Writing Guidelines: Medical School Personal Statements
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Ohio Wesleyan Writing Center University Founded 1955 Promoting writing as a hallmark of liberal arts education Writing Guidelines Medical School Personal Statements From the OWU Writing Center in the Sagan Academic Resource Center The OWU Writing Center Corns 316 ▪ (740-368-3925) ▪ http://writing.owu.edu ▪ open Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Ohio Wesleyan University Writing Center © 2011 Guidelines for Writing Medical School Personal Statements Contents The Importance of the Personal Statement ..................................................................................... 1 Writing Your Personal Statement ................................................................................................... 1 I. Audience and Context ............................................................................................................ 2 II. Topic Selection ...................................................................................................................... 4 Identifying Medicine as a Career Path and Calling ................................................................ 5 The Dual Ethos of Authority—Scientific and Humanitarian Values ..................................... 6 The Volunteer Narrative ....................................................................................................... 11 Personal Qualities and Characteristics .................................................................................. 13 Other Suggestions about Topic Selection ............................................................................. 14 III. Organization and Development ......................................................................................... 15 Introductions ......................................................................................................................... 15 Body Paragraphs ................................................................................................................... 18 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 21 IV. Word Choice, Stock Phrases, and Patterns ........................................................................ 22 Using Adverbs and Superlative Statements .......................................................................... 22 Idealizing the Medical Profession ......................................................................................... 23 The Journey Metaphor and the Challenges of Medicine ...................................................... 25 The First Person Singular, “I" ............................................................................................... 26 Examples ....................................................................................................................................... 27 I.Complete Statements .............................................................................................................. 27 II. Selected Paragraphs and Sentences ...................................................................................... 53 Introductions ......................................................................................................................... 53 First Sentences ...................................................................................................................... 57 Addressing Problems, Inconsistencies, Discrepancies, and Blemishes ................................ 58 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 60 Medicine as a Challenge ....................................................................................................... 62 Becoming a Physician ........................................................................................................... 63 Altruism & Humanitarian Ideals ........................................................................................... 64 Ohio Wesleyan University Writing Center © 2011 Idealizing the Medical Profession ......................................................................................... 65 Passion for Science and Learning ......................................................................................... 68 The Path to Medicine ............................................................................................................ 68 Works Cited .................................................................................................................................. 69 Ohio Wesleyan University Writing Center © 2011 Guidelines for Writing Medical School Personal Statements Each year approximately 35,000 medical school applicants compete for 17,000 coveted spots (Jones and Baer 1). Competition is greater if you apply to the better or best schools. Top twenty medical schools, for example, accept about 7.5% of all applicants, while the Mayo Clinic and the Cornell University Weill Medical College accept as few as 3% (Jones and Baer 146). Writing a quality personal statement will help you get accepted to one of the medical schools of your choice. The guidelines below will help you achieve this goal. The Importance of the Personal Statement The importance of the personal statement will vary from one institution to the next. Prestigious schools place a greater weight on the essays because they receive more applications and can be more selective. Certain medical programs, moreover, value the personal statement more than others; the Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine, for example, considers the essays the second most important part of the application package after the science GPA (Staff of the Princeton Review 101). For applicants with borderline GPAs and test scores, the personal statement may be the deciding factors for the admissions committee. Though a strong academic profile may get you into most medical schools, the personal statement and secondary essays may help you get accepted to the school of your choice. Finally, as an admissions officer note, “the personal statement can have a huge impact on an admission decision, both positive and negative” (The Staff of the Princeton Review 97). Writing Your Personal Statement Most how-to books and university Web pages include generic writing guidelines that apply to not only medical school personal statements but business and law schools essays as well. I want to reinforce the value of this general advice in following pages and also provide you with more specific suggestions, comments, and guidelines that will help you think of the medical school personal statement as a specific kind of essay, or genre, defined by a fairly specific set of values, beliefs, discourse practices, and epistemological assumptions. This statement, I realize, may seem abstract, even impractical, to readers who think concretely and would prefer step-by-step guidelines to help them negotiate this unfamiliar, even daunting, writing task. As we all know, however, good writing results from good thinking, which begins with situating writing in a context—in this case, a professional community—and understanding the purpose of the writing task. Like all other applicants, you want to convince admissions officers and other readers that you will succeed in medical school and go on to be the kind of doctor that so many applicants idealize in their medical school personal statements. To achieve this goal, you should read the following guidelines and sample essays and familiarize yourself with the features and conventions of the medical school personal statement. Ohio Wesleyan University Writing Center © 2011 Page 1 You will soon recognize that many applicants rely on a fairly limited repertoire of themes, organizational patterns, and phrases, despite that admissions officers and other members of the medical community often admonish pre-med students to be themselves—to distinguish themselves from the thousands of other applicants. If you deviate too far from the expected writing and rhetorical practices of the genre, readers will likely downgrade your essay and eliminate you from their pool of applicants (See sample essay 1). Members of the admissions committee want you and other applicants to celebrate the values and practices of the medical community and to re-describe personal qualities and experiences in terms of a developing professional identity. I. Audience and Context Medical school selection committees may include as many as two dozen members composed of admissions officers, medical faculty, community physicians, and medical students. Typically, at least one person on the committee reads your application materials from beginning to end (Dowhan, Dowhan, and Kaufman 3-4). Knowing your audience and learning about each medical school will help you select a topic and write a more compelling personal statement. In addition, writing an effective essay means considering the larger writing context, such as learning about important social issues and current and future trends in medicine. While your readers want to learn about your personal qualities or characteristics, they also appreciate applicants who have a broader social vision and a critical awareness of trends and issues in medicine and public health (See example six). Consider that changes in the medical community often reflect changes in society. For example, as the American population has grown more diverse and embraced cultural pluralism as a social ideal, the