Lesson 18: The Personal Statement and Other Resources
The Personal Statement is the main opportunity to tie activities and experiences together as a means of truly connecting with the people who read your application. Ultimately, you want to write an essay that makes the reader want to become your future colleague. The only narrative writing required for the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) application is one personal statement.
While the character limit of this personal statement is 28,000 characters (or about 5,000 words), you generally want to aim to keep the personal statement to 600–800 words maximum. While this length can still sometimes seem long, it’s an incredibly limited amount of space to convince the admissions committee that you’re someone they want to have as future colleagues or students.
A personal statement is not the space to rehash from your CV the core responsibilities you had as a researcher on a project related to advances in fertility science. This is the time to discuss your experiences with the patient who never thought she’d have children, whose outlook on life (both physically and metaphorically) completely transformed with the possibilities enabled by a fertility doctor. It’s the time to discuss how your summer volunteer hours at a free fertility clinic helped save a woman from ovarian cancer.
In general, you’re going to want to tell your reader why it’s inevitable that the specialty you’re applying to is the next step in your journey. However, you don’t tell the reader this by saying, “A gynecology program is the inevitable next step in my journey.”
You show it by explaining to the reader the things you’ve done that have gotten you to the point where you’ve concluded that this specialty is the most vital and best fit for you.
This usually means recounting an event or a set of events that created a turning point in how you view the world and want to contribute to it. A good story comes from the deep, dark crevices of that turning point. You may not even consciously know that turning point exists, so think deeply.
Why did you decide to volunteer in that ear-nose-and-throat nonprofit? What was it about that patient complaining of knee problems that compelled you to go the extra mile for him?
The easiest way to write a compelling story is to write from a specific event. Writing a good story means starting with a vision in your head and translating that vision to the written word. However, language is an imperfect medium to express those intangible images—sometimes lingering, sometimes fleeting—that sit in your mind. Language will never truly crystallize the vision you have up there, but you must start with that vision if you’re ever going to get anything close.
The Definitive Medical School Applications Guide expands upon this attitude towards writing.
For more advice on crafting a compelling application, consider reading the following sections:
· 4. “I’m Not Convinced He Wants to be a Doctor”: What Not to Write About and How Not to Write it
· 5. How to Write your Essay: Two Approaches
· 6. Cleaning Up the Mess
· 8. Activities, Activities, Activities
While these sections describe the Medical School Application, their implications reach far beyond this application. Figuring out a writing method that works well for you and determining how to group, describe, and order your experiences apply equally to the ERAS application.
