med school personal statement editing

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Medical School Personal Statement Editing

- be memorable. get accepted. -, unbiased essay editing.

Our diverse team of 50+ editors provide personalized, unbiased, and honest reviews. Each editor brings something different to the table that is guaranteed to enhance your essays and give you that edge. 

Medical School Masters

Our rigorous application/screening process leaves us with only the finest core editing team of medical students and physicians. Reviewing countless essays has allowed us to identify the patterns that make certain students more memorable and competitive.

Affordable Review Services

We know what it’s like living on a pre-med budget, which is why we refuse to charge the outrageous prices other companies are charging ($300-$1K for a single essay review). Help us change the game and continue our mission by not letting our fair prices distract you from the superior quality of our services.

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Accepted medical school applicant, dr. precious anyaoha, dr. michael cellini, find your perfect essay review package, we will help to craft your best personal statement, extracurricular essays, secondary essays, or all of the above, ultimate acceptance package, all-in-one application cycle solution.

• Unlimited Personal Statement Reviews
• Unlimited Activities Description Reviews
• Unlimited Messaging w/ Editors and Advisors
• CASPer Prep (Or Additional Mock Interview)
• Secondary Application Reviews
• Mock Interview
• Admissions Advising

Personal Statement Reviews

• Advice from Admissions Committee Members
• Custom Feedback & Recommendations
• 48-72 Hour Turnaround
• Complete Analysis of content/voice/tone

Packages starting at $120

Not sure which package is best for you, text or call becca at: 917-994-0765, activities reviews, secondary reviews, packages starting at $119.99, interested in seeing the quality of our personal statement editing, meet some of your editors.

Ansel N., MD,PhD

The ohio state university college of medicine.

Alexa S., MD

University of Cincinnati College of Medicine

Harvard Medical School

Yale School of Medicine

George Washington School of Medicine

DUKE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

NYU Grossman School of Medicine

Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

University of California San Francisco School of Medicine

Most frequent questions and answers about our services.

Our carefully-selected editing team is currently made up of physicians and medical students who have completed our rigorous screening, application, and training process.  Some of our editors have either sat on admissions committees or have contributed in some capacity to admissions at their school.  It’s critical for your essays to be viewed from multiple different perspectives, so we make it a priority to have a very diverse team of editors.

This number is based off of the number of applicants who got back to us saying whether or not they were accepted into at least one medical school.

In order to be an editor for Motivate MD, the person needs to check off two boxes. 1. They were accepted and currently attend or graduated from medical school. 2. They have an expertise for English writing.  Both a medical student and physician can check off those boxes. We strongly believe that just because someone is a physician does not mean they are qualified to review essays.

That being said, we do have a few physicians a part of our team who are extremely talented. We primarily like to have medical students be editors for one simple reason: They are closer to the medical school application process.

This can vary depending on the time of the year (there is a huge influx of essays from late May through August), but we always have a team goal to get reviews back to people within 48 hours. We have a guarantee of a 2-3 day turnaround. We strive for timely delivery, however, quality and effectiveness are our main priorities.

After you purchase a review package, you will get an email with what the next steps are. All drafts and reviews are sent via email.

You will receive a confirmation email for your purchase (check your trash/spam folders, if you don’t see it after a day) that outlines the immediate next steps in our review process. 

The short answer is no.  Although we started by reviewing only medical school application essays, we have been able to cater our editing secrets to make any essay memorable. 

We have helped those applying to medical residencies, PA school, dental school, nursing school, and grad/law school create very effective and unique essays.  Just give us any information you can during the checkout process to help us optimize our reviews to fit your specific situation!

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Ansel N., MD/PhD

Radiation Oncology Resident Former Medical School: Ohio State

My name is Ansel Nalin. I am a current Radiation Oncology resident at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. I graduated from the Ohio State University College of Medicine MD/PhD program.

While in medical school, I tutored first- and second-year medical students, helping them review lecture material and prepare for block exams. I taught study strategies to first-year students adjusting to the medical school curriculum. I worked individually with students during board exam preparation. I also led a review course for MD/PhD students prior to taking Step 1. In addition to my role as a tutor, I was also selected by the Ohio State College of Medicine Academic Office staff to serve in a leadership role for two years. In this role I led the team of 40 students on the peer tutoring team. I met weekly with College of Medicine staff to plan academic programs benefitting first- and second-year medical students. Together we organized and managed academic resources for medical students including our peer tutoring programs, group review sessions, and student-led review lectures. I coordinated the tutoring assignments for medical students involved in the program; over 100 students utilized the programs. We oversaw the creation of new student-led anatomy review sessions that were incorporated into the medical school academic program.

While enrolled in the MD/PhD program, I completed my PhD in cancer immunology studying natural killer cell development. I also collaborated on translational research projects seeking to identify new cell-based therapies for cancer. I published multiple papers in high impact journals and had the opportunity to present my work at both local and international conferences. I continue to pursue research that develops immune-based therapies for cancer and plan to pursue a career as a physician-scientist.

I joined the team at Motivate MD to help students achieve their goals in medicine. I have benefitted from the support of many outstanding mentors, and I strive to have a similarly positive impact in helping students succeed. My experiences as a tutor and teaching assistant, in both undergraduate and medical school, have helped me develop excellent skills in communication and mentoring. In addition to my teaching and leadership experience, I have developed specific skills to help students with the application and interview process for medical school and residency programs.

Not only am I familiar with what makes a strong application, I am prepared to help students highlight their strengths in their essays and interviews. I have extensive writing and speaking experience from my graduate studies. I have coached other students in communicating effectively. From my own experience in interviewing for medical school and residency, I can help students gain confidence in their communication skills and clearly express their motivations and goals. As a member of the Motivate MD team, I am passionate about helping students work toward their goal of a successful career in medicine.

I am an OBGYN resident and graduate of the University of Cincinnati. Throughout medical school, I engaged in research at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and UCCOM’s OBGYN department. I have a strong background in mentorship. In medical school, I was a part of an organization that would mentor local Cincinnati youths. I was also involved in mentoring medical students in the years below through her medical scholar’s program. I also have a lot of experience editing medical school essays and mentoring my scribes when I was a chief scribe during my gap years. I took two years off prior to applying for medical school. During this time, I completed research at WashU with a neuroimaging lab as a clinical research coordinator and scribed in an emergency department. The medical application process was daunting for me. I went through the process of taking the MCAT multiple times and struggled to figure out where I would be a competitive applicant. I chose to work for Motivate MD to assist students with this intimidating process and help in areas where I felt I was lacking guidance prior to medical school! I am very excited to get the opportunity to work with you!

Jisoo is a medical student at Harvard Medical School. She has a background in neurobiology wet-lab research, and has a strong interest in mentorship, especially of underserved populations. Everyone has a unique journey to medical school, and Jisoo is committed to helping applicants present their own unique journeys in a meaningful and comprehensive manner. She has lots of experience working with individuals that have diverse pathways to medical school and closely collaborates with applicants from the beginning to the end of their application process, providing individualized support for each applicant.

Hi! My name is Rhys (pronounced like “Reese’s Pieces”) and I am a medical student at Yale School of Medicine.

I have upwards of 9 years experience mentoring peers, most recently aiding students through the premedical path at my undergrad. I also have worked as an executive function/planning tutor for Los Angeles area high school and college students. Earlier in college, I worked as a research aide/teaching assistant helping students leverage “writing-to-learn” in order to improve their understanding of complex concepts.

After graduating  Summa Cum Laude  with a Bachelors of Science in Biomedical Engineering and Health Policy from the University of Southern California in 2021, I took a gap year primarily to scribe at a pediatric clinic to boost my clinical experience hours and to continue to work on a philanthropic start-up I co-founded while at USC.

At USC, I had multiple research experiences ranging from biomedical device research in a hybrid wet lab to policy analysis. I also was heavily involved in pro-bono consulting for non-profits and social enterprises.

I have personal experience approaching the common “Why Medicine?” question from a non-traditional angle (engineering major/activities and low clinical hours compared to non-clinical), tying in a non-standard major “X factor” extracurricular into the overall theme of an application, and expressing interest in dual degrees/interdisciplinary medical careers (policy, public health etc).

I look forward to helping you plan for and execute your unique path to medical school!

George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences

Hi Everyone! My name is Anthu Gnanakumar and I am a medical student at the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences. I majored in neuroscience and minored in English at the University of Virginia prior to taking a gap year and attending medical school. During my gap year, I worked as a medical assistant (MA) at endocrinology and pediatric primary care practices. I really value the hands-on experience I got through being an MA and would highly recommend taking a gap year if you are at all considering it!

I remember being daunted by the significant uptick in medical school applications during the pandemic and can empathize with the ever-increasing competitiveness of getting into medical school. I have mentored and advised multiple peers and friends from high school and college as they navigated the application process and look forward to extending that mentorship to many of you. It is my hope that we can work together to shape your narrative into meaningful essays and interview responses!

Duke University School of Medicine

Hi all! My name is Arthi and I’m a medical student at Duke. I am originally from New Jersey and went to Duke for undergrad where I was able to discover interests in medical humanities, global health, and peer mentorship. Having previously taught in an art studio, I found ways to engage with medical humanities through storytelling and creative arts with elders with dementia. In medical school, I help run a program that allows admitted patients to share their life story and with cartoon creations to simplify medical diagnoses. I also majored in global health and worked on projects in based in Uganda and India during undergrad that focused on studying how evidence-based interventions actually function in practice. I spent my gap year as a global health research assistant which allowed me to gain experience with all stages of project initiation, management, and dissemination. I’m working towards spending Duke’s MS3 research year engaging with global health implementation research on site. I don’t have any family in medicine so I asked for a lot of advice from upperclassmen and medical students throughout. I was a peer tutor for over 3 years and during my senior year, I started a peer advising program that’s goal was to reach beyond just academics. During that time, I mentored many premed students on course choice, finding research and volunteering experiences, applying to summer program and gap year jobs, MCAT, and building a school list. I continued many of these relationships since graduating and have been able to provide continued support through brainstorming and editing primary and secondary applications, interview prep, and ultimately decision making. One thing I’ve come to learn from my process and that my classmates is that there isn’t one right way to do things and it can be valuable to talk through and understand your priorities and the things that make you the most excited and craft your application around those. I know how stressful and draining each step of the application process can be and I would love the chance to provide some of guidance and support I received at whichever turn you need.

