Hometown: Detroit, Michigan, USA

Undergraduate School: Private, Johns Hopkins University

Major: Biomedical Engineering

GPA: 3.91 out of 4.0

MCAT: 34. PS: 12, V: 11, BS: 11.

Sample medical school statement

Ever since I was in fifth grade, I’ve wanted to move to Mars. At the end of the school year, my teacher transformed the school courtyard into a “planet,” and a third of the class was the astronaut group and the rest were mission control. Though most of the students were excited to watch Apollo 13, I was super stoked to learn about the new planet. Over the course of the night, my mission control team and I supported the astronauts in collecting data that we could then analyze, eventually determining that the new planet was (surprise!) very similar to Earth. Through designing experiments, collecting data, and making discoveries that had never before been made about this planet, this project singlehandedly sparked a huge interest in scientific discovery for me at an early age. I continued to have this passion for discovery throughout middle school and high school, eventually deciding to study biomedical engineering in college after learning about the field when my grandma had her knees replaced.

During my freshman year at Hopkins, I traveled to rural Honduras on a Global Medical Brigade to run a medical clinic for a week. The first patient that I saw was a middle-aged woman who had a parasite infection, fungal infection, and respiratory infection. Learning about the biology of the diseases and medications used to treat them from the doctor was fascinating! At least until the second patient presented with the same conditions. And the third. We prescribed the same medications over and over to treat the same conditions, and I eventually became disengaged from the consultations, realizing that our three-month supply of medications was just a Band-Aid for a much larger problem. Watching patients leave the clinic with more hope and less pain ranks among the most fulfilling moments in my life, but I questioned whether I could spend a lifetime as a medical doctor: the scientist in me was frustrated by just a mere few days of providing surface-level solutions.

Interested in satisfying my planet-exploring, discovery-oriented self but with a newfound passion for medicine, I decided to try a few research projects with an application to medicine to see if I might want to get a PhD. One of my projects, using a 3D bioprinter to make a hydrogel scaffold for use in cartilage repair at Trinity College Dublin, was simultaneously one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had but also a complete disaster. On the first day, Dr. Kelly told me that his lab had just purchased the 3D printer and no one knew how to use it, so it was my job to figure it out. In the first month, I broke two needles and the entire printer stopped working because I didn’t change the oil. The plumbing clogged so we had to call someone from Switzerland to fix it. Despite having many setbacks like these, I successfully printed scaffolds with mechanical data that could be used in a larger project in the lab by the end of the summer. Seeing my work being used in other projects and eventually submitted to a scientific journal was extremely rewarding, but sitting with that printer for hours every day almost drove me insane. I loved that I discovered something new that could be used in the future, but I often felt very isolated and like the research that I was doing didn’t really have a purpose.

It wasn’t until I shadowed Dr. Gamper in the pediatric oncology clinic at Hopkins that I finally drew my connection between research and medicine. I had previously done some research in Dr. Gamper’s cancer immunotherapy lab but hadn’t seen the clinical side of his research. On my first day shadowing, I met an eight-year-old patient who had leukemia and was about to receive a bone marrow transplant. When Dr. Gamper introduced me to him and said that I was a biomedical engineer, the boy said something that I’ll never forget: “So can you build tiny robots with two lasers that will kill my cancer cells?” Finally, everything made sense. With that one sentence, I drew the connection between my interest in both research and medicine: I had to do both. The translation from research to patients was there, I just hadn’t seen it since I hadn’t found something to inspire my research.

I found my passion in medicine in pediatric oncology, and I saw how my passion for research could fit into that. I saw issues every day in clinic that researchers are currently working to solve. I was frustrated that the answer to almost all of my questions for Dr. Gamper was, “It’s unclear.” I thought about all of the time that I had spent in lab without having this clinical background, and it made my time feel almost useless. Had I found this clinical perspective earlier, my immunotherapy research would have seemed much more relevant, and I would have been better at it since my research would’ve had a clear purpose. In order to be a successful researcher in pediatric oncology, I realized that not only do I need an MD to understand biologically what is happening with the diseases, but I want an MD to interact closely with the patients and help advance my research to use in clinic.

To answer the patient’s question: it might not have two lasers and it might not even be a robot, but I’ll find a way to kill those cancer cells, and I’ll find a way to actually get it to patients like you.

Analysis

Emily utilizes captivating storytelling to immerse the reader in snippets of her life. Her essay is focused on passion, and it is clear throughout the essay that she is unapologetically herself. This sense of candor is apparent when she admits to being unsure, making mistakes, and being frustrated. It is this authenticity that makes her seem human and relatable and makes her stand out to the reader. In showing how she was able to grow from each situation, she implicitly demonstrates that she is a curious, passionate, and thoughtful problem solver.

Research is a significant part of Emily’s life, and she bases the structure of her essay on the different research experiences that she has had that have built upon one another. She artfully communicates how she continually pivoted as she went down her winding path, concluding with a strong claim that relates why she wants to go to medical school: she desires interactions with patients that will strengthen and inspire her research.

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