8 Tips for Writing Your Med School Personal Statement

A lot of premeds worry about the personal statement because, honestly, writing about yourself can be pretty hard. Today I'm covering 8 things you need to know to write your best medical school personal statement!

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The personal statement is a key part of your med school application. A good personal statement won't necessarily get you into med school by itself, but a bad personal statement can definitely mess up your chances, even if your stats are good.

Here are 8 tips for the medical school personal statement:

1. Know how LONG it can take to write. A lot of students wait until May to write their personal statement. Instead, you should write a draft, then go get feedback from other people, make some edits, put it away, come back to it with fresh eyes, do another round of edits, and so on. It takes time and revision to really craft a strong personal statement.

2. Understand who you are and why you want to be a doctor. That's what the personal statement is about, after all. What experiences have led you to want to be a physician? What planted the seed of the idea in your mind, and what watered that seed? Start reflecting now on those memorable experiences that got you interested in medicine.

3. Be aware of the three different application services: AMCAS (MD schools), AACOMAS (DO schools), and TMDSAS (public medical schools in Texas). Since 2019, the maximum personal statement length is the same for AMCAS and AACOMAS: 5,300 characters. For TMDSAS, the length is limited to 5,000 characters, so a bit shorter.

4. Know how MD vs DO affects your personal statement. Many students think they need to talk all about osteopathic medicine when applying to DO schools. But I don't recommend that. The prompt is still just, "Why do you want to be a doctor?" It's not "Why do you want to be an osteopathic doctor?" So you don't need to emphasize osteopathic medicine unless that osteopathic part is actually very important to YOU.

5. Don't try to make it a creative writing piece. The goal is to show the reader why you want to be a physician. I don't recommend doing something super creative like writing a letter to your future self or using a theme that has nothing to do with the writing prompt.

6. Don't turn your personal statement into an argumentative essay. You're not supposed to be arguing why you're going to be a great physician. You haven't worked as a physician yet. You haven't experienced it. So don't try to claim that you know what it takes to be a physician and you're the right person for the job.

7. Trying to "stand out" and "be unique" doesn't help you. There's nothing so unique about you that an admissions committee has never seen it before. And if you think something you did is unique and you try to sell yourself on that point, it's not going to impress an admissions committee who has honestly seen it all before.

8. Write about YOUR experiences. It's okay if your story is similar to other students. What's more important is being authentic to your real reasons for doing this. Don't screw up your personal statement by trying to be too creative because you think your story isn't unique. It is unique. Just be authentic and tell your story with your experiences!

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