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The medical school personal statement highlights your hard work, your pre-medical school accomplishments, and why you’re a better candidate than everyone else. This essay answers: Who are you? What makes you unique? Why do you deserve a spot in our school?
Impressive GPAs and MCAT scores, research experience, physician shadowing, and meaningful volunteer work are only one part of a successful medical school application. You may meet all other medical school requirements, yet face rejection. Your personal statement helps you stand out.
Admission committee members often only have a few minutes to review an application. Since the personal statement is possibly the only part of your application they’ll really read, it needs to be perfect. But don’t stress out, because we’ve got you covered!
Our physician advisors have helped thousands of prospective medical students secure an acceptance thanks to a great personal statement. Now, we’ll show you exactly how to write yours. Plus, we’ll share expert tips from genuine AdComs.
We’d love to help you craft a personal statement that’s sure to stand out.
What’s in a Great Med School Personal Statement?
An excellent medical school personal statement should contain:
- Passion for an area of healthcare
- Storytelling that captures the reader’s attention from the first sentence
- Emotion and personality to show (not tell) admissions committee members who you are
- A unique answer to the question, “Why do you want to be a doctor?”
A powerful personal statement shows that you will make an exceptional physician and be a valuable asset to the school during your medical education. It helps distinguish your application from the other students with similar MCAT scores and GPAs. It also serves as a foundation for many interview discussions and questions.
Want to read some of the best examples of personal statements we’ve ever seen? Read our top personal statement examples, all of which led to acceptances for the students who wrote them.
1. Passion
It’s important to show passion for something specific — a group of underserved people, a type of patient, the benefit of a particular area of medicine, etc. Your passion should be evident, non-generic, and authentic.
It’s crucial to avoid cliches in your personal statement, like claiming you want to become a doctor “to help people.”
Dr. Renee Marinelli, having served on UC Irvine’s AdCom, warns that certain cliches may not truly represent meaningful experiences that influenced your decision to pursue medicine.
You may have decided to become a doctor from experiencing a visit with a kind physician as a child, but that personal experience doesn’t convey genuine passion. Your enthusiasm for medicine doesn’t need to originate from a grand experience or sudden revelation.
Your interest in medicine probably developed gradually, perhaps when you fell in love with psychology during college and volunteered at nursing homes. You don’t need a lifelong dream to demonstrate passion and become an outstanding doctor.
2. Storytelling
A memorable personal statement captures the reader’s attention from the first sentence, which you can do with an interesting personal story or anecdote. Include some creativity, ingenuity, humor, and character — whatever is appropriate with the story you’ve chosen to share.
Immersing the admissions committee in your personal statement allows you to show, not just tell, how your experiences have impacted your journey to medicine.
Don’t repeat the data your admissions committee can read on the rest of your application — SHOW the passions and experiences that have led you to this field using a narrative approach.
Consider the following examples of statements about a student’s volunteer experience at a food pantry:
OPTION A: Through my work at the local food pantry, I came to understand the daily battles many individuals face, and it allowed me to develop deeper empathy and compassion.
OPTION B: When I saw Mr. Jones, a regular at the kitchen, struggling to maneuver his grocery cart through the door, I hustled over to assist him. My heart sank when I saw he was wearing a new cast after having been assaulted the night prior.
Which do you think performs better in terms of conveying personal characteristics? Your personal statement is an in-depth look into one central theme, not about rehashing all of your experiences.
3. Emotion & Personality
An engaging personal statement allows your unique personality and real emotions to shine through.
Dr. Davietta Butty, a Northwestern School of Medicine graduate, avid writer, pediatrician, and MedSchoolCoach advisor, puts it this way:
I think the best personal statements are the ones that showcase the applicant’s personality. Remember that this is your story and not anyone else’s, and you get to say it how it makes sense to you.
Your writing process should involve quite a bit of writing and editing to express emotion and demonstrate personality in a relatable, professional way.
A Note On Writing About Tragedy
One way you can show who you are is by expressing an appropriate level of emotion, particularly about challenging or tragic experiences. (But don’t worry — not everyone has a tragic backstory, and that’s perfectly fine!)
Personal tragedies, such as the death of a loved one, can powerfully motivate a personal statement. If you are discussing a tragedy, though, don’t go into an extended explanation of how you feel/felt. Instead, explain how the experience impacted your medical career aspirations, including skill development or perspective changes. How have you applied these new skills or perspectives? How would they contribute to your success as a med student?
Also keep in mind this advice from Dr. Megan Osborn, Associate Dean of Admissions at UC Irvine School of Medicine: be careful writing about grandparents in your personal statement.
According to Dr. Osborn, the illness and death of grandparents is one of the most common personal statement topics she sees as an AdCom. “I hear about a lot of grandparents in personal statements. So just know that, and if you want to write about that, obviously it’s not off the table, but it happens a lot.”
