal Statement Length : 5,000 characters with spaces

As per the TMDSAS Website (Page 36): “The personal essay asks you to explain your motivation to seek a career in medicine. You are asked to include the value of your experiences that prepare you to be a physician. The essay is limited to 5000 characters, including spaces.”

Demonstrate Required Preprofessional Competencies

Next, your want to be aware of the nine preprofessional core competencies as outlined by the Association of American Medical Colleges . Medical school admissions committees want to see, as evidenced by your medical school personal statement and application, that you possess these qualities and characteristics. Now, don’t worry, medical school admissions committees don’t expect you to demonstrate all of them, but, you should demonstrate some.

• Service Orientation
• Social Skills
• Cultural Competence
• Oral Communication
• Ethical Responsibility to Self and Others
• Reliability and Dependability
• Resilience and Adaptability
• Capacity for Improvement

In your personal statement, you might be able to also demonstrate the four thinking and reasoning competencies:

• Critical Thinking
• Quantitative Reasoning
• Written Communication
• Scientific Inquiry

So, let’s think about how to address the personal statement prompts in a slightly different way while ensuring you demonstrate the preprofessional competencies. When writing your personal statement, be sure it answers the four questions that follow and you will “hit” most of the core competencies listed above.

1. What have you done that supports your interest in becoming a doctor?

I always advise applicants to practice “evidence based admissions.” The reader of your essay wants to see the “evidence” that you have done what is necessary to understand the practice of medicine. This includes clinical exposure, research, and community service, among other activities.

2. Why do you want to be a doctor?

This may seem pretty basic – and it is – but admissions officers need to know WHY you want to practice medicine. Many applicants make the mistake of simply listing what they have done without offering insights about those experiences that answer the question, “Why medicine?” Your reasons for wanting to be a doctor may overlap with those of other applicants. This is okay because the experiences in which you participated, the stories you can tell about those experiences, and the wisdom you gained are completely distinct—because they are only yours. 

“In admissions committee meetings we were always interested in WHY you wanted to earn a medical degree and how you would contribute to the medical school community.”

Medical school admissions committees want to know that you have explored your interest deeply and that you can reflect on the significance of these clinical experiences and volunteer work. But writing only that you “want to help people” does not support a sincere desire to become a physician; you must indicate why the medical profession in particular—rather than social work, teaching, or another “helping” profession—is your goal. 

3. How have your experiences influenced you?

It is important to show how your experiences are linked and how they have influenced you. How did your experiences motivate you? How did they affect what else you did in your life? How did your experiences shape your future goals? Medical school admissions committees like to see a sensible progression of involvements. While not every activity needs to be logically “connected” with another, the evolution of your interests and how your experiences have nurtured your future goals and ambitions show that you are motivated and committed.

4. Who are you as a person? What are your values and ideals?

Medical school admissions committees want to know about you as an individual beyond your interests in medicine, too. This is where answering that third open ended question in the prompt becomes so important. What was interesting about your background, youth, and home life? What did you enjoy most about college? Do you have any distinctive passions or interests? They want to be convinced that you are a good person beyond your experiences. Write about those topics that are unlikely to appear elsewhere in your statement that will offer depth and interest to your work and illustrate the qualities and characteristics you possess.

Related Articles:

• How to Get into Stanford Medical School
• How to Get into NYU Medical School
• How To Get Into Columbia Medical School
• How To Get Into UT Southwestern Medical School
• How To Get Into Harvard Medical School

Complete Your Personal Inventory and Outline (Example Below)

The bulk of your essay should be about your most valuable experiences, personal, academic, scholarly, clinical, academic and extracurricular activities that have impacted your path to medical school and through which you have learned about the practice of medicine. The best personal statements cover several topics and are not narrow in scope. Why is this important? Many different people with a variety of backgrounds, interests, and ideas of what makes a great medical student will be reading your essay. You want to make sure you essay has broad appeal.

The following exercise will help you to determine what experiences you should highlight in your personal statement. 

When composing your personal statement, keep in mind that you are writing, in effect, a “story” of how you arrived at this point in your life. But, unlike a “story” in the creative sense, yours must also offer convincing evidence for your decision to apply to medical school. Before starting your personal statement, create an experience- based personal inventory:

• Write down a list of the most important experiences in your life and your development. The list should be all inclusive and comprise those experiences that had the most impact on you. Put the list, which should consist of personal, extracurricular, and academic events, in chronological order.
• From this list, determine which experiences you consider the most important in helping you decide to pursue a career in medicine. This “experience oriented” approach will allow you to determine which experiences best illustrate the personal competencies admissions committees look for in your written documents. Remember that you must provide evidence for your interest in medicine and for most of the personal qualities and characteristics that medical school admissions committees want to see.
• After making your list, think about why each “most important” experience was influential and write that down. What did you observe? What did you learn? What insights did you gain? How  did the experience influence your path and choices?
• Then think of a story or illustration for why each experience was important.
• After doing this exercise, evaluate each experience for its significance and influence and for its “story” value. Choose to write about those experiences that not only were influential but that also will provide interesting reading, keeping in mind that  your goal is to weave the pertinent experiences together into a compelling story. In making your choices, think about how you will link each experience and transition from one topic to the next.
• Decide which of your listed experiences you will use for your introduction first (see below for more about your introduction). Then decide which experiences you will include in the body of your personal statement, create a general outline, and get writing!

Remember, you will also have your work and activities entries and your secondary applications to write in more detail about your experiences. Therefore, don’t feel you must pack everything in to your statement!

Craft a Compelling Personal Statement Introduction and Body

You hear conflicting advice about application essays. Some tell you not to open with a story. Others tell you to always begin with a story. Regardless of the advice you receive, be sure to do three things:

• Be true to yourself. Everyone will have an opinion regarding what you should and should not write. Follow your own instincts. Your personal statement should be a reflection of you, and only you.
• Start your personal statement with something catchy.  Think about the list of potential topics above.
• Don’t rush your work. Composing thoughtful documents takes time and you don’t want your writing and ideas to be sloppy and underdeveloped.

Most important is to begin with something that engages your reader. A narrative, a “story,” an anecdote written in the first or third person, is ideal. Whatever your approach, your first paragraph must grab your reader’s attention and motivate him to want to continue reading. I encourage applicants to start their personal statement by describing an experience that was especially influential in setting them on their path to medical school. This can be a personal or scholarly experience or an extracurricular one. Remember to avoid clichés and quotes and to be honest and authentic in your writing. Don’t try to be someone who you are not by trying to imitate personal statement examples you have read online or “tell them what you think they want to hear”; consistency is key and your interviewer is going to make sure that you are who you say you are!

When deciding what experiences to include in the body of your personal statement, go back to your personal inventory and identify those experiences that have been the most influential in your personal path and your path to medical school. Keep in mind that the reader wants to have an idea of who you are as a human being so don’t write your personal statement as a glorified resume. Include some information about your background and personal experiences that can give a picture of who you are as a person outside of the classroom or laboratory.

Ideally, you should choose two or three experiences to highlight in the body of your personal statement. You don’t want to write about all of your accomplishments; that is what your application entries are for!

Write Your Personal Statement Conclusion

In your conclusion, it is customary to “go full circle” by coming back to the topic—or anecdote—you introduced in the introduction, but this is not a must. Summarize why you want to be a doctor and address what you hope to achieve and your goals for medical school. Write a conclusion that is compelling and will leave the reader wanting to meet you.

Complete Personal Statement Checklist

When reading your medical school personal statement be sure it:

Shows insight and introspection

The best medical school personal statements tell a great deal about what you have learned through your experiences and the insights you have gained.

You want to tell your story by highlighting those experiences that have been the most influential on your path to medical school and to give a clear sense of chronology. You want your statement always to be logical and never to confuse your reader.

Is interesting and engaging

The best personal statements engage the reader. This doesn’t mean you must use big words or be a literary prize winner. Write in your own language and voice, but really think about your journey to medical school and the most intriguing experiences you have had.

Gives the reader a mental image of who you are

You want the reader to be able to envision you as a caregiver and a medical professional. You want to convey that you would be a compassionate provider at the bedside – someone who could cope well with crisis and adversity.

Illustrates your passion for, and commitment to, medicine

Your reader must be convinced that you are excited about and committed to a career in medicine!

Above all, your personal statement should be about you. Explain to your reader what you have done and why you want to be a doctor with insight, compassion, and understanding.

Medical School Personal Statement Myths

Also keep in mind some common myths about personal statements that I hear quite often:

My personal statement must have a theme.

Not true. The vast majority of personal statements do not have themes. In fact, most are somewhat autobiographical and are just as interesting as those statements that are woven around a “theme.” It is only the very talented writer who can creatively write a personal statement around a theme, and this approach often backfires since the applicant fails to answer the three questions above.

My personal statement must be no longer than one page.

Not true. This advice is antiquated and dates back to the days of the written application when admissions committees flipped through pages. If your personal statement is interesting and compelling, it is fine to use the entire allotted space. The application systems have incorporated limits for exactly this reason! Many students, depending on their unique circumstances, can actually undermine their success by limiting their personal statement to a page. That said, never max out a space just for the sake of doing so. Quality writing and perspectives are preferable to quantity.

My personal statement should not describe patient encounters or my personal medical experiences.

Not true. Again, the actual topics on which you focus in your personal statement are less important than the understanding you gained from those experiences. I have successful clients who have written extremely powerful and compelling personal statements that included information about clinical encounters – both personal and professional. Write about whichever experiences were the most important on your path to medicine. It’s always best, however, to avoid spending too much space on childhood and high school activities. Focus instead on those that are more current.

In my personal statement I need to sell myself.

Not exactly true. You never want to boast in your personal statement. Let your experiences, insights, and observations speak for themselves. You want your reader to draw the conclusion – on his or her own – that you have the qualities and characteristics the medical school seeks. Never tell what qualities and characteristics you possess; let readers draw these conclusions on their own based on what you write.

Medical School Personal Statement Examples and Analysis for Inspiration

Below are examples of actual medical school personal statements. You can also likely find medical school personal statements on Reddit.

AMCAS Medical School Personal Statement Example and Analysis #1 with Personal Inventory  

We will use Amy to illustrate the general process of writing an application to medical school, along with providing the resulting documents. Amy will first list those experiences, personal, extracurricular, and scholarly, that have been most influential in two areas: her life in general and her path to medical school. She will put this personal inventory in chronologic order for use in composing her personal statement.

She will then select those experiences that were the most significant to her and will reflect and think about why they were important. For her application entries, Amy will write about each experience, including those that she considers influential in her life but not in her choice of medicine, in her application entries. Experiences that Amy will not write about in her activity entries or her personal statement are those that she does not consider most influential in either her life or in her choice of medicine.

Amy’s personal inventory (from oldest to most recent)

• Going with my mom to work. She is a surgeon — I was very curious about what she did. I was intrigued by the relationships she had with patients and how much they valued her efforts. I also loved seeing her as “a doctor” since, to me, she was just “mom.”
• I loved biology in high school. I started to think seriously about medicine then. It was during high school that I became fascinated with biology and how the human body worked. I would say that was when I thought, “Hmm, maybe I should be a doctor.”
• Grandmother’s death, senior year of high school. My grandmother’s death was tragic. It was the first time I had ever seen someone close to me suffer. It was one of the most devastating experiences in my life.
• Global Health Trip to Guatemala my freshman year of college. I realized after going to Guatemala that I had always taken my access to health care for granted. Here I saw children who didn’t have basic health care. This made me want to become a physician so I could give more to people like those I met in Guatemala.
• Sorority involvement. Even though sorority life might seem trivial, I loved it. I learned to work with different types of people and gained some really valuable leadership experience.
• Poor grades in college science classes. I still regret that I did badly in my science classes. I think I was immature and was also too involved in other activities and didn’t have the focus I needed to do well. I had a 3.4 undergraduate GPA.
• Teaching and tutoring Jose, a child from Honduras. In a way, meeting Jose in a college tutoring program brought my Guatemala experience to my home. Jose struggled academically, and his parents were immigrants and spoke only Spanish, so they had their own challenges. I tried to help Jose as much as I could. I saw that because he lacked resources, he was at a tremendous disadvantage.
• Volunteering at Excellent Medical Center. Shadowing physicians at the medical center gave me a really broad view of medicine. I learned about different specialties, met many different patients, and saw both great and not-so-great physician role models. Counselor at Ronald McDonald House. Working with sick kids made me appreciate my health. I tried to make them happy and was so impressed with their resilience. It made me realize that good health is everything.
• Oncology research. Understanding what happens behind the scenes in research was fascinating. Not only did I gain some valuable research experience, but I learned how research is done.
• Peer health counselor. Communicating with my peers about really important medical tests gave me an idea of the tremendous responsibility that doctors have. I also learned that it is important to be sensitive, to listen, and to be open-minded when working with others.
• Clinical Summer Program. This gave me an entirely new view of medicine. I worked with the forensics department, and visiting scenes of deaths was entirely new to me. This experience added a completely new dimension to my understanding of medicine and how illness and death affect loved ones.
• Emergency department internship. Here I learned so much about how things worked in the hospital. I realized how important it was that people who worked in the clinical department were involved in creating hospital policies. This made me understand, in practical terms, how an MPH would give me the foundation to make even more change in the future.
• Master’s in public health. I decided to get an MPH for two reasons. First of all, I knew my undergraduate science GPA was an issue so I figured that graduate level courses in which I performed well would boost my record. I don’t think I will write this on my application, but I also thought the degree would give me other skills if I didn’t get into medical school, and I knew it would also give me something on which I could build during medical school and in my career since I was interested in policy work.

As you can see from Amy’s personal inventory list, she has many accomplishments that are important to her and influenced her path. The most influential personal experience that motivated her to practice medicine was her mother’s career as a practicing physician, but Amy was also motivated by watching her mother’s career evolve. Even though the death of her grandmother was devastating for Amy, she did not consider this experience especially influential in her choice to attend medical school so she didn’t write about it in her personal statement.

Amy wrote an experience-based personal statement, rich with anecdotes and detailed descriptions, to illustrate the evolution of her interest in medicine and how this motivated her to also earn a master’s in public health.

Amy’s Medical School Personal Statement Example:

She was sprawled across the floor of her apartment. Scattered trash, decaying food, alcohol bottles, medication vials, and cigarette butts covered the floor. I had just graduated from college, and this was my first day on rotation with the forensic pathology department as a Summer Scholar, one of my most valuable activities on the path to medical school. As the coroner deputy scanned the scene for clues to what caused this woman’s death, I saw her distraught husband. I did not know what to say other than “I am so sorry.” I listened intently as he repeated the same stories about his wife and his dismay that he never got to say goodbye. The next day, alongside the coroner as he performed the autopsy, I could not stop thinking about the grieving man.

Discerning a cause of death was not something I had previously associated with the practice of medicine. As a child, I often spent Saturday mornings with my mother, a surgeon, as she rounded on patients. I witnessed the results of her actions, as she provided her patients a renewed chance at life. I grew to honor and respect my mother’s profession. Witnessing the immense gratitude of her patients and their families, I quickly came to admire the impact she was able to make in the lives of her patients and their loved ones.

I knew I wanted to pursue a career in medicine as my mother had, and throughout high school and college I sought out clinical, research, and volunteer opportunities to gain a deeper understanding of medicine. After volunteering with cancer survivors at Camp Ronald McDonald, I was inspired to further understand this disease. Through my oncology research, I learned about therapeutic processes for treatment development. Further, following my experience administering HIV tests, I completed research on point-of-care HIV testing, to be instituted throughout 26 hospitals and clinics. I realized that research often served as a basis for change in policy and medical practice and sought out opportunities to learn more about both.

All of my medically related experiences demonstrated that people who were ‘behind the scenes’ and had limited or no clinical background made many of the decisions in health care. Witnessing the evolution of my mother’s career further underscored the impact of policy change on the practice of medicine. In particular, the limits legislation imposed on the care she could provide influenced my perspective and future goals. Patients whom my mother had successfully treated for more than a decade, and with whom she had long-standing, trusting relationships, were no longer able to see her, because of policy coverage changes. Some patients, frustrated by these limitations, simply stopped seeking the care they needed. As a senior in college, I wanted to understand how policy transformations came about and gain the tools I would need to help effect administrative and policy changes in the future as a physician. It was with this goal in mind that I decided to complete a master’s in public health program before applying to medical school.

As an MPH candidate, I am gaining insight into the theories and practices behind the complex interconnections of the healthcare system; I am learning about economics, operations, management, ethics, policy, finance, and technology and how these entities converge to impact delivery of care. A holistic understanding of this diverse, highly competitive, market-driven system will allow me, as a clinician, to find solutions to policy, public health, and administration issues. I believe that change can be more effective if those who actually practice medicine also decide where improvements need to be made.

For example, as the sole intern for the emergency department at County Medical Center, I worked to increase efficiency in the ED by evaluating and mapping patient flow. I tracked patients from point of entry to point of discharge and found that the discharge process took up nearly 35% of patients’ time. By analyzing the reasons for this situation, in collaboration with nurses and physicians who worked in the ED and had an intimate understanding of what took place in the clinical area, I was able to make practical recommendations to decrease throughput time. The medical center has already implemented these suggestions, resulting in decreased length of stays. This example illustrates the benefit of having clinicians who work ‘behind the scenes’ establish policies and procedures, impacting operational change and improving patient care. I will also apply what I have learned through this project as the business development intern at Another Local Medical Center this summer, where I will assist in strategic planning, financial analysis, and program reviews for various clinical departments.

Through my mother’s career and my own medical experiences, I have become aware of the need for clinician administrators and policymakers. My primary goal as a physician will be to care for patients, but with the knowledge and experience I have gained through my MPH, I also hope to effect positive public policy and administrative changes.

What’s Good About Amy’s Medical School Personal Statement:  

Paragraphs 1 and 2: Amy started her personal statement by illustrating a powerful experience she had when she realized that medical caregivers often feel impotent, and how this contrasted with her understanding of medicine as a little girl going with her mother to work. Recognition of this intense contrast also highlights Amy’s maturity.

Paragraph 3: Amy then “lists” a few experiences that were important to her.

Paragraph 4: Amy describes the commonality in some of her experiences and how her observations were substantiated by watching the evolution of her mother’s practice. She then explains how this motivated her to earn an MPH so she could create change more effectively as a physician than as a layman.

Paragraph 5: Amy then explains how her graduate degree is helping her to better understand the “issues in medicine” that she observed.

Paragraph 6: Amy then describes one exceptional accomplishment she had that highlights what she has learned and how she has applied it.

Paragraph 7: Finally, Amy effectively concludes her personal statement and summarizes the major topics addressed in her essay.

As you can see, Amy’s statement has excellent flow, is captivating and unusual, and illustrates her understanding of, and commitment to, medicine. She also exhibits, throughout her application entries and statement, the personal competencies, characteristics, and qualities that medical school admissions officers are seeking. Her application also has broad appeal; reviewers who are focused on research, cultural awareness, working with the underserved, health administration and policy, teaching, or clinical medicine would all find it of interest.

med school personal statement examples

Osteopathic Medical School Personal Statement Example and Analysis #2

Medical School Personal Statement Example Background: This is a nontraditional applicant who applied to osteopathic medical schools. With a 500 and a 504 on the MCAT , he needed to showcase how his former career and what he learned through his work made him an asset. He also needed to convey why osteopathic medicine was an ideal fit for him. The student does an excellent job illustrating his commitment to medicine and explaining why and how he made the well-informed decision to leave his former career to pursue a career in osteopathic medicine.

What’s Good About It: A nontraditional student with a former career, this applicant does a great job outlining how and why he decided to pursue a career in medicine. Clearly dedicated to service, he also does a great job making it clear he is a good fit for osteopathic medical school and understands this distinctions of osteopathic practice.. 

Working as a police officer, one comes to expect the unexpected, but sometimes, when the unexpected happens, one can’t help but be surprised. In November 20XX, I had been a police officer for two years when my partner and I happened to be nearby when a man had a cardiac emergency in Einstein Bagels. Entering the restaurant, I was caught off guard by the lifeless figure on the floor, surrounded by spilled food. Time paused as my partner and I began performing CPR, and my heart raced as I watched color return to the man’s pale face.

Luckily, paramedics arrived within minutes to transport him to a local hospital. Later, I watched as the family thanked the doctors who gave their loved one a renewed chance at life. That day, in the “unexpected,” I confirmed that I wanted to become a physician, something that had attracted me since childhood.

I have always been enthralled by the science of medicine and eager to help those in need but, due to life events, my path to achieving this dream has been long. My journey began following high school when I joined the U.S. Army. I was immature and needed structure, and I knew the military was an opportunity to pursue my medical ambitions. I trained as a combat medic and requested work in an emergency room of an army hospital. At the hospital, I started IVs, ran EKGs, collected vital signs, and assisted with codes. I loved every minute as I was directly involved in patient care and observed physicians methodically investigating their patients’ signs and symptoms until they reached a diagnosis. Even when dealing with difficult patients, the physicians I worked with maintained composure, showing patience and understanding while educating patients about their diseases. I observed physicians not only as clinicians but also as teachers. As a medic, I learned that I loved working with patients and being part of the healthcare team, and I gained an understanding of acute care and hospital operations.

Following my discharge in 20XX, I transferred to an army reserve hospital and continued as a combat medic until 20XX. Working as a medic at several hospitals and clinics in the area, I was exposed to osteopathic medicine and the whole body approach to patient care. I was influenced by the D.O.s’ hands-on treatment and their use of manipulative medicine as a form of therapy. I learned that the body cannot function properly if there is dysfunction in the musculoskeletal system.

In 20XX, I became a police officer to support myself as I finished my undergraduate degree and premed courses. While working the streets, I continued my patient care experiences by being the first to care for victims of gunshot wounds, stab wounds, car accidents, and other medical emergencies. In addition, I investigated many unknown causes of death with the medical examiner’s office. I often found signs of drug and alcohol abuse and learned the dangers and power of addiction. In 20XX, I finished my undergraduate degree in education and in 20XX, I completed my premed courses.

Wanting to learn more about primary care medicine, in 20XX I volunteered at a community health clinic that treats underserved populations. Shadowing a family physician, I learned about the physical exam as I looked into ears and listened to the hearts and lungs of patients with her guidance. I paid close attention as she expressed the need for more PCPs and the important roles they play in preventing disease and reducing ER visits by treating and educating patients early in the disease process. This was evident as numerous patients were treated for high cholesterol, elevated blood pressure, and diabetes, all conditions that can be resolved or improved by lifestyle changes. I learned that these changes are not always easy for many in underserved populations as healthier food is often more expensive and sometimes money for prescriptions is not available. This experience opened my eyes to the challenges of being a physician in an underserved area.

The idea of disease prevention stayed with me as I thought about the man who needed CPR. Could early detection and education about heart disease have prevented his “unexpected” cardiac event? My experiences in health care and law enforcement have confirmed my desire to be an osteopathic physician and to treat the patients of the local area. I want to eliminate as many medical surprises as I can.

Texas Medical School Personal Statement Example and Analysis #3

Medical School Personal Statement Example Background: This applicant, who grew up with modest means, should be an inspiration to us all. Rather than allowing limited resources to stand in his way, he took advantage of everything that was available to him. He commuted to college from home and had a part-time job so he was stretched thin, and his initial college performance suffered. However, he worked hard and his grades improved. Most medical school admissions committees seek out applicants like this because, by overcoming adversity and succeeding with limited resources, they demonstrate exceptional perseverance, maturity, and dedication. His accomplishments are, by themselves, impressive and he does an outstanding job of detailing his path, challenges, and commitment to medicine. He received multiple acceptances to top medical schools and was offered scholarships.

What’s Good About It: This student does a great job opening his personal statement with a beautifully written introduction that immediately takes the reader to Central America. He then explains his path, why he did poorly early in college, and goes on to discuss his academic interests and pursuits. He is also clearly invested in research and articulates that he is intellectually curious, motivated, hard working, compassionate and committed to a career in medicine by explaining his experiences using interesting language and details. This is an intriguing statement that makes clear the applicant is worthy of an interview invitation. Finally, the student expresses his interest in attending medical school in Texas.

They were learning the basics of carpentry and agriculture. The air was muggy and hot, but these young boys seemed unaffected, though I and my fellow college students sweated and often complained. As time passed, I started to have a greater appreciation for the challenges these boys faced. These orphans, whom I met and trained in rural Central America as a member of The Project, had little. They dreamed of using these basic skills to earn a living wage. Abandoned by their families, they knew this was their only opportunity to re-enter society as self- sufficient individuals. I stood by them in the fields and tutored them after class. And while I tried my best to instill in them a strong work ethic, it was the boys who instilled in me a desire to help those in need. They gave me a new perspective on my decision to become a doctor.

I don’t know exactly when I decided to become a physician; I have had this goal for a long time. I grew up in the inner city of A City, in Texas and attended magnet schools. My family knew little about higher education, and I learned to seek out my own opportunities and advice. I attended The University with the goal of gaining admission to medical school. When I started college, I lacked the maturity to focus on academics and performed poorly. Then I traveled to Central America. Since I was one of the few students who spoke Spanish, many of the boys felt comfortable talking with me. They saw me as a role model.

The boys worked hard so that they could learn trades that would help them to be productive members of society. It was then I realized that my grandparents, who immigrated to the US so I would have access to greater opportunities, had done the same. I felt like I was wasting what they had sacrificed for me. When I returned to University in the fall, I made academics my priority and committed myself to learn more about medicine .

Through my major in neuroscience, I strengthened my understanding of how we perceive and experience life. In systems neurobiology, I learned the physiology of the nervous system. Teaching everything from basic neural circuits to complex sensory pathways, Professor X provided me with the knowledge necessary to conduct research in Parkinson’s disease. My research focused on the ability of antioxidants to prevent the onset of Parkinson’s, and while my project was only a pilot study at the time, Professor X encouraged me to present it at the National Research Conference. During my senior year, I developed the study into a formal research project, recruiting the help of professors of statistics and biochemistry.

Working at the School of Medicine reinforced my analytical skills. I spent my summer in the department of emergency medicine, working with the department chair, Dr. Excellent. Through Dr. Excellent’s mentorship, I participated in a retrospective study analyzing patient charts to determine the efficacy of D-dimer assays in predicting blood clots. The direct clinical relevance of my research strengthened my commitment and motivated my decision to seek out more clinical research opportunities.

A growing awareness of the role of human compassion in healing has also influenced my choice to pursue a career in medicine. It is something no animal model or cell culture can ever duplicate or rival. Working in clinical research has allowed me to see the selflessness of many physicians and patients and their mutual desire to help others. As a research study assistant in the department of surgery, I educate and enroll patients in clinical trials. One such study examines the role of pre-operative substance administration in tumor progression. Patients enrolled in this study underwent six weeks of therapy before having the affected organ surgically excised. Observing how patients were willing to participate in this research to benefit others helped me understand the resiliency of the human spirit.

Working in clinical trials has enabled me to further explore my passion for science, while helping others. Through my undergraduate coursework and participation in volunteer groups I have had many opportunities to solidify my goal to become a physician. As I am working, I sometimes think about my second summer in Central America. I recall how one day, after I had turned countless rows of soil in scorching heat, one of the boys told me that I was a trabajador verdadero—a true worker. I paused as I realized the significance of this comment. While the boy may not have been able to articulate it, he knew I could identify with him. What the boy didn’t know, however, was that had my grandparents not decided to immigrate to the US, I would not have the great privilege of seizing opportunities in this country and writing this essay today. I look forward to the next step of my education and hope to return home to Texas where I look forward to serving the communities I call home.

Final Thoughts

Above all, and as stated in this article numerous times, your personal statement should be authentic and genuine. Write about your path and and journey to this point in your life using anecdotes and observations to intrigue the reader and illustrate what is and was important to you. Good luck!

Medical School Personal Statement Help & Consulting

If all this information has you staring at your screen like a deer in the headlights, you’re not alone. Writing a superb medical school personal statement can be a daunting task, and many applicants find it difficult to get started writing, or to express everything they want to say succinctly. That’s where MedEdits can help. You don’t have to have the best writing skills to compose a stand-out statement. From personal-statement editing alone to comprehensive packages for all your medical school application needs, we offer extensive support and expertise developed from working with thousands of successful medical school applicants. We can’t promise applying to medical school will be stress-free, but most clients tell us it’s a huge relief not to have to go it alone.

MedEdits offers personal statement consulting and editing. Our goal when working with students is to draw out what makes each student distinctive. How do we do this? We will explore your background and upbringing, interests and ideals as well as your accomplishments and activities. By helping you identify the most distinguishing aspects of who you are, you will then be able to compose an authentic and genuine personal statement in your own voice to capture the admissions committee’s attention so you are invited for a medical school interview. Our unique brainstorming methodology has helped hundreds of aspiring premeds gain acceptance to medical school.

Sample Medical School Personal Statement

Example Medical School Personal Statement

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Advisor Corner: Crafting Your Personal Statement

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Being able to articulate an answer to the question “why medicine?” is critical for an applicant as they apply to medical school. One of the first opportunities for an applicant to convey this message to admissions officers is through their personal comments essay in the AMCAS application. We asked three pre-health advisors how they advise their students to put their best self forward when crafting their personal statements.

The personal statement is an unfamiliar genre for most students—you’ve practiced writing lab reports, analytical essays, maybe even creative fiction or poetry, but the personal statement is something between a reflective, analytical narrative, and an argumentative essay. You want to reveal something about yourself and your thoughts around your future in medicine while also making an argument that provides evidence supporting your readiness for your career. Well ahead of when you’re writing your personal statement, consider taking classes that require you to create and support arguments through writing, or those that ask you to reflect on your personal experiences to help you sharpen these skills.