NYU Grossman School of Medicine Admissions Committee Experience

Hi! My name is Kate and I’m a current medical student at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City! I’m originally from Kingsport, Tennessee and attended Clemson University where I completed my undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering and a master’s degree in Applied Health Research. I have many years of experience as an advisor and mentor, mainly through working as study abroad ambassador and as a peer tutor and peer mentor through a Women in Engineering organization at my school. Later in college, I also worked as a teaching assistant for a challenging chemical engineering course in my degree. I also volunteered my time as a tour guide and was able to provide loads of advice and guidance to future students through that role. While finishing my master’s degree at Clemson University, I worked as a scribe at a gastroenterology clinic to boost my clinical experience hours. During this time, I also served as a mentor and health coach for a local volunteer organization with a mission to help people get off of government assistance. At Clemson, I had multiple research experiences ranging from social psychology to OB/GYN clinical research. I was also heavily involved with STEM outreach at local schools, ran a pitch competition, and volunteered as a conversational partner for international students who were learning English. I also spent the summer after I graduated college working at Interlochen Arts Camp as a camp counselor and reigniting my passion for theatre and the arts. I have had a slightly more non-traditional path to medicine (engineering degree/extracurriculars, taking a year to do a master’s, working at an arts camp), and I have a lot of experience in how to best weave together your own unique story in order to stand out to admissions committees. As a current medical student, I now spend my time working as an Admissions Ambassador and serving as a mentor to incoming students. I also currently interview for my medical school and so I can provide a lot of insight as I’ve sat on both sides of the Zoom interview screen. I look forward to helping you put your best foot forward in your applications and interviews for medical school!

Hello! I am a medical student at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons planning to apply into neurology this upcoming fall. I have extensive mentoring and advising experience both prior to medical school, when I served as a peer advisor for my undergraduate institution’s pre-health club, and as a medical student, continuing to advise undergraduates on essay writing, interview preparation, and general application and career advice. I also work as a mentor in the local community, tutoring and advising 8 th grade and high school age students interested in the health sciences. I have significant research and publication experience beginning as an undergraduate and continuing throughout medical school, having published four first-author manuscripts while contributing to multiple others. Prior to medical school, I spent a gap year as a National Institutes of Health Post-baccalaureate Intramural Research Training Award fellow, a role in which I studied Alzheimer’s disease proteomics and metabolomics. Currently, my research focus has shifted towards neuroinfectious diseases and contributions of infectious exposures to lifetime dementia risk. In addition to clinical medicine, I have a strong interest in public health and anthropology that informs my research and clinical pursuits. 

Hello! My name is Jessica, and I am a medical student at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. I completed my undergraduate degree in Molecular & Cellular Biology at Johns Hopkins University, along with a minor in Entrepreneurship & Management. At Hopkins, I played on the varsity tennis team, served as a peer tutor, and volunteered at the JHH Sickle Cell Infusion Center. After graduating from college, I took on a full-time position at the Sickle Cell Infusion Center as a clinical research coordinator. I stayed in this role for one gap year, where I ran the largest registry of sickle cell disease patients in the United States, helping to characterize disparities faced in health outcomes and access to care. Since starting medical school, I have become heavily involved in cervical cancer research, volunteering at the Chinese Hospital in downtown San Francisco, and advocating for vulnerable populations. As a first-generation medical student, I understand how overwhelming the application process is and how vital near-peer guidance can be. I’ve helped several applicants through their application writing and interview process, who will all be matriculating to medical school this upcoming fall. I look forward to helping you curate your own story, put your best foot forward, and pursue your dream career!

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Medical school personal statement editing services.

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Medical School Application Essay Hourly Plans

If you don't need comprehensive, start-to-finish assistance with your medical school personal statement editing, most meaningful experiences, or secondary essays, but need help perfecting a draft you already have, then we recommend our hourly plans. This way, you only pay for what you need.

Here’s how it works:

• Answered the question.
• Presented yourself distinctively.
• Organized your personal statements logically.
• Developed engaging openings and effective conclusions.
• Your consultant provides feedback and recommends ways to improve. You revise and then send the revised versions back.
• Edit the micro  - After your consultant checks the macro level, she focuses on the micro, specifically clarity, grammar, style, spelling, and word usage. She then sends you drafts with suggested corrections.
• Submit your awesome personal statements!

How much to buy? That depends on the number of drafts as well as the quality of your writing. You can  obtain a free estimate before purchasing  or use the estimate guidelines to purchase and proceed ASAP. 

How Many Hours Do I Need?

You can use the time you purchase for any hourly Accepted service including interview coaching and resume editing.

Choose How Many Hours You Want to Start:

Our rates provide prompt two-business-day turnaround.

Minimum purchase required

1 Hour (add-on)

Existing clients only

Starting at $ 30 /mo with Affirm .

Have a question? Not sure how much time you need?

We Offer Complete Application Packages Too!

Boring but important stuff.

• All rates are expressed and billed in U.S. dollars.
• Our regular rates provide two-business-day turnaround for each round of editing. 
• Services are subject to availability.
• All prices are subject to change without notice.

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Improve your chances of success with high-quality editing and advising.

About Med School Personal Statements

Founded and run by an Academic Clinical Physician with insight into Medical School applications and Personal Statement formation.

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We offer a variety of programs to meet the needs of applicants.  Personal statement editing can be basic or from the ground-up, helping applicants form a strategy to gain acceptance.

Costs for editing are affordable and based on extent of assistance required.  Thoughts and feedback with compreshenive editing is $200, with an initial strategy session combined with full editing and development advice running to $400-600 based on extent of assistance required.

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• Medical School Application

Medical School Personal Statement Editing: Your Key to Success

Medical school personal statement editing services offer far more than simply proofreading and language enhancement. We’ll explain what they do and why they’re worthwhile in this article. One of the most crucial parts of your application will be your medical school personal statement . When done properly, it can personalize your application and demonstrate to the admissions committee why you are the ideal candidate for both their program and a future in medicine. When combined with your medical school secondary essays , it can really increase the likelihood of acceptance. However, a poor personal statement might detract from your candidacy and harm your chances of getting into your preferred program. Read on to find out more about editing services for medical school personal statements.

>> Want us to help you get accepted? Schedule a free initial consultation here <<

Article Contents 10 min read

A successful application to medical school requires more than good grades.

When you are applying to medical schools in the US , a personal statement or  statement of intent will always be required. This document should explain to the individual looking through your application why you want to become a physician, why you will be a good physician, and why you are interested in the medical school to which you are applying. In other words, your medical school personal statement allows you to speak to the admissions committee in your own words about what makes you a good fit for the program. Given how competitive medical schools are, this is crucial.

With the average overall medical school acceptance rate  in the US being well below 10%, you cannot afford to neglect any detail in your medical school application. Medical school acceptance rates in Canada are somewhat better, but they are still under 20% of all applicants. However, the good news, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) , is that in a recent admission cycle, “applicants to medical school soared by a record-setting 17.8%” and “the number of accepted students and new enrollments into medical school also reached new highs.” While the exact causes of this surge are yet to be identified, recognition of physicians’ contributions in dealing with the recent global health crisis, greater awareness of their role in alleviating social injustice, increased interest by traditionally underrepresented groups, and reductions in certain expenses associated with applying may all have had a part to play.

Would you like to learn why "show, don’t tell" is the most important rule of any personal statement? Watch this:

First, medical school personal statement editing services do much more than simply check your writing for grammatical and syntactic faults. Plenty of software and providers exist for that purpose if you need them. Our experts who edit medical school personal statements are real admission specialists who are intimately familiar with the application procedure for medical schools. It is important to note, however, that our editing services do not compose your statement for you. A professional medical school personal statement editing service is not what you need if you are expecting to hire someone to perform the task for you. We advise you to stay away from consultants who provide this service, as it is an unethical activity that can prevent you from getting into the program of your choice.

Rather, our medical school personal statement editors analyze application essays submitted by medical school candidates and employ their expertise to give each applicant specific criticism and direction on how to improve their texts. The goal is to write and submit a personal statement that is more persuasive to improve your chances of being accepted into your program of choice.

Medical school acceptance stories can be encouraging and inspiring when so many applicants still feel like they won’t measure up. They may worry about how to find pre-med research opportunities or how to get into medical school with a low MCAT . These are valid concerns, of course, and to deal with them, you may wish to consider admissions consulting services. What is it like to work with a BeMo admissions consultant during application season? Well, in addition to providing one-on-one consulting services, with the highest standards and a 100% satisfaction guarantee, we do comprehensive essay and personal statement reviews and provide thorough feedback and guidance.

What we often find when meeting with students for the first time is not that they are unimpressive candidates for medical school but that they are uncertain about the steps they need to take in the application process and don’t know how to emphasize their qualities. In fact, applicants can often ignore some very significant aspects of their background that can be integrated into their materials to craft a winning personal statement. Certainly, other applicants to medical school will match the prerequisites for admission and have strong academic records and prior health care experience. Nevertheless, the written application components, such as your personal statement and essays or even a medical school letter of intent , are what offer you a chance to stand out from the competition. Once these are in order, you can start to consider medical school interview prep with more confidence.

Here are some tips in writing a medical school personal statement:

What Do Medical School Personal Statement Editing Services Do?

Applicants who use medical school personal statement editing services benefit from:

Ensuring Your Personal Statement Is as Strong as All Other Elements in Your Application

Students applying to grad school , or students dealing with med school rejection , may find themselves obsessing over their grades, test results, or professional experience. However, note that most medical school applications are rejected, so this is not a rare occurrence that makes you a failure or means you are not cut out to be a physician. If this disappointing decision makes you all the more determined to succeed, consider the following: first, the CASPer Test & Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) seem to be highly coachable . You may have heard the opposite, but the fact is, very few skills are innate, and you can train for and improve on almost anything you attempt in life.

Second, the same is true for any other aspect of your medical school application, including the essay components or your AMCAS most meaningful experiences . If you achieved the average accepted GPA and MCAT scores, properly prepared for CASPer, submitted your application on time, selected the right schools, and sent out the optimal number of applications, chances are your personal statement didn’t showcase your qualities or wow the admissions committee.

Substantive Editing 

The goal of substantive editing, often referred to as structural editing, is to improve the organization, substance, and overall presentation of a document from start to finish. As an applicant, you can better shape your personal statement by defining your objectives, determining what the medical school is looking for, and identifying personal and professional characteristics you possess that make you an excellent candidate for the school and the medical profession in general.

Your medical school personal statement should convey a significant amount of information to the admissions committee, but more important than quantity is quality. Not all your experiences should be included, and some should be included that you may not think of as relevant. For example, if you happen to have a physician in the family, and you have had fifteen years of exposure to the profession by visiting their offices or clinics on a regular basis, some of this background is worth mentioning. However, rather than listing every single activity, you could summarize these experiences and highlight how they inspired you to go into medicine yourself.

On the other hand, if you have very little direct experience in the medical field per se but have volunteered with children or seniors throughout your life, you could list your takeaways from these activities, what you learned from them about caring for people, and how you would potentially apply this knowledge as a physician. Each applicant is unique, and there are many different ways to present such information. This is why medical school personal statement editing services can be so helpful— with their wealth of expertise, advisors take the guesswork out of what to include and can zone in on what they know medical schools are hoping to see in a personal statement.

