Reviewed by:
Former Chief Resident in Anesthesiology, Weill Cornell Medicine, & Admissions Officer, Columbia University
Reviewed: 12/9/2022
Writing a med school personal statement can be nerve-wracking. Read on to learn how to select a topic, highlight your strongest qualities, outline your passion for medicine, and submit a stellar personal statement.
You have spent hours preparing your medical school application. MCAT scores? Passed with flying colors. Undergraduate record? You nailed it.
You thought you could compete with other school applicants and make it past the first round of the application process, that your application would stand above the rest, but after multiple rejections, you find yourself unsure of where you went wrong.
You had done everything right and submitted all of your medical school admission requirements on time, but you never made it to the next round of the application process. What is stopping you from getting accepted into medical school?
The answer: your personal statement.
No matter how strong your application is, if your personal statement does not stand out, you will not make it past the first round of school application reviews. There is a lot of pressure to make your personal statement reflect why you feel you would be the best candidate. While it may not seem like much, high-quality personal statements carry a great deal of influence in applications.
Medical schools receive thousands of applicants but only have limited spots available, so you need your personal statement to stand out from those of the thousands of other candidates.
Luckily, we're here to provide you with tips and tricks on how to write your med school personal statement to make yours the one to beat.
Taking the time to figure out what to write in your personal statement for medical school is important. Your statement is an opportunity to shape how admissions committees view you as an applicant. Unfortunately, this step is a stumbling block for many medical school applicants.
In reality, there is no perfect topic; your choice might not work for another applicant.
The most important part of selecting a personal statement topic is choosing one that enables you to link it with your passion for medicine. Remember, it’s vital that your chosen subject tells medical school admissions committees more about you and why you want to be a doctor.
You should aim to write about your qualities that aren’t represented by your GPA or MCAT score. This can include your determination, optimism, or leadership qualities. Revealing your personal qualities, strengths, and weaknesses are brilliant ways to connect with your reader on an emotional level.
If you’re struggling to decide what to write in your personal statement for medical school, start by thinking about what qualities you want to share with the admissions committee. Then, work backward and figure out which of your experiences evidence them.
The hardest part of writing a personal statement is figuring out where to start, mainly because you are already thinking of everything you want to say. Start your personal statement by telling the admissions committee a little about yourself by highlighting a few qualities.
This could be anything regarding your characteristics, traits, and behaviors. A helpful tip is to gear your qualities toward medical school. How do your qualities translate into the medical field? Will they benefit you? If so, explain.
For example, your audience will want to know if you can handle the pressure and take the lead in day-to-day activities associated with the medical field. Talk about an event that highlights your leadership experience. If you aren’t sure which qualities you should list in your personal statement, think about it from a patient perspective.
What qualities would you want to see in your doctor? For example, would you like a compassionate, empathic doctor or a stern, no-nonsense doctor? Write down these traits and see which ones fit you best. Some notable qualities include but are not limited to the following:
With that being said, do not discuss more than three qualities in your personal statement. You will have to spend time explaining each characteristic, when or where you have demonstrated it, and how it relates to your desire to pursue a career in medicine.
Remember, your experiences that highlight the qualities you chose do not need to come from a clinical (i.e., shadowing a physician, working with dialysis patients) or research experience (discovering a breakthrough in perceptions of neurobiology). They can come from extracurricular activities that eventually led you down this career path.
On a side note, make sure you list up to 15 activities in the AMCAS Work and Activities section of your med school application.
Medical school applicants often write about volunteer work they have done over the years and how those events brought out the qualities they are highlighting, and how it led to their desire to go to medical school. You will want to include as much detail as possible, so discussing too many traits can hinder your personal statement's overall quality.
You may also be limited in how much you can write. Keeping yourself limited to two to three qualities allows you to go more into depth with each one. For each personal experience you use to highlight each quality, you will want to ask yourself the following questions:
While this may seem like a lot of information to provide initially, your personal statement is your chance to shine. You will want to prove that you aren’t just statistics on a paper but a human being. The more you can convey who you are as a person, the better it will be in the long run.
With all the information you will be giving in your personal statement, a part of you may think that generalizing a few remarks here and there won’t be a big deal. Wrong! You will be highlighting your qualities through experiences, so you will not want to add any irrelevant information.