As you draft your essay, you may want to include anecdotes from your experiences. It’s easiest to recall these anecdotes as they happen so it can be helpful to keep a journal where you can jot down stories, conversations, and insights that come to you. This could be recounting a meaningful conversation that you had with someone, venting after an especially challenging experience, or even writing about what keeps you going at times when you feel in danger of giving up. If it’s more comfortable, take audio notes by talking into your phone.

While reading sample personal statements can sometimes make a student feel limited to emulating pieces that already exist, I do think that reading others’ reflective writing can be inspirational. The Aspiring Docs Diaries blog written by premeds is one great place to look, as are publications like the Bellevue Literary Review and Pulse , which will deliver a story to your inbox every week. Check with your pre-health advisor to see if they have other examples that they recommend.

Rachel Tolen, Assistant Director and Premedical Advisor, Indiana University I encourage students to think of the personal statement not just as a product. Instead, I encourage them to think of the process of writing the statement as embedded in the larger process of preparing themselves for the experience of medical school. Here are a few key tips that I share with students:

• Start writing early, even months before you begin your application cycle. Expect to revise many versions of your draft over time.
• Take some time to reflect on your life and goals. By the end of reading your statement, the reader should understand why you want to be a physician. 
• When you consider what to write, think about the series of events in your life that have led up to the point where you are applying to medical school. How did you get here? What set you on the path toward medical school? What kept you coming back, even at times when it was challenging? On the day that you retire, what do you hope you’ll be able to say you’ve achieved through your work as a physician? 
• Don’t waste too much time trying to think of a catchy opening or a theme designed just to set your essay apart. Applicants sometimes end up with an opening that comes across as phony and artificial because they are trying too hard to distinguish themselves from other applicants. 
• Just start writing. Writing is a means for thinking and reflecting. Let the theme grow out of the process of writing itself. Some of the best personal statements focus on ordinary events that many other people may have experienced, but what makes the essay stand out are the writer’s unique insights and ability to reflect on these experiences.

Dana Lovold, MPH, Career Counselor at the University of Minnesota Your personal statement can and should include more than what you’ve done to prepare for medical school. The personal statement is an opportunity to share something new about yourself that isn’t conveyed elsewhere in your application.

Advisors at the University of Minnesota employ a storytelling model to support students in finding and writing their unique personal statement. One critical aspect of storytelling is the concept of change. When a story lacks change, it becomes a recitation of facts and events, rather than a reflection of how you’ve learned and grown through your experiences. Many students express concern that their experiences are not unique and wonder how they can stand out. Focusing on change can help with this. Some questions you may want to consider when exploring ideas are:

• What did you learn from the experience?
• How did you change as a result of the experience?
• What insight did you gain?

By sharing your thoughts on these aspects of your preparation and motivation for medicine, the reader has a deeper understanding of who you are and what you value. Then, connect that insight to how it relates to your future in the profession. This will convey your unique insight and demonstrate how you will use that insight as a physician.  

In exploring additional aspects of what to write about, we also encourage students to cover these four components in the essay:

• Motivation refers to a student’s ongoing preparation for the health profession and can include the initial inspiration.
• Fit is determined through self-assessment of relevant values and personal qualities as they relate to the profession.
• Capacity is demonstrated through holistically aligning with the competencies expected in the profession.
• Vision relates to the impact you wish to make in the field.

After you finish a working draft, go back through and see how you’ve covered each of these components. Ask people who are reading your draft if they can identify how you’ve covered these elements in your essay so that you know it’s clear to others.

Medical School Personal Statement Storytelling Guide [With Examples]

Typical medical school personal statements list qualities and accomplishments in paragraph form and can be boring to read for admissions committee members. But the best personal statements demonstrate qualities through engaging stories. Those stories reveal insights into your personality, as well as interests outside healthcare and medicine (especially those that align with the medical schools you’re applying to ).

Medical school admissions committees want to learn who you uniquely are and why you want to become a medical professional. They also want to know what you are going to contribute to their school and the larger medical field.

Our in-depth guide will help you explore unique personal topics and stories to capture admission committee members’ attention and help you stand out in a sea of ordinary med school personal statements.

Table of contents

1. brainstorm topics, 2. choose stories that show your character, show, don’t tell, stay on topic, common medical school personal statement mistakes, get an expert’s opinion.

The first step in the personal statement writing process is to decide what stories and facts are most important to reveal and how to weave in your motivation for applying to a school of medicine.

When you’re ready to brainstorm, don’t just sit down to stare at a list of your premed activities like research experiences, volunteering, or shadowing. Instead, compile the fundamental personal experiences and people that helped shape you. These stories will likely translate beyond your personal statement into interviews , so be picky to choose only the most transformative.

When brainstorming your personal statement for medical school, consider these topics:

Significant or formative life experiences: something that changed the course of your life, your outlook on the world, or made you think differently about your future

• Learning to do something that leads you to excel/teach others/make a contribution (e.g., sports, science, foreign language, special skills)
• Being given a second chance
• Connecting with someone who made an impact on you
• Being out of your comfort zone (experiences with people of different backgrounds, travel, moving, doing something for the first time)

Challenging life experiences: something that forced a lesson upon you

• A mistake you made
• An event that was out of your control that nonetheless caused you suffering or loss
• Overcoming an obstacle

People that shaped your life:

• Mentor, family member, friend
• Author, actor, speaker, personal hero

Think about what each element on your list taught you or how it changed your thinking. Answer for yourself why the event or person is important. Then brainstorm how one or two medically related activities can be tied in.

With this strategy, your personal statement will develop around a narrative that is unique to you. It will also communicate to admissions officers who you are and why you want to provide medical care.

To further your thought processes, ask yourself these questions:

• What is distinct or unique about you/your life story?
• What are some specific details about your personality, values, or experiences you can share to help them get a better understanding of who you are?
• In what ways have your experiences contributed to your growth?
• Have you overcome any obstacles or difficult circumstances in your life?
• What valuable personal characteristics (integrity, compassion, diligence, etc.) do you have?
• What soft skills (leadership, teamwork, communication skills, etc.) do you have?

Next, connect those answers to medicine-specific questions:

• How and when did you become interested in medicine?
• What have you learned so far about medicine?
• Why do you want to become a doctor?
• How do you know you want to be a doctor?
• How have your experiences and your understanding of yourself confirmed your desire to do medicine?
• In what ways have you shown that you have the characteristics necessary to succeed in the field of medicine?
• How will your skills translate into being a good doctor?
• Are there any gaps or discrepancies in your academic record that need explaining? This can be an obstacle or difficult circumstance.

Though you don’t want to include the answers to all these questions in your personal statement, knowing the answers to these questions is a good starting point.

You should highlight a few unique experiences, skills, or personal characteristics and make those the focal point of your essay.

Ordinary personal statements focus on the experiences that applicants think will make them seem impressive. The best personal statements focus on the qualities that make applicants truly special.

Instead of choosing their standout qualities — character, personality traits, attitudes — many applicants simply choose experiences they think will help them stand out to admissions committees. Then, they try to force those qualities into the experiences they’ve already chosen.

Why is this an issue? Imagine you have participated in the following extracurricular activities:

• Biochemistry research for 2 years
• Clinical experience shadowing for 3 years
• Math tutor for underserved youth for 2 years
• Trombonist in the high school band and trombone instructor for 3 years
• International medical mission trip volunteer for 3 summers
• Premed organization member for 3 years (vice president for 1 year)

At face value, which of these experiences do you think would make you seem the most impressive to an admissions committee? Given these choices, most students would choose to write about clinical shadowing (2) or medical mission trips (5).

Most students who choose one of those two topics will take a very similar approach, such as starting off the essay describing some interaction with a very ill patient or one with whom they experienced a language barrier.

Typical Applicant Personal Statement Example:

“Mary was well known at our clinic by all of our doctors, nurses, and medical staff. Based on her sharp intellect and cheerful pattern of making our staff feel like we were her best friends, it would be difficult to tell why she frequently visited the hospital. Besides her use of a walker, her Parkinson’s disease diagnosis had not slowed her down much. Throughout my interactions with Mary, I wondered how she maintained such a positive attitude despite her ailments. She seemed to give our staff more joy with her beaming smile than receiving care. I wanted to give her the best care possible, whether through asking our great nurses to check in on her or offering an extra blanket or favorite snack to ensure comfort throughout her stay. However, I was simultaneously frustrated that my ability to help Mary ended there. This lingering lack of fulfillment has served as a great motivator to find ways to do more for patients like her.”

What’s wrong with this example?

Although the above example provides some insights about the applicant’s motivations (“…find ways to do more for patients…”), it is written about a common topic (a realization that came during clinical shadowing) with a typical delivery —  written broadly about interactions with a particular patient.

The best personal statement writers, on the other hand, first think of the personal qualities they want to demonstrate in their essay before choosing a situation or event to write about. Next, they think of an experience that best highlights these qualities, regardless of whether or not it seems most “impressive” at face value. Finally, the best personal statements zero in on a particular event or situation to capture the reader’s attention with a detailed personal story.

By taking this approach, the best personal statement writers are better able to demonstrate their qualities because their story was chosen expressly for that purpose. After all, schools are attracted to particular candidates because of their qualities and not a specific experience they’ve had.

Let’s suppose this same applicant wanted to highlight her community involvement and commitment to serving underprivileged groups. Returning to the list of extracurriculars above, she could choose to write about working as a math tutor (3) or being a trombonist in the school band and trombone instructor (4). By choosing the latter and zooming in on a particular event, this same student could write the following personal statement introduction:

Better Personal Statement Example:

“My palms had never been as sweaty as when I walked on stage with my trombone in front of a 500-plus member audience on June 9th, 2015. Sure, I was pretty good. But I would like to think that being invited to play Curtis Fuller’s “Along Came Betty” at the Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame had as much to do with the music skills I had honed over the past decade as it did with training the 8-member band of 10 to 13 year-olds from the inner city to join me on that same stage. I was nervous because this performance was for them; I needed to be at my best.”

Why is this example better than the one before it?

This introduction would likely stand out because it is about an uncommon topic (a musical performance) and seamlessly demonstrates the writer’s community involvement, especially with underserved youth. As a bonus, it captures the reader’s attention in 382 fewer characters.

Typical personal statements could have been written by any applicant. Good personal statements are those that can only be written by a specific applicant. The example of a typical introduction could have been written by any number of medical students who volunteered in a hospital. There simply aren’t enough unique insights and details about the applicant. On the other hand, the second introduction could have only been written by that individual.

So, how do you avoid a dull introductory paragraph? Use the approach above — first, list your unique qualities, then identify situations where you’ve expressed those qualities, and finally, zoom in to tell a detailed story.

Want to improve your chances of acceptance? Get world-class coaching from former admissions committee members for a more compelling personal statement and polished application. Students who work with us double their chances of getting accepted!

You’ve likely heard the adage “Show, don’t tell” enough already. Rarely do we receive practical advice on exactly how to demonstrate our qualities, rather than list them. When you can do this, you provide a more authentic glimpse of who you really are.

If you read the following sentences from two different applicants, which one would you think was more giving?

• Applicant #1: I am a very giving person.
• Applicant #2: I volunteer 4 hours every week to work at the homeless shelter.

You’d probably choose applicant #2, even though they never used the word “giving” in their sentence. As a reader, we extrapolate how giving that applicant is.

Going back to the intro paragraphs above, we can see that the typical one “tells” about the applicant’s qualities, whereas the better paragraph “shows” the applicant’s qualities.

More Medical School Personal Statement Examples :

Typical introductions:

• “I wanted to give the best patient care possible…” (giving)
• “This lingering lack of fulfillment has served as a great motivator to find ways to do more” (motivated)

Better introductions:

• “…the music skills I honed over the past decade…” (dedicated)
• “…training the 8-member band of 10-13 year-olds from the inner city to join me on that same stage.” (giving, empowering)
• “I was nervous because this performance was for them; I needed to be at my best.” (selfless, motivated)

Strive to let your accomplishments, approaches, and insights speak for themselves. Describe your work in an engaging way and let the reader do the complimenting for you.

Some applicants make the mistake of putting the focus on supporting characters, like a parent or patient, making them more compelling than themselves or sharing the limelight. But the best personal statements maintain the focus on the applicant.

Like any great story, your personal statement should highlight a compelling character. But that character, the star of your story, should always be YOU. There is nothing wrong with including another character in your personal statement’s story. But other characters should only be used to demonstrate your qualities, whether through an interaction you had or an insight you gained after.

Returning to our examples above:

In the typical paragraph, Mary and the applicant are co-leads in the story. We don’t even read about the applicant or her insights until the fourth sentence. Mary seems just as impressive as the applicant.

The better paragraph is all about the applicant — her concerns, dedication, and motivations. Even though she mentions the inner-city youth, they serve only to demonstrate the applicant’s qualities.

Your opportunity to impress med school admissions committees with your personal statement is limited to 5,300 characters. Strive to keep the focus nearly entirely on you.

Know ahead of time that your first draft is just that — a first draft. Once you get something on the page, you can start rewriting and revising it into the perfect statement.

Explaining the answer to “Why I want to be a doctor” can be overwhelming. Many applicants end up making the mistake of answering a different question: “What have I done that qualifies me for medical school?” The result is a tedious list of GPAs and MCAT scores that make personal statements read like a resume.

A better approach is not to focus on the question that your essay will answer, but on the personal aspects of your experiences on earth that shaped who you are — a person whose goals and values align with entering the medical profession.

More common mistakes to avoid:

• Not being concise
• Using clichés
• Breaking character limits
• Not using transitions between paragraphs and topics
• Not getting a second opinion or consulting an expert

There are some red flags to keep in mind as well. Admissions experts will not be impressed with:

• Arrogance or narcissism
• Self-deprecation or lack of confidence
• Unexplained gaps in education
• Generalizations
• Poor grammar
• Lack of passion

Read Next: A Guide To Medical Schools That Don’t Require The MCAT

What is the AMCAS personal statement prompt?

The AMCAS personal statement prompt is: Use the space provided to explain why you want to go to medical school.

How many characters are allowed in the medical school personal statement?

You can use up to 5,300 characters in the medical school personal statement sections of the AMCAS and AACOMAS applications . Spaces count as characters. You’ll have roughly 500 words to write.

How long should a personal statement be for medical school?

A personal statement for medical school should be approximately one page. It should be long enough to take a deep look at a transformative experience or concept.

What personal statement topics should I avoid?

There are no specific topics that you should completely avoid in your personal statement outside of openly offensive topics. You may receive advice to steer clear of topics like mental health, having a parent who’s a doctor, or volunteer work. But it’s not these topics themselves that are a problem; how you use these stories and experiences to show your personality and character is what matters.

Your personal statement is one of the few times in the medical school application process where your personality, experiences, and uniqueness can shine through. It’s too important to leave it to guesswork, particularly if you’re reapplying !

Work with experienced Writing Advisors and Physician Advisors to give your personal statement the X factor sure to be noticed by admissions committees. Many of our advisors are former AdComs !

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The Importance of the Personal Statement

The personal statement is so important because it helps the admissions committee connect with and understand you and make sure that you know what you’re getting yourself into. They’re going to be less willing to take a risk on a student they think will be unhappy as a physician. So if your personal statement reads like you’re going into medicine for the wrong reasons (money, prestige, parental pressure, etc.), they’re unlikely to admit you even if you have great stats.

It’s in your best interest to ensure that you have enough exposure to the field to be sure that this is the right career for you. Otherwise, you might find yourself burned out and miserable early in your career or leave medicine altogether. There is no single right reason to become a physician, but pursuing medicine should, at the very least, be an informed decision.

Like nearly everything in this process, how each school weighs the personal statement depends on the school. Many schools will rely heavily on the personal statement when deciding whether to offer a student an interview, and other schools may weigh other sections more heavily.

Since you can’t know or control how the admissions committee will evaluate your personal statement, you should focus on doing your best on each aspect of the medical school application.

When Should You Write the Personal Statement?

Most students find that the personal statement takes longer than they think it will. You don’t want to be caught not giving yourself enough time to write a great personal statement, so starting early is critical. Because of the time required to draft the personal statement, we recommend beginning in January of the year you apply to medical school.

You might be tempted to try to write the perfect personal statement on your first try or feel like you have to. This kind of thinking will only hold you back and keep you from getting started.

This very early stage of drafting might just look like brainstorming and listing all of the stories you might want to include in your personal statement. It’s also a good time to journal and reflect on your journey so far so that you can dig deeper in your personal statement and activity descriptions .

Starting early gives you plenty of time to write the personal statement, edit your drafts, get feedback from fresh eyes, and polish it. Taking time away from it between drafts will also give you the perspective to be able to evaluate your own work.

Ideally, you’re journaling and reflecting long before it’s time to actually sit down and write the personal statement. How you do this journaling is up to what makes sense for you. You can do it in a physical journal, a spreadsheet, a word document, or in the journal entry space in Mappd whenever you go to log your hours. This way, even if you’ve forgotten the details or the impact of an experience when you go to write your personal statement, you can refresh it in your mind.

How Long is the Personal Statement?

AACOMAS and AMCAS cap the personal statement at 5,300 characters, including spaces. TMDSAS allots 5,000 characters for the personal statement, also including spaces. While you don’t have to use every character available to you, you should aim for a length of at least 5,000 characters for AACOMAS and AMCAS. Anything shorter may not have enough substance or may not flow as well as a slightly longer essay would.

If you’re really struggling to come up with enough material for your personal statement, this might be a clue that you haven’t had enough experience to prove to yourself that you want to be a physician. Or it might be a sign that you haven’t reflected on your experiences deeply enough. Either way, this should be a sign to take a hard look at your journey so far and look for any shortcomings. You want to find and fix these before you hit submit on your application.

What Makes a Great Personal Statement?

The best personal statements tell a story that is authentic to the student writing it. You should aim to engage the senses of the reader and let them in on what you felt emotionally. The best and easiest way to do this is to focus on showing vs. telling. If you need advice on how to do this effectively, you can find plenty of guides and articles online about showing and effective storytelling.

You might need to spend your first draft just getting the facts down and then reword a lot of it to do more showing as you revise and edit, and that’s okay. Focus on improving each draft and emphasizing showing by the final draft instead of getting stuck on doing it perfectly from the very beginning.

You also want to start in a way that makes the admissions officer want to keep reading. Keep in mind that the personal statement doesn’t have to be in chronological order, so you can start with the most interesting part of your story.

As you get into the later stages of editing, you can also rearrange the pieces and see which order is the most interesting to read. This is a place where having another set of eyes can be incredibly helpful in giving feedback on whether things make sense or flow well.

By the end of a great personal statement, the reader knows and deeply understands why you want to be a doctor because they went along the journey with you. They saw your first interaction with a patient and felt what you felt as you held your mother’s hand in the hospital. It makes complete sense that your path has led you here and that this is what you want to do.

Should You Worry About Being Cliche?

Many students worry that their personal statement is cliche because their experiences are common. Common and cliché are not the same thing. The basic facts of a story might be common, but once you add your unique reflection and your unique background, it moves beyond that. If you don’t add anything to make it specific to your story, then it will be cliché. As long as you focus on your story and how you got here, someone will be able to connect with your story and want to get to know you better.

Reflection is the Key

One of the biggest mistakes students make in both their personal statement and activity descriptions is focusing too much on the what and not enough on the why – why these experiences matter.

You can tell the most interesting story in the world, but if you don’t dig deeper and explain why these experiences affected you and made you want to be a physician, your story won’t have any lasting impact on the reader.

In order to help someone else understand why you want to be a doctor, you need to fully understand that yourself. This will help make sure that you’re making the right decision, and it will allow you to tell your story more clearly and with a greater impact on the reader.

Then, once you fully understand for yourself your why and all of your reasons, you can more easily express that to the reader. You should follow each anecdote and each experience with a reflection on why that particular experience was so meaningful to you. What impact did it have on your journey? How did it strengthen your desire to become a physician? What did you learn from it?

You don’t have space to answer all of these questions for every story, but they’re the questions you should ask yourself, and then focus on the most important takeaway when writing. You should focus on the lessons or experiences that strengthened your desire to be a physician. Resist the temptation to describe what you learned about being a physician or the temptation to lean into the generic.

A Strong Send-Off

Just like you want a strong hook at the start to pull the reader in, you also want a strong conclusion. When you’re writing an English paper, your conclusion is often a summary of everything you’ve said before. This is not true for the personal statement. Repeating yourself is a waste of the limited space you have and isn’t very interesting for the reader.

Instead, the conclusion is a great place to talk about what you hope to do as a physician. What kind of change do you want to make in the world? How will you make your school proud after you’ve received your diploma? Paint a picture of the kind of physician you want to be.

Editing the Personal Statement

Who should you ask.

The ideal person to edit your personal statement is someone with knowledge of the medical school application process and an understanding of what makes a good personal statement. A great first stop is your school’s pre-health advising office. Hopefully, your advisor will have enough experience to give you great feedback on your personal statement.

If you take time away from the personal statement between drafts, you will also be in a better place to evaluate your own work, and you might find the examples in The Premed Playbook: Guide to the Personal Statement helpful during this process.

If you ask someone in your life or a mentor to edit your personal statement, you can give them this review sheet to help guide their feedback. This is especially helpful if they’re not an expert on the medical school application process.

There are also lots of paid services out there. We also offer essay feedback services . Students who join Application Academy can submit their essays for feedback during class and get feedback from their fellow students and TAs.

Editing for Grammar

We recommend that in addition to using your word processor’s built-in spell check, you sign up for a free Grammarly * account. It will not only help with things like spelling and punctuation but will also help ensure your sentence structure is clear.

You can use Grammarly for your application essays, academic papers, and emails to professors asking for letters of recommendation. You should take care to make sure that your personal statement and other application essays are free of errors and typos.

A high amount of errors can be distracting to the reader and make it come across that you didn’t take enough time and care with your personal statement to proofread it thoroughly. Proofreading is a step in the editing process where it’s perfectly fine to have someone less knowledgeable about medical school applications look over your work since they’re not editing for content. If you know someone with really good attention to detail or who gets good grades on their own papers, ask them to look over it for you with an eye to grammatical errors and misspelled words.

What to Avoid In Your Personal Statement

While writing your personal statement, you should write your story authentically, and you should try to avoid anything that will make the admissions committee want to stop reading or view you in a negative light. Here are a few examples of things to avoid, and you can find more examples in The Premed Playbook Guide to the Medical School Personal Statement .

We all come away from our experiences with positive and negative things about them. However, you should avoid focusing on the negative aspects of your experiences when writing your medical school application.

People who are overly negative aren’t fun to be around and don’t make for very good classmates or community members. It’s easy to say no to a student who seems negative, as the admissions committee is building a community of students who will work closely together and rely on one another for the next four years.

It doesn’t mean that you can’t talk about a time when you had a negative experience or can’t be honest. You should instead focus on what you learned from the situation and what positive aspects you can take from it.

You should not use your personal statement as an opportunity to rehash your resume. That isn’t interesting to read and is a waste of the opportunity you’re given to let the admissions committee understand your journey. You’ve already shared your most important activities and experiences in your activity descriptions. Focusing on your resume also does not answer the question that the personal statement is asking you, which is: why do you want to be a physician?

You can talk about research as part of your personal statement, but you should not focus on it. It’s better to talk about it in your conclusion as part of what you want to do as a physician rather than the driving force behind why you want to be a physician.

When a student focuses on research in their personal statement, it calls into question whether they have enough clinical experience to drive their interest in medicine or if they are more interested in lab work than patient care. Even if you are applying to MD/Ph.D. or DO/Ph.D. programs, you are given multiple other opportunities to talk about your research experiences so far and your future interest in it.

Emotional Topics

With this, you need to think carefully about how you will handle it if the topic is brought up in an interview. Anything you put in your application is fair game to be asked about in an interview, and you should keep that in mind.

Our cofounder Rachel Grubbs likes to advise students to discuss “scars, not wounds.” If the emotional topic is something you’ve already processed, it will be easier to talk about calmly during an interview. Tearing up is okay and human, but you don’t want to get so emotional that you find it difficult to continue your interview.

* This link is an affiliate link, meaning we receive a small commission when you sign up at no cost to you.

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Crafting a Compelling Medical School Personal Statement: Examples, Structure, Tips & More

February 22, 2024

Zach French

Over 60% of aspiring students don’t get admitted into medical school each year. And there is a great reason for this: regardless of their admissions profile and excellent grades, they don’t stand out in their application essay.

Your personal statement is your opportunity to share your motivations and aspirations in pursuing medicine. It allows the admissions committee to understand who you are beyond mere academic achievements.

In this guide, we will explain step-by-step how to write a compelling medical school personal statement. We'll cover:

• Why your personal statement matters
• How to get started with your med school personal statement
• How long should a personal statement be?
• How to structure your essay and what to include
• 5 Writing tips and best practices
• 2 Medical school personal statement examples [+ full explanation]
• 8 Common mistakes to avoid

Without further ado, let’s get started.

Why Your Personal Statement Matters

Medical schools receive thousands of applications every year, many from candidates with excellent academic records and impressive extracurricular achievements. What sets you apart? Your personal statement is your chance to tell your story in a way that goes beyond grades and test scores . It's an opportunity to showcase your unique personality, aspirations, and dedication to the field of medicine.

Use your experiences, whether through volunteering, research, or personal encounters, to illustrate why you’re a fit. It's not just about what you've done, but how these experiences have shaped your understanding and desire for a medical career.

‍ You need to present yourself as not just academically capable, but also personally suited to the demands and rewards of being a physician. Your personal statement is your voice in the application process—a chance to make a compelling case for why you belong in their next class of medical students.

How to Get Started

As you get ready to write, you might be worried about selecting the perfect topic, avoiding clichés, and wondering if it aligns with what admissions committees expect. Fortunately, the AMCAS personal statement prompt, which reads "Use the space provided to explain why you want to go to medical school," is deliberately broad. This open-ended prompt offers you the freedom to write about virtually anything that drives your ambition to pursue a medical career.

However, the very openness of this prompt can also be daunting. With the liberty to choose any topic, you might find yourself overwhelmed by the possibilities. To narrow down your choices, consider reflecting on the following questions:

• Why do you feel a strong inclination only towards being a physician?
• What aspects of being a doctor truly inspire you to pursue this field?
• Envision the type of doctor you aim to become - what does that look like?
• What role do you aspire to play in your patients' lives?

How Long Should a Personal Statement Be?

You have a limit of up to 5,300 characters, including spaces, for your essay. To give you an idea of the length, this character limit approximately translates to about 500 words or 1.5 pages when single-spaced.

Hence, it’s important to strategically pick experiences that highlight varied traits in you and are all linked to what’s expected of a physician. Thus, you can demonstrate your diverse skills while remaining concise.

What Experiences Should You Pick? What Qualities Are Sought?

If you're finding it challenging to determine what to include in your medical school personal statement, begin by identifying the qualities you wish to highlight to the admissions committee. From there, reverse-engineer your approach by selecting experiences from your life that best exemplify these qualities.

In general, admissions committees look for the following qualities:

• Analytical abilities
• Persistence
• Great listening skills
• Knowledge-seeking

Keep in mind that the experiences you select to showcase your chosen qualities don't necessarily have to stem from clinical settings or from research accomplishments. They can also be drawn from extracurricular activities that have influenced your journey toward medicine.

If you're struggling to identify your strong qualities (a common issue among many students), consider asking family members or close friends what they think your strengths are and why they appreciate you. While it might feel a bit uncomfortable, this exercise can be incredibly insightful.

Last but not least, bear in mind that the admissions committee is likely to ask you to expand on the experiences you've described. Therefore, include personal stories that you're eager to discuss further and feel confident speaking about.

How to Structure Your Essay 

A well-structured essay is fundamental for clarity, balance, and impact. It provides a clear and logical flow of ideas, making it easier for the reader to follow and understand your arguments or story. Each paragraph should seamlessly lead to the next, maintaining a consistent thread of thought. ‍

This cohesion and structure help in:

• Keeping the reader's interest and engagement from beginning to end
• Reflecting a well-rounded intellect and personality
• Showcasing your multifaceted profile effectively, as it ensures that you don't dwell too long on one point while neglecting others. 

Make an outline to help you structure your personal statement after reflecting on the experiences and traits you wish to include. We suggest you begin with a compelling introduction that captures your motivation for pursuing a career in medicine. This could be a brief anecdote, a pivotal moment in your life, or a unique perspective that led you to this path. Your goal is to engage the reader from the outset and set the tone for the rest of your statement. ‍

The body of your application essay is where you delve into your experiences, skills, and aspirations. We suggest you focus on three and use a paragraph to elaborate on each. Delve into how your personal experiences have not only nurtured this desire but also equipped you for the journey ahead in the medical field.

‍ Finally, conclude your personal statement by reinforcing your commitment to medicine. Elegantly loop back to this central theme or initial hook.  

summarize the key points made throughout your statement, and articulate your vision for the future as a medical professional. ‍

This technique will weave your personal statement into a cohesive and interconnected story, providing a sense of full circle from start to finish.

Best Practices: Writing Tips and Common Mistakes to Avoid 

Crafting a compelling personal statement for medical school requires more than just sharing your experiences; it's about how you present them. Here are some key writing tips and best practices to help you create a standout essay.

Read Real Medical School Personal Statement Examples

Before you start writing, take the time to read actual personal statements from successful medical school applicants.

