Personal Statement Secrets: The 10 Mistakes That Get Applicants Rejected

(soft music) This is Jack Weston's pre-med admissions podcast, helping you get accepted with Dr. Anita Pasco. - Thank you again so much for joining us this morning. My name is Mark White. I'm an academic vice-chair at Jack Weston, but let me introduce Anita real quick and then she'll go into more of who she is. So over 35 years of experience on admissions boards, multiple admissions boards. She has MD, two PhDs. She has helped over 20,000 students into medical school and on and been doing this for really eight years running very successfully with 100% success rate. So let me give her the floor and we'll go from there. Again guys, welcome. Thank you all so much. - Thanks Mark. So I'm gonna share a few nuggets with you guys and you're gonna kind of go, why is she talking about this and you're gonna figure it out. So like Mark said, I am a dinosaur. As I've often told people, I actually typed my med school application out at alumni typewriter with correction ribbons. So yeah, I've been doing this for over 35 years and he is correct for the past eight years for students that I have counseled and took my advice and everything. I have 100% acceptance rate and that's not because I have some magical wand. It's really understanding the nuances of the whole application process. Last week we talked about the whole application review, the timing and the aspects. The following weeks, we're gonna go through, first of all our personal statement next week, we're gonna start talking about experience as your work and activities and really how you maximize the impact of your application. And it's always funny to me because I get students all the time who are most consumed with having the perfect personal statement. First of all, I'm gonna start out by telling you, I don't know if you guys have any family exists, but there are definitely amazing personal statements and really crappy ones and what causes that. So a little bit about me, I am an MD. So I made the same journey that you guys did. I actually grew up in a very, very small farming town, population of about 1200 at the time grew up on a working farm. We farmed tobacco as well as cattle, livestock of animals and I had no intentions of going to med school when I went to a kitchen. Actually, I was going to become an architect and built and I actually built custom homes for five years. But the day that I came home and told my father that I had decided to go to med school, he guys, I knew that was gonna happen all along and I was like, why? And he started reminiscing about when I was a child and I'm a daddy's girl and my father was my best friend. I actually have his initials tattooed on my wrist and we did everything together on the farm and one of the things that we did were raised different types of animals. And one year my father decided we were gonna raise quail which I don't understand why because we didn't eat them, we didn't keep them. We just made a big cage for all of our quail. So our whole house just sounded, if you know what quails are, they go, "Bubble, blah, blah!" So we actually hatched, we incubated 68 eggs and out of those 68 eggs, 64 of them hatched. So we had all of these little baby quail and some of them as happens in nature were born lame, deformed, whatever. And he said, I walked out one day and I think I was six years old at the time and he was outside euthanizing the ones that were most lame and I absolutely lost it. And I grabbed all of them up and he said that I literally went into our warm storage room and over the next weeks I made little splints for their legs, I made little tracks, I made rehab services, I saved every single one of those baby quail and they all survived and where they were. And he said, I knew at some day you were gonna be taking care of something and he was like, I actually always thought you'd become a vet. And I was like, well, it's probably because I think I like animals more than I do people, like a lot of people, right? But he said he saw in me as a child that desire. But that's what becomes so cliche about so many personal statements and that's what we're gonna talk about, how to hit the high points while also avoiding the mistakes. Okay? In terms of this whole journey, I did become an MD and but I got the PhDs because my long term goal was to work for USAID and WHO. And so after completing my PhDs, I spent the better part of my life actually doing that. I had offices in Zimbabwe, Ghana, still have offices in Haiti. I spent the last 35 years working in Haiti where I still have an office there because my goal was to develop reproductive and STD prevention products for third world countries. So if you guys are familiar with Gardasil, I actually did the very first studies and designed the Gardasil vaccine, the very first research associated with HPV. Interesting aspect at that time back in the late 80s, early 90s. This is when there was all the Hullabaloo about HIV and developing HIV. And I remember when I went to speak to Congress and I said HPV will kill more people in our lifetime than HIV ever will. And that's exactly what we're finding today. So did the very first research on Gardasil. I developed work with NORPLANT, Depo Pervera, helped develop a non-surgical, non-scalpo vasectomy technique. All of that was my desire in my background. It's all kind of created my journey and who I am today. So when I'm talking to clients, they're always like, but what is my journey? And I said, that's you. Figure out what's your brand. I often joke and tell people because they're always like, oh my gosh, you're so intimidating. And I'm like, I'm Fafital and blonde. I know I've got lots of initials behind my name, but there's nothing intimidating about me. I grew up in this small town. I was a farm girl. I often joke that I'm just a Southern Redneck who happened to be born with a brain. I did not start down the path of medicine. I was going to be an architect. And it kind of evolved over time. And what fed into my interest, what made me want to become that physician? You've got to step back and figure out what's your journey and what's your brand. And we're going to talk about how that all fits in. But why is it so important to get to this point? Well, the first thing-- and we talked about this last week-- is there are more people who get denied every year than get accepted. If you consider on a yearly basis about 52, 53, usually it's more around the 55,000 last year wasn't down year. We're actually seeing those numbers back up this year. But about between 52,000 and 58,000 people apply every year. But of all of those people, there's only 20 to 22,000 seats. So 40 to 44% did crap. That's like 60% get denied. You've got a better chance of flipping a coin than you do of getting accepted. So it's important that you hit on all parts. And that's what we're planning to do with the seats to help you figure out your more than a person statement. Your more experience is you're definitely more than your MCAT or your GPA. But how does that all figure into who you really are as an applicant? Because we've often talked about that of everybody who gets denied, 50% of those people have a strong GPA and a strong MCAT score. Miss the other parts that fit into making that personal statement and making them strong. