Med School Essays

Essential Qualities

Essential qualities such as empathy, maturity, compassion and sincerity cannot be quantified hence it is difficult to demonstrate them through high GPA scores and grades.

Use your essays as an opportunity to showcase the qualities that would make you a good doctor. The idea is not to be passionate, emotional or awe inspiring. Write about something that you are genuinely passionate about. Let’s look at the essential qualities you need to demonstrate in your essays and personal statements.

Sincerity And Passion

Medical School Application

Sincerity: Providing false statements in your medical school application is not only considered professional misconduct but can quickly disqualify you since the admissions committee are usually able to tell when something sounds inauthentic. Be truthful and be you. Be genuine in your responses and be proud of your achievements.

Passion: You need to demonstrate why you want to be a doctor. What is it that makes a career in medicine appealing to you? You will need to reflect on this before you start writing. Think about the experiences in your undergraduate degree or months prior to the application that contributed to your interest in medicine.

Showcase Your Qualities

Professional Challenges

Perseverance: The admissions committee wants to see who you are as a person. Tell the story about your life including professional challenges you have faced and how you addressed them. Remain truthful and focus on why the challenges drove you to want to be a doctor. You need to put in a lot of effort into planning your essay and personal statement so that it doesn’t come out as a victim narrative.

Principled: The story you tell should also highlight your core values and principles. If you say that you value community service, you need to highlight when and how you showed care to your community. Including something about your family and the close relationships you share can help to show that you are principled.

Professional: Include stories that showcase your ability to work with others and maintain professional conduct in a workplace environment. Make sure you connect this to why you want to be a doctor.

Readability: Your essays and personal statements should be attention grabbing and easy to follow through. It will take time to build flow in your story which is why it’s usually recommended that you come up with an outline and several drafts.

Accuracy And Communication

Essays & Personal Statements

Grammatical Accuracy: Essays and personal statements should be devoid of grammatical errors. You can use the grammar check tool online and even ask one or two people to proofread the essays. Check the essay multiple times by reading it out loud before you finally submit it.

Good Communication: Use very clear and accessible language in your essay. Fancy words may make it harder for the reader to follow through and also doesn’t make you a good communicator. Using complex vocabulary can make it appear like you are trying to compensate for poor communication and writing skills. Ask someone else to read the essay or personal statement and see if it will be easy for them to comprehend.

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