We’ve taken a moment to make a full disclosure of our favorite personal statements of all time on our YouTube channel. 

Alternatively, you can take a look at some examples online from various universities, including institutions like the University of Pittsburgh . You can also ask someone who got into medical school to send you a copy of their personal statement.

Med school essay samples will give you an understanding of what works and the variety of ways you can express your own story. Pay attention to the structure, language, and the way they weave their experiences into a cohesive and compelling narrative. After all, stories are king. However, don't expect to find a perfect blueprint that you can copy. Personal statements are (and should be) unique to each writer.

Show, Don't Tell

Rather than listing your qualities, like compassion or drive, it's more effective to illustrate them through real-life examples. The admissions committee wants to see your story unfold through your actions and experiences. Narrate instances where you've actively displayed these traits. This method brings your personal statement to life, making it more engaging and authentic for the readers.

Make It Personal and Relatable

When presenting your experiences, aim for a balance between showcasing your achievements and reflecting on the challenges you've encountered along the way. Share the lessons these experiences taught you. This approach not only adds authenticity and depth to your narrative but also makes it more engaging for the reader.

Maintain a first-person perspective throughout your story. Describe the experience from your viewpoint, incorporating your thoughts, interactions, and reactions to the events. This personal touch allows the reader to see the world through your eyes, creating a more intimate and relatable connection.

Nevertheless, use “I” moderately in your writing. Using "I" too much can lead to focusing on achievements rather than storytelling.

Stay Away from Clichés

Given that many premed students share a common love for science and a desire to help people. Dig deeper into your experiences, we suggest you follow this five-step approach to do so:

• Explain your reasons for seeking out the experience.
• Share your emotions and feelings during the experience.
• Highlight your achievements and the lessons you learned.
• Consider the long-term effects of this experience on you and those around you
• Describe how this experience has influenced your decision to pursue a career in medicine.

Overall, it's not enough to love science; explain how your relationship with science is different from others or how specific life experiences have shaped your approach to medicine.

Review Your Essay

Once you have written your personal statement, the editing and refining process is critical to ensuring its effectiveness and polish.

We suggest that you:

• Seek feedback from trusted mentors or peers. They can offer valuable insights, point out areas that need clarification, suggest improvements, or even identify strengths that you can further emphasize. 
• Proofread to eliminate any grammatical errors or awkward syntax. These mistakes can distract from the content and may leave a negative impression on the admissions committee. It may be helpful to read your statement out loud or use digital tools for grammar checks (e.g. Grammarly or QuillBot)
• Ensure clarity and conciseness by avoiding unnecessary jargon, overly complex sentences, or vague statements. The goal is to convey your experiences and motivations in a straightforward and compelling manner. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid

According to the experts , you should be mindful of these common pitfalls when crafting your personal statement:

• Don’t make excuses, and avoid justifying poor grades or test scores. Instead, focus on positive aspects and growth.
• Be careful not to beg for an interview or acceptance into the program.
• Don't use overly complex words or phrases. Clarity and authenticity are more impactful than fancy language.
• Don’t focus on explaining the field of medicine in your essay to professionals who already understand it. 
• Don't fabricate or exaggerate your experiences. In your interview, you'll have to elaborate on these points, and your exaggeration will be evident.
• Don’t simply reiterate your CV or list your achievements. The personal statement is an opportunity to tell your story.
• Watch for spelling and grammar errors. These mistakes can detract from your statement's professionalism and readability.
• Avoid clichés and obvious statements like "I love science" or "I want to help people." These are overused and don’t add value to your personal story.

Secure Your Spot in Med School

Your personal statement is more than just a part of your application; it's a chance to leave a lasting impact on the admissions committee. Dedicate the necessary time and effort to ensure it's a true reflection of who you are and why you're destined for a career in medicine. However, crafting an assertive essay can be indeed overwhelming. Here’s where Premed Catalyst can help you out.

At Premed Catalyst, we specialize in guiding aspiring medical professionals like you. Our mission is to help you lay a solid foundation and craft a unique narrative for your medical school application, ensuring your essay stands out.

With our personalized mentorship and tailored advice, we focus on your individual journey. Getting started is easy – just fill out a brief form . Take this first step with us, and move closer to wearing the white coat!

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• Medical School Application

Medical School Personal Statement Examples That Got 6 Acceptances

Featured Admissions Expert: Dr. Monica Taneja, MD

These 30 exemplary medical school personal statement examples come from our students who enrolled in one of our application review programs. Most of these examples led to multiple acceptance for our students. For instance, the first example got our student accepted into SIX medical schools. Here's what you'll find in this article: We'll first go over 30 medical school personal statement samples, then we'll provide you a step-by-step guide for composing your own outstanding statement from scratch. If you follow this strategy, you're going to have a stellar statement whether you apply to the most competitive or the easiest medical schools to get into .

>> Want us to help you get accepted? Schedule a free strategy call here . <<

Listen to the blog!

Article Contents 36 min read

Stellar medical school personal statement examples that got multiple acceptances, medical school personal statement example #1.

I made my way to Hillary’s house after hearing about her alcoholic father’s incarceration. Seeing her tearfulness and at a loss for words, I took her hand and held it, hoping to make things more bearable. She squeezed back gently in reply, “thank you.” My silent gesture seemed to confer a soundless message of comfort, encouragement and support.

Through mentoring, I have developed meaningful relationships with individuals of all ages, including seven-year-old Hillary. Many of my mentees come from disadvantaged backgrounds; working with them has challenged me to become more understanding and compassionate. Although Hillary was not able to control her father’s alcoholism and I had no immediate solution to her problems, I felt truly fortunate to be able to comfort her with my presence. Though not always tangible, my small victories, such as the support I offered Hillary, hold great personal meaning. Similarly, medicine encompasses more than an understanding of tangible entities such as the science of disease and treatment—to be an excellent physician requires empathy, dedication, curiosity and love of problem solving. These are skills I have developed through my experiences both teaching and shadowing inspiring physicians.

Medicine encompasses more than hard science. My experience as a teaching assistant nurtured my passion for medicine; I found that helping students required more than knowledge of organic chemistry. Rather, I was only able to address their difficulties when I sought out their underlying fears and feelings. One student, Azra, struggled despite regularly attending office hours. She approached me, asking for help. As we worked together, I noticed that her frustration stemmed from how intimidated she was by problems. I helped her by listening to her as a fellow student and normalizing her struggles. “I remember doing badly on my first organic chem test, despite studying really hard,” I said to Azra while working on a problem. “Really? You’re a TA, shouldn’t you be perfect?” I looked up and explained that I had improved my grades through hard work. I could tell she instantly felt more hopeful, she said, “If you could do it, then I can too!” When she passed, receiving a B+;I felt as if I had passed too. That B+ meant so much: it was a tangible result of Azra’s hard work, but it was also symbol of our dedication to one another and the bond we forged working together.

My passion for teaching others and sharing knowledge emanates from my curiosity and love for learning. My shadowing experiences in particular have stimulated my curiosity and desire to learn more about the world around me. How does platelet rich plasma stimulate tissue growth? How does diabetes affect the proximal convoluted tubule? My questions never stopped. I wanted to know everything and it felt very satisfying to apply my knowledge to clinical problems.

Shadowing physicians further taught me that medicine not only fuels my curiosity; it also challenges my problem solving skills. I enjoy the connections found in medicine, how things learned in one area can aid in coming up with a solution in another. For instance, while shadowing Dr. Steel I was asked, “What causes varicose veins and what are the complications?” I thought to myself, what could it be? I knew that veins have valves and thought back to my shadowing experience with Dr. Smith in the operating room. She had amputated a patient’s foot due to ulcers obstructing the venous circulation. I replied, “veins have valves and valve problems could lead to ulcers.” Dr. Steel smiled, “you’re right, but it doesn’t end there!” Medicine is not disconnected; it is not about interventional cardiology or orthopedic surgery. In fact, medicine is intertwined and collaborative. The ability to gather knowledge from many specialties and put seemingly distinct concepts together to form a coherent picture truly attracts me to medicine.

It is hard to separate science from medicine; in fact, medicine is science. However, medicine is also about people—their feelings, struggles and concerns. Humans are not pre-programmed robots that all face the same problems. Humans deserve sensitive and understanding physicians. Humans deserve doctors who are infinitely curious, constantly questioning new advents in medicine. They deserve someone who loves the challenge of problem solving and coming up with innovative individualized solutions. I want to be that physician. I want to be able to approach each case as a unique entity and incorporate my strengths into providing personalized care for my patients. Until that time, I may be found Friday mornings in the operating room, peering over shoulders, dreaming about the day I get to hold the drill.

Let's take a step back to consider what this medical school personal statement example does, not just what it says. It begins with an engaging hook in the first paragraph and ends with a compelling conclusion. The introduction draws you in, making the essay almost impossible to put down, while the conclusion paints a picture of someone who is both passionate and dedicated to the profession. In between the introduction and conclusion, this student makes excellent use of personal narrative. The anecdotes chosen demonstrate this individual's response to the common question, " Why do you want to be a doctor ?" while simultaneously making them come across as compassionate, curious, and reflective. The essay articulates a number of key qualities and competencies, which go far beyond the common trope, I want to be a doctor because I want to help people.

This person is clearly a talented writer, but this was the result of several rounds of edits with one of our medical school admissions consulting team members and a lot of hard work on the student's part. If your essay is not quite there yet, or if you're just getting started, don't sweat it. Do take note that writing a good personal essay takes advanced planning and significant effort.

I was one of those kids who always wanted to be doctor. I didn’t understand the responsibilities and heartbreaks, the difficult decisions, and the years of study and training that go with the title, but I did understand that the person in the white coat stood for knowledge, professionalism, and compassion. As a child, visits to the pediatrician were important events. I’d attend to my hair and clothes, and travel to the appointment in anticipation. I loved the interaction with my doctor. I loved that whoever I was in the larger world, I could enter the safe space of the doctor’s office, and for a moment my concerns were heard and evaluated. I listened as my mother communicated with the doctor. I’d be asked questions, respectfully examined, treatments and options would be weighed, and we would be on our way. My mother had been supported in her efforts to raise a well child, and I’d had a meaningful interaction with an adult who cared for my body and development. I understood medicine as an act of service, which aligned with my values, and became a dream.

I was hospitalized for several months as a teenager and was inspired by the experience, despite the illness. In the time of diagnosis, treatment and recovery, I met truly sick children. Children who were much more ill than me. Children who wouldn’t recover. We shared a four-bed room, and we shared our medical stories. Because of the old hospital building, there was little privacy in our room, and we couldn’t help but listen-in during rounds, learning the medical details, becoming “experts” in our four distinct cases. I had more mobility than some of the patients, and when the medical team and family members were unavailable, I’d run simple errands for my roommates, liaise informally with staff, and attend to needs. To bring physical relief, a cold compress, a warmed blanket, a message to a nurse, filled me with such an intense joy and sense of purpose that I applied for a volunteer position at the hospital even before my release.

I have since been volunteering in emergency departments, out-patient clinics, and long term care facilities. While the depth of human suffering is at times shocking and the iterations of illness astounding, it is in the long-term care facility that I had the most meaningful experiences by virtue of my responsibilities and the nature of the patients’ illnesses. Charles was 55 when he died. He had early onset Parkinson’s Disease with dementia that revealed itself with a small tremor when he was in his late twenties. Charles had a wife and three daughters who visited regularly, but whom he didn’t often remember. Over four years as a volunteer, my role with the family was to fill in the spaces left by Charles’ periodic inability to project his voice as well as his growing cognitive lapses. I would tell the family of his activities between their visits, and I would remind him of their visits and their news. This was a hard experience for me. I watched as 3 daughters, around my own age, incrementally lost their father. I became angry, and then I grew even more determined.

In the summer of third year of my Health Sciences degree, I was chosen to participate in an undergraduate research fellowship in biomedical research at my university. As part of this experience, I worked alongside graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, medical students, physicians, and faculty in Alzheimer’s research into biomarkers that might predict future disease. We collaborated in teams, and by way of the principal investigator’s careful leadership, I learned wherever one falls in terms of rank, each contribution is vital to the outcome. None of the work is in isolation. For instance, I was closely mentored by Will, a graduate student who had been in my role the previous summer. He, in turn, collaborated with post docs and medical students, turning to faculty when roadblocks were met. While one person’s knowledge and skill may be deeper than another’s, individual efforts make up the whole. Working in this team, aside from developing research skills, I realized that practicing medicine is not an individual pursuit, but a collaborative commitment to excellence in scholarship and leadership, which all begins with mentorship.

Building on this experience with teamwork in the lab, I participated in a global health initiative in Nepal for four months, where I worked alongside nurses, doctors, and translators. I worked in mobile rural health camps that offered tuberculosis care, monitored the health and development of babies and children under 5, and tended to minor injuries. We worked 11-hour days helping hundreds of people in the 3 days we spent in each location. Patients would already be in line before we woke each morning. I spent each day recording basic demographic information, blood pressure, pulse, temperature, weight, height, as well as random blood sugar levels, for each patient, before they lined up to see a doctor. Each day was exhausting and satisfying. We helped so many people. But this satisfaction was quickly displaced by a developing understanding of issues in health equity.

My desire to be doctor as a young person was not misguided, but simply naïve. I’ve since learned the role of empathy and compassion through my experiences as a patient and volunteer. I’ve broadened my contextual understanding of medicine in the lab and in Nepal. My purpose hasn’t changed, but what has developed is my understanding that to be a physician is to help people live healthy, dignified lives by practicing both medicine and social justice.

28 More Medical School Personal Statement Examples That Got Accepted

What my sister went through pushed me to strengthen my knowledge in medical education, patient care, and research. These events have influenced who I am today and helped me determine my own passions. I aspire to be a doctor because I want to make miracles, like my sister, happen. Life is something to cherish; it would not be the same if I did not have one of my four sisters to spend it with. As all stories have endings, I hope that mine ends with me fulfilling my dream of being a doctor, which has been the sole focus of my life to this point. I would love nothing more than to dedicate myself to such a rewarding career, where I achieve what those doctors did for my family. Their expertise allowed my sister to get all the care she needed for her heart, eyes, lungs, and overall growth. Those physicians gave me more than just my little sister, they gave me the determination and focus needed to succeed in the medical field, and for that, I am forever grateful. ","label":"Medical School Personal Statement Example #3","title":"Medical School Personal Statement Example #3"}]" code="tab4" template="BlogArticle">

I came to America, leaving my parents and friends behind, to grasp my chance at a better future. I believe this chance is now in front of me. Medicine is the only path I truly desire because it satisfies my curiosity about the human body and it allows me to directly interact with patients. I do not want to miss this chance to further hone my skills and knowledge, in order to provide better care for my patients. ","label":"Medical School Personal Statement #4","title":"Medical School Personal Statement #4"}]" code="tab5" template="BlogArticle">

The time I have spent in various medical settings has confirmed my love for the field. Regardless of the environment, I am drawn to patients and their stories, like that scared young boy at AMC. I am aware that medicine is a constantly changing landscape; however, one thing that has remained steadfast over the years is putting the patient first, and I plan on doing this as a physician. All of my experiences have taught me a great deal about patient interaction and global health, however, I am left wanting more. I crave more knowledge to help patients and become more useful in the healthcare sector. I am certain medical school is the path that will help me reach my goal. One day, I hope to use my experiences to become an amazing doctor like the doctors that treated my sister, so I can help other children like her. ","label":"Medical School Personal Statement Example #5","title":"Medical School Personal Statement Example #5"}]" code="tab6" template="BlogArticle">

My interest in the field of medicine has developed overtime, with a common theme surrounding the importance of personal health and wellness. Through my journey in sports, travelling, and meeting some incredible individuals such as Michael, I have shifted my focus from thinking solely about the physical well-being, to understanding the importance of mental, spiritual, and social health as well. Being part of a profession that emphasizes continuous education, and application of knowledge to help people is very rewarding, and I will bring compassion, a hard work ethic and an attitude that is always focused on bettering patient outcomes. ","label":"Medical School Personal Statement Example # 7","title":"Medical School Personal Statement Example # 7"}]" code="tab8" template="BlogArticle">

Medicine embodies a hard science, but it is ultimately a profession that treats people. I have seen firsthand that medicine is not a \u201cone-treatment-fits-all\u201d practice, as an effective physician takes a holistic approach. This is the type of physician I aspire to be: one who refuses to shy away from the humanity of patients and their social context, and one who uses research and innovation to improve the human condition. So, when I rethink \u201cwhy medicine?\u201d, I know it\u2019s for me \u2013 because it is a holistic discipline, because it demands all of me, because I am ready to absorb the fascinating knowledge and science that dictates human life, and engage with humanity in a way no other profession allows for. Until the day that I dawn the coveted white coat, you can find me in inpatient units, comforting the many John\u2019s to come, or perhaps at the back of an operating room observing a mitral valve repair \u2013 dreaming of the day the puck is in my zone. ","label":"Medical School Personal Statement Example #8","title":"Medical School Personal Statement Example #8"}]" code="tab9" template="BlogArticle">

When I signed up to be a live DJ, I didn't know that the oral skills I practiced on-air would influence all aspects of my life, let alone lead me to consider a career in the art of healing. I see now, though, the importance of these key events in my life that have allowed me to develop excellent communication skills--whether that be empathic listening, reading and giving non-verbal cues, or verbal communication. I realize I have always been on a path towards medicine. Ultimately, I aim to continue to strengthen my skills as I establish my role as a medical student and leader: trusting my choices, effectively communicating, and taking action for people in need. ","label":"Medical School Personal Statement Example #9","title":"Medical School Personal Statement Example #9"}]" code="tab10" template="BlogArticle">

\u201cWhy didn\u2019t I pursue medicine sooner?\u201d Is the question that now occupies my mind. Leila made me aware of the unprofessional treatment delivered by some doctors. My subsequent activities confirmed my desire to become a doctor who cares deeply for his patients and provides the highest quality care. My passion for research fuels my scientific curiosity. I will continue to advocate for patient equality and fairness. Combining these qualities will allow me to succeed as a physician. ","label":"Medical School Personal Statement Example #10","title":"Medical School Personal Statement Example #10"}]" code="tab11" template="BlogArticle">

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Please note that all personal statements are the property of the students who wrote them, re-printed with permission. Names and identifying characteristics have been changed. Plagiarism detection software is used when evaluating personal statements. Plagiarism is grounds for disqualification from the application. ","label":"NOTE","title":"NOTE"}]" code="tab2" template="BlogArticle">

As one of the most important  medical school requirements , the personal statement tells your story of why you decided to pursue the medical profession. Keep in mind that personal statements are one of the key factors that affect medical school acceptance rates . This is why it's important to write a stellar essay!

“Personal statements are often emphasized in your application to medical school as this singular crucial factor that distinguishes you from every other applicant. Demonstrating the uniqueness of my qualities is precisely how I found myself getting multiple interviews and offers into medical school.” – Dr. Vincent Adeyemi, MD

But this is easier said than done. In fact, medical school personal statements remain one of the most challenging parts of students' journeys to medical school. Here's our student Melissa sharing her experience of working on her personal statement:

"I struggled making my personal statement personal... I couldn't incorporate my feelings, motives and life stories that inspired me to pursue medicine into my personal statement" -Melissa, BeMo Student

Our student Rishi, who is now a student at the Carver College of Medicine , learned about the importance of the medical school personal statement the hard way:

"If you're a reapplicant like me, you know we all dread it but you have to get ready to answer what has changed about your application that we should accept you this time. I had an existing personal statement that did not get me in the first time so there was definitely work to be done." - Rishi, BeMo Student

The importance of the medical school personal statement can actually increase if you are applying to medical school with any red flags or setbacks, as our student Kannan did:

"I got 511 on my second MCAT try... My goal was anything over median of 510 so anything over that was honestly good with me because it's just about [creating] a good personal statement at that point... I read online about how important the personal statement [is]... making sure [it's] really polished and so that's when I decided to get some professional help." - Kannan, BeMo Student

As you can see from these testimonials, your medical school personal statement can really make a difference. So we are here to help you get started writing your own personal statement. Let's approach this step-by-step. Below you will see how we will outline the steps to creating your very best personal statement. And don't forget that if you need to see more examples, you can also check out our AMCAS personal statement examples, AACOMAS personal statement examples and TMDSAS personal statement examples to further inspire you!

Here's a quick run-down of what we'll cover in the article:

Now let's dive in deeper!

#1 Understanding the Qualities of a Strong Med School Personal Statement

Before discussing how to write a strong medical school personal statement, we first need to understand the qualities of a strong essay. Similar to crafting strong medical school secondary essays , writing a strong personal statement is a challenging, yet extremely important, part of your MD or MD-PhD programs applications. Your AMCAS Work and Activities section may show the reader what you have done, but the personal statement explains why. This is how Dr. Neel Mistry, MD and our admissions expert, prepared for his medical school personal statement writing:

"The personal statement is an opportunity for you to shine and really impress the committee to invite you for an interview. The personal statement is your chance to be reflective and go beyond what is stated on your CV and [activities]. In order to stand out, it is important to answer the main questions [of medical school personal statements] well: a bit about yourself and what led you to medicine, why you would make an ideal medical student and future physician, what attracts you to [medicine], and what sets you apart from the other candidates. The key here is answering the last two questions well. Most candidates simply highlight what they have done, but do not reflect on it or mention how what they have done has prepared them for a future medical career." - Dr. Neel Mistry, MD

“my essay also focused on volunteering in the local health clinic during the many summer breaks. volunteering was more than just another activity to tick off my bucket list for my medical school … i volunteered because i wanted to view medical practice through the lenses of already qualified doctors, not because i needed a reason to be a doctor. i understood that the admissions committee would be more interested in how i was motivated.” – dr. vincent adeyemi, md.

A personal statement should be deeply personal, giving the admissions committee insight into your passions and your ultimate decision to pursue a career in medicine. A compelling and introspective personal statement can make the difference between getting an interview and facing medical school rejection . Review our blogs to find out how to prepare for med school interviews and learn the most common medical school interview questions .

As you contemplate the task in front of you, you may be wondering what composing an essay has to do with entering the field of medicine. Many of our students were surprised to learn that medical school personal statements are so valued by med schools. The two things are more closely related than you think. A compelling personal statement demonstrates your written communication skills and highlights your accomplishments, passions, and aspirations. The ability to communicate a complex idea in a short space is an important skill as a physician. You should demonstrate your communication skills by writing a concise and meaningful statement that illustrates your best attributes. Leaving a lasting impression on your reader is what will lead to interview invitations.

A quick note: if you are applying to schools that do not require the formal medical school personal statement, such as medical schools in Canada , you should still learn how to write such essays. Many medical schools in Ontario , for example, ask for short essays for supplementary questionnaires. These are very similar to the personal statement. Knowing how to brainstorm, write, and format your answers is key to your success!!!

You want to give yourself as much time as possible to write your statement. Do not think you can do this in an evening or even in a week. Some statements take months. My best statement took almost a year to get right. Allow yourself time and start early to avoid added stress. Think of the ideas you want to include and brainstorm possible ways to highlight these ideas. Ask your friends for ideas or even brainstorm your ideas with people you trust. Get some feedback early to make sure you are headed in the right direction.

“I wrote scores of essays at my desk in those few weeks leading up to application submission. I needed it to be perfect. Do not let anyone tell you to settle. There was no moment when I had this shining light from the sky filtering into my room to motivate me. The ultimate trick is to keep writing. It is impossible to get that perfect essay on the first try, and you may not even get it on your fifteenth attempt, but the goal is to keep at it, keep making those edits, and never back down.” – Dr. Vincent Adeyemi, MD

All personal statements for medical school, often start by explaining why medicine is awesome; the admission committee already knows that. You should explain why you want a career in medicine. What is it about the practice of medicine that resonates with who you are? Naturally, this takes a lot of reflection around who you are. Here are some additional questions you can consider as you go about brainstorming for your essay:

• What motivates you to learn more about medicine?
• What is something you want them to know about you that isn't in your application?
• Where were you born, how did you grow up, and what type of childhood did you have growing up (perhaps including interesting stories about your siblings, parents, grandparents)?
• What kinds of early exposure to the medical field left an impression on you as a child?
• Did you become familiar with and interested in the field of medicine at an early stage of your life? If so, why?
• What are your key strengths, and how have you developed these?
• What steps did you take to familiarize yourself with the medical profession?
• Did you shadow a physician? Did you volunteer or work in a clinical setting? Did you get involved in medical research?
• What challenges have you faced? Have these made an impact on what you chose to study?
• What are your favorite activities?
• What kinds of extracurriculars for medical school or volunteer work have you done, and how have these shaped who you are, your priorities, and or your perspectives on a career in medicine?
• What was your "Aha!" moment?
• When did your desire to become a doctor solidify?
• How did you make the decision to apply to medical school?

You shouldn't try to answer all of these in your essay. Try only a few main points that will carry over into the final draft. Use these to brainstorm and gather ideas. Start developing your narrative by prioritizing the most impactful responses to these prompts and the ideas that are most relevant to your own experiences and goals. The perfect personal statement not only shows the admissions committee that you have refined communication skills, but also conveys maturity and professionalism. It should also display your motivation and suitability for medical practice. Here's how our student Alison, who was a non-traditional applicant with a serious red flag in her application, used her brainstorming sessions with our admissions experts to get a theme going in her medical school personal statement and her overall application package:

"I think it was during my brainstorming session that we really started talking about... what the theme [was] going to be for my application. And I think that was really helpful in and of itself. Just [reflecting] 'Hey, what's your focus going to be like? How are we going to write this? What's the style going to be?' Just to create an element of consistency throughout..." Alison, BeMo Student, current student at Dell Medical School 

After brainstorming, you should be able to clearly see a few key ideas, skills, qualities, and intersections that you want to write about. Once you've isolated the elements you want to explore in your essay (usually 2-4 key ideas), you can begin building your outline. In terms of structure, this should follow the standard academic format, with an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

As you begin thinking about what to include in your personal essay, remember that you are writing for a specific audience with specific expectations. Your evaluator will be familiar with the key qualities desired by medical schools, as informed by the standards of the profession. But keep in mind that they too are human, and they respond well to well-crafted, engaging essays that tell a story. Here's what our student Alison had to share about keeping your audience in mind when writing your personal statement:

"Make it easy for the reader to be able to work [their] way through [your personal statement]. Because, at the end of the day, I think one thing that helped me a lot was being able to think about who was going to be reading this application and it's going to be these people that are sitting around a desk or sitting at a table and [go] through massive numbers of applications every single day. And the easier and more digestible that you can make it for them, gives you a little bit of a win." - Alison, BeMo student, current student at Dell Medical School

The admissions committee will be examining your essay through the lens of their particular school's mission, values, and priorities. You should think about your experiences with reference to the AAMC Core Competencies and to each school's mission statement so that you're working toward your narrative with the institution and broader discipline in mind.

Review AAMC Core Competencies : The AAMC Core Competencies are the key characteristics and skills sought by U.S. medical schools. These are separated into three general categories:

You are not expected to have mastered all of these competencies at this stage of your education. Display those that are relevant to your experiences will help demonstrate your commitment to the medical profession.

Review the school's mission statement: Educational institutions put a lot of time and care into drafting their school's vision. The mission statement will articulate the overall values and priorities of each university, giving you insight into what they might seek in candidates, and thus what you should try to display in your personal statement. Echoing the values of the university helps illustrate that you are a good fit for their intellectual culture. The mission statement may help you identify other priorities of the university, for example, whether they prioritize research-based or experiential-based education. All this research into your chosen medical schools will help you tremendously not only when you write you personal statement, but also the rest of your medical school application components, including your medical school letter of intent if you ever need to write one later.

Just like the personal statement is, in essence, a prompt without a prompt. They give you free rein to write your own prompt to tell your story. This is often difficult for students as they find it hard to get started without having a true direction. Below is a list of ideas to get your creative juices flowing. Use these prompts as a starting point for your essay. Also, they are a great way of addressing why you want to be a doctor without saying something generic.

• The moment your passion for medicine crystallized
• The events that led you toward this path
• Specific instances in which you experienced opportunities
• Challenges that helped shape your worldview
• Your compassion, resilience, or enthusiastic collaboration
• Demonstrate your commitment to others
• Your dependability
• Your leadership skills
• Your ability to problem-solve or to resolve a conflict

These are personal, impactful experiences that only you have had. Focus on the personal, and connect that to the values of your future profession. Do that and you will avoid writing the same essay as everyone else. Dr. Monica Taneja, MD and our admissions expert, shares her tip that got her accepted to the University of Maryland School of Medicine :

"I focused on my journey to medicine and opportunities that I sought out along the way. Everyone’s path and validation is unique, so walking the reader through your growth to the point of application will naturally be different, but that's what I wanted to share in my personal statement." - Dr. Monica Taneja, MD

“the essay is not about what you have been through; it's about who it made you into.” – dr. vincent adeyemi, md.

Admissions committees don't want your resumé in narrative form. The most boring essays are those of applicants listing their accomplishments. Remember, all that stuff is already in the activities section of the application. This is where you should discuss interesting or important life events that shaped you and your interest in medicine (a service trip to rural Guatemala, a death in the family, a personal experience as a patient). One suggestion is to have an overarching theme to your essay to tie everything together, starting with an anecdote. Alternatively, you can use one big metaphor or analogy through the essay. Dr. Jaime Cazes, MD and experienced admissions committee member of the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine, encourages you to be creative when it comes to the theme of your personal statement:

"It is very easy to make the “cookie cutter” personal statement. To a reviewer who is reading tens of these at a time it can become quite boring. What I did was [tell] a story. Like any good novel, the stories' first lines are meant to hook the reader. This can be about anything if you can bring it back and relate it to your application. It could be about the time your friend was smashed up against the boards in hockey and you, with your limited first aid experience helped to treat him. It is important that the story be REAL." - Dr. Jaime Cazes, MD, University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine

Your personal statement must be well-organized, showing a clear, logical progression, as well as connections between ideas. It is generally best to use a chronological progression since this mirrors your progression into a mature adult and gives you the opportunity to illustrate how you learned from early mistakes later on. Carry the theme throughout the statement to achieve continuity and cohesion. Use the theme to links ideas from each paragraph to the next and to unite your piece.

