Writing Your Personal Statement

Learn how to tell your story to admissions committees with an effective personal statement

two students work together a laptop

Personal Statement Overview

The personal statement is a chance for your selected schools’ admissions committees to truly understand why you want to pursue a career in health. The character limit is 5,300 for MD programs and 4,500 for dental programs.

Some useful questions to consider during the writing process:

  • Who are you?
    You are unique already. Don’t get caught up trying to prove it.
  • Where do you come from?
    What is your background, how did it shape you, and what inspired you to pursue medicine/dental and your experiences beyond the classroom?
  • What are you passionate about?
    Discuss topics related to providing care to others and passions that are closely related to your pursuit of this career.

Common Themes

Common themes for personal statements include:

  • Personal or family illness that exposed applicant to medicine
  • Premed student who has always known that they are supposed to be a physician

Just because your theme is similar to someone else’s doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it. You will learn how to show the reader why and how your experiences have made an impact on you. The personal statement is there to tell an admissions committee why you are on your pre-health journey in the first place, while the experiences you highlight will tell them what you have done.

Theme Tips

  • Choose a theme and stick to it
  • Support your theme with specific examples — stay clear and concise
  • Highlight interesting qualities of your journey in medicine/dental
  • 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

Proofreading

Before you hit “submit” on your personal statement, ask several people you trust for feedback. The more time you have spent writing your statement, the less likely you are to spot errors, so feedback from a professor or friend whose writing skills you trust will be invaluable.

Always check for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors before submitting your personal statement. 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.

Resources

You have a range of on-campus resources available to you to provide help and guidance with your personal statement. These people and offices will help you write a personal statement that not only showcases your accomplishments, but your passion and your journey.

The following online resources also provide helpful tips and examples for writing your personal statements:

Personal Statement FAQs

  • Allow enough time to write your personal statement. With revisions, it may take up to 3-6 months
  • Have peers, advisers, and family members read your personal statement
  • Good writing is simple writing. Your essays should not be a struggle to comprehend
  • Beware of being too self-congratulatory or too self-deprecating

We all go through trials and tribulations, success and failures. Highlighting how you react to these incidents — instead of describing the incidents themselves will set you apart from other applicants. That means:

  • Using your own experiences and perspectives in your personal statement
  • Drawing on specific personal experiences and examples. If you love helping people, give examples of how you’ve helped others in the past
  • Picking a hook that will gain the reader’s attention and draw them in. You should aim to create some intrigue before telling the story of who you are

 

Different health programs may require additional essays. The MD/PhD, for example, requires two additional essays:

  • Why MD/PhD: Describe why you want the dual degree (3000-character limit)
  • Significant Research Experience: Describe your research experiences (1000-character limit)

Most personal statements should follow a five-point format consisting of an introductory paragraph, three to four body paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph.

  • Intro Paragraph: These four or five sentences should introduce the theme of your essay and grab your 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 work
  • Concluding Paragraph: A strong conclusion should reflect the beginning of your statement, give a brief summary of who you are, and end with a challenge for the future

Remember to watch your character count while writing your statements. The upper limit for AMCAS and AACOMAS applications is 5,300 characters, and just 4,500 for TMDSAS, including spaces.

A well-written personal statement engages the reader by highlighting specific, relevant examples from your life. A paragraph that does not follow these guidelines can seem flat and boring, as in this example about studying abroad:

“Traveling to an unfamiliar place where I did not speak the language and had no medical training was challenging. I saw things that needed to be addressed but I couldn’t do anything about them.”

Contrast this with another example, which tells a story by providing specific examples of the person’s experience studying in South Africa:

“I decided to study abroad in South Africa because I wanted to be challenged in an unfamiliar place. I learned that effective communication is essential when building trust and relationships. Although I did not speak the native language, I came well equipped with a positive outlook, a motivated personal drive to make a difference, and a humble heart which enabled me to better understand the struggle that the local people have endured for years.”

  • Take time to think, reflect and dream about “Why Medicine/Dental/etc.”?
  • Keep a journal, or jot down notes on your phone
  • Talk to your family and friends
  • Think carefully about where you came from
  • Think about where you are going
  • Put a pen to paper, or fingers to your keyboard, and just write. Don’t worry about character count or what you believe you “should” be writing
  • Be you, be true, and let them get to know you