However, Dr. Demicha Rankin, Associate Dean for Admissions at Ohio State University College of Medicine, says you do not want your personal statement to be a “regurgitation” of your resume. Instead, it should offer a compelling self-portrait. Your essay should be as clear and concise as possible while capturing the depth of the event stated.
If you have many experiences that could prove the qualities named to the medical school, pick one experience that stands out above the rest, and focus on that. You will not want to regurgitate what the admissions committee already sees in your school application.
Instead, it would be best to concentrate on how your mentioned qualities are related to the experience you are discussing. Do not generalize your story. Centralize your focus on what is essential. You will want to describe in detail your background and how it contributed to your career in medicine. Get to the nitty-gritty of your point.
Even though you are trying to be as concise as possible in your personal statement, you will want to write about your experiences as though you are telling a story. It should have a beginning, middle, and end; the end should reveal how your background led you to a career in medicine.
Be descriptive. Use imagery. Make the readers feel like they were there with you.
Let’s say you are going to talk about the time you and your friend were caught in a crossfire on the way to the movies. Here’s an example from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine between informative and engaging writing styles:
Informative: “My best friend and I were on our way to the movies when we were caught in a crossfire.”
Engaging: “On April 10th, 2003, at approximately 11 pm, my best friend Kevin and I, intending to see a movie, headed out my front door. We never made it to see a horror movie, but our night was nothing close to mundane when we became innocent victims to gang crossfire.”
As you can see, the informative sentence provides a basic description of the event. The engaging statement captures your attention and makes you want to keep reading to find out what happens next. The admissions committee reads thousands of personal statements, so you need to keep your reader engaged from beginning to end.
Keep the following storytelling tricks in mind when writing your personal statement:
When talking about yourself and trying to keep your audience engaged, you sometimes forget the main point of a personal statement. While the admissions committee wants to know about you as a person, they are more interested in knowing why you want to pursue a career in medicine.
The prompt provided by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) — “Use the space provided to explain why you want to go to medical school." — is purposely vague so that you can write on any topic of your choice.
This is something you will reiterate throughout your essay, but you will want to have a paragraph that ties into your conclusion, answering why you want to pursue medicine. This is where it all comes together.
You will want to highlight the qualities mentioned earlier, what you have learned from your experiences, and how everything you have done has contributed to your overall decision to go to medical school.
Now that you know what to include in your personal statement, it is time to buckle down and write. One of the common problems admissions committees find is that the writer didn’t review their personal statement before submitting it.
Rachel Tolen, Assistant Director and Premedical Advisor at Indiana University, suggests applicants should start writing their personal statement early and “expect to revise many versions of your draft over time.”
Remember, your first draft will not be perfect, so you want to give yourself plenty of time to revise and edit your medical school personal statement before submission — mainly because you can only submit once.
Writing a personal statement can be intimidating at first. But with these tips, you’ll breeze right through it.
You can look for a sample medical school personal statement to get a better idea of the writing style for which your target audience is looking. The best place to find sample essays would be from medical schools because those samples are direct examples from the audience you are trying to reach.
For example, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine offers a packet of sample personal statements on their website. Medical school websites are the best place to start your research.
You can also access 27 sample personal statements for med school here:
Many applicants find it challenging to know how to start a personal statement for medical school, even after they have spent time researching. Make sure you create an outline before writing a personal statement for medical school.
Plan out how you would like to tell your story. By outlining, you are not only organizing your essay, but you are making sure you include everything your audience requires.
You won’t sit around looking for ideas or wondering what your main point was for your third paragraph; instead, you will be ready to write your statement from start to finish without hesitation. Here is one way to organize your personal statement:
It seems like a simple outline, but you will find yourself writing more than you think. Outlining will help you figure out how you want your audience to perceive you.
You want your story to have a beginning, middle, and end that flow and are engaging. By preparing before actually writing your personal statement, you leave little room for error and irrelevant information.
Medical school admissions officers will likely read hundreds of personal statements. So, you have to make yours unique to stand out from the crowd.