Identifying and Removing Irrelevant or Extraneous Information

Your medical school personal statement is one of the most important and versatile tools at your disposal to convey your candidacy to the admissions committee, but only if it is written properly. The character limit usually depends on the application system and includes spaces: 5,300 for AMCAS applications, 5,000 for TMDSAS, and 4,500 for AACOMAS. If you use your personal statement to explain how you meet all the criteria, such as medical school GPA requirements , you won’t be able to convince the admissions committee that you are the ideal candidate because you will just be repeating yourself; they already have the rest of your application and will be aware of whether you meet the requirements.

Rather, your medical school personal statement is your first of only a few opportunities to dazzle the admissions committee. Who you are and not just what you have done will be conveyed through your personal statement. Remember that admissions committees review your application holistically, so you should not worry they will “miss” something simply because you have not added it to your personal statement. After you write your first draft, one of the first things that medical school personal statement editing services will do is remove any content that repeats what another part of your application already states. This can really assist in your initial attempts at writing because you may not be sure what to leave in and what to leave out.

Are you writing your med school personal statement? Find more tips here:

Framing Existing Information

Because medical school personal statement editing services are managed by admission professionals, they have an in-depth understanding of the admissions sector. For instance, they are skilled at sifting through the “admissions jargon” on university websites so they can genuinely help you in determining the talents and values that a particular medical school is seeking and ensuring that you are emphasizing those aspects in your personal statement.

Additionally, these advisors are unbiased, knowledgeable outsiders who carefully consider the specifics of your academic background and experiences. This enables them to recognize the behaviors and abilities that make you a stronger candidate. For instance, you might believe that your athleticism and participation in team sports has nothing to do with your medical school application, or that the ten years you spent studying and teaching piano are unrelated to medicine. However, a consultant can show you how to write about your best extracurriculars for medical school in a way that would be appealing to the program of your choice.

Learning Writing Strategies and Better Communication Skills

Writing a medical school personal statement is difficult, and many applicants are unaware that they might not be strong essay writers. Perhaps you haven’t written an academic admissions essay before, or maybe the last time you did was when you were writing your supplemental college application essays . Unfortunately, few of us ever took classes on how to write personal statements or essays for academic entrance. Therefore, even talented writers and outstanding English students lack the skills necessary to produce a medical school personal statement that will really impress an admissions committee.

Without assistance and guidance, you can easily fall into the trap of composing a generic essay that adheres to conventional online writing advice and doesn’t significantly improve your application as a whole. You may even give it to a parent, peer, or instructor to read and they will congratulate you on how great it is. But these individuals will not have a strong enough grasp of admission considerations either. By engaging with a medical school personal statement editing service, you can learn effective methods and strategies for this specific purpose. These resources to improve your written communication skills and essay writing approach can greatly enhance your likelihood of attracting positive attention from the admissions committee and your chances of success.

Because medical school personal statement editing services do not rewrite your essay for you but rather, help you brainstorm and teach you new writing skills, you will be better equipped to produce a similar personal statement in future or tackle any other admissions-related documents, such as a research interest statement . Therefore, while medical school personal statement editing services may seem like a short-term commitment, they actually represent a long-term investment in your academic and professional career.

Editing and proofreading our own writing is difficult. Not only do we become emotionally invested in the writing we produce, but we also read it so frequently that we are prone to overlooking little details like typos or more serious grammatical faults. Thinking that these elements don’t matter that much is a mistake. Call it an “unforced error.” When it is already so hard to get into medical school, why worsen your chances by submitting a sloppy application? Even minor grammatical errors and typos can give the admissions committee the impression that you either didn’t bother to proofread and rewrite your essay or that you weren’t focusing on it very closely.

Further, the medical profession is one that requires precision and attention to detail. The care you take in preparing your application materials may well indicate overall qualities that are sought in physicians: demonstrating that you are skilled, focused, knowledgeable, and a good communicator can all be accomplished through an excellent personal statement.

With that said, not everyone has a talent for writing. Indeed, you may have chosen medicine because science and human connection were much more interesting to you than literature or composition. Even talented writers occasionally have trouble writing about themselves or developing an appropriate structure for personal statements. Weaknesses in these areas do not mean you are not qualified for medical school; however, not taking the time to ensure you produce the absolute best result for your application is a red flag for medical school admissions committees. Medical school personal statement editing services are there for this reason as well. Consultants will check your text for syntax, grammar, clarity, and cohesiveness, and, most importantly, ensure that it is error-free.

Finding the Best Medical School Personal Statement Editing Service for You

Once you’ve decided to seriously consider using a medical school personal statement editing service, you’ll need to find one that is right for you. With so many services available online and many with great reviews, how do you choose?

We also advise searching for a medical school personal statement editing service that provides a guarantee. Unfortunately, even when a student follows all the advice of the experts and submits a quality essay, they may still be rejected. What happens to the money you paid for their services in that situation? In BeMo\u2019s case, we offer a money-back guarantee because we prefer to back up what we say.  "}]">

Make every effort to improve your medical school personal statement to increase your chances of getting into a medical school in the current competitive environment. That is the purpose of a medical school personal statement service. The experts that provide these services can assist you in emphasizing your qualities and addressing any potential concerns in a way that still presents you as a fine candidate. Additionally, working with a specialist who is familiar with the procedures will guarantee that your personal statement is done correctly. Finally, this guidance can enhance your overall communication abilities.

Spend some time investigating various editing services utilizing the advice we’ve provided above and make an investment in your future by obtaining this extra assistance from reputable medical school personal statement editing services.

Medical schools are highly competitive. The overall medical school acceptance rate in the US is well below 10%, and in Canada, it is below 20%.

A personal statement is a required document in most medical school applications. It allows you to explain to the admissions committee what makes you an ideal candidate for medical school and why you will be a great physician. Therefore, given how competitive medical schools are, the personal statement is highly important.

A good medical school personal statement introduces you to the admissions committee, gives some insights into your background, explains why you selected the field of medicine, answers the question, “ why do you want to be a doctor ,” emphasizes the qualities you possess that make you a good candidate, and highlights why you will be a good physician. You should adapt your personal statement to the requirements, whether you are applying to a specific school or through an application system, such as AMCAS.

There is always a main essay, such as a personal statement or personal comments section in an application. Individual schools may require between 2 and 9 secondary essays.

No, this would unethical. Medical school application help services help you write your own personal statement.

These editing services offer professional help for drafting, writing, revising, and proofreading your medical school personal statement. Advisors are admission specialists who are experts in the medical school application process and can give you valuable tips and guidance.

Services are offered at various price points. Select an editing service that fits your budget and offers payment plans to make the cost more manageable.

They are definitely worth it! Working with a professional can help you improve your medical school personal statement, which is frequently required to bolster your application as a whole and improve your chances of admission to some of the most competitive schools out there.

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This is your chance to stand out among the sea of the same old personal statements.  A great essay can get you accepted to medical school and be the glue to your application while a poorly written statement can get you overlooked. Whether you know exactly what you want to say or have no idea where to start, our advisors will help you find the voice to your story. From brainstorming ideas to picking apart grammar, we closely examine your experiences and help you frame your path to medicine as a piece of work that admissions officers will enjoy reading .  Every step of the way, our advisors carefully and thoughtfully analyze your tone, content, and word-choice in order to convey the most powerful message possible.  We not only think this will help you secure an interview offer, we are sure you will be proud of your journey after reading the final piece.

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Medical School Essay & Personal Statement Editing Service

Become noticeable in the crowd of med school candidates by submitting a perfect application essay.

We Help to Make Your Essay for Medical School Stand Out

Med school admission essay is regarded as the most significant part of the admission process, and it’s no exaggeration. The medical personal statement is your opportunity to provide arguments and persuade the committee that your choice of the program is deliberate. What’s more, the application essay is a chance to show that you are a perfect candidate for entering a desired institution. So, everything should look perfect to increase your chances of success.

EssayEdge provides a variety of services. So, every client will find the most appropriate one, depending on the specific requirements. Whether you need expert proofreading or full assistance from brainstorming to the essay for medical school final submission, our editors are always ready to provide a helping hand.

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While working on your order, our specialists also consider the chosen university, program, and degree. Such a personalized approach helps to make your essays for medical school correspond to a particular university’s requirements. Additionally, most of our editors are former students of the Ivy League and other prestigious universities. So, they know for sure how it is to be in your shoes.

Our experts are aware of the specificity of the admission process, as application requirements and instructions can differ depending on the chosen educational institution. Thus, our professionals share info about entering different universities and share working tips to impress the admission committee and stand out from the rest of the applicants.

Expert Tips to Impress the Pickiest Committee

Together with medical school essay editing, our specialists provide expert recommendations and useful advice to improve your essay. Here are some tips from our editors to craft a successful med school application essay:

• Pay attention to the introduction and conclusion. An interesting hook at the beginning of the essay can help you attract the committee’s attention. Also, applicants often forget about the conclusion, which is the biggest mistake. A memorable concluding paragraph is one more opportunity to re-state why you are a perfect candidate and highlight your qualities and passion for applying for a medical school.
• Plan everything carefully. It is an effective strategy to craft the best essay for medical school admission. For instance, you can adhere to a step-by-step approach. Start with brainstorming and outline an essay. This way, it will be easier to ensure that you haven’t missed anything important.
• Highlight your best qualities. Emphasizing your unique personality is significant to stand out from the crowd. Moreover, it will show the committee that you know how to present yourself effectively. Remember that it’s not boasting of yourself. Instead, you provide necessary arguments supporting why you are a perfect candidate for the chosen program.
• Add details. Do not forget to mention real-life examples in your essay. For example, show how you demonstrated your qualities. Or you can tell the story describing the events that affected your personality development.
• Rely on your experience. Your skills, qualifications, academic background, and experiences are your main arguments. Of course, high grades and brilliant test scores are great. But the admission committee is searching for applicants who can implement their knowledge and qualities. Still, keep in mind that the mentioned experiences should be valuable and relevant.

Finally, do not forget to check everything before submitting because even a minor mistake can spoil the overall impression. With the professional medical personal statement help of our editors, you will be confident in the quality of your application essay for medical school.

Why Is Medical Editing Significant for Your Admission?

Professional medical school essay help is an excellent opportunity to make your paper the best version of itself. Our task is to help you highlight your personality and impress the committee. We work to help you get into the desired med school. Expert medical editing and proofreading service is not only about correcting mistakes. Here are the main benefits of using our service:

• Better grammar and punctuation;
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It’s important to mention that we do not produce any content related to the essay for medical school application. Our task is just to make the necessary improvements. The same refers to the content. Expert editing and proofreading do not harm your writing style. So, we will keep your unique voice and recommend ways to make it sound more professional.

Medical School Personal Statement Editing Service

The personal statement is the most important paper for your application to medical school. So, crafting a perfect essay is the key to entering the chosen institution. So, let’s make your personal statement brilliant together! Just place an order, and our editors will make your l admission paper neat, professional, and mistakes-free.

