Medical School Personal Statements

Medical school personal statements matter a lot when it comes to getting into medical school. Your medical school essay is your first and only chance to distinguish yourself and make a positive impression on the medical school admissions committee.

The goal of your personal statement for medical school is to sell yourself to each medical school so that you're invited to a medical school interview. 

How important is your personal statement?

Medical school admissions officers will tell you, "all things being equal between two identical applicants, the personal statement will be the deciding factor."

In other words, if the medical school has two applicants with similar:

  • MCAT scores
  • GPA

your medical school essay will be the deciding factor.

Armed with this knowledge you want to present the strongest medical school personal statement possible.

But before getting ahead of ourselves let's cover the basics of your essay...

Basics of Your Medical School Application Essay

The American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS) limits your essay to exactly 5,300 characters at most. Yes, characters and not words. This is roughly a page and half of text.

Although 5,300 characters is the maximum length medical school personal statements can be it is not necessary to use all of the allotted space.

The goal of your medical school essay is to write a great statement that highlights all of your positive attributes and that you're a person who should be admitted to medical school. If you're having trouble putting pen to paper and writing an outstanding personal statement, medical school essay help is available.

Directions Specifically from AMCAS

AMCAS actually refers to your medical school essay as "Personal Comments Essay" and provides the following prompt:

Use the Personal Comments essay as an opportunity to distinguish yourself from other applicants. Some questions you might want to consider while writing this essay are:

  • Why have you selected the field of medicine?
  • What motivates you to learn more about medicine

These are a few other idea generators AMCAS provides but those are somewhat trivial in comparison to what you've just read. 

As you can tell these are pretty open-ended questions and the goal is not to write a medical school personal statement where you simply answer the above prompts. You have to do much more if you're going to have a fighting chance of catching the reader's attention.

If you've liked what I shared with you so far then you'll certainly want to take advantage of my personal statement ebook that goes into plenty of details on how to craft a winning medical school essay. 

Here's another reason why medical school personal statements are so important...

One Essay All Medical Schools

This may seem crazy but you write only one medical school essay that then gets circulated to all of the medical schools you apply to.

Obviously there are pros and cons.

One positive aspect is not having to write different personal statements for each medical school. You just write one personal statement and you're all set. 

However, one negative thing is that you have to get your medical school application correct the first time around because there are no second chances. What you send out goes to all of the medical schools and even if you find a mistake in your medical school personal statement you can't correct it after the fact. 

Here's what I mean by this...

Let's say you complete your personal statement in June and in your rush to be on time you didn't use any medical school essay help. But in October you decide to apply to a few more medical schools and realize there are some mistakes in your personal comments. 

Guess what?

You're going to have to apply to these medical schools using your original medical school application essay, mistakes included. 

As you can tell, using AMCAS can be a blessing and curse but there are some medical school essay tips that can help you get ahead of the competition and secure your seat in medical school. 

Personal Statement Medical School Wrap Up

Your medical school admission essay matters more than you think it does. Take it very seriously because when it comes down to the wire between two equally qualified candidates your personal statement for medical school is going to be the deciding factor.

I know a lot of you are science majors and writing may not be your strongest point but there is medical school essay help available.

Get the help you need today because this essay goes out to each and every medical school you apply to and if there are any errors it can derail your chances of being admitted to medical school. 

Now if you're somewhat confident in your writing abilities and just need a few pointers on putting together a shining personal statement then How to Write the Perfect Medical School Personal Statement is for you. 

No matter what you do: write, revise, edit and proof your work before submitting your medical school essay. 

> > Personal Statement Overview

Leave a Reply

Comment in the box below.