Lucky for you, no one else has had the same life as you. US News encourages you to “Give your essay a personal touch by sharing something outside of your passion for medicine to make sure your essay stands out.”
Draw upon your unique background; write about your strengths, failures, and what you have learned from them.
It is essential to show how you have acquired your strengths, rather than just telling an admissions committee about them.
For example, you can write that your involvement in several sports teams has made you become a good team player. On the other hand, if you just write that you’re a good team player, you are not explaining how you acquired that skill.
Remember to stay on topic; rambling will waste your few precious characters and confuse the reader! Narrowing your focus and reflecting on specific experiences is a brilliant way to write about your unique qualities.
Depending on the medical school to which you are applying, you will want to know the word count or character limit allowed for your medical school personal statement. You have no room to go over the set limit. For example, the space for your medical school personal statement in the AMCAS application only allows 5,300 characters.
MD-PhD programs will ask for another medical school personal statement with no more than 3,000 characters, along with a 10,000-character essay discussing significant research experience. If the medical schools you choose require additional essays, make sure you know how much you can write.
You will want to have a few days after completing your first draft to review it. Do not try to look over your medical school personal statement the day you finish it.
Give yourself at least 24 hours before going back to check it; this way, you will walk in with a fresh mind and catch more mistakes. Another option would be to have an objective third party read your personal statement.
A new pair of eyes will often find errors you missed. You can ask a family member, friend, or whoever is willing to take a look at your work.
Excellent proofreaders will assess your work in two stages. First, they should interrogate the content by highlighting areas that need more work. Then, they should check your grammar, punctuation, spelling, and style.
While proofreaders will undoubtedly find errors that you missed, it is essential that your writing maintains your voice. After all, your chosen medical schools what to hear about you in your own words.
If you’re still struggling with your statement, consult with a medical school admissions expert who can help you write a stellar personal statement.
Hopefully, you now know how to write your personal statement for medical school. But just in case you’re still confused, we’ve put together some questions and answers to help you write the best statement possible.
Knowing what to include in a personal statement for medical school is difficult. But it’s important to avoid several red flags when you write your statement, as they can undermine your entire application. This is a crucial part of understanding how to write a great medical school personal statement.
As we mentioned above, it’s important to write in the first person. After all, you are describing your experiences. However, using passive language can damage the impact of your writing. Instead, use the active voice. This will give your writing a more direct and clear tone.
Cramming your statement with overly elaborate language is also a faux pas. It’s fine to use advanced terms that relate to medical topics or your particular discipline. But using simple and clear language throughout your statement makes your writing easier to read.
Writing your personal statement for medical school is difficult, especially if you want to make it engaging. But making it personal is a great way to engage your reader.
Bianca Trindade, the Assistant Director of Admissions at Ross University School of Medicine, recommends that you “Imagine a blockbuster movie with your favorite actor or actress. You’re the star of your unique story. Include experiences that have touched you on a personal level and helped you discover your calling as a physician.”
It’s important to reflect on your experiences, not just list them. Explain what you learned, how it shaped you, and why they deepened your passion for studying medicine. If you write a statement that is reflective, heartfelt, and sincere, Trindade notes that it allows “the committee to get a glimpse into who you are.”
All of these tips will come in handy when you have to write your medical school secondary essays like the medical school diversity essay.
If you don’t know how to write a med school personal statement conclusion, don’t worry. You don’t have to write much. Keep it short and sweet.
This isn’t the place to detail another aspect of your work experience. Instead, use it to recap what you have said in the body of your statement and highlight any key points again. Try to highlight your passion and commitment to studying medicine and end your statement on a positive note.
Take a look at our video below to find out!
Writing a medical school personal statement is stressful. You want to include as much information about you as possible while keeping in line with the restrictions. Your personal statement could make or break your medical school application.
It has to stand out above the other thousands of personal statements as well. That puts a lot of pressure on you.
Now is not the time to panic or rethink your career path. With the steps above, your statement will be the one to beat. Remember, keep it simple while capturing the depth and breadth of your experiences.
Never forget the main point of your essay: to convey your passion for medicine and why you wish to pursue it. Keep your audience engaged by showing them you are more than just a number.
With this step-by-step guide, your statement will have you bumped up to the top of the applicant pool in no time.
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