You can look through the med school admission essay samples to feel the difference and see how expert proofreading changes the way you perceive the essay for medical school. The same refers to the officers who will read your text—the better quality, the higher your chances of getting into the dream university.

Why We Are the Best Medical School Essay Editing Service

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Using our editing and proofreading services is legal in the US and worldwide. You can be sure that there is no plagiarism or violation of admission rules or academic integrity principles. Our editors do not write any content. We provide expert recommendations to improve your med school admission essay or other docs.

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Our specialists understand the specificity of the admission process in different educational establishments. We take into account the chosen degree, subject, program, and institution. EssayEdge experts are also ready to share the secrets of impressing the committee members of the most prestigious universities.

Experts From Ivy League

Our medical school essay editing service unites the best professionals with 12 years of average editing experience. All of them are native English speakers so you can be sure of the quality of their medical proofreading. Moreover, you’ll get an opportunity to cooperate with the graduates or current professors from Ivy League schools.

High Satisfaction Rate

Our satisfaction rate is 9.8 out of 10, and 98% of our customers recommend our services. Our clients claim that professional editing and proofreading significantly increase their chances of entering their dream universities. Read the success story of our dear client Chris who got into Columbia University.

Wide Range of Services

EssayEdge is not only about med school essay editing. Every client can find the most fitting service depending on his/her needs. You can just order editing to ensure everything is OK with the paper. Or if you are not sure about your writing skills, try our Premier Plan to get medical school personal statement help and complete guidance from brainstorming to the final draft.

Customized Approach

We adhere to a personalized approach to satisfy the needs of our customers. Our mission is to help you stand out from the rest of the applicants and impress the admission committee. So, the experts will consider every tiny detail to make your essay for medical school shine like a diamond.

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In case you need med school essay help or have questions related to medical editing services, our support team is available 24/7. We are always in touch to give you a helping hand and solve any issue.

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24 and 48 hours delivery is available for clients who need their med school personal statement as soon as possible. Still, do not worry that a fast turnaround will affect the quality of our services. Our specialists will provide services at the top level, even within a short deadline.

EssayEdge > Medical Essay Editing

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Med school application.

Application to medical school requires a huge investment and brainstorming, so your personal statement shouldn’t be taken lightly. If you need help, try our med school personal statement editing service.

EssayEdge medical school advisors have edited countless medical application essays, so they can help you craft an essay that goes beyond why you want to be a doctor, and gets at the heart of why you will be successful in the medical field.

You write this essay to introduce yourself and show your potential contribution to the community. Personal statement brainstorming with our editors can help express your thoughts effectively.

This essay describes why you want to participate in a particular program or enter a specific school. Professional brainstorming with our experts may help you define your goals and write them down.

Always submit additional essays if you have a chance to do so, focusing on your personality or the diversity that you will bring to the school. A well-written admission essay is your chance to stand out.

Some medical schools ask for a resume. It shows who you are and what you’ve accomplished. Keep in mind that you shouldn’t transform a resume into your personal statement.

Every medical school requests letters of recommendation. You can submit either professional or academic LOR. We can help you find out what kind of letter will work best for you.

This is an essential part of your application package, so remember to invest enough time in writing it. Let’s ensure that your letter covers all the information related to the medical school of your choice.

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Docs we can help with.

The application process is a challenging stage to secure your spot at a medical school. You need to prepare several items to complete this stage, including your resume, letters of recommendation, essays, and transcripts.

The stronger each element of your application is the higher your chance of being admitted.

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Our medical school advisors are experienced in working with various programs. They will help you polish each document.

Experienced Medical School Essay Editors

Our editors have developed expertise in medical school personal statement editing to help you write a flawless essay.

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Great Medical School Personal Statement Examples (2024-2025) Insider’s Guide

A physician and former medical school admissions officer teaches you how to write your medical school personal statement, step by step. Read several full-length medical school personal statement examples for inspiration.

In this article, a former medical school admissions officer explains exactly how to write a stand-out  medical school personal statement!

Our goal is to empower you to write a medical school personal statement that reflects your individuality, truest aspirations and genuine motivations.

This guide also includes:

• Real life medical school personal statement examples
• Medical school personal statement inventory template and outline exercise
• AMCAS ,  TMDSAS , and  AACOMAS  personal statement prompts
• Advanced strategies to ensure you address everything admissions committees want to know
• The secret to writing a great medical school personal statement

So, if you want your medical school personal statement to earn more more medical school interviews, you will love this informative guide.

Let’s dive right in.

Table of Contents

Medical School Personal Statement Fundamentals

If you are getting ready to write your medical school personal statement for the 2024-2025 application year, you may already know that almost 60% of medical school applicants are not accepted every year . You have most likely also completed all of your medical school requirements and have scoured the internet for worthy medical school personal statement examples and guidance.

You know the medical school personal statement offers a crucial opportunity to show medical schools who you are beyond your GPA and MCAT score .

It provides an opportunity to express who you are as an individual, the major influences and background that have shaped your interests and values, what inspired you to pursue medicine, and what kind of a physician you envision yourself becoming.

However, with so much information online, you are not sure who to trust. We are happy you have found us!

Insider Knowledge and Expertise

Because the vast majority of people offering guidance are not former admissions officers or doctors , you must be careful when searching online.

We are real medical school admissions insiders and know what goes on behind closed doors and how to ensure your medical school personal statement has broad appeal while highlighting your most crucial accomplishments, perspectives, and insights.

With tight limits on space, it can be tough trying to decide what to include in your medical school personal statement to make sure you stand out. You must think strategically about how you want to present your personal “big picture” while showing you possess the  preprofessional competencies  med schools are seeking.

When a medical school admissions reviewer finishes reading your medical school personal statement, ask yourself:

• What are the most important things you want that person to remember about you?
• Does your medical school personal statement sum up your personality, interests, and talents?
• Does your medical school personal statement sound as if it’s written from the heart? Is it authentic?

It’s pretty obvious to most admissions reviewers when applicants are trying too hard to impress them. Being authentic and upfront about who you are is the best way to be a memorable applicant.

“After sitting on a medical school admissions committee for many years, I can tell you, think strategically about how you want to present your personal “big picture.” We want to know who you are as a human being.”

The Biggest Medical School Personal Statement Mistakes

The most common medical school personal statement mistake we see students make is that they write about:

• What they have accomplished
• How they have accomplished it

By including details on what you have accomplished and how, you will make yourself sound like every other medical school applicant. 

Most medical school applicants are involved in similar activities: research, clinical work, service, and social justice work. 

To stand out, you must write from the heart making it clear you haven’t marched through your premedical years and checking boxes.

We also strongly discourage applicants from using ChatGPT or any AI bot to write their medical school personal statement. Writing in your own voice is essential and using anything automated will undermine success.

The Medical School Personal Statement Secret

MedEdits students stand out in the medical school personal statement because in their personal statements they address:

WHY they have accomplished what they have.

In other words, they write in more detail about their passions, interests, and what is genuinely important to them. 

It sounds simple, we know, but by writing in a natural way, really zeroing in on WHY YOU DO WHAT YOU DO, you will appeal to a wide variety of people in a humanistic way. 

Why? How is that possible? They all have a few things in common:

• They write a narrative that is authentic and distinctive to them.
• They write a medical school personal statement with broad appeal (many different types of people will be evaluating your application; most are not physicians).
• They don’t try too hard to impress; instead they write about the most impactful experiences they have had on their path to medical school.
• They demonstrate they are humble, intellectual, compassionate, and committed to a career in medicine all at the same time.

Keep reading for a step by step approach to write your medical school personal statement.

Learn the 2024-2025 Medical School Personal Statement Prompts ( AMCAS , TMDSAS , AACOMAS )

The personal statement is the major essay portion of your primary application process. In it, you should describe yourself and your background, as well as any important early exposures to medicine, how and why medicine first piqued your interest, what you have done as a pre med, your personal experiences, and how you became increasingly fascinated with it. It’s also key to explain why medicine is the right career for you, in terms of both personal and intellectual fulfillment, and to show your commitment has continued to deepen as you learned more about the field.

The personal statement also offers you the opportunity to express who you are outside of medicine. What are your other interests? Where did you grow up? What did you enjoy about college? Figuring out what aspects of your background to highlight is important since this is one of your only chances to express to the med school admissions committee before your interview what is important to you and why.

However, it is important to consider the actual personal statement prompt for each system through which you will apply, AMCAS, AACOMAS, and TMDSAS, since each is slightly different.

Need help with your Personal Statement?

Schedule a free 15 Minute Consultation with a MedEdits expert.

2024 AMCAS Personal Statement Prompt

The AMCAS personal statement instructions are as follows:

Use the Personal Comments Essay as an opportunity to distinguish yourself from other applicants. Consider and write your Personal Comments Essay carefully; many admissions committees place significant weight on the essay. Here are some questions that you may want to consider while writing the essay:

• Why have you selected the field of medicine?
• What motivates you to learn more about medicine?
• What do you want medical schools to know about you that hasn’t been disclosed in other sections of the application?

In addition, you may wish to include information such as:

• Unique hardships, challenges, or obstacles that may have influenced your educational pursuits
• Comments on significant fluctuations in your academic record that are not explained elsewhere in your application

As you can see, these prompts are not vague; there are fundamental questions that admissions committees want you to answer when writing your personal statement. While the content of your statement should be focused on medicine, answering the open ended third question is a bit trickier.

The  AMCAS  personal statement length is 5,300 characters with spaces maximum.

2024 TMDSAS Personal Statement Prompt

The  TMDSAS  personal statement is one of the most important pieces of your medical school application.

The TMDSAS personal statement prompt is as follows:

Explain your motivation to seek a career in medicine. Be sure to include the value of your experiences that prepare you to be a physician.

This TMDSAS prompt is very similar to the AMCAS personal statement prompt. The TMDSAS personal statement length is 5,000 characters with spaces whereas the AMCAS personal statement length is 5,300 characters with spaces. Most students use the same essay (with very minor modifications, if necessary) for both application systems.

2024 AACOMAS Personal Statement Prompt

The  AACOMAS  personal statement is for osteopathic medical schools specifically. As with the AMCAS statement, you need to lay out your journey to medicine as chronologically as possible in 5,300 characters with spaces or less. So you essentially have the same story map as for an AMCAS statement. Most important, you must show you are interested in osteopathy specifically. Therefore, when trying to decide what to include or leave out, prioritize any osteopathy experiences you have had, or those that are in line with the osteopathic philosophy of the mind-body connection, the body as self-healing, and other tenets.

Medical School Application Timeline  and When to Write your Personal Statement

Most medical school personal statements can be used for AMCAS and AACOMAS.

Know the Required Medical School Personal Statement Length

Below are the medical schools personal statement length limits for each application system. As you can see, they are all very similar. When you start brainstorming and writing your personal statement, keep these limits in mind.

AMCAS Personal Statement Length : 5,300 characters with spaces.

