Basic training - Harvard - Successful medical school application essay
Hometown: Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Undergraduate School: Public, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Major: Biology
GPA: 3.97
MCAT: 516. CP: 129, CARS: 128, BB: 130, PS: 129.
Successful medical school application essay
After high school, I chose to join the United States Marine Corps to gain direction and improve my self-efficacy. When I first joined, one of my fears was getting vaccinated. My family raised me to believe that physical disease and sickness were manifestations of incorrect thinking, and that prayer was the only way to treat the sick. Growing up, my mother’s epilepsy was ignored and medicine was described as a charlatan’s profession. This upbringing instilled in me fear, distrust, and a visceral disdain of all medical professions. When I arrived at Marine Corps Boot Camp, my fellow recruits were terrified of the drill instructors and the upcoming chaos, while I was afraid of the needle. While going through my vaccinations, I realized that many recruits joined the military to gain access to the medical care I was afraid of. During training, I worked hard to overcome my fears and gained confidence that helped in many situations, including dealing with medicine. The very same medical care that relieved my agonizing ingrown toe nails and wisdom teeth showed me the importance of medicine firsthand.
During my first deployment to Afghanistan, I participated in an effort to provide healthcare to an isolated community. Many villagers had severe injuries that required immediate medical support. Helping those patients motivated me and filled me with purpose while connecting with them provided new perspectives. After this deployment, I reflected on how my actions helped to bring medical services to a local population, while a year prior I believed those same medical services to be worthless and even harmful. Every action I made had an impact on those around me as well as an impact on myself. I then understood how fortunate I was to have access to medicine whenever it was needed, and how being in a position of advantage requires me to work toward improving the lives of the disadvantaged. In the Marine Corps, I had the privilege of being exposed to many different cultures, hearing the stories of my fellow Marines, and finding common ground despite our different backgrounds. These experiences helped develop me into an effective leader, as I was soon promoted to a platoon sergeant responsible for 60 Marines. Similar to my time in Afghanistan, I found that as a leader I had a dual purpose: physically take care of those in my charge while also providing guidance and support. I learned to have confidence in my decisions, to lead by example, and how to effectively delegate tasks.
These leadership skills were put to work in my personal life through my experiences as a husband and father. Towards the end of my final deployment, my wife and daughter were struck by a drunk driver, resulting in my daughter receiving a severe traumatic brain injury. I was flown home from the Middle East, and while I felt shattered and helpless seeing her on a ventilator, it was reassuring to watch her rapid recovery with the interventions of medical professionals. This desperate need for medicine connected me with the families in those isolated Afghani communities. At that moment, life without medicine was unimaginable, and I experienced what a critical need for medical services felt like. It was hard to believe that just a few years ago, without ever experiencing medical treatment for myself, I had concluded that it was unimportant. Now, I was fortunate enough to have a well-led team of medical professionals in control of my daughter’s treatment. My daughter’s injury and recovery had changed me, just as my own patient experiences in Marine Corps training had. This experience has inspired me to provide that same reassurance and support to others through a leadership role in medicine. In a few short years I had moved from completely disregarding medicine, to wanting to provide and direct the medical support of those just like my daughter. My dedication toward medical service has been expressed on multiple fronts. After my daughter’s recovery, I reached out to physicians in my military unit and was able to observe their daily routines and gain valuable guidance on the path to becoming a clinician. While in college I researched on the control, function, and development of the nervous system, which will help to further understand neurological diseases and disorders like the epilepsy my mother suffers from. While researching, I grew as a scientist, improved my problem-solving abilities, and gained experience working on a team in an academic environment. Volunteering with the residents of an assisted living facility for veterans has helped keep me connected to the populations that I am a part of, and has given me insight into the role of a clinician.
I will continue to serve others in a capacity that both is relevant to my experiences and will afford me continued development. To me, choosing a career as a leader in medicine is the best way to provide the services I benefited from so richly to all populations of people. By being an empathetic, devoted, and understanding clinician, I want to mentor that young misinformed Marine, my old self, and show him that medical services are not harmful. I want to positively contribute to his values and wellbeing, while providing the leadership that will enable him to come to a positive perspective of medicine.
Analysis
The focus of this essay as a whole is on Christopher’s journey of personal growth. Christopher begins by contrasting his fears with the fears of other soldiers he met during his deployment, emphasizing how he had certain values instilled in him throughout his upbringing. This sets him apart from his peers but also establishes the foundations for his personal growth. From that point on, he uses several anecdotes to show his personal journey.
The somber and moving story of his family’s car crash is a strength of the essay. Not only does his telling of the story allow the reader to empathize and connect with him, but he is also able to connect the story of the crash back to his experiences in Afghanistan. This places additional and new meaning on the previous stories.
In the conclusion, Christopher is able to concisely state his goals of helping others and developing himself. He also references his “old self.” This older version of himself is characterized as a completely different person from who he is today, which further affirms his transformation. Since his time in the military, he has learned so much that he has become a completely new person, but still a person who understands where he comes from. It is clear that he will continue to be committed to personal growth and development, making him an ideal candidate for the medical field.
From 50 Successful Harvard Medical School Essays edited by the Staff of the Harvard Crimson. Copyright (c) 2020 by the authors and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Publishing Group