Personal Statements for the Health Sciences

1. Personal Statements for the Health Sciences

2. Interesting Personal Statements • Tell a STORY • unique, compelling, honest, positive, down-to-earth • Explain WHY you are in love with something that you do • SHOW the application reader why or how you will make a good health professional • ANSWERS questions posed on application. • Are well written: well crafted, polished prose

3. The Basic “Shape”: Opening The goal is to tell your story. . . Begin with: • A “hook” (or anecdote) that breathes life into your statement. • A summary of experience or statement of your preparedness. • A statement that explains why this school, this profession, this faculty mentor, etc.  

4. The Basic Shape: Body Elaborates on the opening: • Explains your background, education, and/or community; • Gives the reasons you became interested in the health profession(s); • Describes your academic preparation (including lab or research), any relevant work, and other experiences, i.e., volunteer work.    • Describes your research concisely. (Leave out minute details-write for a general scientific audience.) • Offers a sense of what you gained from these experiences—what qualities have you developed as a student and a professional-in-the-making?

5. The Basic Shape: Conclusion Wrap up with final thoughts and comments: • What do you want to do with this degree? • Wrap up any dangling ends • Make final connections/Tell results • Final statement of purpose • Makes connection to mission statement • Notes specific faculty members of interest

6. The “Secondary” Statement The secondary application essay is about your “fit” in the program/school of your choice: • Tailored to each school; • Demonstrates particular skills sets; • Explains why this program is right for you and/or best enables you to meet your goals.

7. Getting Started: Questions Why you? Why should you be you considered a strong candidate for this program? • What experience(s) led you to become interested in a specific area of health-science? Classes, readings, seminars, work, volunteer experiences? • Have your failures made you a stronger candidate? (For Candidate who need to explain any gaps or discrepancies in their academic records.) • Have you had to overcome any unusual obstacles or hardships? How have these experiences shaped you? • What evidence can you provide for your desirable personal characteristics: persistence, determination, good problem-solving skills, or taking the initiative?

8. Examples Why I Love Science:  A Personal Statement J. Phys. Chem. A, 2004, 108 (45), pp 9627–9628 “I do not know when I first became interested in science. I think it was a slowly evolving process that started with my love for mathematics in high school, which was transferred to science as I realized the beauty of its application to the understanding of the world around us. I was particularly excited in a freshman chemistry course taught by Bob Rosenberg at Lawrence College, in which I discovered how simple physical models could be used to distill complex phenomena to their essential simplicity. I did not come from a scientific family. On the contrary, my mother was an artist and my father a bookbinder, which exposed me to art at a very early age. However, I have come to realize the close connection between art and science. Both artists and scientists attempt to understand the world by reducing its complexity to a few strokes of a brush or simple concepts such as Coulomb's law. So, perhaps I owe my interest in science to my artist parents.”

9. Examples Telling your story: www.phikappaphi.org “I was going to be late. At this point, the clock on my dashboard all but dared me to think otherwise. Regardless, I kept glancing at the shoulder of the . . . freeway, thinking that if I got out and ran I would just make it in time to set up the event. Since the car was not moving, I decided to go over my speech. It wasn’t much, just a few words jotted down to commemorate the moment: “I would like to welcome all of you to the first orientation session for the Collegiate Med Volunteers. It is our hope that this program will allow you first-hand experience in the medical field while also serving to lighten the load of an overworked county hospital staff…” After the first two sentences, I stopped reading, accelerated two feet forward, and anxiously stuffed the crumpled sheet back into my pocket. The volunteer program that I had been developing for four months was finally coming to fruition.”

10. Resources OWL Purdue: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/642/01/ Cathie Griffin’s Advice: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/student/student_life/article1473952.ece Sell yourself: http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/previous_issues/articles/2006_01_06/sell_yourself_guidance_for_developing_your_personal_statement_for_graduate_school_applications Sample Personal Statements: http://www.phikappaphi.org/web/Files/sample_personal_statements.pdf Michelle LaFrance, Ph.D.

11. Additional Resources • http://www.wagner.edu/departments/pre_health/statement - advice on what to do and include • http://www2.ucsc.edu/careers/health/statement.html - the personal statement • http://www2.ucsc.edu/careers/health/strategies.html • One of the best sources is “Write for Success”; it has sample personal statements and critiques of their strong and weak points by admission officers at 3 medical schools • http://www.ltsc.ucsb.edu/health/info_sheets/personal_statement.PDF • http://www.cmu.edu/hpp/achieve/pstips.html • http://advisingservices.ucdavis.edu/advising/hsa/handouts/writing_personal_statement_application_health_profession_school.html