As per the AAMC website :  “The available space for this essay is 5,300 characters (spaces are counted as characters), or approximately one page. You will receive an error message if you exceed the available space.”

AACOMAS Personal Statement Length : 5,300 characters with spaces

TMDSAS Personal Statement Length : 5,000 characters with spaces

As per the TMDSAS Website (Page 36): “The personal essay asks you to explain your motivation to seek a career in medicine. You are asked to include the value of your experiences that prepare you to be a physician. The essay is limited to 5000 characters, including spaces.”

• Service Orientation
• Social Skills
• Cultural Competence
• Oral Communication
• Ethical Responsibility to Self and Others
• Reliability and Dependability
• Resilience and Adaptability
• Capacity for Improvement
• Critical Thinking
• Quantitative Reasoning
• Written Communication
• Scientific Inquiry

2. Why do you want to be a doctor?

This may seem pretty basic – and it is – but admissions officers need to know WHY you want to practice medicine. Many applicants make the mistake of simply listing what they have done without offering insights about those experiences that answer the question, “Why medicine?” Your reasons for wanting to be a doctor may overlap with those of other applicants. This is okay because the experiences in which you participated, the stories you can tell about those experiences, and the wisdom you gained are completely distinct—because they are only yours. 

“In admissions committee meetings we were always interested in WHY you wanted to earn a medical degree and how you would contribute to the medical school community.”

Medical school admissions committees want to know that you have explored your interest deeply and that you can reflect on the significance of these clinical experiences and volunteer work. But writing only that you “want to help people” does not support a sincere desire to become a physician; you must indicate why the medical profession in particular—rather than social work, teaching, or another “helping” profession—is your goal.

3. How have your experiences influenced you?

It is important to show how your experiences are linked and how they have influenced you. What motivated you from your experiences? In what ways did they influence your other activities? How were your future goals shaped by these experiences? Medical school admissions committees like to see a sensible progression of involvements. While not every activity needs to be logically “connected” with another, the evolution of your interests and how your experiences have nurtured your future goals and ambitions show that you are motivated and committed.

4. Who are you as a person? What are your values and ideals?

Medical school admissions committees want to know about you as an individual beyond your interests in medicine, too. This is where answering that third open ended question in the prompt becomes so important. What was interesting about your background, youth, and home life? What did you enjoy most about college? Do you have any distinctive passions or interests? They want to be convinced that you are a good person beyond your experiences. Write about those topics that are unlikely to appear elsewhere in your statement that will offer depth and interest to your work and illustrate the qualities and characteristics you possess.

Related Articles:

• How to Get into Stanford Medical School
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• How To Get Into Columbia Medical School
• How To Get Into UT Southwestern Medical School
• How To Get Into Harvard Medical School

Complete Your Personal Inventory and Outline (Example Below)

Highlighting valuable experiences, experience-based personal inventory exercise, creating your personal inventory.

• List Important Experiences: Write down a list of the most important experiences in your life and your development. The list should be all-inclusive and comprise those experiences that had the most impact on you. Put the list, which should consist of personal, extracurricular, and academic events, in chronological order.
• Identify Key Experiences: From this list, determine which experiences you consider the most important in helping you decide to pursue a career in medicine. This “experience-oriented” approach will allow you to determine which experiences best illustrate the personal competencies admissions committees look for in your written documents. Remember that you must provide evidence for your interest in medicine and for most of the personal qualities and characteristics that medical school admissions committees want to see.
• Reflect on Influences: After making your list, think about why each “most important” experience was influential and write that down. What did you observe? What did you learn? What insights did you gain? How did the experience influence your path and choices?
• Create Illustrations: Then think of a story or illustration for why each experience was important.
• Evaluate for Significance: After doing this exercise, evaluate each experience for its significance and influence and for its “story” value. Choose to write about those experiences that not only were influential but that also will provide interesting reading, keeping in mind that your goal is to weave the pertinent experiences together into a compelling story. In making your choices, think about how you will link each experience and transition from one topic to the next.
• Plan Your Outline: Decide which of your listed experiences you will use for your introduction first (see below for more about your introduction). Then decide which experiences you will include in the body of your personal statement, create a general outline, and get writing!

Crafting Your Narrative

Craft a compelling personal statement introduction and body.

You hear conflicting advice about application essays. Some tell you not to open with a story. Others tell you to always begin with a story. Regardless of the advice you receive, be sure to do three things:

• Be true to yourself. Everyone will have an opinion regarding what you should and should not write. Follow your own instincts. Your  personal statement  should be a reflection of you, and only you.
• Start your personal statement with something catchy.  Think about the list of potential topics above.
• Don’t rush your work. Composing thoughtful documents takes time and you don’t want your writing and ideas to be sloppy and underdeveloped.

Most important is to begin with something that engages your reader. A narrative, a “story,” an anecdote written in the first or third person, is ideal. Whatever your approach, your first paragraph must grab your reader’s attention and motivate him to want to continue reading. I encourage applicants to start their personal statement by describing an experience that was especially influential in setting them on their path to medical school. This can be a personal or scholarly experience or an extracurricular one. Remember to avoid clichés and quotes and to be honest and authentic in your writing. Don’t try to be someone who you are not by trying to imitate personal statement examples you have read online or “tell them what you think they want to hear”; consistency is key and your interviewer is going to make sure that you are who you say you are!

When deciding what experiences to include in the body of your personal statement, go back to your personal inventory and identify those experiences that have been the most influential in your personal path and your path to medical school. Keep in mind that the reader wants to have an idea of who you are as a human being so don’t write your personal statement as a glorified resume. Include some information about your background and personal experiences that can give a picture of who you are as a person outside of the classroom or laboratory.

Ideally, you should choose two or three experiences to highlight in the body of your personal statement. You don’t want to write about all of your accomplishments; that is what your application entries are for!

Write Your Personal Statement Conclusion

In your conclusion, it is customary to “go full circle” by coming back to the topic—or anecdote—you introduced in the introduction, but this is not a must. Summarize why you want to be a doctor and address what you hope to achieve and your goals for medical school. Write a conclusion that is compelling and will leave the reader wanting to meet you.

Complete Personal Statement Checklist

When reading your medical school personal statement be sure it:

Shows insight and introspection

The best medical school personal statements tell a great deal about what you have learned through your experiences and the insights you have gained.

You want to tell your story by highlighting those experiences that have been the most influential on your path to medical school and to give a clear sense of chronology. You want your statement always to be logical and never to confuse your reader.

Is interesting and engaging

The best personal statements engage the reader. This doesn’t mean you must use big words or be a literary prize winner. Write in your own language and voice, but really think about your journey to medical school and the most intriguing experiences you have had.

Gives the reader a mental image of who you are

You want the reader to be able to envision you as a caregiver and a medical professional. You want to convey that you would be a compassionate provider at the bedside – someone who could cope well with crisis and adversity.

Not true. The vast majority of  personal statements  do not have themes. In fact, most are somewhat autobiographical and are just as interesting as those statements that are woven around a “theme.” It is only the very talented writer who can creatively write a personal statement around a theme, and this approach often backfires since the applicant fails to answer the three questions above.

Medical School Personal Statement Examples and Analysis for Inspiration

AMCAS Medical School Personal Statement Example and Analysis #1 with Personal Inventory

We will use Amy to illustrate the general process of writing an application to medical school, along with providing the resulting documents. Amy will first list those experiences, personal, extracurricular, and scholarly, that have been most influential in two areas: her life in general and her path to medical school. She will put this personal inventory in chronologic order for use in composing her personal statement.

She will then select those experiences that were the most significant to her and will reflect and think about why they were important. For her application entries, Amy will write about each experience, including those that she considers influential in her life but not in her choice of medicine, in her application entries. Experiences that Amy will not write about in her activity entries or her personal statement are those that she does not consider most influential in either her life or in her choice of medicine.

• Going with my mom to work. She is a surgeon — I was very curious about what she did. I was intrigued by the relationships she had with patients and how much they valued her efforts. I also loved seeing her as “a doctor” since, to me, she was just “mom.”
• I loved biology in high school. I started to think seriously about medicine then. It was during high school that I became fascinated with biology and how the human body worked. I would say that was when I thought, “Hmm, maybe I should be a doctor.”
• Grandmother’s death, senior year of high school. My grandmother’s death was tragic. It was the first time I had ever seen someone close to me suffer. It was one of the most devastating experiences in my life.
• Global Health Trip to Guatemala my freshman year of college. I realized after going to Guatemala that I had always taken my access to health care for granted. Here I saw children who didn’t have basic health care. This made me want to become a physician so I could give more to people like those I met in Guatemala.
• Sorority involvement. Even though sorority life might seem trivial, I loved it. I learned to work with different types of people and gained some really valuable leadership experience.
• Poor grades in college science classes. I still regret that I did badly in my science classes. I think I was immature and was also too involved in other activities and didn’t have the focus I needed to do well. I had a 3.4 undergraduate GPA.
• Teaching and tutoring Jose, a child from Honduras. In a way, meeting Jose in a college tutoring program brought my Guatemala experience to my home. Jose struggled academically, and his parents were immigrants and spoke only Spanish, so they had their own challenges. I tried to help Jose as much as I could. I saw that because he lacked resources, he was at a tremendous disadvantage.
• Volunteering at Excellent Medical Center. Shadowing physicians at the medical center gave me a really broad view of medicine. I learned about different specialties, met many different patients, and saw both great and not-so-great physician role models. Counselor at Ronald McDonald House. Working with sick kids made me appreciate my health. I tried to make them happy and was so impressed with their resilience. It made me realize that good health is everything.
• Oncology research. Understanding what happens behind the scenes in research was fascinating. Not only did I gain some valuable research experience, but I learned how research is done.
• Peer health counselor. Communicating with my peers about really important medical tests gave me an idea of the tremendous responsibility that doctors have. I also learned that it is important to be sensitive, to listen, and to be open-minded when working with others.
• Clinical Summer Program. This gave me an entirely new view of medicine. I worked with the forensics department, and visiting scenes of deaths was entirely new to me. This experience added a completely new dimension to my understanding of medicine and how illness and death affect loved ones.
• Emergency department internship. Here I learned so much about how things worked in the hospital. I realized how important it was that people who worked in the clinical department were involved in creating hospital policies. This made me understand, in practical terms, how an MPH would give me the foundation to make even more change in the future.
• Master’s in public health. I decided to get an MPH for two reasons. First of all, I knew my undergraduate science GPA was an issue so I figured that graduate level courses in which I performed well would boost my record. I don’t think I will write this on my application, but I also thought the degree would give me other skills if I didn’t get into medical school, and I knew it would also give me something on which I could build during medical school and in my career since I was interested in policy work.