So, if you do want to write about the health struggles faced by a grandparent, make sure you do so tactfully, tying it back to the main reason you want to be a doctor.
4. Why You Want To Be a Doctor
Becoming a doctor is no small feat. What journey brought you here?
Writing things like “I want to help people” or “I want to make a difference” won’t set you apart from all the other students applying for medical school.
Knowing who you want to serve, why you want to help them (in story form), and where you’d like to end up will show admissions officers that you are serious about your medical career.
After all, this career involves years and years of commitment to post-graduate education. That’s what admissions committees are looking for, so demonstrate your commitment and motivation in your personal essay.
Read Next: Medical School Interviews: What To Do Before, During & After
Three AAMC Core Competencies to Include
When writing your personal statement, you’ll also want to note the AAMC core competencies that are expected of all medical professionals. Some, if not all, of these competencies should shine through in your personal essay.
The AAMC premed competencies include:
- Professional competencies: Factors like communication skills, interpersonal skills, commitment to learning and growth, compassion, dependability, and cultural awareness and humility
- Science competencies: Understanding of human behaviors and living systems, both of which are best demonstrated in data-driven measures like research, MCAT scores, and science GPA (in other words, not things that necessarily need to be displayed in your personal statement)
- Thinking & Reasoning competencies: Critical thinking, reasoning, scientific inquiry, and written communication
How Long Is a Personal Statement for Medical School?
Your statement is limited to:
- 5,300 character limit (including spaces) on the AMCAS application (MD programs)
- 5,000 characters on the TMDSAS (Texas MD programs)
- 5,300 characters for AACOMAS (DO programs)
That’s roughly 500-700 words, or 3 double-spaced pages of text.
We typically suggest our students divide their personal statement into about 5 full paragraphs — an intro, 2-3 body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
Dr. Renee Marinelli offers this pro tip:
Do not type directly into the text box in the application portal. If something goes wrong, you’ll lose all of your work. Write in another program first, then copy and paste the edited copy into the application text box.
Use a text-only word processing tool (TextEdit on Mac devices or Basic Text Editor on Windows), or type the essay into Microsoft Word or a Google Doc. Just remember to save the file as a *.rtf. This eliminates formatting issues when you paste the essay into the text box on the application.
For Ontario med schools, the OMSAS requires you to submit two (2) brief personal essays (250 words maximum, each) and one (1) autobiographical sketch (500 words maximum).
Read Next: How to Successfully Reapply to Medical School and Get a “Yes!”
How To Write a Personal Statement For Medical School
Your personal statement is an opportunity to showcase your passion for medicine and your unique experiences. Be genuine, focused, and concise. Your personal statement will leave a lasting impression on medical school admissions committees.
Here are three questions you want to consider while writing your personal statement:
- 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 has yet to be disclosed in another application section?
In addition, you may wish to include information such as unique hardships, challenges, or obstacles that may have influenced your educational pursuits. Comment on significant academic record fluctuations not explained elsewhere in your application.
Having worked with thousands of students, we’ve developed a nine-step process for how to write a personal statement that’s sure to get noticed. Follow these steps in order to uplevel your personal statement writing.
1. Choose a central theme.
Sticking to a central theme for your personal statement may sound tricky, but focusing on just one central theme can give your statement more of a rhythm.
Below are a few examples to use when thinking of a central theme:
- What is an experience that challenged or changed your perspective on medicine?
- Is there a relationship with a mentor or another inspiring individual that has significantly influenced you?
- What was a challenging personal experience that will help grow you into a good doctor?
- List unique hardships, challenges, or obstacles that may have influenced your educational pursuits.
- What is your motivation to seek a career in medicine?
Read Next: Applying to Med School as a Non-Traditional Applicant
2. Choose 2-4 personal qualities to highlight.
Keep this part brief and highlight the strengths that will make you an exceptional doctor.
What sets you apart from others? What makes you unique? What are you particularly proud of about yourself that may not be explained by a good GPA or MCAT score? Answer these honestly but professionally to highlight your personal strengths.
Here are a few examples of quality traits great doctors possess:
- Commitment
- Persistence
- Reliability
- Accountability
- Good judgment under pressure
- Compassion
- Respect
- Excellent communication skills
- Leadership skills
3. Identify 1-2 significant experiences that demonstrate these qualities.
In this section, you should include that these experiences exemplify the qualities above and outline your path to medicine.
The top experiences AdComs seek are research projects, volunteer extracurricular activities, and mentorship.
Here are a few ways to narrow down what makes an experience significant:
- Which experiences left you feeling transformed (either immediately, or in retrospect)?
- Which experiences genuinely made you feel like you were making a difference or contributing in a meaningful way?