Medical School Personal Statement Structure

When working toward the initial draft of your essay, it is important to keep the following in mind: The essay should read like a chronological narrative and have good structure and flow. Just like any academic essay, it will need an introduction, body content, and a conclusion. If you're wondering whether a medical school advisor can help you with your medical school application, check out our blog for the answer.

Check out our video to learn how to create a killer introduction to your medical school personal statement:

Introduction

The introductory paragraph and, even more importantly, the introductory sentence of your essay, will most certainly make or break your overall statement. Ensure that you have a creative and captivating opening sentence that draws the reader in. This is your first and only chance to make a first impression and really capture the attention of the committee. Starting with an event or an Aha! moment that inspired your decision to pursue a medical profession is one way to grab their attention. The kinds of things that inspire or motivate you can say a lot about who you are as a person.

The broader introductory paragraph itself should serve several functions. First, it must draw your reader in with an eye-catching first line and an engaging hook or anecdote. It should point toward the qualities that most effectively demonstrate your desire and suitability for becoming a physician (you will discuss these qualities further in the body paragraphs). The thesis of the introduction is that you have certain skills, experiences, and characteristics and that these skills, experiences, and characteristics will lead you to thrive in the field of medicine. Finally, it must also serve as a roadmap to the reader, allowing them to understand where the remainder of the story is headed.

That is a lot of work for a single paragraph to do. To better help you envision what this looks like in practice, here is a sample introduction that hits these main points.

I was convinced I was going to grow up to be a professional chef. This was not just another far-fetched idealistic childhood dream that many of us had growing up. There was a sense of certainty about this dream that motivated me to devote countless hours to its practice. It was mostly the wonder that it brought to others and the way they were left in awe after they tried a dish that I recall enjoying the most creating as a young chef. But, when I was 13, my grandfather was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, and I realized that sometimes cooking is not enough, as I quickly learned about the vital role physicians play in the life of everyday people like my family and myself. Although my grandfather ended up passing away from his illness, the impact that the healthcare team had on him, my family, and I will always serve as the initial starting point of my fascination with the medical profession. Since that time, I have spent years learning more about the human sciences through my undergraduate studies and research, have developed a deeper understanding of the demands and challenges of the medical profession through my various volunteer and extra-curricular experiences, and although it has been difficult along the way, I have continued to forge a more intimate fascination with the medical field that has motivated me to apply to medical school at this juncture of my life. ","label":"Sample Introduction","title":"Sample Introduction"}]" code="tab3" template="BlogArticle">

In the body of your essay, you essentially want to elaborate on the ideas that you have introduced in your opening paragraph by drawing on your personal experiences to provide evidence. Major points from the above sample introduction could be: dedication and resilience (practicing cooking for hours, and devoting years to undergraduate studies in human sciences), passion and emotional connection (being able to create something that inspired awe in others, and personally connecting with the work of the grandfather's healthcare team), motivation and drive (being inspired by the role physicians play in their patients' lives, participating in volunteer work and extracurriculars, and an enduring fascination with the field of medicine). Depending on the details, a selection of volunteer and extra-curricular experiences might also be discussed in more detail, in order to emphasize other traits like collaboration, teamwork, perseverance, or a sense of social responsibility – all key characteristics sought by medical schools. Just like an academic essay, you will devote one paragraph to each major point, explaining this in detail, supporting your claims with experiences from your life, and reflecting on the meaning of each plot point in your personal narrative, with reference to why you want to pursue a medical career.

Your final statement should not be a simple summary of the things you have discussed. It should be insightful, captivating, and leave the reader with a lasting impression. Although you want to re-emphasize the major ideas of your essay, you should try to be creative and captivating, much like your opening paragraph. Sometimes if you can link your opening idea to your last paragraph it will really tie the whole essay together. The conclusion is just as important as the introduction. It is your last chance to express your medical aspirations. You want to impress the reader while also leaving them wanting more. In this case, more would mean getting an interview so they can learn more about who you are! Leave them thinking I have got to meet this person.

The narrative you construct should display some of your most tightly held values, principles, or ethical positions, along with key accomplishments and activities. If you see yourself as someone who is committed to community service, and you have a track record of such service, your story should feature this and provide insight into why you care about your community and what you learned from your experiences. Saying that you value community service when you've never volunteered a day in your life is pointless. Stating that your family is one where we support each other through challenge and loss (if this is indeed true), is excellent because it lays the groundwork for telling a story while showing that you are orientated towards close relationships. You would then go on to offer a brief anecdote that supports this. You are showing how you live such principles, rather than just telling your reader that you have such principles:

"Remember to use specific personal examples throughout your statement to make it more impactful and memorable for the readers. Often, painting a picture in the reader’s mind in the form of a story helps with this." - Dr. Neel Mistry, MD

A lot of students make the mistake of verbalizing their personal attributes with a bunch of adjectives, such as, "This experience taught me to be a self-reliant leader, with excellent communication skills, and empathy for others..." In reality, this does nothing to convey these qualities. It's a mistake to simply list your skills or characteristics without showing the reader an example of a time you used them to solve a problem. If you simply list your skills or characteristics (telling), without demonstrating the ways you have applied them (showing), you risk coming across as arrogant. The person reading the essay may not believe you, as you've not really given them a way to see such values in your actions. It is better to construct a narrative to show the reader that you possess the traits that medical schools are looking for, rather than explicitly stating that you are an empathetic individual or capable of deep self-reflection. Instead of listing adjectives, tell your personal story and allow the admissions committee to paint the picture for themselves. This step is very challenging for many students, but it's one of the most important strategies used in successful essays. Writing this way will absolutely make your statement stand out from the rest.

While it may be tempting to write in a high academic tone, using terminology or jargon that is often complex or discipline-specific, requiring a specialized vocabulary for comprehension. You should actually aim to write for a non-specialist audience. Remember, in the world of medicine, describing a complex, clinical condition to a patient requires using specific but clear words. This is why your personal statement should show that you can do the same thing. Using large words in unwieldy ways makes you sound like you are compensating for poor communication skills. Use words that you believe most people understand. Read your personal statement back to a 14-year-old, and then again to someone for whom English is not their first language, to see if you're on the right path.

Ultimately, fancy words do not make you a good communicator; listening and ensuring reader comprehension makes you a good communicator. Instead of using complex terminology to tell the admissions committee that you have strong communication skills, show them your communication skills through clear, accessible prose, written with non-specialists in mind. A common refrain among writing instructors is, never use a $10 word where a $2 word will suffice. If you can say it in plain, accessible language, then this is what you should do.

Display Professionalism

Professionalism may seem like a difficult quality to display when only composing a personal statement. After all, the reader can't see your mannerisms, your personal style, or any of those little qualities that allow someone to appear professional. Professionalism is about respect for the experience of others on your team or in your workplace. It is displayed when you are able to step back from your own individual position and think about what is best for your colleagues and peers, considering their needs alongside your own. If a story is relevant to why you want to be a physician and demonstrates an example of how you were professional in a workplace setting, then it is appropriate to include in your essay.

One easy way to destroy a sense of professionalism is to act in a judgmental way towards others, particularly if you perceived and ultimately resolved an error on someone else's part. Sometimes students blame another medical professional for something that went wrong with a patient.

They might say something to the effect of, "The nurse kept brushing off the patient's concerns, refusing to ask the attending to increase her pain medications. Luckily, being the empathetic individual that I am, I took the time to listen to sit with the patient, eventually bringing her concerns to the attending physician, who thanked me for letting him know."

There are a couple of things wrong with this example. It seems like this person is putting down someone else in an attempt to make themselves look better. They come across as un-empathetic and judgmental of the nurse. Maybe she was having a busy day, or maybe the attending had just seen the patient for this issue and the patient didn't really need re-assessment. Reading this kind of account in a personal statement makes the reader question the maturity of the applicant and their ability to move past blaming others and resolve problems in a meaningful way. Instead of allocating blame, identify what the problem was for the patient and then focus on what you did to resolve it and reflect on what you learned from the whole experience.

One last note on professionalism: Being professional does not mean being overly stoic, hiding your emotions, or cultivating a bland personality. A lot of students are afraid to talk about how a situation made them feel in their personal statement. They worry that discussing feelings is inappropriate and will appear unprofessional. Unfortunately for these students, emotional intelligence is hugely important to the practice of medicine. In order to be a good doctor, one must be aware of their own emotions as well as those of their patients. Good doctors are able to quickly identify their own emotions and understand how their emotional reactions may inform their actions, and the ability to deliver appropriate care, in a given situation. Someone who is incapable of identifying their emotions is also incapable of managing them effectively and will likely struggle to identify the emotions of others. So, when writing your personal statement, think about how each experience made you feel, and what you learned from those feelings and that experience.

How to Write About Discrepancies and Common Mistakes to Avoid

Part of your essay's body can include a discussion of any discrepancies or gaps in your education, or disruptions in your academic performance. If you had to take time off, or if you had a term or course with low grades, or if you had any other extenuating circumstances that impacted your education, you can take time to address these here. It is very important to address these strategically. Do not approach this section as space to plead your case. Offer a brief summary of the situation, and then emphasize what you learned from such hardships. Always focus on the positive, illustrating how such difficulties made you stronger, more resilient, or more compassionate. Connect your experiences to the qualities desired by medical schools. Here's how I student Alison address an academic discrepancy in her application:

I had an academic dishonesty during undergrad, which, at the time, ended up being this big misunderstanding. But I was going to appeal this and get it off my record. I was supposed to start nursing school two weeks after this whole ordeal had gone down and, at our university, if you try to appeal your academic dishonesty then you'd have to take an incomplete in that class and I needed this class in order to start nursing school. So I wasn't able to [appeal]. So when I talked with the people at the nursing school they were like ‘it's no big deal, it's fine’. [But] it came back and it haunted me very much. When I was applying [to medical school] I started looking online [to see] how big of a deal is it to have this ‘red flag’ on my application. I started reading all of these horror stories on Student Doctor Network and all of these other forums about how if you have an academic dishonesty you shouldn't even bother applying, that you'll never get in. Schools will blacklist you and I was [wondering] what am I going do. [My advisor suggested I use the essay to talk about my discrepancy]. 

First off, if anyone out there has an academic violation don't read student doctor network. don't listen to anybody. you absolutely are still a potential medical student and schools are not going to blacklist you just because of one mistake that you made. that's all lies. don't listen to them. i don't even think it came up a single time during any of my interviews. i think a lot of that came back to how i wrote that essay and the biggest advice that i can give that i got from the [bemo] team is explain what happened… just give the facts. be very objective about it. in the last two thirds [of the essay] you want to focus on what you learned from it and how it made you a better person and how it's going to make you a better physician.” – alison, bemo student, current student at dell medical school.

We hope many of you find a peace of mind when you read Alison's story. Because it shows that with the right approach to your medical school personal statement, you can overcome even red flags or setbacks that made you dread the application process. Use your personal statement to emphasize your ability to persevere through it all but do so in a positive way. Most of all, if you feel like you have to explain yourself, take accountability for the situation. State that it is unfortunate and then redirect it to what you learned and how it will make you a better doctor. Always focus on being positive and do not lament on the negative situation too much.

Additional Mistakes to Avoid in Personal Statements:

Check out this video on the top 5 errors to avoid in your personal statement!

Step 3: Writing Your First Draft

As you can see, there is a LOT of planning and consideration to be done before actually starting your first draft. Properly brainstorming, outlining, and considering the content and style of your essay prior to beginning the essay will make the writing process much smoother than it would be you to try to jump right to the draft-writing stage. Now, you're not just staring at a blank page wondering what you could possibly write to impress the admissions committee. Instead, you've researched what the school desires from its students and what the medical profession prioritizes in terms of personal characteristics, you've sketched out some key moments from your life that exemplify those traits, and you have a detailed outline that just needs filling in.

As you're getting started, focus on getting content on the page, filling in your outline and getting your ideas arranged on the page. Your essay will go through multiple drafts and re-writes, so the first step is to free write and start articulating connections between your experiences and the characteristics you're highlighting. You can worry about flow, transitions, and perfect grammar in later drafts. The first draft is always a working draft, written with the understanding that its purpose is to act as a starting point, not an ending point. Once you've completed a draft, you can begin the revising process. The next section will break down what to do once you have your first draft completed.

You can also begin looking at things like style, voice, transitions, and overall theme. The best way to do this is to read your essay aloud. This may sound strange, but it is one of the single most impactful bits of writing advice a student can receive. When we're reading in our heads (and particularly when we're reading our own words), it is easy to skip over parts that may be awkwardly worded, or where the grammar is off. As our brains process information differently, depending on whether we're taking in visual or auditory information, this can also help you understand where the connections between ideas aren't as evident as you would like. Reading the essay aloud will help you begin internalizing the narrative you've crafted, so that you can come to more easily express this both formally in writing and informally in conversation (for example, in an interview).

#1 Did You Distinguish Yourself From Others?

Does your narrative sound unique? Is it different than your peers or did you write in a generic manner? Our admissions expert Dr. Monica Taneja, MD, shares how she got the attention of the admissions committee with her personal statement:

"I also found it helpful to give schools a 'punch-line'. As in I wanted them to remember 1-2 things about me that are my differentiators and I reiterated those throughout [the personal statement]." - Dr. Monica Taneja, MD

Use your narrative to provide a compelling picture of who you are as a person, as a learner, as an advocate, and as a future medical professional. What can you offer? Remember, you will be getting a lot out of your med school experience, but the school will be getting a lot out of you, as well. You will be contributing your research efforts to your department, you will be participating in the academic community, and as you go on to become a successful medical professional you will impact the perception of your school's prestige. This is a mutually beneficial relationship, so use this opportunity to highlight what you bring to the table, and what you will contribute as a student at their institution. Let them know what it is about you that is an attribute to their program. Make them see you as a stand out from the crowd.

#2 Does My Essay Flow and is it Comprehensible?

Personal statements are a blessing and a curse for admission committees. They give them a better glimpse of who the applicant is than simple scores. Also, they are long and time-consuming to read. And often, they sound exactly alike. On occasion, a personal statement really makes an applicant shine. After reading page after page of redundant, cookie-cutter essays, an essay comes along with fluid prose and a compelling narrative, the reader snaps out of that feeling of monotony and gladly extends their enthusiastic attention.

Frankly, if the statement is pleasant to read, it will get read with more attention and appreciation. Flow is easier to craft through narrative, which is why you should root the statement in a story that demonstrates characteristics desirable to medical schools. Fluidity takes time to build, though, so your statement should be etched out through many drafts and should also be based on an outline. You need to brainstorm, then outline, then draft and re-draft, and then bring in editors and listeners for feedback (Note: You need someone to proofread your work. Bestselling authors have editors. Top scholars have editors. I need an editor. You need an editor. Everyone needs an editor). Then, check and double-check and fix anything that needs fixing. Then check again. Then submit. You want this to be a statement that captures the reader's interest by creating a fluid, comprehensible piece that leads the reader to not only read each paragraph but want to continue to the next sentence.

#3 Did You Check Your Grammar?

If you give yourself more than one night to write your statement, the chances of grammatical errors will decrease considerably. If you are pressed for time, upload your file into an online grammar website. Use the grammar checker on your word processor, but know that this, in itself, isn't enough. Use the eyes and ears of other people to check and double-check your grammar, punctuation, and syntax. Read your statement out loud to yourself and you will almost certainly find an error (and likely several errors). Use fresh eyes to review the statement several times before you actually submit it, by walking away from it for a day or so and then re-reading it. Start your essay early, so that you actually have time to do this. This step can make or break your essay. Do not waste all the effort you have put into writing, to only be discarded by the committee for using incorrect grammar and syntax.

#4 Did You Gather Feedback From Other People?

The most important tip in writing a strong application essay is this getting someone else to read your work. While the tips above are all very useful for writing a strong draft, nothing will benefit you more than getting an outside appraisal of your work. For example, it's very easy to overlook your own spelling or grammatical errors. You know your own story and you may think that your narrative and it's meaning make sense to your reader. You won't know that for sure without having someone else actually read it. This may sound obvious, but it's still an absolute necessity.

“It was very helpful for two of my mentors to review my statements before submitting my application. Ensure you trust the judgement and skills of the person to whom you would be giving your personal statement for review.” – Dr. Vincent Adeyemi, MD

Have someone you trust to read the essay and ask them what they thought of it. What was their impression of you after reading it? Did it make sense? Was it confusing? Do they have any questions? What was the tone of the essay? Do they see the connections you're trying to make? What were their takeaways from your essay, and do these align with your intended takeaways for your reader? Ideally, this person should have some knowledge of the application process or the medical profession, so that they can say whether you were successful in demonstrating that you are a suitable candidate for medical school. However, any external reader is better than no external reader at all.

Avoid having people too close to you read your work. They may refrain from being too critical in an effort to spare your feelings. This is the time to get brutal, honest feedback. If you know someone who is an editor but do not feel that they can be objective, try and find someone else.

Want more examples? Check out our video below:

FAQs and Final Notes

Your personal statement should tell your story and highlight specific experiences or aspects of your journey that have led you to medicine. If your first exposure or interest in the medical field was sparked from your own medical struggles, then you can certainly include this in your statement. What is most important is that you write about what factors or experiences attributed to you deciding that medicine is the right career path for you.

Sometimes students shy away from including their own personal struggles and describing how they felt during difficult times but this is a great way for admissions committees to gain perspective into who you are as a person and where your motivations lie. Remember, this is your story, not someone else's, so your statement should revolve around you. If you choose to discuss a personal hardship, what's most important is that you don't cast yourself as the victim and that you discuss what the experience taught you. Also, medical schools are not allowed to discriminate against students for discussing medical issues, so it is not looked at as a red flag unless you are talking about an issue inappropriately. For example, making yourself appear as the victim or not taking responsibility.

All US medical schools require the completion of a personal statement with your AMCAS, TMDSAS or AACOMAS applications.

Medical schools in Canada on the other hand, do not require or accept personal statements. In lieu of the personal statement, a few of these schools may require you to address a prompt in the form of an essay, or allow you to submit an explanation essay to describe any extenuating circumstances, but this is not the same as the US personal statement. For example, when applying through  OMSAS , the  University of Toronto medical school  requires applicants to complete four short, 250 words or less, personal essays.

Many students struggle with whether or not they should address an unfavorable grade in their personal statement. What one student does isn't necessarily the right decision for you.

To help you decide, think about whether or not that bad grade might reflect on your poorly. If you think it will, then it's best to address the academic misstep head-on instead of having admissions committees dwell on possible areas of concern. If you're addressing a poor evaluation, ensure that you take responsibility for your grade, discuss what you learned and how your performance will be improved in the future - then move on. It's important that you don't play the victim and you must always reflect on what lessons you've learned moving forward.

Of course not, just because you didn't wake up one morning and notice a lightbulb flashing the words medicine, doesn't mean that your experiences and journey to medicine are inferior to those who did. Students arrive to medicine in all sorts of ways, some change career paths later in life, some always knew they wanted to pursue medicine, and others slowly became interested in medicine through their life interactions and experiences. Your personal statement should address your own unique story to how you first became interested in medicine and when and how that interest turned to a concrete desire.

While your entire statement is important, the opening sentence can often make or break your statement. This is because admission committee members are reviewing hundreds, if not thousands of personal statements. If your opening sentence is not eye-catching, interesting, and memorable, you risk your statement blending in with the large pile of other statements. Have a look at our video above for tips and strategies for creating a fantastic opening sentence.

Having your statement reviewed by family and friends can be a good place to start, but unfortunately, it's near-impossible for them to provide you with unbiased feedback. Often, friends and family members are going to support us and rave about our achievements. Even if they may truly think your statement needs work, they may feel uncomfortable giving you their honest feedback at the risk of hurting your feelings.

In addition, family and friends don't know exactly what admission committee members are looking for in a personal statement, nor do they have years of experience reviewing personal statements and helping students put the best version of themselves forward. For these reasons, many students choose to seek the help of a professional medical school advisor to make sure they have the absolute best chances of acceptance to medical school the first time around.

If you have enough time set aside to write your statement without juggling multiple other commitments, it normally takes at least four weeks to write your statement. If you are working, in school, or volunteering and have other commitments, be prepared to spend 6-8 weeks.

Your conclusion should have a summary of the main points you have made in your essay, but it should not just be a summary. You should also end with something that makes the reader want to learn more about you (i.e. call you for an interview). A good way to do this is to include a call-back to your opening anecdote: how have you grown or matured since then? How are you more prepared now to begin medical school?

The goal is to show as many of them as you can in the WHOLE application: this includes your personal statement, sketch, reference letters, secondary essays, and even your GPA and MCAT (which show critical thinking and reasoning already). So, it’s not an issue to focus on only a few select experiences and competencies in the personal statement.

Yes, you can. However, if you used an experience as a most meaningful entry, pick something else to talk about in your essay. Remember, you want to highlight as many core competencies across your whole application). Or, if you do pick the same experience: pick a different specific encounter or project with a different lesson learned.

Once your essay is in good shape, it's best to submit to ensure your application is reviewed as soon as possible. Remember, with rolling admissions, as more time passes before you submit your application, your chances of acceptance decreases. Nerves are normal and wanting to tinker is also normal, but over-analyzing and constant adjustments can actually weaken your essay.

So, if you're thinking about making more changes, it's important to really reflect and think about WHY you want to change something and if it will actually make the essay stronger. If not your changes won't actually make the essay stronger or if it's a very minor change you're thinking of making, then you should likely leave it as is.

The reality is, medical school admission is an extremely competitive process. In order to have the best chance of success, every part of your application must be stellar. Also, every year some students get in whose GPAs or  MCAT scores  are below the median. How? Simply because they must have stood out in other parts of the application, such as the personal statement.

The ones that honestly made the most impact on you. You'll need to reflect on your whole life and think about which experiences helped you grow and pushed you to pursue medicine. Ideally, experiences that show commitment and progression are better than one-off or short-term activities, as they usually contribute more to growth.

Final Notes

This Ultimate Guide has demonstrated all the work that needs to be done to compose a successful, engaging personal statement for your medical school application. While it would be wonderful if there was an easy way to write your personal statement in a day, the reality is that this kind of composition takes a lot of work. As daunting as this may seem, this guide lays out a clear path. In summary, the following 5 steps are the basis of what you should take away from this guide. These 5 steps are your guide and sort of cheat sheet to writing your best personal statement.

5 Main Takeaways For Personal Statement Writing:

• Brainstorming
• Content and Theme
• Multiple Drafts
• Revision With Attention to Grammar

While a strong personal statement alone will not guarantee admission to medical school, it could absolutely squeeze you onto a  medical school waitlist , off the waitlist, and onto the offer list, or give someone on the admissions committee a reason to go to battle for your candidacy. Use this as an opportunity to highlight the incredible skills you've worked and studied to refine, the remarkable life experiences you've had, and the key qualities you possess in your own unique way. Show the admissions committee that you are someone they want to meet. Remember, in this context, wanting to meet you means wanting to bring you in for an interview!

Dr. Lauren Prufer is an admissions expert at BeMo. Dr. Prufer is also a medical resident at McMaster University. Her medical degree is from the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry. During her time in medical school, she developed a passion for sharing her knowledge with others through medical writing, research, and peer mentoring.

To your success,

Your friends at BeMo

BeMo Academic Consulting

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I have been reading posts regarding this topic and this post is one of the most interesting and informative one I have read. Thank you for this!

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Guide to Writing a Medical School Personal Statement

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Don't underestimate the importance of your personal statement in your medical school application . Your GPA and MCAT scores show that you are academically capable, but they do not tell the admissions committee what type of person you are. Who you are matters, and the personal statement is the place to tell your story.

Tips for a Winning Med School Personal Statement

• Make sure your personal statement is "personal." It needs to capture your personality and interests. What makes you uniquely you?
• Clearly and convincingly present your reasons for wanting to attend medical school.
• Don't summarize your activities, accomplishments, or coursework. Other parts of your application will convey that information.
• Use logical organization, flawless grammar, and an engaging style.

The medical school admissions process is holistic , and the admissions folks want to enroll students who are articulate, empathetic, and passionate about medicine. Your personal statement provides you an opportunity to make the case that you have what it takes to succeed in medical school and that you will contribute to the campus community in positive ways.

You will want to put significant thought and time into your personal statement since it will play a role in all of your medical school applications. Nearly all medical schools in the United States use the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS) to manage their applications, much like hundreds of undergraduate institutions use the Common Application. With AMCAS, the prompt for the personal statement is pleasingly (and perhaps frustratingly) broad:

Use the space provided to explain why you want to go to medical school.

This simple prompt allows you to write about almost anything, but some topics will be much more effective than others.

Choosing Personal Statement Topics

A medical school personal statement is relatively short (less than 1/3 the length of this article), so you'll need to be selective when deciding what to include. As you identify your areas of focus, always keep the prompt in mind—your personal statement needs to explain why you want to go to medical school. If you find yourself straying from that goal, you'll want to refocus and get back on track.

Successful medical applicants typically include several of these topics in their personal statements:

• A meaningful academic experience. Did you take a specific class that truly fascinated you or convinced you that you want to pursue a career in medicine? Did you have a professor who you found inspiring? Explain how the academic experience affected you and how it relates to your current desire to go to medical school.
• A research or internship experience. If you had the opportunity to conduct research in a science laboratory or intern at a medical facility, this type of hands-on experience is an excellent choice for inclusion in your personal statement. What did you learn from the experience? How did your attitude towards medicine change when you worked side-by-side with medical professionals? Did you gain a mentor from the experience? If so, explain how that relationship affected you.
• A shadowing opportunity. A significant percentage of medical school applicants shadow a doctor during their undergraduate years. What did you learn about the real-world practice of being a doctor? If you were able to shadow more than one type of physician, compare those experiences? Does one type of medical practice appeal to you more than another? Why?
• Community service. Medicine is a service profession—a doctor's primary job duty is helping others. The strongest medical school applications show that the applicant has an active history of service. Have you volunteered at your local hospital or free clinic? Have you helped raise money or awareness for a health-related issue? Even service that has nothing to do with the health professions can be worth mentioning, for it speaks to your generous character. Show that you aren't in this profession for you, but for others including those who are often underserved and underrepresented.
• Your personal journey. Some students have a personal history that is integral to their desire to become a doctor. Did you grow up in a medical family? Did serious health concerns of family or friends raise your awareness of the work doctor's do or motivate you to want to solve a medical problem? Do you have an interesting background that would be an asset to the medical profession such as fluency in more than one language or an unusual range of cultural experiences?
• Your career goals. Presumably, if you are applying to medical school, you have a career goal in mind for after you earn your M.D. What do you hope to accomplish with your medical degree. What do you hope to contribute to the field of medicine?

Topics to Avoid in Your Personal Statement

While you have many choices about the type of content you can include in your personal statement, there are several topics that you would be wise to avoid.

• Avoid discussion of salary. Even if one factor that draws you to medicine is the potential to earn a lot of money, this information does not belong in your personal statement. You don't want to come across as materialistic, and the most successful medical students love medicine, not money.
• Avoid early childhood stories. A brief anecdote about childhood can be fine in a personal statement, but you don't want to write entire paragraphs about your visit to a hospital in second grade or how you played doctor with your dolls as a young child. The medical school wants to get to know the person you are now, not the person you were over a decade ago.
• Avoid presenting television as an inspiration. Sure, your interest in medicine may have begun with Grey's Anatomy , House , The Good Doctor or one of the dozens of other medical dramas on television, but these shows are fiction, and all fail to capture the realities of the medical profession. A personal statement that focuses on a television show can be a red flag, and the admissions committee may worry that you have some sanitized, exaggerated, or romanticized notion of what it means to be a doctor.
• Avoid talk of school rankings and prestige. Your choice of a medical school should be based on the education and experience you will get, not the school's U.S. News & World Report ranking. If you state that you are applying exclusively to the top-ranked medical schools or that you want to attend a prestigious school, you may come across as someone who is more concerned with surfaces than substance.

How to Structure Your Personal Statement

There is no single best way to structure your personal statement, and the admissions committee would get quite bored if every statement followed the exact same outline. That said, you do want to make sure each point you make in your statement flows logically from what precedes it. This sample structure will give you a good starting point for conceptualizing and crafting your own personal statement:

• Paragraph 1: Explain how you became interested in medicine. What are the roots of your interest, and what about the field appeals to you and why?
• Paragraph 2: Identify an academic experience that affirmed your interest in medicine. Don't simply summarize your transcript. Talk about a specific class or classroom experience that inspired you or helped you develop the skills that will help you succeed in medical school. Realize that a public speaking, writing, or student leadership class can be just as important as that cellular biology lab. Many types of skills are important for physicians.
• Paragraph 3: Discuss a non-academic experience that has affirmed your interest in medicine. Did you intern in a biology, chemistry or medical laboratory? Did you shadow a doctor? Did you volunteer at a local hospital or clinic? Explain the importance of this activity to you.
• Paragraph 4: Articulate what you will bring to the medical school. Your essay shouldn't be entirely about what you will get out of med school, but what you will contribute to the campus community. Do you have a background or experiences that will enrich the diversity of campus? Do you have leadership or collaborative skills that are a good match for the medical profession? Do you have a history of giving back through community service?
• Paragraph 5: Here you can look to the future. What are your career goals, and how will medical school help you achieve those goals.