As you can see from Amy’s personal inventory list, she has many accomplishments that are important to her and influenced her path. The most influential personal experience that motivated her to practice medicine was her mother’s career as a practicing physician, but Amy was also motivated by watching her mother’s career evolve. Even though the death of her grandmother was devastating for Amy, she did not consider this experience especially influential in her choice to attend medical school so she didn’t write about it in her personal statement.

Amy wrote an experience-based personal statement, rich with anecdotes and detailed descriptions, to illustrate the evolution of her interest in medicine and how this motivated her to also earn a master’s in public health.

Amy’s  Medical School Personal Statement  Example:

She was sprawled across the floor of her apartment. Scattered trash, decaying food, alcohol bottles, medication vials, and cigarette butts covered the floor. I had just graduated from college, and this was my first day on rotation with the forensic pathology department as a Summer Scholar, one of my most valuable activities on the path to medical school. As the coroner deputy scanned the scene for clues to what caused this woman’s death, I saw her distraught husband. I did not know what to say other than “I am so sorry.” I listened intently as he repeated the same stories about his wife and his dismay that he never got to say goodbye. The next day, alongside the coroner as he performed the autopsy, I could not stop thinking about the grieving man.

Discerning a cause of death was not something I had previously associated with the practice of medicine. As a child, I often spent Saturday mornings with my mother, a surgeon, as she rounded on patients. I witnessed the results of her actions, as she provided her patients a renewed chance at life. I grew to honor and respect my mother’s profession. Witnessing the immense gratitude of her patients and their families, I quickly came to admire the impact she was able to make in the lives of her patients and their loved ones.

I knew I wanted to pursue a career in medicine as my mother had, and throughout high school and college I sought out clinical, research, and volunteer opportunities to gain a deeper understanding of medicine. After volunteering with cancer survivors at Camp Ronald McDonald, I was inspired to further understand this disease. Through my oncology research, I learned about therapeutic processes for treatment development. Further, following my experience administering HIV tests, I completed research on point-of-care HIV testing, to be instituted throughout 26 hospitals and clinics. I realized that research often served as a basis for change in policy and medical practice and sought out opportunities to learn more about both.

All of my medically related experiences demonstrated that people who were ‘behind the scenes’ and had limited or no clinical background made many of the decisions in health care. Witnessing the evolution of my mother’s career further underscored the impact of policy change on the practice of medicine. In particular, the limits legislation imposed on the care she could provide influenced my perspective and future goals. Patients whom my mother had successfully treated for more than a decade, and with whom she had long-standing, trusting relationships, were no longer able to see her, because of policy coverage changes. Some patients, frustrated by these limitations, simply stopped seeking the care they needed. As a senior in college, I wanted to understand how policy transformations came about and gain the tools I would need to help effect administrative and policy changes in the future as a physician. It was with this goal in mind that I decided to complete a master’s in public health program before applying to medical school.

As an MPH candidate, I am gaining insight into the theories and practices behind the complex interconnections of the healthcare system; I am learning about economics, operations, management, ethics, policy, finance, and technology and how these entities converge to impact delivery of care. A holistic understanding of this diverse, highly competitive, market-driven system will allow me, as a clinician, to find solutions to policy, public health, and administration issues. I believe that change can be more effective if those who actually practice medicine also decide where improvements need to be made.

For example, as the sole intern for the emergency department at County Medical Center, I worked to increase efficiency in the ED by evaluating and mapping patient flow. I tracked patients from point of entry to point of discharge and found that the discharge process took up nearly 35% of patients’ time. By analyzing the reasons for this situation, in collaboration with nurses and physicians who worked in the ED and had an intimate understanding of what took place in the clinical area, I was able to make practical recommendations to decrease throughput time. The medical center has already implemented these suggestions, resulting in decreased length of stays. This example illustrates the benefit of having clinicians who work ‘behind the scenes’ establish policies and procedures, impacting operational change and improving patient care. I will also apply what I have learned through this project as the business development intern at Another Local Medical Center this summer, where I will assist in strategic planning, financial analysis, and program reviews for various clinical departments.

Through my mother’s career and my own medical experiences, I have become aware of the need for clinician administrators and policymakers. My primary goal as a physician will be to care for patients, but with the knowledge and experience I have gained through my MPH, I also hope to effect positive public policy and administrative changes.

Paragraphs 1 and 2: Amy started her personal statement by illustrating a powerful experience she had when she realized that medical caregivers often feel impotent, and how this contrasted with her understanding of medicine as a little girl going with her mother to work. Recognition of this intense contrast also highlights her maturity.

P-3: She then “lists” a few experiences that were important to her.

Paragraph 4: Amy describes the commonality in some of her experiences and how her observations were substantiated by watching the evolution of her mother’s practice. She then explains how this motivated her to earn an MPH so she could create change more effectively as a physician than as a layman.

P-5: Next, she explains how her graduate degree is helping her to better understand the “issues in medicine” that she observed.

Paragraph 6: Then, an exceptional accomplishment is described, highlighting what she has learned and how she has applied it.

P-7: Finally, she effectively concludes her personal statement and summarizes the major topics addressed in her essay.

As you can see, her statement has excellent flow, is captivating and unusual, and illustrates her understanding of, and commitment to, medicine. Throughout her application entries and statement, she exhibits the personal competencies, characteristics, and qualities that medical school admissions officers are seeking. Her application also has broad appeal; reviewers who are focused on research, cultural awareness, working with the underserved, health administration and policy, teaching, or clinical medicine would all find it of interest.

Osteopathic Medical School Personal Statement

Example and Analysis #2

Medical School Personal Statement Example Background:  This is a nontraditional applicant who applied to osteopathic medical schools. With a 500 and a 504 on the  MCAT , he needed to showcase how his former career and what he learned through his work made him an asset. He also needed to convey why osteopathic medicine was an ideal fit for him. The student does an excellent job illustrating his commitment to medicine and explaining why and how he made the well-informed decision to leave his former career to pursue a career in osteopathic medicine.

What’s Good About It:  A nontraditional student with a former career, this applicant does a great job outlining how and why he decided to pursue a career in medicine. Clearly dedicated to service, he also does a great job making it clear he is a good fit for osteopathic medical school and understands this distinctions of osteopathic practice.. 

Working as a police officer, one comes to expect the unexpected, but sometimes, when the unexpected happens, one can’t help but be surprised. In November 20XX, I had been a police officer for two years when my partner and I happened to be nearby when a man had a cardiac emergency in Einstein Bagels. Entering the restaurant, I was caught off guard by the lifeless figure on the floor, surrounded by spilled food. Time paused as my partner and I began performing CPR, and my heart raced as I watched color return to the man’s pale face.

Luckily, paramedics arrived within minutes to transport him to a local hospital. Later, I watched as the family thanked the doctors who gave their loved one a renewed chance at life. That day, in the “unexpected,” I confirmed that I wanted to become a physician, something that had attracted me since childhood.

I have always been enthralled by the science of medicine and eager to help those in need but, due to life events, my path to achieving this dream has been long. My journey began following high school when I joined the U.S. Army. I was immature and needed structure, and I knew the military was an opportunity to pursue my medical ambitions. I trained as a combat medic and requested work in an emergency room of an army hospital. At the hospital, I started IVs, ran EKGs, collected vital signs, and assisted with codes. I loved every minute as I was directly involved in patient care and observed physicians methodically investigating their patients’ signs and symptoms until they reached a diagnosis. Even when dealing with difficult patients, the physicians I worked with maintained composure, showing patience and understanding while educating patients about their diseases. I observed physicians not only as clinicians but also as teachers. As a medic, I learned that I loved working with patients and being part of the healthcare team, and I gained an understanding of acute care and hospital operations.

Following my discharge in 20XX, I transferred to an army reserve hospital and continued as a combat medic until 20XX. Working as a medic at several hospitals and clinics in the area, I was exposed to osteopathic medicine and the whole body approach to patient care. I was influenced by the D.O.s’ hands-on treatment and their use of manipulative medicine as a form of therapy. I learned that the body cannot function properly if there is dysfunction in the musculoskeletal system.

In 20XX, I became a police officer to support myself as I finished my undergraduate degree and premed courses. While working the streets, I continued my patient care experiences by being the first to care for victims of gunshot wounds, stab wounds, car accidents, and other medical emergencies. In addition, I investigated many unknown causes of death with the medical examiner’s office. I often found signs of drug and alcohol abuse and learned the dangers and power of addiction. In 20XX, I finished my undergraduate degree in education and in 20XX, I completed my premed courses.

Wanting to learn more about primary care medicine, in 20XX I volunteered at a community health clinic that treats underserved populations. Shadowing a family physician, I learned about the physical exam as I looked into ears and listened to the hearts and lungs of patients with her guidance. I paid close attention as she expressed the need for more PCPs and the important roles they play in preventing disease and reducing ER visits by treating and educating patients early in the disease process. This was evident as numerous patients were treated for high cholesterol, elevated blood pressure, and diabetes, all conditions that can be resolved or improved by lifestyle changes. I learned that these changes are not always easy for many in underserved populations as healthier food is often more expensive and sometimes money for prescriptions is not available. This experience opened my eyes to the challenges of being a physician in an underserved area.

The idea of disease prevention stayed with me as I thought about the man who needed CPR. Could early detection and education about heart disease have prevented his “unexpected” cardiac event? My experiences in health care and law enforcement have confirmed my desire to be an osteopathic physician and to treat the patients of the local area. I want to eliminate as many medical surprises as I can.

Texas Medical School Personal Statement Example and Analysis #3

Medical School Personal Statement Example Background:  This applicant, who grew up with modest means, should be an inspiration to us all. Rather than allowing limited resources to stand in his way, he took advantage of everything that was available to him. He commuted to college from home and had a part-time job so he was stretched thin, and his initial college performance suffered. However, he worked hard and his grades improved. Most medical school admissions committees seek out applicants like this because, by overcoming adversity and succeeding with limited resources, they demonstrate exceptional perseverance, maturity, and dedication. His accomplishments are, by themselves, impressive and he does an outstanding job of detailing his path, challenges, and commitment to medicine. He received multiple acceptances to top medical schools and was offered scholarships.

What’s Good About It:  This student does a great job opening his personal statement with a beautifully written introduction that immediately takes the reader to Central America. He then explains his path, why he did poorly early in college, and goes on to discuss his academic interests and pursuits. He is also clearly invested in research and articulates that he is intellectually curious, motivated, hard working, compassionate and committed to a career in medicine by explaining his experiences using interesting language and details. This is an intriguing statement that makes clear the applicant is worthy of an interview invitation. Finally, the student expresses his interest in attending medical school in Texas.

They were learning the basics of carpentry and agriculture. The air was muggy and hot, but these young boys seemed unaffected, though I and my fellow college students sweated and often complained. As time passed, I started to have a greater appreciation for the challenges these boys faced. These orphans, whom I met and trained in rural Central America as a member of The Project, had little. They dreamed of using these basic skills to earn a living wage. Abandoned by their families, they knew this was their only opportunity to re-enter society as self- sufficient individuals. I stood by them in the fields and tutored them after class. And while I tried my best to instill in them a strong work ethic, it was the boys who instilled in me a desire to help those in need. They gave me a new perspective on my decision to become a doctor.