- Which experiences radically shifted your perspectives or priorities?
- Which experiences have truly made you who you are today?
4. Write a compelling introduction.
Your personal statement introduction is the first thing the admissions committee will read. As such, it can make or break the rest of your application. As MedSchoolCoach founder Dr. Sahil Mehta notes, “If your introduction to your personal statement is boring, I’m not reading the other 5,300 characters. I’m tossing that into the reject pile.”
So take your time crafting a catchy, attention-grabbing hook or story that grabs the reader’s attention and sets up the main point of your essay.
5. Use storytelling to write the body paragraphs.
The best personal statements tell a story about who you are. “Show, don’t tell,” what you’ve experienced. Immerse the reader in your narrative, and you’ll have a higher chance of being accepted to medical school.
Since the goal is to achieve depth rather than breadth (5,000 characters isn’t a lot), focus on key experiences instead of discussing everything you’ve accomplished. Remember, you’ll have the Work & Activities section to share other relevant experiences.
Use the following five-step formula to elaborate on important experiences in the body paragraphs of your personal statement:
- Discuss why you pursued the key experience.
- Mention how you felt during the experience.
- Describe what you accomplished and learned.
- Discuss how your experience affected you and the world around you.
- Describe how the experience influenced your decision to pursue medicine.
6. Create an engaging conclusion.
Your goal is to make the person reading want to meet you and invite you to their school. Your conclusion should do the following:
- Talk about your future plans
- Define what medicine means to you
- Reflect on your growth
- Reiterate how you’d contribute to your school’s community and vision
7. Use a spellchecker to proofread for basic errors.
Misusing “your” instead of “you’re” or misspelling a few important words can negatively impact how your personal statement is received. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation should be perfect on your personal statement.
Use Grammarly or a similar spellchecker to scan for errors before completing your personal statement. You can also use an AI tool like ChatGPT for proofreading, although it’s more likely to make sweeping changes.
8. Edit your draft.
Editing your personal statement a few times over will benefit you in the long run. Give yourself time to write, edit, reread, and re-edit your personal statement before submitting it with your application.
You can use AI technology like ChatGPT for small edits or to help you add in information where you might feel stuck, but don’t rely too much on it.
9. Ask a few trusted people to read your draft.
Have at least one friend or family member and at least one person who’s a medical professional review your draft.
Be willing to receive as much feedback as your trusted people are willing to give. Don’t get caught up in obsessing over one statement you really like if all three of your readers suggest cutting it.
If you’d like professional help brainstorming, writing, and editing your personal statement, consider 1-on-1 admissions consulting. Expert physicians and writing advisors at MedSchoolCoach can help you craft a personal statement and application that grabs the admissions committee’s attention.
Looking for 1-on-1 personal statement feedback? Work with a MedSchoolCoach physician advisor to make your application the best it can be.
30 Prompts To Inspire Your Personal Statement
Here are 30 prompts to inspire your personal statement:
- Describe a defining moment in your life story that solidified your desire to pursue a career in medicine.
- Discuss a challenging situation you faced and how it shaped your perspective on healthcare.
- Reflect on a time when you made a meaningful impact on someone’s life through your actions or support.
- Explain your motivation for wanting to become a physician and how it has evolved over time.
- Describe a personal quality or skill that will contribute to your success as a medical professional.
- Discuss the importance of empathy and compassion in the medical profession and share a personal experience demonstrating these qualities.
- Reflect on a specific medical case or patient that inspired you and how it influenced your future goals.
- Share a story about an interaction with a mentor or role model who has inspired your path in medicine.
- Describe a time when you overcame adversity or faced a significant challenge in your journey to medical school.
- Explain how your background, culture, or upbringing has influenced your perspective on healthcare.
- Discuss a medical issue or personal statement topic you’re passionate about and why it’s important to you.
- Describe your experience working or volunteering in a healthcare setting and the lessons you’ve learned.
- Reflect on a time when you had to adapt or be resilient in a challenging situation.
- Discuss how your interest in research or innovation will contribute to your career as a physician.
- Share a personal experience that has shaped your understanding of the importance of teamwork in healthcare.
- Describe a leadership role you’ve held and how it has prepared you for a career in medicine.
- Discuss the impact of a specific medical discovery or advancement on your decision to pursue medicine.
- Reflect on your experience with a particular patient population or community and how it has influenced your perspective on healthcare.
- Share your thoughts on the role of social responsibility in the medical profession.
- Explain how your experiences with interdisciplinary collaboration have prepared you for a career in medicine.
- Describe a time when you advocated for a patient or their needs.
- Share your experience with a global health issue or project and how it has impacted your perspective on healthcare.
- Discuss your interest in a specific medical specialty and why it appeals to you.
- Reflect on a time when you encountered an ethical dilemma and how you resolved it.
