personal statement for medical school

Discussing Your Preferred Specialty in Your Personal Statement for Medical School

Discussing your preferred specialty in your personal statement for medical school is one way to get that application in the bag.  A clear statement of what specialization you want to focus on is an important part of the personal statement for medical school that applicants are required to make.

Why state a desired specialization in your personal essay

Because personal essays often do not specify a certain topic, you can use a portion of the essay to talk about the specialty in medicine that you wish to pursue.  In most cases, students are rarely expected to follow through with the specialties that they state in the personal statement for medical school.  With the length of time it takes to study medicine, most students often experience liking one specialization after another before finally settling down on one specialization for good.  This being said, it is still a good move to state one or two specializations in medicine that you are interested in.  This is one way to tell the readers that you have done your homework, that you are exposed enough to the medical field to know what kinds of specializations interest you and what doesn’t, and that you have a clear picture of where your career in medicine is headed.

How to choose a specialization

There is really no wrong way to go about choosing a specialization that you can put in your personal statement for medical school.  For one, you may already have a specialization in mind as a result of the influences of the people around you, or as a consequence of having a favorite hobby or particular interest of study.  For example, an applicant may want to specialize in surgery to follow in a parent’s footsteps, while another applicant may want to pursue a career in dermatology or cosmetic surgery after suffering a traumatic incident that affected her appearance.  Others may simply want to pursue a field of specialization that they have the most interest in.  If you have no idea what specialization interests you, do your homework.  Do some research on the many kinds of medical specializations and choose the one that intrigues you best or the one that you think you can be good at.

Why choose a specialization

Choosing a specialization is one of the most important aspects of studying medicine.  While it is true that general practice is also a rewarding field of medicine, a specialization may be the more favored option for those who want to add more challenge to their medical careers.  Specializations also carry with them the promise of prestige and more money, something that one may not necessarily get with general practice.

How to discuss a preferred specialization in your essay

In order to effectively tell the admissions officers that a particular specialization is what really interests you, it is important to make use of several tools.  Perhaps the best tool is using personal experiences to color your explanations on why you are focused on a particular field of medicine and not on another.  As an example, you might have had a mother who suddenly died of an unknown cause and this led to an interest in investigative medicine.  Or, you may have an ideal experience dealing with older people and this naturally led you to want to study geriatrics.  No matter what the reason is, tell it using a personal story or anecdote to add your own touch.

In the end, mentioning a specialization or two in your personal statement for medical school need not be a daunting task.  As long as you know the areas of medicine that interest you and you know how to take advantage of personal stories in order to express this fact more effectively, you can expect your essay to be one that admission officers will enjoy reading.

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Why Being Part of the School Paper Pays Off When Writing Your Personal Statement for Medical School

There are several reasons why being part of the school paper pays off when writing your personal statement for medical school.  One of the ways to attract the attention of admissions officials is to have an impressive curriculum vitae.  Students who have exemplary records, both in their academic performance and extracurricular activities during their college years will have a better chance of being noticed than those who have sparse entries in their CVs.  One of these extracurricular activities that can help you is being part of the school paper.

Benefits of school paper experience for medical school application

One extracurricular activity that will get you some attention is previous experience working for the school paper.  Aside from the fact that it will paint a picture of you as someone who did not limit himself or herself to the four corners of the classroom while in college, experience with the school paper will also expose you to different kinds of people, give you an experience handling various kinds of responsibilities, and help you improve your ability to express yourself through writing, all of which you can use to your advantage, whether its applying for medical school or practicing as a full-fledged doctor.

Many experts agree that a personal statement for medical school should reflect the student and should show good written communication skills.  There is no better way to hone these skills than to be part of a school paper way before you apply for medical school, and especially in a setting where good communication skills is the primary requirement.  Working for the school newspaper will also allow you to use your critical thinking skills and creativity in order to solve problems, the same kind of skills that will prove useful in the hospital and any other medical setting.

Another way through which experience with the school paper can help you with your application to medical school is that the job will give you plenty of opportunities to accept correction for your mistakes.  When writing a personal statement for medical school, you are expected to revise, revise, and revise some more before handing your essay to the panel.  Previous experience with the school newspaper, where due diligence, expertise in checking out the facts, a willingness to accept correction for your work, and the willingness to revise your pieces as often as needed will make the revision of your personal statement come naturally for you.

Indeed, previous experience with the school newspaper, whether you worked for the high school organ or the college publication, will provide nothing but benefits for you, especially if you are applying for medical school.  Aside from helping paint a picture of you as someone who has diverse interests and is willing to pursue them, the fact that you worked for a newspaper will help you persuade the admissions panel that you have the qualities and characteristics, such as the ability to think creatively and critically and the willingness to learn, that make a good candidate for medical school.

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How to Effectively Use Anecdotes in Your Personal Statement for Medical School

Learning how to effectively use anecdotes in your personal statement for medical school can help keep your personal statement personal.  This is often the advice of admission
experts when asked what it takes to make an interesting personal statement for medical school.  Aside from starting off your personal statement with a captivating one-liner, keeping the tone of your personal statement reader-friendly is another important way to get the attention of admission officers.

Personal anecdotes to spice up a personal statement for medical school

Using a personal and interesting anecdote is one effective way to personalize your
medical admission essay. A personal statement for medical school that revolves around personal details about the applicant will make the applicant sound more human, and his or her experiences more real. Stories that the officer can read will put him or her in the experience of the applicant and give him or her what he or she wants: an idea of who the applicant is.  Of course, how the essay is written, how and what kinds of words are used, and how the ideas are brought together will also give one an idea of the applicant’s skills with grammar and written communication.  Using personal anecdotes will give the reader a deeper sense of the personality of the applicant.

Using personal anecdotes also lowers the risk of making an essay that is too wordy.  A personal statement for medical school may at times require a bit of technical know-how here and there, but in general, you use simple words to get the point across.  If you keep it simple, you avoid using words that will require a reader to open a dictionary in order to understand your essay.

As much as possible, anecdotes should be about certain experiences that played a part on your decision to become a doctor.  The worn out phrase ‘I want to help people’ is no longer what admission officers like to hear from applicants.  They want  your personal essay for medical school to show, rather than tell them, why you want to become a doctor.  You can best do this using anecdotes as concrete examples.

Choosing what anecdote to tell

One dilemma that stumps most applicants is choosing what anecdote to tell.  With all the experiences you’ve had in your lifetime, there are a lot of personal experiences that you can choose from.  But how do you choose the right one?

The best course would be to know what characteristic that you are most proud of and choose an anecdote that shows how you exercised that characteristic in real life.  For example, instead of saying that you are a person of compassion, tell of the time when you used your vacation to go on a mission to Africa to help feed hungry refugees.  If you want to tell of your ability to stay calm under pressure, tell of the time when you and a  bunch of people got stuck in the elevator and how you handled the situation so that no one would freak out.  Choosing anecdotes carefully is very important, because even with the right anecdote you still run the risk of sounding too cocky, or worse, someone who likes to embellish.  Keep your words simple and stick to the truth, because the personal statement is not really the place for your achievements, real or imagined.

In the end, you can choose to use different anecdotes for different parts of your essay.   Or you can use one anecdote for the whole essay and use it to tie the whole thing together.  Using personal anecdotes is a good way to keep the essay an interesting read. However, you have to make sure that the anecdote fits and that all of it is truthful.

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