Again, this is just a suggested outline. A personal statement may have four paragraphs, or it may have more than five. Some students have unique situations or experiences that aren't included in this outline, and you may find that a different method of organization works best for telling your story.

Finally, as you outline your personal statement, don't worry about being exhaustive and covering everything you have done. You'll have plenty of space elsewhere to list and describe all of your extracurricular and research experiences, and your transcript will give a good indication of your academic preparation. You don't have a lot of space, so identify a couple important experiences from your undergraduate years and a couple character traits you want to emphasize, and then weave that material into a focused narrative.

Tips for Personal Statement Success

Well-structured, carefully-selected content is certainly essential to a successful medical school personal statement, but you need to consider a few more factors as well.

• Watch for commonplace and cliché statements. If you claim that your primary motivation for becoming a doctor is that you "love helping others," you need to be more specific. Nurses, auto mechanics, teachers, and waiters also help others. Ideally your statement does reveal your giving personality, but make sure you stay focused on the specific type of service doctors provide.
• Pay careful attention to length guidelines. The AMCAS application allows 5,300 characters including spaces. This is roughly 1.5 pages or 500 words. Going under this length is fine, and a tight 400-word personal statement is far preferable to a 500-word statement filled with digressions, wordiness, and redundancy. If you aren't using the AMCAS form, your personal statement should never go over the stated length limit.
• Attend to grammar and punctuation. Your personal statement should be error-free. "Good enough" isn't good enough. If you struggle with grammar or don't know where commas belong , get help from your college's writing center or career center. If necessary, hire a professional editor.
• Use an engaging style. Good grammar and punctuation are necessary, but they won't bring your personal statement to life. You'll want to avoid common style problems such as wordiness, vague language, and passive voice. A strong statement pulls the reader in with its engaging narrative and impressive clarity.
• Be yourself. Keep the purpose of the personal statement in mind as you write: you are helping the admissions officers get to know you. Don't be afraid to let your personality come through in your statement, and make sure your language is natural to you. If you try too hard to impress your reader with a sophisticated vocabulary or jargon-filled description of your research experiences, your efforts are likely to backfire.
• Revise, revise, revise. The most successful medical applicants often spend weeks if not months writing and rewriting their personal statements. Be sure to get feedback from multiple knowledgeable people. Be meticulous, and revisit your statement many times. Almost no one writes a good statement in a single sitting.
• Medical School Personal Statement Examples and Analysis
• How to Write a Successful Personal Statement for Graduate School
• 7 Law School Personal Statement Topic Ideas
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• 9 Common Medical School Interview Questions and How to Answer Them
• Letters of Recommendation for Medical School
• Three Common Reasons for Medical School Rejection
• The Law School Applicant’s Guide to the Diversity Statement
• How Many Medical Schools Should I Apply To?
• personal statement (essay)
• How to Get Clinical Experience for Medical School Admissions
• The Med School Application Process
• How to Improve Your Medical School Application if It's Rejected
• How to Write the Graduate Admissions Essay
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• Timeline for Applying to Medical School

12 Steps to a Perfect Medical School Personal Statement (with before and after example)

Have you ever read an example med school personal statement and thought, Wow... I could never write something that good ?

That’s because you’re only seeing the finished product. Take it from me, an editor, someone who sees the essays first thing in the morning without their makeup on.

artist Stephan Schmitz - https://www.theispot.com/artist/schmitz

See all those broken plates? Those are all the personal statement rough drafts, the discarded sentences, the gutted paragraphs, all the sweat and tears of the revision process . No one sees that. They see a guy miraculously juggling five plates at once.

You’re like that juggler - trying to balance multiple things at once in your personal statement, all within certain strict limitations. And guess what? You’ll have to break a few plates before you get it right.

So… let’s break some plates (maybe some hearts and spirits too).

I invite you along to play the role of editor with me. You’ll choose your own path as we go through 12 steps of revision to perfect the personal statement.

I’ll give a “before” version of each section of an example personal statement, and you’ll have to call the 12 shots about how we make it better. Ready?

Default Outline for Personal Statement

Section 1 - hook.

Hook (BEFORE)

Step 1: Cut down on length

Step 2: Remove the negativity

Step 3: Grab More Attention

Hook (AFTER)

Section 2 - When/Why Medicine

When/Why Medicine (BEFORE)

Step 4: Remove red flags

Step 5: Connect to personal narrative

Step 6: Add more definitive “Why Medicine”

When/Why Medicine (AFTER)

Section 3 - Exposure

Exposure (BEFORE):

Step 7: Remove informal language

Step 8: Show more personal value as a candidate

Exposure (AFTER)

Optional - Explain Issues with Conduct/Grades

Section 4 - meaningful contributions.

Meaningful Contributions (BEFORE)

Step 9: Include above-and-beyond contributions

Step 10: Emphasize impact on others

Meaningful Contributions (AFTER)

Section 5 - Why You/Conclusion

Why You/Conclusion (BEFORE)

Step 11: Balance your voice with professionalism

Step 12: Add more style, cut down on summary

Why You/Conclusion (AFTER)

COMPLETE “Before” Draft

Complete “after” draft.

Don’t have the time or energy for this Do-It-Yourself project?

Then BOOK A FREE MEETING with our expert medical school advisors for more guidance. We’ve helped hundreds of students write their personal statements (including the sample below), and we’d love to help you on your writing journey!

Obviously this can vary, but let’s keep it simple:

Optional: Explain Issues with Grades/Conduct

The goal here is to grab the readers’ attention and compel them to keep reading. Ideally, the hook will pose a problem, share an unexpected challenge, or reverse the readers’ expectations about a situation.

Characteristics of a Good Hook :

* Not too long

* Grabs attention

* Initiates the plot

DIRECTIONS: Read the excerpt below and consider what changes you’d make, both big-picture and small-picture.

HOOK (BEFORE) :

Throughout high school and college, I have been supporting my family in more ways than one. My mother needed a lot of support due to her bad arthritis and physical limitations. It was not the most ideal situation, and it felt like I was living a double life. I went to a pretty good high school since my parents wanted me to have a decent education, but the kids there were protected and shielded from most inconveniences in life. Someone from my background was not very welcome. It was jarring, as vapid girls my age talked about going to equestrian classes and how they knew someone on the Yale admissions committee, while I came to school from my two-bedroom non-air-conditioned home that my family of four shared. I was a nanny at the age of 12 and would juggle taking care of 3-4 kids every week. My dad unfortunately got pretty ill during this time (brain aneurysm and subsequent recovery), so it was definitely a weird time. I got brutally harassed by a girl at school after she found out about my living situation, so I learned to form two identities. In school, I was someone who fake-laughed with people and sympathized with the horrors of a girl’s parents buying a pony she didn’t like. I pretended to act excited for another girl’s European vacation (in reality I was jealous).

Pick an aspect to fix:

Step 3: Grab more attention

Jump to the After version.

STEP 1: CUT DOWN ON LENGTH

Indeed. Currently this opener is ~1300 characters, which is disproportionate for our total space (5300 characters). Hooks should probably be around 700-800 characters instead, so that the remaining sections can have 1000+ each.

What to cut? We want it to be ~10 lines of text, so take a shot at cutting ~5-6 lines.

Your answer:

_____________________________________________________________________

My approach:

Without compromising the necessary context, you should cut anything that could go in the Disadvantaged Essay instead, especially the “facts” of the situation that don’t require much editorialization. Admissions committees read the disadvantaged essay before any of the other writing in the application.

STEP 2: REMOVE THE NEGATIVITY

This is a far more common problem than you’d think. For one, it’s hard for us to know how our tone and voice are coming across. Secondly, we sometimes write about things while they’re still “fresh wounds,” leaving room for resentment to creep in.

What’s too negative? Make a list below of the words/phrases/sentences from our sample hook that seem too negative:

fake-laughed

pretended to act excited

the horrors of a girl’s parents buying a pony she didn’t like

I can sympathize with the writer, but there’s no point in having a negative spin when you can achieve the same impact with a positive spin.

Simply mentioning one or two details like the equestrian classes will go a long way.  

STEP 3: GRAB MORE ATTENTION

Turn the whole hook into a contrast between life at home and life at school. Give it a metaphor that makes it accessible and memorable. Break it up into shorter paragraphs to make it more digestible.  

HOOK (AFTER):

Throughout high school, my life felt like a less glamorous version of Hannah Montana. While Hannah transformed into a pop star after school, I transformed into a nanny. And it wasn’t any regular babysitting job either; at my peak, I managed a gaggle of 14 kids. In one way, school was a sanctuary; there was order, cleanliness, and a schedule. After school, it was all diaper-and-tantrum-filled chaos.

The juxtaposition between home and school was also pronounced due to money. I didn’t understand my classmates’ wealth until they started talking about equestrian classes and Maseratis. Although my life was by no means fun, I chose to stay home for college since my family needed my presence. My father had a brain aneurysm when I was 14, and my family was still facing the remnants of that event.

What we’re looking for here:

* Motivations that build directly off what makes the candidate unique

* A good combination of selflessness (helping others) and self-interest (how the career will fulfill/stimulate you unlike any other)

* A nice balance of idealism and realism - neither naive nor overblown

WHEN/WHY MEDICINE (BEFORE) :

My decision to become a doctor was a culmination of events and experiences that led to an eventual realization, rather than one single revelation. When I first started at my university, I was an 18-year-old who had no clue what to do in life. For one year, I explored pharmacy and finance, but the drudgery of the work made me turn away from these professions. At the start of my second year, I decided to volunteer at the ER to see what the hospital environment was like. Looking back, this mundane decision was a godsend of exposure and clarification. I went into ER expecting to give out glasses of water and wheel patients around. But it was a lot more. I saw patients who were experiencing the worst moments of their lives, and I was beyond my comfort zone. However, I loved interacting with patients, enjoyed being in the hospital, and had a knack for talking and making people feel better.

I started the Pathfinder Internship to determine whether I wanted to be a nurse or a doctor. The first three months of the internship were at the Oncology/General Care Unit, where it was incredibly depressing. I felt so helpless seeing people die. Nurses and doctors  were mainly just keeping people alive, as most patients were already permanent victims of cancer or chronic unregulated conditions. I did the rest of my rotations at an urgent care clinic and birth center, which were way less depressing, and many times patients left feeling better. During this time, I realized the doctor’s role matched me better than a nurse; I liked how doctors had creative control to create optimal treatment plans for patients. I had already shadowed two interventional cardiologists and an orthopedic surgeon, and I knew I wanted to have a connection with patients and create medical care that suited their needs. Also, by this time, I had started my global health minor, and was learning all about preventative care, women’s health, and disparities in healthcare. The combined clinical care experiences, my interest in science, and the global health minor all came together in a beautiful way to point me into medicine.

STEP 4: REMOVE RED FLAGS

mundane decision

incredibly depressing

permanent victims

It’s good to be honest and to show that you’ve experienced medicine’s challenges, but these choices in diction will do more harm than good. Let’s nix them.

STEP 5: CONNECT TO PERSONAL NARRATIVE

Right now, section two seems to exist in isolation from our hook, so we’ll want to bring back aspects of the family situation, namely the father’s medical issues, so that we can see the narrative building cohesively.

STEP 6: ADD MORE DEFINITIVE “WHY MEDICINE”

Right now, the “came together in a beautiful way” line is too vague and impressionistic. The writer would benefit from creating a more specific set of criteria that medicine can offer in a career.

Your “Why Medicine” response should not leave any holes or gaps that would tempt the reader to ask, “Why not social work?” or “Why not research?”

WHEN/WHY MEDICINE (AFTER):

After earning my way into a UC college, I dabbled in finance, pharmacy, and psychology, feeling somewhat clueless about what I wanted. Earlier, I had tentatively chosen a biochemistry major, and over time the pre-med path grew more intriguing. I decided to volunteer in the ER during my second year, a weekly commitment that allowed enough time to assist my family again when my dad lost his job. It was one of the best decisions I ever made, especially since the entire ER team went out of its way to expose me to the field. I grew to love each shift as I interacted with people, observed action-packed procedures, and worked in tandem with staff to smooth out workflow. Around this time, I shadowed cardiologists and orthopedic surgeons, and loved the atmosphere of teamwork and patient care. Medicine drew me in, but I was still unsure about what particular role I would fill.

I received the direction I needed during my Pathfinder Internship, where I first rotated in a hospice ward to help terminally ill patients. As I tried to make their passing more dignified, it reminded me of my dad’s recovery, when my family was given no clear prognosis. I knew that patience and presence of mind were key. Even if death was certain, these patients needed help maintaining normalcy. I continued to Expresscare, a small clinic which diagnosed a wide variety of underserved patients. Later on in the Birth Center, I observed OB/GYNs creating long-term and short-term solutions that fundamentally shaped patients’ lives. I wanted to be in a similar position, confidently resolving health issues while providing comfort through both knowledge and bedside manner. Whether it was ER doctors turning off a defibrillator gone awry, OB/GYNs working through unanticipated surgical challenges, or cardiologists providing long-term care, these physicians embodied the roles I wanted to play: decision maker, advocate, and trusted healer.

* A sense of your growing passions within medicine

* Some niche involvement that builds on “Why Medicine” motivations

EXPOSURE (BEFORE):

During this same time, I started my Global Health minor, and my vision became clearer. Global health involves helping those who are often ignored by medicine. I knew that medicine was not like Grey’s Anatomy or Dr. House. There are people who are left behind. I knew what it felt like to be an outsider, as I would transition from a nanny to “one of the girls” in high school and college. I knew how lonely it felt when my dad didn’t have the proper insurance during his job loss, and we didn’t know what to do. My vision in medicine is to level the playing field for all people seeking medical care by doing what fulfills me the most. In the end, it all came together. Volunteering in the ER, interning through Pathfinder, and shadowing doctors helped me discover my calling.

STEP 7: REMOVE INFORMAL LANGUAGE

Make a short list of words/phrases that don’t seem appropriate:

Grey’s Anatomy

Even though the student is specifically saying medicine is NOT like these TV shows, it still seems like the wrong context or reference point, especially in relation to global health.

Mentioning pop culture versions of medicine is usually ill-advised, and this candidate can make her point just as effectively without them.

STEP 8: SHOW MORE PERSONAL VALUE AS A CANDIDATE

At this point in the essay, the candidate has already explained her motivations towards medicine, so the final few lines of this paragraph feel redundant.

We don’t have a lot of characters to spare, so she’d be better off showcasing the value of her global health minor (the skills, insights, lessons, etc.)

EXPOSURE (AFTER):

My rotations at Pathfinder and ER volunteering exposed me to diverse, underserved patients, and these interactions inspired me to pursue a Global Health minor to help those marginalized by medicine. On a smaller scale, I knew what it was like to be an outsider, as I transitioned from a messy-haired, sweaty-faced nanny to “one of the girls” at school. I knew how lonely and unsettling it felt when my dad didn’t have insurance during his job loss. Global health offered avenues for putting this empathy into action and showed me the importance of solidarity, in which physicians work WITH patients, not just FOR them. The minor taught me about large-scale entities that govern and dictate the health of the masses, and the tools needed to make healthcare more attainable. The minor also instilled cultural competence, responsibility, and social justice.

This did not apply for this student, but it might for YOU(?).

Want to know the most tactful way to explain that bad semester, your MCAT struggles, or other such snafus?

* Tangible value of your insights and experiences within medicine

* Your ability to leave things better than you found them

MEANINGFUL CONTRIBUTIONS (BEFORE):

My interest in providing culturally competent care and helping marginalized people in medicine helped me during an Expresscare shift when I eased the fears of an undocumented teenager who thought he might have HIV after one of his several partners was infected. It felt empowering to explain STDs, safe sex, HIV, and PreP/Truvada, all in order to help the NP determine a course of action. I loved advocating for patients who didn’t have proper insurance, and felt gratified when the NP and I found another clinic where patients could receive affordable care.

STEP 9: INCLUDE ABOVE-AND-BEYOND CONTRIBUTIONS

There are two aspects that stand out as being underdeveloped: the candidate’s scope of responsibility and her above-and-beyond efforts. After some brainstorming, she was able to add meaningful details in these areas.

NOTE: this does not mean that you should create a laundry-list of all your tasks and responsibilities. It means focusing on the actions and efforts that exceeded expectations.

STEP 10: EMPHASIZE IMPACT ON OTHERS

Sometimes a paragraph needs more examples so that the one story or patient case doesn’t seem anomalous, but rather the norm for you. Giving 2-3 examples of your impact on different types of patients will show your range and ability to advocate for diverse populations.

MEANINGFUL CONTRIBUTIONS (AFTER):

This background helped me during an Expresscare shift, as I eased the fears of an undocumented teenager who thought he had HIV after his partner was infected. It felt empowering to explain STDs, safe sex, HIV, and PreP/Truvada, making the patient feel more in control. In this role, I often contacted clinics that admit uninsured patients to help others access care during vulnerable times. My global health training also helped me coach a black woman through a difficult delivery alongside nurses. Through my numerous Maternal Health classes, I knew that black women have double the maternal mortality rates in America, and case studies suggest that valid concerns are often not taken seriously. Therefore, I made sure to follow through on requests, such as taking temperature and BP when she felt feverish. I remained at her side for the last couple hours of delivery, and she said she felt safe knowing someone was there for her. As a physician, I will implement these valuable lessons in my future practice to make every patient feel as safe and cared for as possible.

* Stylistic callback to the intro and themes

* Reiteration of biggest reasons admissions committees should choose you

WHY YOU/CONCLUSION (BEFORE):

In the end, my path in deciding to pursue medicine, especially a medical career that focuses on the medically underserved, was a culmination of years of life experience and exploration into the field. It started as a love of basic science, which led to choosing biochemistry and cell biology as a major. The ER volunteering gig introduced me to clinical medicine, and the Palomar internship confirmed that becoming a physician was my calling. My experiences as an outsider, and a person who had to juggle multiple lifes challenges, made me especially sensitive to those who are marginalized and overwhelmed, inspiring me to pursue a career in medicine that focuses on bringing care to marginalized folks.

STEP 11: BALANCE YOUR VOICE WITH PROFESSIONALISM

volunteering gig

marginalized folks

*my calling

Normally, there’s nothing wrong with ‘gig’ and ‘folks,’ but they seem a bit colloquial for a personal statement. Again, the candidate could communicate the same message without these words, so it’s not worth using diction that could be misconstrued.

*Although ‘my calling’ isn’t too informal, it’s a rather cliche phrase that might make the admissions committees recoil in disgust.

STEP 12: ADD MORE STYLE, CUT DOWN ON SUMMARY

This is a common problem for conclusions. In school, we’re taught that the conclusion should merely summarize the main points of the essay. But that’s short-sighted and ultimately pretty boring. Yes, you need to reiterate certain aspects, but you should use stylistic callbacks when doing so.

Another common problem is candidates spending too much time restating “Why Medicine” reasons, rather than emphasizing what THEY can bring to the table. The key is to sell yourself without sounding full of yourself .

WHY YOU/CONCLUSION (AFTER):

Although my Nanny Montana days are behind me, this experience has helped me empathize with patients who are forced to manage multiple obligations and move between differing realities. I have experiences from across the healthcare spectrum, as both a loved one of an uninsured patient and a scholar looking to improve conditions for all in the long-term. My background as an outsider, who had to juggle multiple life challenges, made me especially sensitive to the marginalized and overwhelmed, inspiring me to pursue a career in medicine that focuses on empowering others and protecting their well-being.

So, at this point, we’ve changed the essay in 12 different ways - 12 broken plates, if you will. And really, each of these changes required a few iterations, so you can multiply those plates by two or three.

Yes, it’s a messy process, but it results in a beautiful presentation - an essay that successfully juggles all of its primary goals.

Remember: we can help. BOOK A FREE MEETING with our expert medical school advisors for more guidance.

Feel free to leave questions in the comments section below, and we’ll respond to you personally! Best of luck with your personal statement drafts!

Add-On: Explaining Issues with Grades/Conduct

Need to explain some elephant in the room to the admissions committees? Follow this sentence-by-sentence outline, and you’ll be just fine (or as fine as you can be!).

1-2 sentences to explain the factors that led to the issue

It's wise to let the facts speak for themselves. If there were extenuating circumstances that led to this anomalous blip in your record, make sure to include those as evidence, BUT DON'T editorialize or try to make excuses for what happened. The goal in the beginning is to just acknowledge and own up to the failure/mistake.

1-2 sentences to explain how you've rectified the issue

This will depend a lot on your situation, but typically, it will involve some kind of additional tutoring, office hours, retaken classes, better time-management, etc. It might involve probation. Beyond explaining the requirements you fulfilled and your upward trend in grades, discuss the ways you've sought to improve overall as a person.

1-2 sentences to explain the growth, personal qualities, and lessons you’ve gained

Again, this will depend a lot on your situation. Perhaps there's some activity or endeavor that you can use as "proof" of your growth as a person (i.e. tutoring other struggling students or serving on the student judiciary board). If not, just explain what you learned from the experience and how it's turned you into a better person moving forward.

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The Only 3 Medical School Personal Statement Examples You Need to Read

Posted in: Applying to Medical School

Table of Contents

The personal statement is one of the most important parts of the med school application process because t his mini-essay is a critical opportunity for you to stand out from other prospective medical students by demonstrating your passion and personality, not just your grades.

Admissions committees receive hundreds or more AMCAS medical school applications , so yours should be unique and captivating. Your medical school personal statement shows admissions officers who you are beyond your high school or pre-med GPA , extracurriculars , and MCAT score . 

The best personal statements are… well, personal . This is your chance to share what life experiences have compelled you toward a career in healthcare or the medical field , and how those experiences shape the picture of your ideal future.

MedSchoolCoach has crucial advice for writing your personal statement . 

Read these examples of personal statements for prospective med students.

Writing a great medical school personal statement is a lot easier with the right support. We’ve helped numerous med school applicants craft top-notch personal statements and can do the same for you.

But first: 7 steps to writing an engaging personal statement.

Before you read these excellent examples, you need to understand the process of writing a personal statement.  

Include these in your medical school personal statement:

• Why you’re passionate about becoming a doctor
• Your qualities that will make you a great physician
• Personal stories that demonstrate those qualities
• Specific examples of the communities you want to serve as a member of the medical field

What are the most important things to remember when writing a medical school personal statement ?

• Begin the writing process early: Give yourself plenty of time for brainstorming and to revisit your first draft, revising it based on input from family members and undergrad professors. Consult the application timeline for your target enrollment season.
• Choose a central theme: An unfocused essay will leave readers confused and uninterested. Give your statement a clear thesis in the first paragraph that guides its formation.
• Start with a hook: Grab the reader’s attention immediately with your statement’s first sentence. Instead of opening with a conventional introduction, be creative! Begin with something unexpected.
• Be the you of today, not the you of the future: Forecasting your future as a physician can come across as empty promises. Don’t get caught up in your ambitions; instead, be honest about your current situation and interest in the field of medicine.
• Demonstrate your passion: It’s not enough to simply state your interest in becoming a doctor; you have to prove it through personal stories. Show how your perspectives have been shaped by formative experiences and how those will make you an effective physician.
• Show, don’t tell : Avoid cliches that admissions committees have heard hundreds of times, like “I want to help people.” Make your writing come alive with dynamic, persuasive storytelling that recounts your personal experiences.
• Tie everything together: Conclude by wrapping up your main points. Reiterate your passion for the medical profession, your defining personal qualities, and why you’ll make a good doctor.

You can read more about our recommended method in our step-by-step guide , but those are the major points.

Example 1 — From the Stretcher to the Spotlight: My Journey to Becoming an Emergency Medicine Physician

Another siren shrieks as the emergency room doors slide open and a team of EMTs pushes a blood-soaked stretcher through the entrance. It’s the fifth ambulance to arrive tonight — and only my first clinical shadowing experience in an emergency medicine department since my premed education began.

But it wasn’t my first time in an emergency room, and I knew I was meant to be here again.

In those crucial moments on the ER floor, many of my peers learned that they stumble in high-pressure environments. A few weeks of gunshot wounds, drug overdoses, broken bones, and deep lacerations in the busiest trauma bay in the region were enough to alter their career path.

They will be better practitioners somewhere predictable, like a pediatrician in a private practice where they choose their schedules, clients, and staff.

Every healthcare provider has their specialties, and mine are on full display in those crucial moments of lifesaving care. Why am I pursuing a career in Emergency Medicine? Because I’ve seen firsthand the miracles that Emergency Medicine physicians perform.

12 years ago, I was in an emergency room… but I was the one on the stretcher.

A forest-green Saturn coupe rolled into my parent’s driveway. The driver, my best friend Kevin, had just passed his driving test and was itching to take a late-night run to the other side of town. I had ridden with Kevin and his father many times before when he held his learner’s permit. But this time, we didn’t have an adult with us, and the joyride ended differently: with a 40-mph passenger-side collision, T-boned by a drunk driver.

I distinctly recall the sensation of being lifted out of the crumpled car by a paramedic and laid onto a stretcher. A quick drive later, I was in the care of Dr. Smith, the ER resident on call that night. Without missing a beat, he assessed my condition and provided the care I needed. When my mom thanked him for saving my life, he simply responded, “It’s what he needed.”

Now I’m watching other doctors and nurses provide this life-saving care as I observe as a premed student. I see the way the staff works together like a well-oiled machine, and it reminds me of my time in high-school theater.

Everyone has a role to play, however big or small, to make the show a success. All contributions are essential to a winning performance — even the technicians working behind the scenes. That’s what true teamwork is, and I see that same dynamic in the emergency department.

Some actors freeze during performances, overcome by stage fright. Other students are too anxious to even set foot in front of an audience; they remain backstage assisting with split-second costume changes.

Not me. I felt energized under the spotlight, deftly improvising to help my co-stars when they would forget their lines. Admittedly, I wasn’t the best actor or singer in the cast, but I provided something essential: assurance under pressure. Everyone knew me as dependable, always in their corner when something went awry. I had a reputation for remaining calm and thinking on my feet.

My ability to stay unruffled under pressure was first discovered on stage, but I can use it on a very different platform providing patient care. Now, when other people freeze under the intensity of serving public health on the front lines, I can step in and provide my calm, collected guidance to see them through.

As an ER doctor, I will have to provide that stability when a nurse gets flustered by a quarrelsome patient or shaken from an irreparably injured infant. When you’re an Emergency Medicine physician, you’re not following a script. It takes an aptitude of thinking on your toes to face the fast pace and unpredictable challenges of an emergency center.

During my time shadowing, I saw experienced physicians put those assured, gentle communication skills to use. A 13-year-old boy was admitted for a knife wound he’d received on the streets. He only spoke Spanish, but it was clear he mistrusted doctors and was alarmed by the situation. In mere minutes, one of the doctors calmed the patient so he could receive care he needed.

Let me be clear: I haven’t simply gravitated toward Emergency Medicine because I liked it most. It’s not the adrenaline or the pride that compel me. I owe Emergency Medicine my life, and I want to use my life to extend the lives of other people. Every person brought into the trauma bay could be another me , no matter what they look like.

People are more than their injury, health record, or circumstances. They are not just a task to complete or a challenge to conquer.

My childhood injury gave me an appreciation for the work of ER doctors and a compassion for patients, to foster well-being when people are most broken and vulnerable. I already have the dedication to the work and the heart for patients; I just need the medical knowledge and procedural skills to perform life-saving interventions. My ability to remain calm, think on my toes, be part of a team, and work decisively without making mistakes or overlooking critical issues will serve me well as an Emergency Medicine physician.

Some ER physicians I spoke with liked to think that they’re “a different breed” than other medical professionals — but I don’t see it that way. We’re just performing a different role than the rest of the cast.

Breaking It Down

Let’s look at what qualities make this a great personal statement for med school.

• Engaging opening: The writer painted a vivid scene that immediately puts the reader in their shoes and leaves them wanting more.
• Personal examples: The writer demonstrated his ability to stay calm, work as a team, and problem-solve through theater experience, which he also uses as a comparison. And, he explained his passion for Emergency Medical care from his childhood accident.
• Organized: The writer transitions fluidly between body paragraphs, connecting stories and ideas by emphasizing parallels and hopping back and forth between time.
• Ample length: Makes full use of the AACOMAS and AMCAS application personal statement’s character limit of 5,300 characters (including spaces), which is about 850-950 words.

Unsure what traits and clinical or research experience your preferred medical school values ? You can research their admissions requirements and mission statement using the MSAR .

Example 2 — Early Clinical Work For Empathetic Patient Care

The applicant who wrote this personal statement was accepted into University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, University of Central Florida College of Medicine, and Tufts University School of Medicine.

As I walked briskly down the hall to keep up during our daily rounds in the ICU, I heard the steady beeping of Michelle’s cardiac monitor and saw a ruby ornament twinkling on the small Christmas tree beside her. She was always alone, but someone had decorated her room for the holidays.

It warmed my heart that I wasn’t the only one who saw her as more than a patient in a coma. I continually felt guilty that I couldn’t spend more time with her; her usual companions were ventilators, IV bags, and catheters, not to mention the golf ball-sized tumors along her spine. Every day, I thought about running to Michelle’s bedside to do anything I could for her.