- Describe an experience that demonstrates your commitment to lifelong learning and personal growth.
- Share a story about a time when you had to think critically and problem-solve in a healthcare setting.
- Discuss how your experiences with diverse populations have informed your approach to patient care.
- Describe a volunteer or work experience that highlights your ability to communicate effectively with others in a medical setting.
- Reflect on a time when you demonstrated your commitment to patient-centered care.
- Share your thoughts on the importance of balance and self-care in the medical profession and how you plan to maintain these practices throughout your career.
Read Next: What Is a Post-Bacc? Types & Benefits for Pre-Meds
Avoid These Common Personal Statement Mistakes
Avoid these 5 common mistakes students make when writing their personal statements:
- Clichés: “I just want to help people,” “from a young age,” “I’ve always wanted to,” and “for as long as I can remember,” are just some of the overused phrases in personal statements. Other red flags we’ve seen often include saying that you’ve wanted to be a doctor for your whole life, using overly dramatic patient anecdotes, or prideful-sounding stories about how you saved a life as a pre-med student. Eliminate clichés from your writing.
- Typos/grammatical errors: The grammar in your essay should be flawless. It’s hard to catch your own typos, so use grammar checking tools like Grammarly and ask your readers to look for typographical errors or grammar problems.
- Name-dropping: At best, naming a prominent member of the medical community in your statement sounds braggadocious and will probably be brushed off. At worst, an AdCom reader may think poorly of the person you mention and dismiss you based on the connection. If you do know a well-known and well-respected person in the medical field and worked closely with them, request a letter of recommendation instead.
- Restating your MCAT score or GPA: Every character in your personal statement counts (literally). If your application essay is being read, the admissions committee has already deemed your prerequisite scores worthy of reviewing the rest of your application. Don’t restate information already found elsewhere on your application.
- Using extensive quotes from other people: This is your chance to show who you are. Quoting a philosopher or trusted advisor in these few precious characters takes away from the impact you can have. A single short quote might be okay if it’s highly relevant to the story you’re telling, but don’t go beyond that.
Should You Use ChatGPT to Help You Write?
ChatGPT is a great AI tool to help you get your personal statement off the ground. However, since it doesn’t know the details of your life, it can’t convey your journey to medicine by itself.
Only you know what becoming a doctor means to you. Only you carry the experiences in your mind and heart that have compelled you to pursue this competitive profession. Don’t rely on artificial intelligence to fake those experiences — it will show, and not in a good way.
We’ve found that ChatGPT can help speed the processes of ideation, editing, and grammar-checking. If you’re not using it to emulate human experiences but just treating it as a helpful assistant, go for it!
When Should You Start Writing Your Personal Statement?
We recommend starting to write your personal statement in January before applications open, as an early step in applying to medical school. Begin writing your personal statement early enough that you have months of reflection and editing time before your application cycle begins.
As you progress, anticipate revising multiple versions of your draft. Spend time reflecting on your life experiences and aspirations.
Dr. Katzen, MedSchoolCoach Master Advisor and previous admissions committee member at GWU, recommends starting your personal statement by December if you plan to apply in May or June (you should!).
This gives you plenty of time to have others review it or to get professional personal statement editing services. It also gives you time to write multiple drafts and be 100% satisfied with your final essay.
Read Next: Everything You Need to Know About Letters of Recommendation
Other Resources For Personal Statement Writing
Do you want to learn even more about personal statements? Dive into these great resources!
Free Medical School Personal Statement Webinars
Where to Begin When Writing Your Personal Statement: Hosted by MedSchoolCoach Associate Director of Writing and College Advising, Jennifer Speegle, Associate Director of Advising, Ziggy Yoediono MD, and Writing Advisor, Carrie Coaplen Ph. D.
Creating the First Draft of Your Medical School Personal Statement: Hosted by MedSchoolCoach advising and writing advisors, Ziggy Yoediono MD and James Fleming.
The Medical School Personal Statement – What Makes a Great Intro and Why It’s Important: Hosted by Director of Advising, Dr. Renee Marinelli, MD, Master Advisor, Dr. Ziggy Yoediono, MD, and Founder of MedSchoolCoach, Dr. Sahil Mehta, MD.
Preparing Your Personal Statement For Medical Programs: Hosted by MedSchoolCoach Director of Writing & College Advising, Jennifer Speegle.
The Prospective Doctor Podcast
Episode 2 – The Personal Statement
Episode 42 – Writing Your Personal Statement
Episode 76 – How to Tackle the Medical School Personal Statement
Should you hire a pro to help write your personal statement?
Yes! The best personal statement results happen when you have a physician expert by your side. 92% of clients who work with us through the application process get accepted to medical school.
Join them today by scheduling an application advising consultation with our team.