I don’t know exactly when I decided to become a physician; I have had this goal for a long time. I grew up in the inner city of A City, in Texas and attended magnet schools. My family knew little about higher education, and I learned to seek out my own opportunities and advice. I attended The University with the goal of gaining admission to medical school. When I started college, I lacked the maturity to focus on academics and performed poorly. Then I traveled to Central America. Since I was one of the few students who spoke Spanish, many of the boys felt comfortable talking with me. They saw me as a role model.

The boys worked hard so that they could learn trades that would help them to be productive members of society. It was then I realized that my grandparents, who immigrated to the US so I would have access to greater opportunities, had done the same. I felt like I was wasting what they had sacrificed for me. When I returned to University in the fall, I made academics my priority and committed myself to learn more about medicine.

Through my major in neuroscience, I strengthened my understanding of how we perceive and experience life. In systems neurobiology, I learned the physiology of the nervous system. Teaching everything from basic neural circuits to complex sensory pathways, Professor X provided me with the knowledge necessary to conduct research in Parkinson’s disease. My research focused on the ability of antioxidants to prevent the onset of Parkinson’s, and while my project was only a pilot study at the time, Professor X encouraged me to present it at the National Research Conference. During my senior year, I developed the study into a formal research project, recruiting the help of professors of statistics and biochemistry.

Working at the School of Medicine reinforced my analytical skills. I spent my summer in the department of emergency medicine, working with the department chair, Dr. Excellent. Through Dr. Excellent’s mentorship, I participated in a retrospective study analyzing patient charts to determine the efficacy of D-dimer assays in predicting blood clots. The direct clinical relevance of my research strengthened my commitment and motivated my decision to seek out more clinical research opportunities.

A growing awareness of the role of human compassion in healing has also influenced my choice to pursue a career in medicine. It is something no animal model or cell culture can ever duplicate or rival. Working in clinical research has allowed me to see the selflessness of many physicians and patients and their mutual desire to help others. As a research study assistant in the department of surgery, I educate and enroll patients in clinical trials. One such study examines the role of pre-operative substance administration in tumor progression. Patients enrolled in this study underwent six weeks of therapy before having the affected organ surgically excised. Observing how patients were willing to participate in this research to benefit others helped me understand the resiliency of the human spirit.

Working in clinical trials has enabled me to further explore my passion for science, while helping others. Through my undergraduate coursework and participation in volunteer groups I have had many opportunities to solidify my goal to become a physician. As I am working, I sometimes think about my second summer in Central America. I recall how one day, after I had turned countless rows of soil in scorching heat, one of the boys told me that I was a trabajador verdadero—a true worker. I paused as I realized the significance of this comment. While the boy may not have been able to articulate it, he knew I could identify with him. What the boy didn’t know, however, was that had my grandparents not decided to immigrate to the US, I would not have the great privilege of seizing opportunities in this country and writing this essay today. I look forward to the next step of my education and hope to return home to Texas where I look forward to serving the communities I call home.

Final Thoughts

Medical school personal statement help & consulting.

If all this information has you staring at your screen like a deer in the headlights, you’re not alone. Writing a superb medical school personal statement can be a daunting task, and many applicants find it difficult to get started writing, or to express everything they want to say succinctly. That’s where MedEdits can help. You don’t have to have the best writing skills to compose a stand-out statement. From personal-statement editing alone to comprehensive packages for all your medical school application needs, we offer extensive support and expertise developed from working with thousands of successful medical school applicants. We can’t promise applying to medical school will be stress-free, but most clients tell us it’s a huge relief not to have to go it alone.

MedEdits offers personal statement consulting and editing. Our goal when working with students is to draw out what makes each student distinctive. How do we do this? We will explore your background and upbringing, interests and ideals as well as your accomplishments and activities. By helping you identify the most distinguishing aspects of who you are, you will then be able to compose an authentic and genuine personal statement in your own voice to capture the admissions committee’s attention so you are invited for a medical school interview. Our unique brainstorming methodology has helped hundreds of aspiring premeds gain acceptance to medical school.

JESSICA FREEDMAN, M.D., is a former faculty member and admissions committee member at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She is the founder and chair of MedEdits Medical Admissions and author of the MedEdits Guide to Medical Admissions and The Medical School Interview which you can find on  Amazon . Follow Dr. Freedman and MedEdits on Facebook and  YouTube.

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How to Edit Your Personal Statement (7 Review Tips)

• By Med School Insiders
• March 28, 2023

Your personal statement is one of the most vital pieces of your medical school application. You may have scored a perfect 528 on the MCAT, but it won’t matter if your personal statement is an uninspired rehash of your CV. How do you ensure you tell your story in an engaging way? How do you ensure your writing is faultless? Learn how to edit your personal statement and make revisions in order to impress admissions committees.

It only takes one mistake to sink an otherwise excellent personal statement. Keep in mind that you’re going up against thousands of other medical school applicants, many of whom have the exact same qualifications as you. Do not allow simple mistakes to ruin your chances of acceptance. Below we’ll break down seven review tips you can use to edit your personal statement to ensure you earn the acceptance you’ve been working toward for so many years.

Why the Personal Statement is Important

Your personal statement is the most intimate piece of your medical school application. It’s your opportunity to show an admissions committee who you are, what drives you, and what you have to offer; in other words, it’s your chance to sell yourself.

While your MCAT score and scholastic accomplishments may be impressive, the numbers don’t actually speak for themselves. Anybody can do well in school; admissions committees want to know who you are beyond your grades in order to determine if you fit the mold of the kind of student they want to join their program. Do you have the kind of passion and dedication needed to not only get by but to flourish in medical school? This is where the personal statement comes in.

Why do you want to be a doctor? What makes you uniquely qualified to attend medical school? What about your past makes you stand out as an applicant? How do you know you have what it takes to win acceptance and one day become a practicing physician?

Your personal statement is your chance to define who you are in your own words. Admissions committees look at personal statements very closely, so it’s important that you start early and give yourself plenty of time to conceptualize, write, and revise your personal statement.

Read our complete Personal Statement Guide , which outlines 11 steps to writing a personal statement.

How to Edit Your Personal Statement

1 | give ample time to the editing process.

Crafting and editing your personal statement is going to take a great deal of time. This isn’t something you can slam out in a few hours—it’s not even something you can complete effectively in a few days. Getting your first draft done is excellent, but the work is far from over.

Get started on your personal statement early so that you have plenty of time to edit your work. It will likely take several drafts before you land on something that will impress admissions committees. You will also need to get other people to read and edit your personal statement, and this takes time too. You may think your personal statement is ready to submit until your mentor comes back and tells you that your central theme doesn’t work, and it might be best to look for another angle.

But don’t be discouraged—it’s all part of the process. A half-baked and rushed personal statement could completely derail your chances of acceptance. Your personal statement is one of the most vital pieces of your medical school application, so devote as much time as possible to the process.

2 | Take Time Away From Your Work

Once you complete a draft of your personal statement, step away from your laptop and do something completely unrelated. Go for a walk, read a book, go to the gym, or hangout with your friends or family. The personal statement needs time to sit.

After a break, come back to the personal statement with a clear head and fresh perspective. You may discover that the opening line you were so proud of an hour ago doesn’t sound quite as spectacular as you thought it did. By contrast, you could also find that one of the anecdotes you weren’t sure you should include actually ties the whole thing together.

Take time away from your personal statement and come back to it so that you can evaluate your work as objectively as possible.

3 | Read It Out Loud

Read your personal statement back to yourself out loud. Reading it out loud will slow you down and force you to look at each word individually.

This process will help you feel confident about what you’ve written while also pointing out areas of the personal statement that don’t sound quite right once said out loud. How does the personal statement flow? Does one point lead into the next? Are there any areas that are difficult to read?

If you have trouble reading or comprehending your own writing, other people definitely will too. Use reading your personal statement out loud as a chance to experience your personal statement as someone else would. Look for inconsistencies, errors, pacing, and anything else that detracts from the quality of your writing.

4 | It’s Okay to Start Over

Premeds often get attached to the first draft of their personal statement. When in the editing and revising phase, be open to any and all suggestions you receive. You don’t have to take every suggestion, but you should consider each one.

Don’t let pride get in the way, especially when receiving advice from people who have succeeded in writing a personal statement or have served on admissions committees before.

It’s okay to start over—in fact, most premeds go through multiple iterations of their personal statement. Some applicants write multiple different personal statements entirely before reaching the best direction to take their essay. Don’t get disheartened if you need to start over or switch to another idea. This is part of the process. It doesn’t mean you’re doing a bad job if you have to start again; it means you’re committed to writing the best personal statement possible.

If someone with admissions committee experience or a reputable paid editing service suggests you take your personal statement in another direction, take that advice to heart. These people have a deep understanding of the medical school admissions process. Your personal statement could be extraordinary, but the story you choose to tell may be generic and overdone. Or you may mention something that could leave a negative connotation, such as mentioning anything that reminds adcoms of drug-seeking behavior.

Starting over is not a failure. It’s part of your journey to perfect your personal statement.

Learn more: Bad Personal Statement Examples and What to Do Instead .

5 | Use Editing Tools

You have come too far to let a simple spelling or grammar mistake ruin your chances of acceptance. Doctors must be patient, precise, and exacting—spelling mistakes make you look either careless or out of your depth intellectually, both of which are terrible messages to convey to an admissions committee.

Turn on spellcheck, but also utilize external editing tools like Grammarly or Hemingway Editor to catch spelling mistakes, comma errors, passive voice, structural issues, and readability.

6 | Don’t Rely on Editing Tools Exclusively

While editing apps are effective at catching most spelling and grammar mistakes, what they don’t understand is context. Do not rely on editing apps exclusively, as their capabilities are somewhat limited.

Consider each suggestion before accepting it. Don’t assume that the spellchecker is making an accurate suggestion. These tools can misunderstand your context, which will cause them to make an incorrect suggestion. This doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable—you should definitely take advantage of these tools—but you can’t rely on them alone.

Human editors are able to take context into account. Ask friends, family, or mentors you trust to edit your personal statement as well. When you ask someone to edit your essay, be clear about what they are editing for. Are they simply editing for flow and grammatical errors because they don’t have a deep understanding of medical school personal statements? Or are they editing the content, context, and narrative of your personal statement?

7 | Get Advice From People With Adcom Experience

Editing your personal statement yourself or having friends and family give you feedback is not enough. You must have your personal statement edited by people who understand the medical school application process—ideally, people who have actually served on admissions committees before.

These people can edit beyond spelling and grammar, providing you with an insider’s perspective on what will actually impress admissions committees. This type of feedback will help you produce a unique and stand out personal statement that goes above and beyond what other candidates produce.