Thus, I was taken aback when my advisor, who was visiting me that day, asked me if I was okay. It never crossed my mind that at age 17, my peers might not be able to handle the tragedies that healthcare workers consistently face. These situations were difficult, but they invoked humanity and compassion from me. I knew I wanted to pursue medicine. And I knew I could do it.

From my senior year of high school to my senior year of college, I continued to explore my passion for patient interaction.

At the Stepp Lab, I was charged with contacting potential study participants for a study focusing on speech symptoms in individuals with Parkinson’s Disease. The study would help future patients, but I couldn’t help but think: “What are we doing for these patients in return?” I worried that the heart and soul behind the research would get lost in the mix of acoustic data and participant ID numbers.

But my fears were put to rest by Richard, the self-proclaimed “Parkinson’s Song & Dance Man,” who recorded himself singing show tunes as part of his therapy. Knowing that he was legally blind and unable to read caller ID, I was always thrilled when he recognized my voice. The spirit in his voice indicated that my interest in him and his journey with Parkinson’s was meaningful. Talking with him inspired me to dive deeper, which led to an appreciative understanding of his time as a sergeant in the U.S. military.

It was an important reminder: my interest and care are just as important as an effective prescribed treatment plan.

Following graduation, I began my work as a medical assistant for a dermatologist. My experience with a patient, Joann, validated my ability to provide excellent hands-on patient care. Other physicians prescribed her painkillers to relieve the excruciating pain from the shingles rash, which presented as a fiery trail of blisters wrapped around her torso. But these painkillers offered no relief and made her so drowsy that she fell one night on the way to the bathroom.

Joann was tired, suffering, and beaten down. The lidocaine patches we initially prescribed would be a much safer option, but I refused for her to pay $250, as she was on the brink of losing her job. When she returned to the office a week later, she held my hand and cried tears of joy because I found her affordable patches, which helped her pain without the systemic effects.

The joy that pierced through the weariness in her eyes immediately confirmed that direct patient care like this was what I was meant to do. As I passed her a tissue, I felt ecstatic that I could make such a difference, and I sought to do more.

Since graduation, I have been volunteering at Open Door, a small pantry that serves a primarily Hispanic community of lower socioeconomic families. It is gut-wrenching to explain that we cannot give them certain items when our stock is low. After all, the fresh fruits and vegetables I serve are fundamental to their culturally-inspired meals.

For the first time, I found myself serving anguish rather than a helping hand. Usually, uplifting moments strengthen one’s desire to become a physician, but in this case, it was my ability to handle the low points that reignited my passion for aiding others.

After running out of produce one day, I was confused as to why a woman thanked me. Through translation by a fellow volunteer, I learned it was because of my positivity. She taught me that the way I approach unfavorable situations affects another’s perception and that my spirited attitude breaks through language barriers.

This volunteer work served as a wake-up call to the unacceptable fact that U.S. citizens’ health suffers due to lack of access to healthy foods. If someone cannot afford healthy foods, they may not have access to healthcare. In the future, I want to partner with other food banks to offer free services like blood pressure readings. I have always wanted to help people, but I now have a particular interest in bringing help to people who cannot afford it.

While the foundation of medicine is scientific knowledge, the foundation of healthcare is the word “care” itself. I never found out what happened to Michelle and her Christmas tree, but I still wonder about her to this day, and she has strengthened my passion to serve others. A sense of excitement and comfort stems from knowing that I will be there for people on their worst days, since I have already seen the impact my support has had.

In my mind, becoming a physician is not a choice but a natural next step to continue bringing humanity and compassion to those around me.

How did this personal statement grab and sustain attention so well?

• Personalization: Everything about this statement helps you to understand the writer, from their personal experiences to their hope for how their future career will look.
• Showing, not telling: From the first sentence, the reader is hooked. This prospective medical student has plenty of great “on paper” experience (early shadowing, clinical experience, etc.), but they showed this with storytelling, not by repeating their CV.
• Empathy: An admissions committee reading this personal statement would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this student cares deeply about their patients. They remember first names, individual details, and the emotions that each patient made them feel.
• A clear path forward: The writer doesn’t just want to work in the medical field — they have a passion for exactly how they want to impact the communities they serve. Outside of strictly medical work, they care about the way finances can limit access to healthcare and the struggle to find healthy food in food deserts around the US .

Read Next: How Hard Is It to Get Into Medical School?

Example 3 — Beyond the Diagnosis: The Importance of Individualized Care in Medicine

The applicant who wrote this personal statement was accepted into Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine and Nova Southeastern University College Of Osteopathic Medicine.

Dr. Haywood sighs and shakes her head upon opening the chart. “I was worried about her A1C. It’s up again. Hypertension, too. Alright, let’s go.”

As we enter the patient’s room, I’m expecting the news about her blood sugar and pressure to fill the room. Instead, Dr. Haywood says, “Roseline! How are you doing? How’s your girl, doing well?”

Dr. Haywood continues to ask questions, genuinely interested in Roseline’s experience as a new mother. If not for the parchment-lined examination chair and anatomy posters plastered to the wall, this exchange could be happening in a grocery store. What about her A1C? Her blood pressure? Potential Type II diabetes?

As I continue to listen, Dr. Haywood discovers that Roseline’s mother moved in with her, cooking Haitian meals I recognize as high on the glycemic index. Dr. Haywood effortlessly evolves their conversation to focus on these. Being Haitian herself, she knows some traditional dishes are healthier than others and advises Roseline to avoid those that might exacerbate her high blood sugar and blood pressure. Dr. Haywood also suggests Roseline incorporate exercise by bringing her baby on a walk through her neighborhood.

During my shadowing experience, I observed one of the core components of being a physician through several encounters like this one. By establishing a relationship with her patient where Roseline was comfortable sharing the details of new motherhood, Dr. Haywood was able to individualize her approach to lowering the patient’s A1C and hypertension. Inspired by her ability to treat the whole person , I began to adopt a similar practice as a tutor for elementary kids in underserved areas of D.C.

Shaniyah did not like Zoom, or math for that matter. When I first met her as a prospective tutee online, she preferred to keep her microphone muted and would claim she was finished with her math homework after barely attempting the first problem. Realizing that basing our sessions solely on math would be fruitless, I adapted my tutoring style to incorporate some of the things for which she had a natural affinity.

The first step was acknowledging the difficulties a virtual environment posed to effective communication, particularly the ease at which distractions might take over. After sharing this with Shaniyah, she immediately disclosed her struggles to share her work with me. With this information, I found an online platform that allowed us to visualize each other’s work.

This obstacle in communication overcome, Shaniyah felt more comfortable sharing details about herself that I utilized as her tutor. Her love of soccer gave me the idea to use the concept of goal scoring to help with addition, and soon Shaniyah’s math skills and enthusiasm began to improve. As our relationship grew, so did her successes, and I suspect the feelings I experienced as her tutor are the same as a physician’s when their patient responds well to prescribed treatment.

I believe this skill, caring for someone as a whole person , that I have learned and practiced through shadowing and tutoring is the central tenet of medicine that allows a doctor to successfully treat their patients.

Inspired by talking with patients who had received life-altering organ transplants during my shadowing experience, I created a club called D.C. Donors for Georgetown University students to encourage their peers to register as organ donors or donate blood. This experience taught me that to truly serve a person, you must involve your whole person, too.

In starting this club to help those in need of transplants, I had to dedicate my time and effort beyond just my physical interactions with these patients. For instance, this involved reaching out to D.C.’s organ procurement organization to inquire about a potential partnership with my club, to which they agreed. In addition, I organized tabling events on campus, which required significant planning and communication with both club members and my university.

Though exciting, starting a club was also a difficult process, especially given the limitations the pandemic imposed on in-person meetings and events. To adapt, I had to plan more engaging meetings, designing virtual activities to make members more comfortable contributing their ideas. In addition, planning a blood drive required extensive communication with my university to ensure the safety of the staff and participants during the pandemic.

Ultimately, I believe these behind-the-scenes actions were instrumental in addressing the need for organ and blood donors in the D.C. area.

From these experiences, I have grown to believe that good medicine not only necessitates the physician cares for her patient as a whole, but also that she fully commits her whole person to the care of the patient. Tutoring and starting D.C. Donors not only allowed me to develop these skills but also to experience such fulfilling emotions: the pride I had in Shaniyah when her math improved, the gratefulness I felt when she confided in me, the steadfast commitment I expressed to transplant patients, and the joy I had in collaborating with other passionate club members.

I envision a career as a physician to demand these skills of me and more, and I have confirmed my desire to become one after feeling so enriched by practicing them.

Here’s what makes this personal statement such a good example of what works:

• Desirable qualities: The student clearly demonstrates qualities any school would want in an applicant: teachability, adaptability, leadership, organization, and empathy, to name a few. This again uses the “show, don’t tell” method, allowing the readers to understand the student without hand-holding.
• Personalized storytelling: Many in the healthcare profession will connect with experiences like the ones expressed here, such as addressing patient concerns relationally or the lack of blood donors during the recent pandemic. The writer automatically makes a personal link between themselves and the admissions committees reading this statement.
• Extensive (but not too long): Without feeling too wordy, this personal statement uses nearly all of the 5,300 characters allowed on the AMCAS application. There’s no fluff left in the final draft, only what matters.

Avoid These Common Mistakes

You can learn a lot from those personal statements. They avoid the most common mistakes that med school applicants make when writing the medical school personal statement.

Here are some things you should avoid in your personal statement if you want to be a doctor:

• Name-dropping: Admissions counselors won’t be impressed when you brag about your highly regarded family members, associates, or mentors. You need to stand on your own feet — not someone else’s.
• Dishonesty: Lies and exaggerations can torpedo your application. And they’re bad habits for anyone entering the medical field. Don’t do it.
• Unedited AI content: Artificial intelligence can help you edit and improve your writing, but don’t let it do the work for you. Your statement needs to be authentic, which means in your voice! A chatbot can’t feel or adequately convey your own empathy, compassion, trauma, drive, or personality.
• Grammatical errors and typos: Have someone reliable proofread your essay and scour it for typos, misspellings, and punctuation errors. Even free grammar-checking apps can catch mistakes!
• Telling without showing: I’ll reiterate how important it is to prove your self-descriptive statements with real-life examples. Telling without showing won’t persuade readers.
• Too many examples: Have 3-4 solid personal stories at most; only include a few that are crucial for providing your points. The more experiences you share, the less impact they’ll make.
• Fluff and filler: Cut all fluff, filler words, and irrelevant points. There are many other places you can include information in your application, such as secondary essays on your clinical experience, volunteer work, and research projects . 

You can find more valuable do’s and don’ts in our in-depth guide to writing your best personal statement .

Need extra help? We’ve got you covered.

Schedule a meeting with medschoolcoach for expert support on writing and editing your personal statement. we’re here to help you impress medical school admissions committees .

Renee Marinelli, MD

Dr. Marinelli has practiced family medicine, served on the University of California Admissions Committee, and has helped hundreds of students get into medical school. She spearheads a team of physician advisors who guide MedSchoolCoach students.

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How to write a med school personal statement | analysis.

Reviewed by:

Jonathan Preminger

Former Admissions Committee Member, Hofstra-Northwell School of Medicine

Reviewed: 4/25/24

A personal statement takes time to prepare, especially for medical school. We’ve outlined exactly what you should include to improve your chances of acceptance.

Getting into medical school is no easy feat. On average, medical schools in the United States receive over 7,000 applications each year for a limited number of seats. Crafting a personal statement that stands out is critical to making your application competitive.

This article provides key strategies to help you write a compelling personal statement that will grab the admissions committee's attention. We outline the critical elements all medical school personal statements should include - like effectively demonstrating your motivation for medicine, highlighting life experiences, and exhibiting strong writing skills. 

Follow our step-by-step guide to understand exactly what admissions teams look for in these essays and set yourself apart from thousands of other impressive applicants vying for limited spots.

Get The Ultimate Guide on Writing an Unforgettable Personal Statement

Selecting a Personal Statement Topic

When choosing a personal statement topic, talk about an achievement, event, or personal accomplishment that ignited personal growth and a new outlook on your life. Consider meaningful life experiences, challenges overcome, extracurriculars, future goals, or topics that demonstrate skills gained. 

The most important part of selecting a personal statement topic is choosing one that enables you to link it with your passion for medicine. Remember, it’s vital that your chosen subject tells medical school admissions committees more about you and why you want to be a doctor . 

You should aim to write about your qualities that aren’t represented by your GPA or MCAT score. This can include your determination, optimism, or leadership qualities. Revealing your personal qualities, strengths, and weaknesses is a brilliant way to connect with your reader on an emotional level. 

Step 1: Highlight Your Qualities

The hardest part of writing a personal statement is figuring out where to start, mainly because you are already thinking of everything you want to say. Start your personal statement by telling the admissions committee a little about yourself by highlighting a few qualities.

This could be anything regarding your characteristics, traits, and behaviors. A helpful tip is to gear your qualities toward medical school. How do your qualities translate into the medical field? Will they benefit you? If so, explain.

For example, your audience will want to know if you can handle the pressure and take the lead in day-to-day activities associated with the medical field. Talk about an event that highlights your leadership experience. If you aren’t sure which qualities you should list in your personal statement, think about it from a patient perspective.

What qualities would you want to see in your doctor? For example, would you like a compassionate, empathic doctor or a stern, no-nonsense doctor? Write down these traits and see which ones fit you best. Some notable qualities include but are not limited to the following:

• Analytical abilities
• Persistence

With that being said, do not discuss more than three qualities in your personal statement. You will have to spend time explaining each characteristic, when or where you have demonstrated it, and how it relates to your desire to pursue a career in medicine.

Remember, your experiences that highlight the qualities you chose do not need to come from a clinical (i.e., shadowing a physician , or working with dialysis patients) or research experience (discovering a breakthrough in perceptions of neurobiology). They can come from extracurricular activities that eventually led you down this career path. 

On a side note, make sure you list up to 15 activities in the AMCAS Work and Activities section of your med school application. 

Medical school applicants often write about volunteer work they have done over the years and how those events brought out the qualities they are highlighting, and how it led to their desire to go to medical school. You will want to include as much detail as possible, so discussing too many traits can hinder your personal statement's overall quality.

You may also be limited in how much you can write. Keeping yourself limited to two to three qualities allows you to go more in-depth with each one. For each personal experience you use to highlight each quality, you will want to ask yourself the following questions:

• Why? Explain why you decided to go through the experience you mentioned. Readers should know what drew you to it in the first place.
• How did you feel? Describe how you felt during this experience. Try to emphasize those feelings and make them relatable to your audience. 
• How has it affected you? Explain how the experience has changed you and your perception of the medical field.
• Has it influenced you? If so, then how? Write about how this event influenced your decision to pursue a career in medicine. You can also include how this brought out new qualities or changed previous ones.

While this may seem like a lot of information to provide initially, your personal statement is your chance to shine. You will want to prove that you aren’t just statistics on a paper but a human being. The more you can convey who you are as a person, the better it will be in the long run.

Step 2: Centralize. Don’t Generalize.

With all the information you will be giving in your personal statement, a part of you may think that generalizing a few remarks here and there won’t be a big deal. Wrong! You will be highlighting your qualities through experiences, so you will not want to add any irrelevant information.

However, Dr. Demicha Rankin, Associate Dean for Admissions at Ohio State University College of Medicine , says you do not want your personal statement to be a “regurgitation” of your resume. Instead, it should offer a compelling self-portrait . Your essay should be as clear and concise as possible while capturing the depth of the event stated.

If you have many experiences that could prove the qualities named to the medical school, pick one experience that stands out above the rest, and focus on that. You will not want to regurgitate what the admissions committee already sees in your school application.

Instead, it would be best to concentrate on how your mentioned qualities are related to the experience you are discussing. Do not generalize your story. Centralize your focus on what is essential. You will want to describe in detail your background and how it contributed to your career in medicine. Get to the nitty-gritty of your point.

Step 3: Effective Storytelling in Your Personal Statement

Even though you are trying to be as concise as possible in your personal statement, you will want to write about your experiences as though you are telling a story. It should have a beginning, middle, and end; the end should reveal how your background led you to a career in medicine.

Be descriptive. Use imagery. Make the readers feel like they were there with you. 

Let’s say you are going to talk about the time you and your friend were caught in a crossfire on the way to the movies. Here’s an example from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine between informative and engaging writing styles:

Informative : “My best friend and I were on our way to the movies when we were caught in a crossfire.”

Engaging : “On April 10th, 2003, at approximately 11 pm, my best friend Kevin and I, intending to see a movie, headed out my front door. We never made it to see a horror movie, but our night was nothing close to mundane when we became innocent victims of gang crossfire.”

As you can see, the informative sentence provides a basic description of the event. The engaging statement captures your attention and makes you want to keep reading to find out what happens next. The admissions committee reads thousands of personal statements, so you need to keep your reader engaged from beginning to end.

Keep the following storytelling tricks in mind when writing your personal statement:

• Keep the story in the first person . Talk about the experience from your perspective. Include your thoughts, interactions, and reactions to the events. For example, say you provided comfort for a dying patient whom you have been working with alongside a doctor. It was going to be the first patient you lost. What was running through your mind at that moment? How did you feel?
• Avoid cliches . Because the admissions committee reads thousands of personal statements, your writing should be original. Please do not play it safe by using cliches. Many people think that using cliches is witty and a breath of fresh air in a personal statement; however, it detaches your reader from your writing and makes it a bit dry. Your best bet is to avoid cliches in your personal statement.
• Make it relatable . While you want to convey a serious tone, you want readers to relate to your story. Describe the emotions you felt, even if it was an experience that made you uncomfortable or traumatized you somehow. If readers can relate to your story, they will remember it more.
• Be genuine . Do not lie in your personal statement. As stated earlier, you will want to be as true to yourself as possible. Readers are getting a sense of who you are through this essay, and the last thing you want to do is write something in it that isn’t necessarily true. 

Step 4: Explain Why You Want to Pursue Medicine

When talking about yourself and trying to keep your audience engaged, you sometimes forget the main point of a personal statement. While the admissions committee wants to know about you as a person, they are more interested in knowing why you want to pursue a career in medicine.

The prompt provided by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) — “Use the space provided to explain why you want to go to medical school." — is purposely vague so that you can write on any topic of your choice.

This is something you will reiterate throughout your essay, but you will want to have a paragraph that ties into your conclusion, answering why you want to pursue medicine. This is where it all comes together.

You will want to highlight the qualities mentioned earlier, what you have learned from your experiences, and how everything you have done has contributed to your overall decision to go to medical school.

Step 5: Prepare Your Personal Statement

Craft an introduction conveying your motivation for the course. Dedicate 75% to discussing academic achievements that make you qualified. Use the remaining 25% to talk about relevant extracurriculars. Conclude by summarizing your strengths and reaffirming your passion.

‍ Rachel Tolen , Assistant Director and Premedical Advisor at Indiana University , suggests applicants should start writing their personal statement early and “expect to revise many versions of your draft over time.”

Remember, your first draft will not be perfect, so you want to give yourself plenty of time to revise and edit before submission — mainly because you can only submit once. 

Tips for Writing a Medical School Personal Statement

Writing a personal statement can be intimidating at first. But with these tips, you’ll breeze right through it.

Research Writing Styles for Your Personal Statement

You can look for a sample medical school personal statement to get a better idea of the writing style for which your target audience is looking. The best place to find sample essays would be from medical schools because those samples are direct examples from the audience you are trying to reach.

For example, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine offers a packet of sample personal statements on its website. Medical school websites are the best place to start your research.

You can also access 27 sample personal statements for med school here:

Outline Your Personal Statement for Medical School

When outlining your personal statement, use the 5-point essay format:

• Introduction Paragraph :
• Begins with a hook to grab the reader's attention.
• Provides background context and information on the essay's topic.
• Ends with a thesis statement that sums up the main argument or position of the essay.
• Body Paragraph 1 :
• Starts with a topic sentence stating the essay's first key point.
• Includes supporting details, evidence, and examples to back up that point.
• Body Paragraph 2 :
• Begins with a topic sentence presenting the second major point.
• Provides more supporting details and analysis related to this point.
• Body Paragraph 3 :
• Starts with another topic sentence introducing the third main point.
• Elaborates on this point with specifics, analysis, and evidence.
• Conclusion Paragraph :
• Summarizes the overall arguments made in the essay.
• Ties the main points together to reinforce the thesis.
• Closes with final thoughts on the topic or a call to action when applicable.

The 5-paragraph structure creates a logical flow for presenting a focused argument on a single topic. Each section builds on the previous one to defend the central thesis statement.

Plan out how you would like to tell your story. By outlining, you are not only organizing your essay, but you are making sure you include everything your audience requires.

You won’t sit around looking for ideas or wondering what your main point was for your third paragraph; instead, you will be ready to write your statement from start to finish without hesitation. Here is one way to organize your personal statement:

• Pick two to three qualities . Make a bullet for each quality you will be talking about in your essay.
• Pick your experience . Under each quality listed, figure out which experience(s) convey(s) that quality. Note a few key moments that are memorable to you. Imagery will be your best friend here.
• Reflection on career path . This is where all the elements of your essay come together to prove that you are passionate about medicine, that you wish to further your career, and how you would use your education once admitted to medical school.

It seems like a simple outline, but you will find yourself writing more than you think. Outlining will help you figure out how you want your audience to perceive you.

You want your story to have a beginning, middle, and end that flow and are engaging. By preparing before actually writing your personal statement, you leave little room for error and irrelevant information.

Medical school admissions officers will likely read hundreds of personal statements. So, you have to make yours unique to stand out from the crowd. 

Lucky for you, no one else has had the same life as you. US News encourages you to “Give your essay a personal touch by sharing something outside of your passion for medicine to make sure your essay stands out.” 

Draw upon your unique background; write about your strengths, failures, and what you have learned from them. 

Show, Don’t Just Tell 

In practice, "show don't tell" means relating the story through palpable scenes and letting readers reach conclusions, rather than stating them directly. The balance of showing and telling varies, but showing should dominate dramatic high points. 

For example, you can write that your involvement in several sports teams has made you become a good team player. On the other hand, if you just write that you’re a good team player, you are not explaining how you acquired that skill. 

Remember to stay on topic; rambling will waste your few precious characters and confuse the reader! Narrowing your focus and reflecting on specific experiences is a brilliant way to write about your unique qualities. 

Give Yourself Time to Review Your Personal Statement

Start writing early, ideally 2-3 months before the deadline. Crafting an effective personal statement takes more time than you may expect. Allow yourself several weeks to write multiple drafts and thoroughly revise your statement.

Give yourself at least 24 hours before going back to check it; this way, you will walk in with a fresh mind and catch more mistakes. Another option would be to have an objective third party read your personal statement.

Get Someone to Look at Your Statement 

Ask people who know you well - friends and family can give feedback on whether your statement accurately reflects your personality, experiences, and goals. Get an editor's perspective such as teachers, advisors, and writing center staff to evaluate your structure, clarity, and grammar.

Excellent proofreaders will assess your work in two stages . First, they should interrogate the content by highlighting areas that need more work. Then, they should check your grammar, punctuation, spelling, and style. 

While proofreaders will undoubtedly find errors that you missed, it is essential that your writing maintains your voice. After all, your chosen medical schools want to hear about you in your own words. 

If you’re still struggling with your statement, consult with a medical school admissions expert who can help you write a stellar personal statement. 

Analysis of 5 Personal Statements

Here are five examples of successful medical school personal statements , along with an analysis of their strengths and areas for improvement.

Example 1: "A Journey of Discovery"

From a young age, I have been fascinated by the complexity of the human body and the intricacies of medicine. Growing up with a parent who struggled with chronic illness, I witnessed firsthand the profound impact that compassionate, knowledgeable doctors can have on the lives of patients and their families. These experiences sparked my desire to pursue a career in medicine and make a difference in the lives of others.

As I progressed through my undergraduate studies, I sought out opportunities to explore my passion for medicine and gain hands-on experience in the field. I volunteered at a local clinic, where I had the chance to work directly with patients and observe the day-to-day challenges and rewards of practicing medicine. I also shadowed doctors in various specialties, from pediatrics to surgery, which gave me a deeper understanding of the diverse roles and responsibilities of physicians.

One of the most formative experiences of my journey was participating in a research project on the genetic basis of Alzheimer's disease. Working alongside a team of dedicated scientists and physicians, I contributed to the development of new diagnostic tools and potential treatments for this devastating condition. This experience not only reinforced my love for scientific discovery but also highlighted the importance of collaboration and innovation in advancing medical knowledge and improving patient care.

Through my experiences, I have developed a strong foundation in the sciences, as well as the communication, leadership, and problem-solving skills essential for success in medicine. I am excited to bring my passion, curiosity, and commitment to making a difference to the challenges and opportunities of medical school and beyond.

What is Good About This Personal Statement?

• Engaging opening that sets up the applicant's personal connection to medicine
• Demonstrates a clear progression of experiences and growth over time
• Highlights specific, relevant experiences such as volunteering, shadowing, and research
• Shows a strong understanding of the challenges and rewards of a career in medicine
• Concludes by tying together the main themes and expressing enthusiasm for the future

What Needs Improvement and Why?

• Some sections could benefit from more specific details and anecdotes to fully illustrate the applicant's experiences and what they learned from them
• The research experience is mentioned briefly but could be expanded upon to showcase the applicant's contributions and the significance of the project

Example 2: "Empathy in Action"

As a child, I was always drawn to helping others. Whether it was comforting a friend who had fallen on the playground or volunteering at a local animal shelter, I found joy and fulfillment in making a positive difference in the lives of those around me. As I grew older, I began to realize that this desire to help others was more than just a hobby - it was a calling.

My path to medicine became clear when I had the opportunity to volunteer at a hospice center during my sophomore year of college. Working with patients facing the end of their lives was a profound and humbling experience that taught me the true meaning of empathy and compassion. I sat with patients for hours, listening to their stories, holding their hands, and providing comfort in their final days. Through these interactions, I witnessed the incredible power of human connection and the role that healthcare professionals play in supporting patients and families during their most vulnerable moments.

This experience inspired me to seek out additional opportunities to work with patients and further develop my empathy and communication skills. I volunteered as a crisis counselor for a mental health hotline, where I provided support and resources to individuals struggling with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. I also worked as a medical scribe in a busy emergency department, where I observed the critical thinking and quick decision-making skills required of physicians in high-pressure situations.

Through these experiences, I have developed a deep appreciation for the challenges and rewards of a career in medicine. I am excited to bring my passion for helping others, my strong foundation in the sciences, and my commitment to empathy and compassion to the rigors of medical school and beyond. I am confident that with hard work, dedication, and a steadfast commitment to putting patients first, I will make a meaningful difference in the lives of those I serve.

• Strong opening that highlights the applicant's longstanding desire to help others
• Vivid, specific examples of experiences that have shaped the applicant's path to medicine
• Demonstrates a deep understanding of the importance of empathy and compassion in healthcare
• Showcases a variety of relevant experiences, from hospice volunteering to crisis counseling and medical scribing
• Concludes with a strong statement of purpose and a commitment to making a difference in the lives of patients
• The transition from the opening paragraph to the hospice experience could be smoother and more natural
• Some of the descriptions of the applicant's experiences, such as the crisis counseling and medical scribing, could be more detailed to fully convey the skills and insights gained

Example 3: "Resilience and Determination"

Growing up in a low-income, single-parent household, I learned the value of hard work and determination at a young age. Watching my mother work tirelessly to provide for our family, I developed a deep appreciation for the power of resilience and the importance of never giving up on one's dreams.

As I navigated the challenges of my upbringing, I found solace in my studies and a growing fascination with the sciences. I excelled in my high school biology and chemistry classes, and I began to dream of a career in medicine - a field where I could combine my love for science with my desire to make a difference in the lives of others.

However, as a first-generation college student, I faced numerous obstacles on my path to pursuing this dream. I worked multiple part-time jobs to support myself financially, often sacrificing sleep and social activities to keep up with my coursework. Despite these challenges, I remained focused on my goals and sought out opportunities to gain experience in the medical field.

One of the most transformative experiences of my journey was participating in a medical mission trip to a rural village in Honduras. Working alongside a team of physicians and nurses, I helped provide basic medical care to a community with limited access to healthcare resources. I witnessed firsthand the impact that compassionate, culturally competent care can have on the lives of patients and their families, and I returned from the trip with a renewed sense of purpose and determination.

Through my experiences, I have developed a strong work ethic, a deep commitment to service, and a resilient spirit that I believe will serve me well in the challenges of medical school and beyond. I am excited to bring my unique perspective and life experiences to the diverse community of aspiring physicians, and I am confident that with hard work and dedication, I will achieve my goal of becoming a compassionate, skilled doctor who makes a meaningful difference in the lives of my patients.

• A compelling personal story that highlights the applicant's resilience and determination in the face of adversity
• Demonstrates a clear passion for science and medicine from a young age
• A specific example of a transformative experience (medical mission trip) that reinforced the applicant's commitment to medicine
• Showcases relevant personal qualities, such as a strong work ethic and a commitment to service
• A strong conclusion that ties together the applicant's unique perspective and experiences with their future goals as a physician
• The discussion of the applicant's challenges as a first-generation college student could be more detailed, perhaps with a specific example or anecdote to illustrate the obstacles faced and how they were overcome
• The medical mission trip is a powerful experience, but the description could be more vivid and engaging, perhaps by including a specific patient interaction or moment of realization

Example 4: "Curiosity and Innovation"

From a young age, I have been driven by a deep curiosity about the world around me. As a child, I was constantly asking questions, taking things apart to see how they worked, and conducting my own little "experiments" in the backyard. This innate curiosity led me to pursue a degree in biomedical engineering, where I discovered my passion for using science and technology to solve complex problems and improve human health.

