Effectively Discussing Your Reasons Why You Want to Be a Family Doctor in Your Medical School Application Essays
Getting into medical will take more than impressive admission test results and a long list of extracurricular activities and undergraduate accomplishments. Exemplary grades and MCAT scores are not the only requirement to get into medical school. Contrary to popular belief, many smart achievers get rejected by top medical schools year after year. In most cases, admissions panels look for students that have something that makes them stand out from all the rest but are also able to show compassion, maturity, emotional stability, honesty, independence, among many other fine qualities that any potential doctor must have.
One of the hardest things for potential medical students is to put their thoughts into words. You may know what you want to say but are afraid to put it all down on paper because you don’t know how. You may know with full certainty that you want to be a family doctor that is why you are trying to get in to a medical school, but feel like you do not have the literary knack to wow the admission panel with your admission essay.
There is no need to panic though. Writing a personal statement for medical school will not seem all that daunting once you know what to write and what not to write.
What to write
Members of admission panels of different universities often have similar things that they look for when they read a personal statement for medical school from an applicant. A good personal statement for medical school is often concise, simple, but reinforced with specific examples. The essay must reveal your true personality, and one sure thing to do that is to sprinkle in some personal anecdotes here and there. Not only will this make your essay more interesting and pleasant to read, but it is also the perfect way to convince your panel why you want to become a family doctor.
A good tip is to use a template while making your essay so that essay making is made more convenient. A lot of free templates of medical school admission essays are available online for free. A template can also help reduce the anxiety of starting an essay.
What not to write
Applicants also need to know what common pitfalls to avoid when writing personal statement for medical school. The three main topics to avoid are hard luck stories, controversial issues, and technical essays. Hard luck stories can easily sound puffed-up, padded and artificial, while controversial issues generally need to be avoided because this may be the wrong time to butt heads with anyone, most especially with the people who will determine whether you get into medical school or not. Technical essays are a sure way to sabotage your attempt to sound personal and more interesting. Technical essays also have the risk of containing a lot of pretentious words, which will further alienate you from your admission panel.
Do not be afraid to use short, everyday words in your personal essay. The more un-academic your essays are, the more you can allow yourself to express why you really want to become a family doctor.
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