We don’t need to remind you that there is steep competition to get into medical school, and gaining every edge you can on other candidates is a must, especially if you have competitive programs in mind. Even a good personal statement can fall short if the content is too similar to what admissions committees see over and over again.

If you don’t have a mentor, advisor, or family member with adcom experience to edit your essay, seek out a reputable admissions consultant service. Ensure the service you choose is run by real doctors who have admissions committee experience. If you are unsure—ask. You don’t need another grammar edit; you need professional advice from people who intimately understand how the admissions process works and what schools are looking for in medical school candidates.

Learn How to Choose the Best Medical School Admissions Consultant .

The Extra Mile: Personal Statement Editing Services

You’ll never receive a cookie-cutter approach from Med School Insiders . We are made up of a vast team of industry-leading physicians who have years of experience serving on admissions committees, so you’ll receive key insights from people who have been intimately involved with the selection process.

We offer a range of personal statement editing packages , including in-depth editing with a physician who will be there to advise you every step of the way.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our team. Learn more about our process , read our reviews , and make use of our massive database of resources .

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Personal Statement Edit

$ 999.00

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Our most popular products with the greatest discounts are our application packages: https://crackingmedadmissions.com/application-packages/

Each primary essay edit purchase includes three thorough edits for your personal statement. 

The Cracking Med School Admissions team can help you craft a personal statement that will be noticed, and most importantly, remembered by the admissions committee. We have professional writing experience and have revised thousands of essays. Now you can receive personalized feedback tailored towards your application through our essay editing service.

We thoroughly look through and think about all aspects of your application. We will help you highlight your strengths, values, and personal themes. For example, we find ways to uniquely illustrate your extra-curricular activities and personal experiences. Our personalized feedback is tailored towards YOUR application.

When you use our essay editing service, you will receive the following from Stanford-trained physicians: · Line-by-line edits to ensure your essay has proper grammar, engaging diction, appropriate tone, and smooth transitions · Feedback about essay organization and style · Generalized evaluation about the essay’s content and themes · Suggestions for how to integrate your primary essay and secondary essays

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How to Write a Powerful Personal Statement for Medical School

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The personal statement can make or break your medical school application. Learn how to write it and strategies to make it stand out to admissions committees in this expert guide.

Essays are one of the most important parts of any graduate school application. Whereas your resume, letters of recommendation, and standardized test scores speak to your achievements and academic potential, your essays are where you can make a human argument based on your unique candidacy; they tell the story of a person rather than of numbers.

Typically, aspiring MD candidates will need to submit several essays. The personal statement or personal comments essay is submitted through the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS), a centralized application that most medical schools use (outside of Texas), similar to the Common App. This application opens for submission around the end of May or the beginning of June. After you submit your AMCAS application, you’ll also need to submit a secondary application that goes directly to the schools you’re applying to. Depending on the program, this may be open to everyone or extended on an invitation-only basis. This secondary application usually includes several other essays or short-answer questions that are more specific to what the school is looking for.

Though there is a standard that your scores, GPA, and experience need to meet, the essays really can make or break your chances of admission. In this article, we’ll go over what makes a good personal statement, how to get started on yours, and some actionable strategies for success.

What is the Personal Statement?

The “personal statement essay” can be found in section eight of the AMCAS application. The simple, vague prompt is as follows:

“Use the space provided to explain why you want to go to medical school.”

This prompt is purposefully left broad–the admissions committees want to see where applicants go in their responses. In short, they really want the answer to two things:

• Why should we admit you , specifically?
• Why medicine?

On its website, AMCAS says that this essay “provides an opportunity to distinguish yourself from other applicants and provide admissions officers with more insight into why you have chosen to pursue a career in medicine.” In other words, your response should make a compelling case for what you will bring to the table and clearly outline how your path so far has led you to medical school.

Med School Personal Statement Length

The personal comments essay has a character limit of 5,300, which includes spaces. This translates to about a page and a half worth of words. TMDSAS, the Texan equivalent of AMCAS, has a character limit of 5,000.

How Long Will My Personal Statement Take?

Like with any part of the application, timing is everything. Thankfully, medical school applications don’t require too much writing. Still, we recommend giving yourself at least a month on the personal statement (several if you’re able to) so that you have time to iterate on a few different drafts, sit on it, and get feedback.

For more advice on timing the application process, read The Ultimate Guide to the Medical School Application Process .

How to Write a Med School Personal Statement

Often, the most difficult part is getting started; but, it’s hard to do so without a plan. Before you begin writing, it can be helpful to have an idea of your overarching narrative and the role that you want the essay to play. At a foundational level, you also just need to have a really solid understanding of who you are and what your motivations are for pursuing medicine. After all that, you’ll get to writing. Here’s a step-by-step playback for getting from start to finish on your personal statement.

Step 1: Ideate

Before you put pen to paper, think about the following questions and jot a few ideas down. If there are any that you’re struggling with, ask the people around you! Parents/guardians and close friends can be especially helpful in identifying your strengths and what makes you unique.

• What are the main life decisions I made in the last ten years and why did I make them? What values/thoughts/rationale remained consistent across these decisions?
• What character traits do I want to show the admissions committee? What are some examples of when I demonstrated these traits?
• What are my strengths and weaknesses?
• When did I first believe that I wanted to be a doctor? What experiences originally led to that and then later cemented it as a goal?
• What are the main takeaways from my clinical (and other relevant) experience? What did I learn? What stuck with me?
• What parts of my candidacy are not well represented in the other parts of my application?
• Why do I want to go med school? (get specific)
• What do I want my professional career to look like in 15 years? In 30?
• What motivates me–professionally and personally?

In any graduate school application, you’re trying to strike a balance between providing a comprehensive view of your candidacy and not overwhelming with unnecessary information. For this reason, it can be extremely valuable to have an idea of the overall story you want to tell. Think about your “elevator pitch” and use the essay to build on that. If you’re not sure what experiences or characteristics are the most impactful, you can also work with a coach . They’ll help you identify what’s most important to talk about, and to leave out, and can also work with you to draft an outline.

Step 2: Write a draft (it’s okay if it’s terrible)

Once you’ve got some direction, the next step is to just get your thoughts on paper. Sit down and force yourself to brain dump. It does not have to be pretty, it does not have to make sense, it does not have to be comprehensive. From there, leave it for a day. When you come back, highlight the parts that still resonate and make a note of anything missing.

Step 3: Review and edit, repeat

Based on the comments you left yourself on your preliminary thoughts, write a second draft. This time, pay a little more attention to the overall flow. Support your main ideas with real evidence in the form of stories and anecdotes. Be concise and get to the point–when your characters are limited, it’s important to not waste any on irrelevant details or extraneous verbiage. Once you’ve done this, set your draft aside for a bit. Come back to it later and make it better. Then, repeat the process. To get a really good personal statement, you’re going to want to go through many different drafts.

Step 4: Get feedback

Once you’ve got a draft that you feel good about, we highly recommend getting a second perspective. The ideal editor is someone who has a basic understanding of your background but does not know you in-depth, as this would make it difficult for them to judge the essay objectively. A friend-of-a-friend, friend-of-a-mentor, professor, or med school admissions coach are all great choices. It’s a bonus if they have any kind of writing or editorial experience.

This third-party review will help you figure out what’s working and what’s not. From this point, and depending on the feedback, you may be close to a final draft.

Step 5: Read it out loud

We know–this sounds weird, but do it. When you read your essay out loud, you hear it as the admissions committee member will. It’s easier to find the gaps, identify missing transitions, see where you’re rambling, and get an overall idea of the impression it gives.

Step 6: Review, final edits, and spellcheck

Once you feel really, really good about your response, read it for a final time. Make sure that there are no grammatical or spelling errors. Then, you’ll copy and paste it into section eight of the AMCAS application, and it’s ready to go!

Caution: Don’t overdo it

Though it’s better to err on the side of too much editing over too little, it is possible to overdo it. If you stare at your writing long enough, everything starts to sound the same. And, for those of us who are perfectionists, it’s easy to feel like it’s never good enough . In most cases, it probably is. There comes to a point where you’ve done all you can and it’s time to submit. A good coach can help you gauge when this is but it also takes knowing yourself. If you start to get overwhelmed or frustrated, it’s completely okay (and even beneficial) to step back for a few days. Then, when you return, you’re coming in with a fresh and slightly more removed perspective.

Medical School Personal Statement Tips

Now that we’ve covered what the personal statement is and how to get it written, we’ll dive into some specifics on how to make it great , including things to do and avoid .

Lean into what makes you different from the other applicants.

After reading your personal statement, you want the admissions committees to think, “If we don’t admit this person right now, we might never get another applicant like them!” No pressure, right? Just kidding, we know this is tough to do! You will come from the same schools as other applicants and have the same majors, the same work experiences, the same hometowns, and the same GPAs. What’s different is how you went through all of that. Your perspective, how you interact with the world, and what you take away are all unique to you.

In the examples you share and your overall argument for admission, make sure you address this and don’t be afraid to get specific. A good test is this: if someone else could have written your exact same personal statement, it’s not unique enough.

Know what your personal statement is not.

You’re applying to medical schools, not creative writing programs. With this in mind, your personal statement should not be an exercise in writing the most experimental personal statement. The power in personal statements comes from the applicant’s background and story, not their writing abilities. To be clear, your statement should still be written well; but, you don’t need to get too fancy.

Don’t lose sight of the prompt.

With broader topics like this, it’s easy to get sucked into a tangent and pretty soon, you’re giving your entire life story. And, while you do want to explain your path, you’re doing so with a specific reason in mind. Your personal statement should explain exactly why you want to be a physician . If your stories aren’t directly relevant to that purpose, take them out.

For this, it can be helpful to examine your personal statement paragraph by paragraph. Imagine your response without that section–does the primary message still get across? Is it contributing something valuable or is it extraneous?

Don’t recite your resume.

This is your classic “show, don’t tell” advice. Use examples to support the qualities that you want the adcom to see, rather than listing your accomplishments and what you think they demonstrate. Here’s an example:

• Applicant 1: For two years, I shadowed a family physician in my city where I learned the day-to-day responsibilities required to succeed in the field.
• Applicant 2: For two years, I shadowed a family physician in my city. This taught me how successful doctors in this field need to understand a variety of issues, problem-solve constantly, and develop real relationships with their patients.

Which one is more compelling? They’re essentially saying the same thing, but the second applicant explains what the first only claims.

Keep the focus on you.

You are the main character of the personal statement. While many stories will also involve other people–mentors, patients, friends, family members, etc…–make sure that the focus remains on what you demonstrated. That’s not to say you should only have stories that don’t include others. Tell the same stories but do so in a way that highlights the role you played.

When you’re reviewing any given anecdote, ask yourself: “What does the admissions committee learn about me from this?” If you can’t point to direct and specific things, it needs to be reworked.

Source: https://www.joinleland.com/library/a/medical-school-personal-statement-tips