During my undergraduate studies, I had the opportunity to work on a research project developing a novel drug delivery system for cancer treatment. Collaborating with a team of engineers, scientists, and clinicians, I helped design and test a nanoparticle platform that could target cancer cells with precision, reducing side effects and improving treatment outcomes. This experience not only reinforced my love for scientific discovery but also opened my eyes to the incredible potential of interdisciplinary collaboration in advancing medical innovation.

Inspired by this experience, I sought out additional opportunities to apply my engineering skills to medical challenges. I interned at a medical device startup, where I worked on developing a wearable sensor for continuous glucose monitoring in patients with diabetes. I also volunteered at a local hospital, shadowing physicians and observing the daily challenges and opportunities they face in delivering high-quality patient care.

Through these experiences, I have developed a strong foundation in the technical and problem-solving skills essential for success in medicine, as well as a deep appreciation for the human side of healthcare. I am excited to bring my curiosity, creativity, and passion for innovation to the challenges and opportunities of medical school and beyond. I believe that by combining my engineering background with a medical education, I will be uniquely positioned to contribute to the development of new technologies and approaches that can transform patient care and improve health outcomes for all.

• Engaging opening that highlights the applicant's curiosity and love for science from a young age
• A specific example of a research project that showcases the applicant's skills and passion for medical innovation
• Demonstrates a clear understanding of the value of interdisciplinary collaboration in advancing medical knowledge and improving patient care
• Highlights relevant internship and volunteer experiences that further demonstrate the applicant's commitment to applying their skills to medical challenges
• A strong conclusion that ties together the applicant's engineering background and passion for innovation with their future goals as a physician
• The description of the applicant's childhood curiosity could be more concise and focused, perhaps by connecting it more directly to their later pursuits in biomedical engineering
• The volunteer experience at the hospital is mentioned briefly but could be expanded upon to provide a more well-rounded picture of the applicant's understanding of the challenges and rewards of clinical medicine

Example 5: "Service and Leadership"

Growing up in a military family, I learned the value of service, discipline, and leadership from a young age. Watching my parents dedicate their lives to serving our country, I developed a deep appreciation for the sacrifices and responsibilities that come with being part of something greater than oneself.

As I grew older, I began to realize that my own passion for service extended beyond the military to the field of medicine. I was drawn to the idea of using my skills and knowledge to help others in their time of need, and I began to seek out opportunities to gain experience in the healthcare field.

One of the most formative experiences of my journey was volunteering at a free clinic for uninsured and underserved patients. Working alongside a dedicated team of physicians, nurses, and medical students, I helped provide basic medical care to individuals who might otherwise go without. I witnessed firsthand the challenges and inequities in our healthcare system, as well as the incredible impact that compassionate, accessible care can have on the lives of patients and their families.

Inspired by this experience, I took on leadership roles in various campus organizations dedicated to promoting health and wellness. As president of the Pre-Medical Society, I organized educational events, volunteer opportunities, and mentorship programs for aspiring medical students. I also served as a peer health educator, providing information and resources on topics such as stress management, nutrition, and sexual health to my fellow students.

Through these experiences, I have developed strong leadership, communication, and advocacy skills, as well as a deep commitment to serving others. I am excited to bring these qualities to the challenges and opportunities of medical school and beyond. I believe that by combining my passion for service with a rigorous medical education, I will be well-prepared to take on leadership roles in the healthcare field and make a meaningful difference in the lives of my patients and community.

• Strong opening that highlights the applicant's background and values shaped by their military family upbringing
• A specific example of a formative volunteer experience at a free clinic that sparked the applicant's passion for medicine and commitment to serving underserved populations
• Demonstrates leadership and initiative through involvement in campus organizations and peer education
• Showcases relevant skills, such as communication, advocacy, and a deep commitment to service
• A compelling conclusion that ties together the applicant's passion for service and leadership with their future goals as a physician
• The connection between the applicant's military background and their path to medicine could be more clearly articulated, perhaps by providing a specific example or anecdote that bridges the two
• The description of the applicant's leadership roles could be more detailed, perhaps by highlighting a specific initiative or project that they spearheaded and the impact it had on the community

Med School Personal Statement FAQ

Hopefully, you now know how to write your personal statement, but we’ve put together some questions and answers to help you write the best statement possible. 

1. What Should I Avoid When Writing A Personal Statement For Medical School?

When crafting a personal statement, avoid clichés, reiterating information listed in your resume, and lack of focus. Stay away from negativity, vague descriptions, and ensure your statement has a structured flow.

Cramming your statement with overly elaborate language is also a faux pas. It’s fine to use advanced terms that relate to medical topics or your particular discipline. But using simple and clear language throughout your statement makes your writing easier to read. 

2. How Do I Write An Engaging Med School Personal Statement?

Crafting an engaging personal statement starts with choosing one or two meaningful experiences that fueled your passion for medicine. Build a compelling narrative arc highlighting pivotal moments, challenges overcome, lessons learned.

Bianca Trindade , the Assistant Director of Admissions at Ross University School of Medicine , recommends that you “Imagine a blockbuster movie with your favorite actor or actress. You’re the star of your unique story. Include experiences that have touched you on a personal level and helped you discover your calling as a physician.”

It’s important to reflect on your experiences, not just list them. Explain what you learned, how it shaped you, and why they deepened your passion for studying medicine. If you write a statement that is reflective, heartfelt, and sincere, Trindade notes that it allows “the committee to get a glimpse into who you are.”

All of these tips will come in handy when you have to write your medical school secondary essays like the medical school diversity essay . 

3. How Do I Write My Med School Personal Statement Conclusion?

Your medical school personal statement conclusion should compellingly reiterate your motivations, strengths, and commitment to becoming an excellent physician. Avoid simply repeating points already made. Instead, elaborate on your future goals and the type of doctor you aspire to be.

This isn’t the place to detail another aspect of your work experience. Instead, use it to recap what you have said in the body of your statement and highlight any key points again. Try to highlight your passion and commitment to studying medicine and end your statement on a positive note. 

Wrapping Up: Writing the Perfect Personal Statement for Medical School

Writing a medical school personal statement is stressful. You want to include as much information about you as possible while keeping in line with the restrictions. Your personal statement could make or break your medical school application.

It has to stand out above the other thousands of personal statements as well. That puts a lot of pressure on you.

Now is not the time to panic or rethink your career path. With the steps above, your statement will be the one to beat. Remember, keep it simple while capturing the depth and breadth of your experiences.

Never forget the main point of your essay: to convey your passion for medicine and why you wish to pursue it. Keep your audience engaged by showing them you are more than just a number.

With this step-by-step guide, your statement will have you bumped up to the top of the applicant pool in no time.

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2 Med School Essays That Admissions Officers Loved

Here are tips on writing a medical school personal statement and examples of essays that stood out.

2 Great Med School Personal Statements

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A compelling medical school admissions essay can address nearly any topic the applicant is interested in, as long as it conveys the applicant's personality.

A personal statement is often a pivotal factor in medical school admissions decisions.

"The essay really can cause me to look more deeply at the entire application," Dr. Stephen Nicholas, former senior associate dean of admissions with the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons , told U.S. News in 2017. "So I do think it's pretty important."

A compelling medical school admissions essay can address nearly any topic the applicant is interested in, as long as it conveys the applicant's personality, according to Dr. Barbara Kazmierczak, director of the M.D.-Ph.D. Program and a professor of medicine and microbial pathogenesis with the Yale School of Medicine.

“The passion that the writer is bringing to this topic tells us about the individual rather than the topic that they’re describing, and the essay is the place for us to learn about the applicant – who they are and what experiences have brought them to this point of applying to medical school,” she told U.S. News in 2017.

Rachel Rudeen, former admissions coordinator for the University of Minnesota Medical School , says personal statements help medical schools determine whether applicants have the character necessary to excel as a doctor. "Grit is something we really look for," she says.

Evidence of humility and empathy , Rudeen adds, are also pluses.

Why Medical Schools Care About Personal Statements

The purpose of a personal statement is to report the events that inspired and prepared a premed to apply to medical school, admissions experts say. This personal essay helps admissions officers figure out whether a premed is ready for med school, and it also clarifies whether a premed has a compelling rationale for attending med school, these experts explain.

When written well, a medical school personal statement conveys a student's commitment to medicine and injects humanity into an admissions process that might otherwise feel cold and impersonal, according to admissions experts.

Glen Fogerty, associate dean of admissions and recruitment with the medical school at the University of Arizona—Phoenix , put it this way in an email: "To me, the strongest personal statements are the ones that share a personal connection. One where a candidate shares a specific moment, the spark that ignited their passion to become a physician or reaffirmed why they chose medicine as a career."

Dr. Viveta Lobo, an emergency medicine physician with the Stanford University School of Medicine in California who often mentors premeds, says the key thing to know about a personal statement is that it must indeed be personal, so it needs to reveal something meaningful. The essay should not be a dry piece of writing; it should make the reader feel for the author, says Lobo, director of academic conferences and continuing medical education with the emergency medicine department at Stanford.

A great personal statement has an emotional impact and "will 'do' something, not just 'say' something," Lobo wrote in an email. Admissions officers "read hundreds of essays – so before you begin, think of how yours will stand out, be unique and different," Lobo suggests.

How to Write a Personal Statement for Medical School

Lobo notes that an outstanding personal statement typically includes all of the following ingredients:

• An intriguing introduction that gets admissions officers' attention.
• Anecdotes that illustrate what kind of person the applicant is.
• Reflections about the meaning and impact of various life experiences .
• A convincing narrative about why medical school is the logical next step.
• A satisfying and optimistic conclusion.

"You should sound excited, and that passion should come through in your writing," Lobo explains.

A personal statement should tie together an applicant's past, present and future by explaining how previous experiences have led to this point and outlining long-term plans to contribute to the medical profession, Lobo said during a phone interview. Medical school admissions officers want to understand not only where an applicant has been but also the direction he or she is going, Lobo added.

When premeds articulate a vision of how they might assist others and improve society through the practice of medicine, it suggests that they aren't self-serving or simply interested in the field because of its prestige, Lobo says. It's ideal when premeds can eloquently describe a noble mission, she explains.

Elisabeth Fassas, author of "Making Pre-Med Count: Everything I Wish I'd Known Before Applying (Successfully) to Medical School," says premeds should think about the doctors they admire and reflect on why they admire them. Fassas, a first-year medical student at the University of Maryland , suggests pondering the following questions:

• "Why can you really only see yourself being a physician?"
• "What is it about being a doctor that has turned you on to this field?"
• "What kind of doctor do you imagine yourself being?"
• "Who do you want to be for your patients?"
• "What are you going to do specifically for your patients that only you can do?"

Fassas notes that many of the possible essay topics a med school hopeful can choose are subjects that other premeds can also discuss, such as a love of science. However, aspiring doctors can make their personal statements unique by articulating the lessons they learned from their life experiences, she suggests.

Prospective medical students need to clarify why medicine is a more suitable calling for them than other caring professions, health care fields and science careers, Fassas notes. They should demonstrate awareness of the challenges inherent in medicine and explain why they want to become doctors despite those difficulties, she says.

Tips on Crafting an Excellent Medical School Personal Statement

The first step toward creating an outstanding personal statement, Fassas says, is to create a list of significant memories. Premeds should think about which moments in their lives mattered the most and then identify the two or three stories that are definitely worth sharing.

Dr. Demicha Rankin, associate dean for admissions at the Ohio State University College of Medicine , notes that a personal statement should offer a compelling portrait of a person and should not be "a regurgitation of their CV."

The most outstanding personal statements are the ones that present a multifaceted perspective of the applicant by presenting various aspects of his or her identity, says Rankin, an associate professor of anesthesiology.

For example, a premed who was a swimmer might explain how the discipline necessary for swimming is analogous to the work ethic required to become a physician, Rankin says. Likewise, a pianist or another type of musician applying to medical school could convey how the listening skills and instrument-tuning techniques cultivated in music could be applicable in medicine, she adds.

Rankin notes that it's apparent when a premed has taken a meticulous approach to his or her personal statement to ensure that it flows nicely, and she says a fine essay is akin to a "well-woven fabric." One sign that a personal statement has been polished is when a theme that was explored at the beginning of the essay is also mentioned at the end, Rankin says, explaining that symmetry between an essay's introduction and conclusion makes the essay seem complete.

Rankin notes that the author of an essay might not see flaws in his or her writing that are obvious to others, so it's important for premeds to show their personal statement to trusted advisers and get honest feedback. That's one reason it's important to begin the writing process early enough to give yourself sufficient time to organize your thoughts, Rankin says, adding that a minimum of four weeks is typically necessary.

Mistakes to Avoid in a Medical School Personal Statement

One thing premeds should never do in an admissions essay is beg, experts say. Rankin says requests of any type – including a plea for an admissions interview – do not belong in a personal statement. Another pitfall to avoid, Rankin says, is ranting about controversial political subjects such as the death penalty or abortion.

If premeds fail to closely proofread their personal statement, the essay could end up being submitted with careless errors such as misspellings and grammar mistakes that could easily have been fixed, according to experts. Crafting a compelling personal statement typically necessitates multiple revisions, so premeds who skimp on revising might wind up with sloppy essays, some experts say.

However, when fine-tuning their personal statements, premeds should not automatically change their essays based on what others say, Fogerty warns.

"A common mistake on personal statements is having too many people review your statement, they make recommendations, you accept all of the changes and then – in the end – the statement is no longer your voice," Fogerty wrote in an email. It's essential that a personal statement sound like the applicant and represent who he or she is as a person, Fogerty says.

Dr. Nicholas Jones, a Georgia-based plastic and reconstructive surgeon, says the worst error that someone can make in the personal statement is to be inauthentic or deceptive.

"Do not lie. Do not fabricate," he warns.

Jones adds that premeds should not include a story in their personal statement that they are not comfortable discussing in-depth during a med school admissions interview . "If it's something too personal or you're very emotional and you don't want to talk about that, then don't put it in a statement."

Medical School Personal Statement Examples

Here are two medical school admissions essays that made a strong, positive impression on admissions officers. The first is from Columbia and the second is from the University of Minnesota. These personal statements are annotated with comments from admissions officers explaining what made these essays stand out.

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Medical School Personal Statement Examples and Tips

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Are you trying to write a personal statement for your medical school application but you’re not sure where to start? Why don’t we check out some medical school personal statement examples to have a grasp on what you are trying to do?

Your personal statement can increase or decrease your chances of getting accepted to your dream med school. While it’s only one of the components of your application, it’s a good way of revisiting your main reason for pursuing medicine and telling the admissions committee about it.

The internet is a vast source for you to look at various personal statement examples for med school and analyze what makes one good and the other bad . It’s always good to have something to refer to, right?

Since you stumbled into my blog, you need not look any further. In this post, we’re going to look at some examples of medical school personal statements and analyze each one. I am also going to briefly discuss the basics of how to write a personal statement and answer some FAQs for those who need more information on this admission component.

Bonus: Want better grades with more free time (and less stress)? Get access to our free 3-step study system here to see what other top students do that you may not be doing!

Table Of Contents

What Is A Med School Personal Statement?

Simply put, a med school personal statement is an essay that shows who you are , your motivations , and the experiences that led you to apply to med school. It is a chance to show your warmth and personality to the admissions committee. Your personal statement should always have your own voice and not anyone else’s.

It’s telling your story of origin — of why you have set out to pursue medicine in the first place and what direction you are gearing towards in the field. It gives the admission officers an insight into your readiness and motivation for attending med school, so it’s only proper to take it as seriously as you did your pre-med courses.

The writing process of your personal statement is a good chance to reexamine your affinity and passion for the field . Not only should you take it seriously, but you should also reflect and enjoy the process of revisiting your memories connected to your dream of getting into med school.

Get The Exact 8-Steps I Used To Get A 3.9 GPA In Med School For Free Below!

How Should You Write A Personal Statement?

Before we start, if you want to be more precise and come up with a perfect med school personal statement, you may want to check out this Step-By-Step Method which I have previously posted in this blog.

In your application, you may be asked to write about any of the broader topics provided. For starters, here are some points or possible topics to reflect on as early as now:

• A challenging experience that gave you a different perspective about medicine which you didn’t have before
• An enlightening experience that opened your eyes to the importance of the medical profession
• An individual or mentor that inspired you to take a medicine course
• Any hindrance or hardships unique to you that may have influenced your decision in applying to med school
• A thing or reason that keeps you passionate and driven to take on the career.

Now that I got you thinking, let’s discuss how you should write your personal statement.

Below, I will be reiterating some tips from The Princeton Review infused with my personal experience on how to write a personal statement for med school. 

Tip #1: Be Consistent

Choose a topic and stay on track . Remember that you are not being asked to write an autobiography, rather, you should highlight the points in your life leading to your decision to go to med school .

When you are consistent, you are creating a good flow in your essay. This is something that many fail to observe in writing their personal statement. You have to be able to guide your readers from one experience to another so make sure that every idea is interconnected .

To do so, you need to create good transitions between your personal experiences and your reflections. For instance, you can connect your clinical knowledge to a time when you were called to apply it in a real emergency situation , and then follow it up with an insightful reflection of how it changed or strengthened your views. 

Tip #2: Be Unique And Interesting

There are plenty of people wanting to get in so it’s important that your story is one-of-a-kind .

When starting your personal statement, you need to find a way to hook the admissions committee right on the very first line of your essay. You can do this by starting with the most intriguing part of the story you want to tell.

Once you have the hook ready, remember to be personal and more specific with your story. For instance, everyone can write that they have faced many challenges to get to where they are, but only you can show the admissions committee what it is like to be in your shoes .

Tip #3: Keep Writing Until Due

Writing a personal statement isn’t supposed to be an affair in one sitting. Give yourself some allowance — a generous amount of time — to write, re-write, and edit your personal statement until you are sure that it represents no one else but you .

Of course, this doesn’t mean you have to spend all your time perfecting your personal statement.

Always refresh your mind before you re-edit your draft. It’s good to edit your statement after a day or two or longer to be able to easily spot anything you should change or delete.

Bonus: Want to learn how I got a 3.9 GPA in med school using a simple-to-follow study strategy? Get access to my exact study method from med school for free here. 

Tip #4: Strengthen Your Writing

Tell your story clearly and on point . Your personal statement should be easy to comprehend but has a profound impact on the people reading it.

For those who think that writing is not their forte, you can still write perfectly good essays with the 5-point essay format. It goes like this:

• 1st paragraph (The Hook) – Catch the reader’s attention with 4 to 5 sentences of your interesting story.
• 2nd-4th paragraphs (The Revelation) – Unravel your story and show them who you are. It has to contain both your clinical knowledge and your reflective, humane side.
• Concluding paragraph (The Wrap-Up) – Either tie it with your introduction , give a brief summary of what you have written, or end it with a challenge for yourself in the future.

Tip #5: Seek Good Help

A good personal statement isn’t perfected alone. Just like how none of us can finish med school without multiple people helping us, you need to learn as early as now how to seek help when you need it .

Before you submit your personal statement, run it over the people you trust and whose opinions you really value. It could be a friend who knows you like the back of their hands or your mentors who have the professional knowledge to thoroughly evaluate your essay.

Never forget to run your finished essay on any trusted proofreading site to make sure that it’s as perfect as can be. 

P.S. Did you know that you can seek assistance from AI in crafting your personal statement? Check out this article: 5 Crazy Ways AI Can Improve Your Life As A Med Student

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Medical School Personal Statement Examples

Now that we have briefly discussed how to write medical school personal statements , let’s move on to analyzing some examples . 

Below, I have linked 12 medical school personal statement examples from several sites. You may click the links to read the examples and then come back here to read how we analyze them.

Example #1: “Don’t Write Like This”

Have you read it? Did it feel like reading good literary fiction ? Can you see the personality of the writer ?

You do not want your personal statement to sound too general because you are applying to be in med school and not in a literary school.

Also, notice how the excerpt uses highfalutin words in phrases like “tremendous internal gratification,” and “culmination of a lifelong dream”. The overall tone does seem a bit pretentious and dreamy .

We love it when words are beautifully woven together, but a personal statement should be specific, clear, and direct to the point . It should be easy to comprehend yet remains impactful .

Have you seen any specific experiences elaborated in this first example? This example can be easily neglected by the admissions committee because it does not stand out . A personal statement should narrate your experiences and show your personality .

Example #2: The Reader

Here, we have an example that seems just about right…but not quite.

The writer has a wealth of experiences in the medical field and his or her interest in medicine is obvious in the volunteer experiences and readings .

The personal statement could have done better in terms of transition . Reading it felt as if it was just a compilation of different clinical experiences with no unifying quality about it.

Also, the last paragraph could have done better in wrapping up the whole narrative . It added another experience to the stack instead of connecting it to the first paragraph or summarizing the whole essay .

Example #3: A Humorous AMCAS Essay

It feels like reading something that’s straight out of a middle-grade adventure book, right?

When you read this third example, you can clearly tell how unique the applicant’s story is . Definitely one-of-a-kind. 

What makes this essay different, despite the use of really specific terms (that we probably have no idea about), is how it shows and not just plainly tells us something.

Through the descriptive narration, we can visualize what the applicant is telling us, making it easy to comprehend . The essay also did a great job blending the essence of the applicant’s stories with just enough humor to show readers what kind of person is behind it.

While it is truly a daring step to directly address the admissions committee on your personal statement essay, like this one just did, it does add more character and a dash of confidence , right?

Just don’t make the mistake of being overly confident if you’re really not the type and you can also produce a humorous, thrilling essay such as this.

Not everyone has an interesting back story like this, but if you do, make sure to use it to your advantage .

Example #4: The Physician Assistant Student

See that? See how it’s easy to comprehend and follow along?

That’s what you want for your personal statement. In this example, you see how they started with an experience that became the root of it all — an incident and encounter that happened during childhood.

There’s an inspiring mentor that has been in touch with the applicant ever since that life-changing diagnosis. A smooth transition and enumeration of various achievements and efforts to improve their clinical knowledge were also present.

Then comes a story of devastating personal loss which strengthened the applicant’s desire all the more. It is interesting to note how it’s a very personal topic and yet it did not sound too emotional, but rather, contained and still reflective .

The conclusion ties up with the introduction and succinctly summarizes the whole essay . Way to go!

Example #5: Aspiring Plastic Surgeon

It is clear to this applicant that it’s not just about what the field of medicine holds for them, it is also about what they can offer for the field .

Perhaps the defining quality of this particular personal statement is its tone of confidence . The applicant clearly knew what he or she wanted and was able to presuppose that plastic surgery will be just the right specialization to take.

This is good because it gives the admissions committee a clear view of the applicant’s resolve.

However, there might still be something missing in this particular example that you don’t want lacking in your own statement.

While the applicant has excellently given a rationale about their personal interest and their professional competency , there is little mention of the humane, affective side of their involvement with medicine. 

Take care that while you want to focus on your clinical experiences and medical skills , it is also very important to show that you value the needs of your patients more than anything.

Example #6: The Storyteller

What a story, right?

It felt like being taken to that precise moment when an experience has challenged and strengthened the applicant’s perspective about medicine.

Furthermore, it showed the humane side —tender and emphatic—of the applicant. Though the applicant’s strength and initial passion lie in research and the cold, hard facts of the field , it does not make any less of a medical professional’s heart and capacity to care for and comfort others .

The story that the applicant told about Paul was presented in a feature-like way at the start. However, as you go on reading, it becomes kind of like the backbone of the story, tying everything together . 

This example showed us a clear depiction of who the applicant is . Yes, it tells us the applicant’s experiences in a much more vivid manner, but the way it was written showed us more of how the applicant views those experiences rather than focusing on the experience itself. 

If you have a touching story to tell in your personal statement as well, then write it so that the readers can also feel like they were in that very moment with you.

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Example #7: Field Of Dreams

It’s entitled “Field Of Dreams”, but it doesn’t sound very dreamy, right? And in a good way.

In this example, we start off by reading the applicant’s description of his father’s life as a farmer. While it does make us double-check if we are really reading a personal statement for med school, the retelling of how the applicant’s father went about his work with such passion and enthusiasm makes it relatable for people working hard in other professions.

This essay is a little short of specific mentions of clinical experiences , so you better make sure to add a nice bit of your own into yours. 

You can also see how it chose to focus on the applicant’s rationale on why they are pursuing the career despite the hard work it demands—and all because they have a great mentor and role model —their father who works in a different field…literally and figuratively.

If you are like this applicant who was born out of so many hardships, make sure you tell the admissions committee why you and your story are special . The story of this essay may not be a hundred percent unique, but the flow of writing and the vibe it gives makes it a good personal statement.

Example #8: Inspired By The Teachers

Upon clicking the link, take a look at the site’s first example.

If you are done reading, notice how well-written it is, as expected of an applicant who majored in communication studies and claimed to love writing. 

Yes, you read that right. Even if you majored in humanities or social sciences , it doesn’t mean you can’t have a place in med school. 

All it takes is a deep understanding of how your previous learnings coincide with the art and science of medicine . 

The example showed how the applicant was thoroughly inspired by individuals who were not only doctors but ‘teachers’. The applicant’s encounters with these doctor-teachers became a catalyst for the medicinal interest to grow.

Perhaps the only downside to it is the lack of direction in terms of what specialization the applicant is planning to pursue. However, the last statement definitely leaves room for a personal challenge – a personal ‘what if’. 

Example #9: Improved Perspective

Upon clicking the link, read the second example on the website.

Are you done? Let’s discuss it.

Right from the first paragraph, it is clear that the applicant has a great passion for medicine . Yet starting off the essay with a question  tells us that despite the one-track mind, there still is room for something more.

And this is a good thing!

Once a believer that medicine is simply science and the technical understanding of how the human body works, fails, and can be treated, the applicant realized that there is ‘art’ in the field . 

From then on, it is clear that the applicant has a capacity for learning something new and being open to an altogether different perspective from what they were used to. 

The excellent writing showed the gradual unfolding of experiences . It showed reason, passion, and motivation to pursue medicine.

It also gave a sufficient glimpse of how an inspiring individual and a challenging illness have impacted the way the applicant viewed medicine. 

All in all, this example is a comprehensive , well-written personal statement that you can base yours on.

Example #10: The Runner

Who doesn’t want a student with so much grit ? No wonder it’s considered a unique and great personal statement essay .

Our applicant here, “the runner”, did not simply tell us how she’s the type to persevere despite the discomfort for even greater rewards later, but showed it in telling us her experiences about running, studying, and facing her illness . 

It has the right balance of narrating her clinical experiences alongside her personal struggles , and her love of running. She does work very hard, but she has shown how multi-sided her passion is.

In this example, we see a person who chooses to excel in all aspects of her life —hobbies, health, and career. She knows the challenges she is yet to face and declares she is ready for them with her exceptional grit and drive .

What’s also great about this example is how it doesn’t make her look like a tireless robot or work machine. Her encounters with the children in need during her training in Mexico City showed her humane side .

She concluded her essay with her hopes and goals in her hobby and career . I just wish she ended it with more style so it remains consistent with the whole of her essay. 

You can do that, right?

Example #11: The Anthropology Student

Now, this personal statement essay’s origin is connected to example #1 . However, don’t let that confuse you, because example #7 is a whole lot better than the first excerpt.

By better, I mean, it is more specific . It gave an insight to the various clinical experiences which the anthropology student had.

Inspiring mentor ? Check.

Training and research that showed the effort and curiosity to learn of the applicant? Check.

A goal and a hope of what medical school can further teach the applicant? Check.

What sets this essay apart is how we can see the applicant’s awareness of the diversified experiences and beliefs of the human race, which affects their medical status and beliefs. That’s how the applicant chose to show what makes them human and we like that.

I wouldn’t say it gave a perfect balance between clinical experiences and personal reflection, but I suppose it will serve as a good example. Remember to add a bit more warmth to your personal statement .

Example #12: The Traveler

If the previous example talked about learning diversity from their anthropology classes, example #12’s applicant takes it so many steps further — literally.

The traveling nature of this applicant has strengthened his or her desire to pursue a career in medicine. It’s a traveling doctor in the making!

In this essay, we can see another account of how one’s passion and hobbies can be integrated in the pursuit of becoming a doctor. Even better, it’s not simply comparing the hobbies to clinical work, but there is that desire to further advance the profession through traveling .

You can also see how the applicant really focused on what those traveling experiences meant to him or her , rather than simply describing the very experiences themselves. This is what I mean when I say you have to be unique in your storytelling .

Your personal statement should tell your experiences and what they mean to you . 

There are plenty more examples you can look for on the internet, but I recommend that you just f ocus on those most relevant to what story you want to tell for yourself . 

Since we’re done with the examples, let’s move on to some frequently asked questions , which you may also be wondering about at this very moment.

When Should You Start Writing Your Med School Personal Statement?

Months before you begin your application , you can and you probably should start drafting it. Again, expect to revise your med school personal statement repeatedly so be generous with yourself and give yourself plenty of time .

There must be a number of interesting experiences you will have and keep having throughout your pre-med journey. It will be such a great help if you have recorded short anecdotes of every impactful experience so you will have something to reflect on when you start writing your med school personal statement.

How Long Should A Personal Statement Be For Medical School?

It really depends on where you will submit your application , but in general, you should follow a 5,300-character maximum essay . This is about a page and a half, single-spaced essay using the 12-point font size. 

That doesn’t mean you should fill it to the brim. A personal statement short of 5,300 characters but is still focused, cohesive, and concise is stronger than one that has been filled with plenty of filler ideas just to achieve the maximum length.

What Makes A Bad Med School Personal Statement?

Surface-wise, a med school personal statement filled with grammatical errors and lousy transitions is bad. Learn how to proofread or let others do the job for you.

Getting deeper, although you are advised to consult multiple people before submitting your personal statement, relying too much on what they have to say can make your essay worse .

Again, you want to be unique , so make sure that the loudest voice they will hear in your essay is yours and no one else’s.

What Should You Avoid In A Personal Statement?

There are plenty of things you should avoid doing when writing your personal statement. According to U.S. News , here are some of the most important things you need to avoid: 

• First, avoid begging . You do not want to sound desperate and unconfident in your personal statement because that is so unbecoming of a professional.
• Second, do not even think about ranting — especially with regards to controversial political topics . Such sensitive subjects deserve a very long discussion and your personal statement is not the place for it.
• Lastly, and perhaps the most important, don’t lie in your personal statement or this will say so much of your character. 

After submitting your med school requirements, you will probably have an interview , so take note not to put any details that you cannot discuss further with another person. This includes very personal topics and things that will make you more emotional than needed. 

I hope you learned a lot from the examples we tackled. Now that you know what it’s supposed to look like, try coming up with your first draft!

Whenever you’re ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:

1.   The Med School Handbook :   Join thousands of other students who have taken advantage of the hundreds of FREE tips & strategies I wish I were given on the first day of medical school to crush it with less stress. 

2. The Med School Blueprint :  Join the hundreds of students who have used our A-Z blueprint and playbook for EVERY   phase of the medical journey so you can start to see grades like these. 

3.   ​ Med Ignite Study Program :  Get personalized help to create the perfect study system for yourself so you can see better grades ASAP on your medical journey & see results like these. 

4. Learn the one study strategy that saved my  grades in medical school here (viewed by more than a million students like you). 

This post is just the start. Why don’t you check out the other related articles down below to get more information about entering a medical school?

• Why Do You Want To Be A Doctor? [How To Answer]
• (Step-By-Step Method) Write A Perfect Personal Statement For Medical School
• What To Do If You Don’t Get Into Med School
• Having A Job In Medical School [Is It Possible?]
• Hardest Medical Schools To Get Into [Full Breakdown]
• Medical School Interview Outfits
• Medical School Chance Predictors [How Do They Work?]
• How To Apply As A Nontraditional Medical Student [Ultimate Guide]
• Medical School Secondary Application [Tips And FAQs]
• 9 Best Extracurriculars For Medical School
• Should I Go To Medical School? [How To Know If It’s Right For Me]

Thanks for reading this and best of luck with your application. Until the next one my friend…

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Medicine Personal Statement Examples

Get some inspiration to start writing your Medicine Personal Statement with these successful examples from current Medical School students. We've got Medicine Personal Statements which were successful for universities including Imperial, UCL, King's, Bristol, Edinburgh and more.

Personal Statement Examples

• Read successful Personal Statements for Medicine
• Pay attention to the structure and the content
• Get inspiration to plan your Personal Statement

Personal Statement Example 1

Check out this Medicine Personal Statement which was successful for Imperial, UCL, QMUL and King's.

Personal Statement Example 2

This Personal Statement comes from a student who received Medicine offers from Bristol and Plymouth - and also got an interview at Cambridge.

Personal Statement Example 3

Have a look at this Medicine Personal Statement which was successful for Imperial, Edinburgh, Dundee and Newcastle.

Personal Statement Example 4

Take a look at this Medicine Personal Statement which was successful for King's, Newcastle, Bristol and Sheffield.

Personal Statement Example 5

Pick up tips from this Medicine Personal Statement which was successful for Imperial, Birmingham and Manchester.

Personal Statement Example 6

This Personal Statement comes from a student who got into Graduate Entry Medicine at King's - and also had interviews for Undergraduate Medicine at King's, QMUL and Exeter.

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• Current Students >
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Applying to Residency

Residency road map, first and second year.

Students with questions about different medical specialties and plans for their careers are encouraged to reach out to advisers designated by each department, academic staff in Office of Student and Academic Affairs (OSAA) and faculty in their respective program.

Fall-Winter Intersession : Session to introduce residency application process, CV, personal statement, MSPE (“Dean’s Letter”) discussion

Spring : Meet with Office of Student and Academic Affairs Deans to review career plans, noteworthy characteristics for MSPE

Summer : Class meetings to review residency application and Match processes

Fourth Year

Fall: Complete and submit ERAS application. Residency interviews begin (typically run from October-January)

Winter: Residency program interviews continue. Rank list due in February

Spring: Match Day mid-March

Most students will be applying to residency via the Electronic Residency Application System (ERAS).

The Office of Student and Academic Affairs provides support to students during their application to residency programs. An ERAS token will be issued to you early in your fourth year of medical school that will allow you to gain access to the ERAS.

ERAS Application Components

Medical student performance evaluation (mspe).

The MSPE, also known as a dean's letter, will be an important part of your application and will be discussed with you during spring of your third year. A meeting between you and one of the Student and Academic Affairs deans will be scheduled during the spring of your third year. There will also be time to review your MSPE before it is submitted during your fourth year (fall semester).

Noteworthy Characteristics in MSPE

Contained within the MSPE, a maximum of three characteristics highlighting your most salient noteworthy characteristics is required. This section should be presented as a bulleted list. Each characteristic should be described in 2 sentences or less. Information about any significant challenges or hardships encountered by you during medical school may be included.

Curriculum Vitae (CV)

A residency CV is an important document that is used to highlight your experience and training in a succinct, easy to understand format. You will use the information in your CV to fill out either the ERAS residency application or other matching applications. The main goal of a residency CV is to showcase your most significant academic and extracurricular achievements, leaving a lasting, positive, first impression to those who review it. Essentially, your CV should convince residency directors that you are exactly what they are looking for and are a strong match for their residency program. Not only is having an up-to-date CV important for applying to residency and crafting your personal statement, but it's also important for filling out rotation applications and when securing letters of recommendation from physicians.

Letter of Recommendation

You need at least three letters of recommendation per residency, and you can submit up to four per residency. You can check school-specific requirements on the Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database (FREIDA).

Personal Statement

The residency personal statement should include and reflect:

• What draws you to the specialty
• The skills or qualities that will help you succeed during the residency and as a practicing physician
• Your long-term plans, what you hope to accomplish, your preferred setting
• Personal attributes that make you well-suited to the specialty and training
• What attracts you to a particular program (if you’re applying for a specific program outside of the national matching system or if you customize a personal statement within National Residency Matching Program (NRMP).

Ultimately, the combination of these elements will give program directors a sense of the kind of colleague you would be and how you would fit into their program.

ERAS is the system through which you will submit all of your residency application materials, while the NRMP is the organization that facilitates the actual matching process, once all of your documents have been submitted to your programs of interest.

Non-ERAS Residency Application

Students applying to Opthalmology, Plastic Surgery or the military match should contact/notify the Office of Student and Academic Affairs for questions/guidance and if you require components of your education record for Plastic Surgery Common Application (PSCA), San Francisco Residency and Fellowship Match Services (SF Match) or military match.

• Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Apply Smart data
• Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Careers in Medicine
• American Academy of Opthalmology (AAO)
• Electronic Residency Application System (ERAS) User Guide
• Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database (FREIDA)
• 3/17/23 JSMBS prior year Matches
• National Residency Matching Program (NRMP)
• Plastic Surgery Common Application (PSCA)
• San Francisco Residency and Fellowship Match Services (SF Match)
• Texas STAR (Seeking Transparency in Application to Residency)

If you have any questions please contact:  [email protected]

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Writing a Personal Statement

Preparing to Write

Brainstorming, don't forget, sample prompts.

A personal statement is a narrative essay that connects your background, experiences, and goals to the mission, requirements, and desired outcomes of the specific opportunity you are seeking. It is a critical component in the selection process, whether the essay is for a competitive internship, a graduate fellowship, or admittance to a graduate school program. It gives the selection committee the best opportunity to get to know you, how you think and make decisions, ways in which past experiences have been significant or formative, and how you envision your future. Personal statements can be varied in form; some are given a specific prompt, while others are less structured. However, in general a personal statement should answer the following questions:

• Who are you?
• What are your goals?
• How does this specific program/opportunity help you achieve your goals?
• What is in the future?

A personal statement is not:

• A variation of your college admissions essay
• An academic/research paper
• A narrative version of your resume
• A creative writing piece (it can be creative, though)
• An essay about somebody else

Keep in mind that your statement is only a portion of the application and should be written with this in mind. Your entire application package will include some, possibly all, of the materials listed below. You will want to consider what these pieces of the application communicate about you. Your personal statement should aim to tie everything together and fill in or address any gaps. There will likely be some overlap but be sure not to be too repetitive.

• Personal Statement(s)
• Transcripts
• Letters of recommendations
• Sample of written work
• Research proposal

Preparing to Write A large portion of your work towards completing a personal statement begins well before your first draft or even an outline. It is incredibly important to be sure you understand all of the rules and regulations around the statement. Things to consider before you begin writing:

• How many prompts? And what are they? It is important to know the basics so you can get your ideas in order. Some programs will require a general statement of interest and a focused supplementary or secondary statement closely aligned with the institution's goals.
• Are there formatting guidelines? Single or double spaced, margins, fonts, text sizes, etc. Our general guideline is to keep it simple.
• How do I submit my statement(s)? If uploading a document we highly suggest using a PDF as it will minimize the chances of accidental changes to formatting. Some programs may event ask you to copy and paste into a text box.
• When do I have to submit my statement(s)? Most are due at the time of application but some programs, especially medical schools, will ask for secondary statements a few months after you apply. In these instances be sure to complete them within two weeks, any longer is an indication that you aren't that interested in the institution.

Before you start writing, take some time to reflect on your experiences and motivations as they relate to the programs to which you are applying. This will offer you a chance to organize your thoughts which will make the writing process much easier. Below are a list of questions to help you get started:

• What individuals, experiences or events have shaped your interest in this particular field?
• What has influenced your decision to apply to graduate school?
• How does this field align with your interests, strengths, and values?
• What distinguishes you from other applicants?
• What would you bring to this program/profession?
• What has prepared you for graduate study in this field? Consider your classes at Wellesley, research and work experience, including internships, summer jobs and volunteer work.
• Why are you interested in this particular institution or degree program?
• How is this program distinct from others?
• What do you hope to gain?
• What is motivating you to seek an advanced degree now?
• Where do you see yourself headed and how will this degree program help you get there?

For those applying to Medical School, if you need a committee letter for your application and are using the Medical Professions Advisory Committee you have already done a lot of heavy lifting through the 2017-2018 Applicant Information Form . Even if you aren't using MPAC the applicant information form is a great place to start.

Another great place to start is through talking out your ideas. You have a number of options both on and off campus, such as: Career Education advisors and mentors ( you can set up an appointment here ), major advisor, family, friends. If you are applying to a graduate program it is especially important to talk with a faculty member in the field. Remember to take good notes so you can refer to them later.

When you begin writing keep in mind that your essay is one of many in the application pool. This is not to say you should exaggerate your experiences to “stand out” but that you should focus on clear, concise writing. Also keep in mind that the readers are considering you not just as a potential student but a future colleague. Be sure to show them examples and experiences which demonstrate you are ready to begin their program.

It is important to remember that your personal statement will take time and energy to complete, so plan accordingly. Every application and statement should be seen as different from one another, even if they are all the same type of program. Each institution may teach you the same material but their delivery or focus will be slightly different.

In addition, remember:

• Be yourself: You aren’t good at being someone else
• Tragedy is not a requirement, reflection and depth are
• Research the institution or organization
• Proofread, proofread, proofread
• How to have your personal statement reviewed

The prompts below are from actual applications to a several types of programs. As you will notice many of them are VERY general in nature. This is why it is so important to do your research and reflect on your motivations. Although the prompts are similar in nature the resulting statements would be very different depending on the discipline and type of program, as well as your particular background and reasons for wanting to pursue this graduate degree.

• This statement should illustrate your academic background and experiences and explain why you would excel in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (UMass Amherst - M.S. in Civil Engineering).
• Describe your academic and career objectives and how the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies can help you achieve them. Include other considerations that explain why you seek admissions to the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and your interests in the environmental field (Yale - Master of Environmental Management).  
• Please discuss your academic interests and goals. Include your current professional and research interests, as well as your long-range professional objectives. Please be as specific as possible about how your objectives can be met at Clark and do not exceed 800 words (Clark University - M.A. in International Development and Social Change).
• Write a 500- to 700-word statement that describes your work or research. Discuss how you came to focus on the medium, body of work, or academic area you wish to pursue at the graduate level. Also discuss future directions or goals for your work, and describe how the Master of Fine Arts in Studio (Printmedia) is particularly suited to your professional goals (School of the Art Institute of Chicago - MFA in Studio, Printmaking).
• Your statement should explain why you want to study economics at the graduate level. The statement is particularly important if there is something unusual about your background and preparation that you would like us to know about you (University of Texas at Austin - Ph.D in Economics).
• Your personal goal statement is an important part of the review process for our faculty members as they consider your application. They want to know about your background, work experience, plans for graduate study and professional career, qualifications that make you a strong candidate for the program, and any other relevant information (Indiana University Bloomington - M.S.Ed. in Secondary Education).
• Your autobiographical essay/personal statement is a narrative that outlines significant experiences in your life, including childhood experiences, study and work, your strengths and aspirations in the field of architecture, and why you want to come to the University of Oregon (University of Oregon - Master of Architecture).
• Personal history and diversity statement, in which you describe how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. You may refer to any educational, familial, cultural, economic or social experiences, challenges, community service, outreach activities, residency and citizenship, first-generation college status, or opportunities relevant to your academic journey; how your life experiences contribute to the social, intellectual or cultural diversity within a campus community and your chosen field; or how you might serve educationally underrepresented and underserved segments of society with your graduate education (U.C. Davis - M.A. in Linguistics).
• A Personal Statement specifying your past experiences, reasons for applying, and your areas of interest. It should explain your intellectual and personal goals, why you are interested in pursuing an interdisciplinary degree rather than a more traditional disciplinary one, and how this degree fits into your intellectual and personal future (Rutgers University - Ph.D in Women’s and Gender Studies).
• Your application requires a written statement to uploaded into your application and is a critical component of your application for admission. This is your opportunity to tell us what excites you about the field of library and information science, and what problems you want to help solve in this field. Please also tell us how your prior experiences have prepared you for this next step toward your career goals and how this program will help you achieve them (University of North Carolina Chapel Hill - Master of Science in Library Science).
• After watching the video, please describe what strengths and preferences as a learner you have that will facilitate your success in this innovative curriculum. What challenges in our curriculum do you anticipate and what strategies might you use to address these challenges? (MGH Institute of Health Professions PT - They recently redesigned their curriculum)
• Your personal goal statement should briefly describe how you view the future of the field, what your goals are to be part of that future, and what brought you to pursue an advanced education degree in your chosen field. You may include any other information that you feel might be useful. (Northeastern PT)
• Personal Statement: In 500 words or less, describe a meaningful educational experience that affected your professional goals and growth and explain how it impacted you. The educational experience does not need to be related to this degree. Focus on the educational experience and not why you think you would be a good professional in this field. (Simmons PT)
• Personal Statement (500 word minimum): State your reasons for seeking admission to this program at this institution. Include your professional goals, why you want to pursue a career in this field and how admission to this program will assist you in accomplishing those goals. (Regis College Nursing)
• “Use the space provided to explain why you want to go to this type of program.” (AMCAS)
• Address the following three questions(Though there is no set limit, most statements are 1–2 pages, single-spaced.): What are your reasons for pursuing this degree? Why do you wish to pursue your degree at this institution? How do you intend to leverage your degree in a career of this field? (Boston University MPH)
• Please submit a personal statement/statement of purpose of no more than 500 words for the department/degree of choice. Professional degree essays require a clear understanding of the _______ field and how you hope to work within the field. Be sure to proofread your personal statement carefully for spelling and grammar. In your statement, be sure to address the following: what interests you in the field of _____ what interests you in a specific degree program and department at this institution and what interests you in a particular certificate (if applicable). Please also describe how you hope to use your ________ training to help you achieve your career goals. (Columbia PhD in Public Health - Epidemiology)
• Because each Home Program requires significant original research activities in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree, we are interested in obtaining as much information as possible about your previous research experiences. Those who already have such experience are in a better position to know whether they are truly interested in performing ______ research as part of a graduate program. Please include specific information about your research experience in your Statement of Purpose. You may also use the Statement to amplify your comments about your choice of Home Program(s), and how your past experiences and current interests are related to your choice. Personal Statements should not exceed two pages in length (single spaced). Make sure to set your computer to Western European or other English-language setting. We cannot guarantee the ability to access your statement if it is submitted in other fonts. (Stanford Biosciences PhD)
• Your statement of purpose should describe succinctly your reasons for applying to the Department of ____ at ___ University. It would be helpful to include what you have done to prepare for this degree program. Please describe your research interests, past research experience, future career plans and other details of your background and interests that will allow us to evaluate your ability to thrive in our program. If you have interests that align with a specific faculty member, you may state this in your application. Your statement of purpose should not exceed two pages in length (single spaced). (Stanford Bioengineering PhD)
• Statement of purpose (Up to one page or 1,000 words): Rather than a research proposal, you should provide a statement of purpose. Your statement should be written in English and explain your motivation for applying for the course at this institution and your relevant experience and education. Please provide an indication of the area of your proposed research and supervisor(s) in your statement. This will be assessed for the coherence of the statement; evidence of motivation for and understanding of the proposed area of study; the ability to present a reasoned case in English; and commitment to the subject. (Oxford Inorganic Chemistry - DPhil)

Related resources

A 10-Step Guide to Writing an Outstanding Personal Statement

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Applying to college can be daunting, especially when it comes to writing a personal statement. This essay showcases not just your writing skills but also your unique personality, achievements, and aspirations. Understanding that while grades are crucial, a personal statement often becomes the differentiating factor in your application. To navigate this essential component, we’ve compiled a ten-step guide, replete with examples, to ensure your personal statement leaves a lasting impression on admissions officers.

Applying to college can be a daunting task, especially when it comes to writing a personal statement. This essay not only showcases your writing skills but also highlights your unique personality, achievements, and aspirations. While it may seem unnecessary, tedious, time-consuming, and just another tick-the-box, know that as each application is processed, grades are just one of the criteria of selection, more often than not a personal statement becomes the differentiating factor.

To help you navigate this crucial component of your application, we’ve compiled a ten-step guide, complete with inspiring examples to ensure your personal statement makes a lasting impression on admissions officers.

• Start Early and Brainstorm Begin the process early to give yourself plenty of time to brainstorm. Reflect on your experiences, achievements, and motivations. Think about what makes you unique, both in terms of personality and life experiences.
• Understand the Prompt Make sure you clearly understand what the college is asking for. Each institution may have different prompts or questions. Tailor your response specifically to each prompt, ensuring you answer it fully and directly. Be comprehensive and succinct in your answers, choosing words that convey your candidature the best.
• Create an Outline Draft an outline to organize your thoughts and ensure a coherent flow of ideas. This will help you structure your statement effectively, making sure every part contributes towards presenting a compelling narrative.
• Exhibit, Don’t Tell Use specific examples to demonstrate your qualities and achievements. Instead of stating that you’re a great leader, describe a situation where you demonstrated leadership. This method makes your statement more engaging and believable.
• Focus on Your Strengths While it might be tempting to cover a wide range of subjects, focusing on a few key strengths or experiences can have a stronger impact. Depth over breadth is crucial in personal statements.
• Be Authentic Admissions officers can tell when a statement is genuine. Write honestly about your experiences and passions and let your natural voice shine through. Authenticity is key to making a personal statement stand out.
• Get Feedback After drafting your statement, seek feedback from teachers, mentors, or friends. They can provide insights on clarity, grammar, and the overall impact of your essay. They all have a perspective of you from an external viewpoint, so do not skip this step.
• Revise and Edit Use the feedback to revise your statement. Look for areas where you can clarify your points, eliminate redundancy, and correct grammatical errors. This step is crucial for polishing your final submission.
• Keep It Concise Adhere to the word limit. Being able to express your thoughts concisely and effectively is a skill appreciated by admissions officers.
• Final Review Before submitting, do a final review. Read your statement out loud to catch any remaining errors or awkward phrasing. Make sure it sounds natural and is easy to read.

Examples of Exemplary Personal Statements:

Example 1: The Innovator Jane’s personal statement begins with a vivid description of her tinkering with a broken radio at age eight, which sparked her interest in technology. She intertwines her personal journey with her academic achievements, such as leading her school’s robotics team to a national competition. Jane uses specific examples, like designing a new robot navigation system, to demonstrate her passion and skill in engineering.

Example 2: The Community Leader John opens his statement with a powerful recount of organizing community relief efforts during a local flood. Highlighting his role in mobilizing volunteers and coordinating with local authorities, he demonstrates strong leadership and commitment to his community. His narrative includes feedback from the community and the personal growth he experienced, providing a well-rounded view of his character.

Example 3: The Attentive Listener Emma’s personal statement explores her profound appreciation for music and its role in shaping her interpersonal connections. She describes an afternoon spent sharing playlists with a group of international students, which turned into a deep discussion about cultural expressions through music. This experience not only highlights her listening skills but also illustrates her ability to forge meaningful relationships through shared interests.

Example 4: The Compassionate Leader David writes about his high emotional quotient and how it spurred him to lead a community initiative focused on animal welfare. His personal statement recounts organizing local workshops to educate people about animal kindness and launching a successful campaign for a local shelter. David’s story reflects his empathy and leadership in translating compassion into actionable community improvement.

Commentary: Every life is extraordinary; it’s how you narrate your story that captures the reader’s eye. Your personal statement should reflect your unique experiences and aspirations.

Conclusion:

In crafting your personal statement, remember, you don’t have to be extraordinary in the usual sense—honesty and transparency are key. Be a dreamer of the art of the possible; dream as big as you can and let those dreams articulate themselves in your words. This approach not only reveals your true self to admissions officers but also shows your potential to contribute meaningfully to their academic community. Start your adventure today! Use these steps as your guide to find the university that best fits your future goals. Dream big and achieve even bigger.

A 10-Step Guide to Picking the Right University

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The Anatomy of a Stellar Medical School Personal Statement

• By Meghana Pagadala
• March 12, 2021
• Medical School Application , Personal Statement

Every medical school application requires a personal statement, but some stand out from others. The composition of these excellent personal statements is not defined by the structure, the number of activities mentioned, or grammar.

What really makes a stellar personal statement is that it is memorable and captures who you are. Read below to see some example personal statements and what makes them excellent.

The Anatomy of a Personal Statement

There is a 5,300 character maximum for your personal statement. That’s about 1.5 pages of single-spaced 12-point Times New Roman font to demonstrate why you want to go to medical school.

A personal statement is made up of three parts:

• Introduction (Bread)
• Body (Meat and Vegetables)
• Conclusion (Bread)

Before you begin writing, we have an article on How to Start Your Personal Statement . It will guide you through research, reflection, and idea generation to get you started.

The Bread: Introduction & Conclusion

The introduction and conclusion are like the slices of bread of an amazing sandwich. No matter how many ingredients in a sandwich, the pieces of bread always bind the whole story together. In other words, the introduction and conclusion should not be throwaways.

The introduction and conclusion are vital components of a successful personal statement. You should take time to ensure that your introduction captures the reader’s attention and the conclusion is memorable.

Introduction

The first sentence is key. It needs to capture an admissions committee’s attention and entice them to read more.

Here are some examples from the Med School Insiders Personal Statement Database :

The main reason why I want to go into medicine is because of a promise I made to my sister when I was eight years old.

It’s not every day you help a kid become Iron Man.

Both of these examples are the first sentences of introductions that immediately capture the reader’s attention.

The first example mentions a promise that the applicant made to his sister. Right away from the first sentence, the reader is curious to know what that promise is. It’s an example of an opening sentence that immediately addresses the applicant’s desire to go into medicine. The sentence is clear, intriguing, and it captures your attention.

The second example is more mysterious. You have several questions after reading it. What kid are they helping? How do you make a kid become Iron Man? However, it accomplishes the same goal of piquing the reader’s interest. Remember, admissions committee members are reading hundreds of applications. How will you stand out? Make sure you grab their attention from the very first sentence.

The introduction is also a chance to set the tone for the essay. In this example, you can get a sense of the applicant’s sense of humor:

At the beginning of the first Alternative Spring Break (ASB) meeting that I was leading in front of a group of nervous volunteers, I used an icebreaker, Two Truths and a Lie. Being a common face at my campus’s student activities, I have played this game perhaps one too many times. Unlike everyone else who had to take time to think about their interesting truths, I would say the same thing every time. “I want to be a pediatrician, I have alpacas, and I have llamas.”

I do not have llamas.

The applicant sets the scene at an Alternative Spring Break meeting, sprinkles in humor with the Two Truths and a Lie game, and mentions their desire to become a pediatrician. This example has everything in it, but most importantly, it’s memorable. Often, strong applicants stuff their personal statement with their long list of achievements.

Sometimes less is more. What makes a great personal statement is having a compelling story that illustrates your unique strengths.

For the example above, the applicant likely had several interesting memories, but they chose this experience because it’s interesting and uncommon. Being known as the “alpaca” medical school applicant is a good thing—it makes you memorable and helps you stand out to the admissions committee.

The conclusion is the last paragraph the admissions officer will read, so it requires careful thought, just like the introduction. Not only is the conclusion a summary of your statement, but also a time to emphasize why you want to be a physician and what your future goals are.

I want to become a physician so that I can use my liberal arts education with my personal and professional experiences to meet medicine’s unique requirement of understanding patients psychologically, culturally, and biologically.

It is my desire to be a bridge between the technical engineering world and the direct delivery of care that only physicians can give.

I look forward to travelling to new communities as a physician while keeping my community-driven morals close, so alpaca my bags now.

The excerpts above are great examples of concluding sentences. Ultimately, the admissions committee is looking for applicants who will become excellent future physicians. A stellar essay that does not convince an admissions committee why you want to go to medical school is useless.

Including a well-crafted sentence about your motivation to go to medical school is essential.

The first two excerpts help sum up the applicant’s mission and why they want to be a physician. Ideally, you should tie back to the introduction of your essay. The “alpaca my bags” example connects to the introduction, adds personality, and concludes on a memorable note.

The Meat and Veg: Body

The body is the meat of the essay. It is everything that goes in between those slices of bread. You have more wiggle room to delve into an experience or showcase your personality here. You can use more descriptions and examples in the body. However, it is important that the body of your essay is still clear.****

Do not include anything that does not directly or indirectly support your ultimate case of wanting to become a physician.

We would do fulfilling tornado recovery work in the morning, but I most looked forward to afternoons where we got to sit down and chat with kids about their days while helping them with their homework.

Shadowing allowed me to learn the characteristics of a good physician.

This inspired me to help patients in underprivileged communities because some are not educated enough to know when something is wrong with their bodies.

There is no perfect number of paragraphs or set structure for the body of a personal statement. More importantly, the body should convey to the committee your personality, experience, and vision.

Personality

Physicians are caring, compassionate, and selfless humans. They have patients’ lives in their hands. They need to make important decisions that can affect the wellbeing of several people.

The medical school admissions committee wants to know that they are admitting someone who upholds the qualities of an excellent physician. Including experiences that showcase your personality is important. In the first excerpt above, the applicant does not explicitly state that he is caring, but rather illustrates it using vivid storytelling.

Don’t shy away from showing your own unique personality. It may be intimidating to talk about yourself, but this is your opportunity to tell your story.

There is no better way to convince an admissions committee that you want to be a doctor than by describing it through experiences. In the second excerpt above, the applicant writes that he shadowed physicians and learned what characteristics make a good physician.

If you are applying to a dual-degree program , like MD/PhD programs or MD/MPH programs, you can include research experiences or community outreach and public health experiences. However, most dual-degree program options have separate applications that always ask why you want to pursue a dual-degree. In your personal statement, try to focus on experiences that explain why you want to be a physician specifically.

Although you will outline your activities and honors in another part of your application, putting your experiences in the context of your personal statement can help you expand on those compelling stories.

An important aspect of the personal statement is describing your vision for your career and future. The personal statement is your chance to share your dreams.

You can describe your ambitions, goals, and feelings. Medical school admissions committees care about finding a diverse, passionate, and enthusiastic group of students who want to be physicians. Outlining your goals or dreams can help them understand who you are and why you want to be a doctor. They want to know what you will do with your MD.

In the third excerpt above, the applicant describes how he wants to help underprivileged communities and why. If you are research-oriented, include how you hope to progress the field of medicine with research. If you are interested in medical education, include your future goals of becoming a physician educator.

The personal statement is a critical part of your application. Although personal statements by definition vary greatly between applicants, there are key elements that an effective personal statement should contain. The personal statement is about putting you on a piece of paper. Ultimately, you should feel proud of your personal statement and how it tells your story.

Professional Feedback and Editing

To set yourself up for the strongest possible personal statement, start early and get regular feedback and editing from those with real medical school admissions committee experience.

Med School Insiders offers a range of personal statement editing packages from a team of doctors with years of experience serving on admissions committees.

Read our free Step-by-Step Guide: How to Write a Medical School Personal Statement for tips on getting started, what to include, and common mistakes to avoid.

Meghana Pagadala

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