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to highlight 10 of the most common pitfalls I see. I'm going to give you some strategies. And then we're going to look at a poor intro and a strong intro and compare those and sort of give you nuggets on what I've seen on my side. Before I do anything else, I want to put this into perspective. We said we're going to talk about this 10 key points. But why are they so important? What I realize is that people get very focused on what their personal statement says. And it should. You've got to put into perspective of who your audience is. And that I feel like is the number one place where people fall off the rails. They go in going, I've written everything in here. So the first thing is you get 50, 300 characters for AMCAS and a total of 5,000 for Texas. And that includes spaces. So that should tell you something out the gate. 5,300 characters is about a page to a page in a quarter. That is not your life story. That is not an autobiography. Those are the nuggets of who you are. A strong personal statement is going to have a catch that's going to catch my attention. Let me put that into perspective. Think about when you go to the movies. What do they show at the movies before the main event? They show trailers for upcoming events. They're nuggets to entice you to make you go, I want to watch that. Or if you're a Netflix junkie like me and you're trying to figure out what you want to watch, you're skimming for the trailers. Your catch should catch the attention of an admissions committee and want them to read more. Very clearly. That is two to three sentences at the beginning. That's going to trail into a structure of three to five paragraphs that are going to weave together your journey. Three to five paragraphs, not a book. So you've got to pick what you're going to highlight and how you're going to transition between each of those paragraphs. Then you're going to come to a concluding statement that should reflect back to your beginning and take you all the way through. That is just a brief overview of what you're trying to accomplish in 5,300 characters. We also consider that you should think about at least one clinical and only one service thing that you're going to highlight in one of those paragraphs. All right. So those are just big broad nuggets. How does that actually fall into this personal statement? Well remember, the average med school is going to get 10,000 applications that they're going to whittle down to 300 to 500 interviews. So what we're seeing is people saying the same things, talking about the same things and using the same language. That is one of the most important pieces of advice I can give you is to be different. Show, don't tell, and actually step beyond the clichés we listen to. So the first thing is your personal statement and get people who are the time. They're terrified of it, but they're so excited to write it. I want the perfect personal statement. I'm going to tell you already there has never been a personal statement that has come across my desk that it's been like, oh my goodness, I must accept this person. Okay. There have been lots of personal statements where I've been there are not enough bread crumbs to get me home and I just said it aside. So the biggest advice I can give you is put the time into it, write it, rewrite it, let it sit, come back to it, write it again. My father always told me and didn't go to college. Poor man barely got out of high school. Okay. And his big thing to me was if you're going to write anything for anybody, write it, set it down at least 24 hours and come back to it. So this is something that you should be developing over five to six months. And all the time I see people, I've got to get my MCAT out of the way. I got a focus on this. You should invest six months in developing your primary application. And in that application, your personal statement draft should ideally already be done and working on it with clients I'm working with right now. Everybody that I'm working with has already done the first draft of their personal statement. I've revised it, edited it, sent it back to them. We're working on experiences now. Does that mean you can't do that? No, not at all. But it does mean this is something that should be on your radar right now. Okay. I've already touched on this back of the cliches. Okay. I want you to think about a cliché like personal statement like that commercial that you watched that plays over and over and over again. It's a funny thing because my husband and I were actually watching TV last night and the Liberty Mutual commercial came on. And he said, you know, there are two of those. There's one with that big bird. And I said, that was an e-moo. But yes, there's one with that big bird. Or there are the two people sitting on the park bench with the statue of Liberty behind them. They play the same corny, annoying commercials over and over and over. You don't listen to anything in the commercial because you've seen it hurt it, done it. It's a cliché. That is where we hear people who want to articulate why they want to be a physician. Because I want to help and serve and make a difference. I really like science in high school. I loved science all the time. And then there is the personal statement of my grandpa died. I was really close to my grandpa. And that whole personal statement talks about grandpa. My grandpa is not going to med school. I want to know about you. It is perfectly fine to highlight your affinity for science or inquiry. Maybe I'm talking about your research. Or something that inspired you in terms of a personal illness, a family member's illness, something that you have transgressed. Absolutely. Should it be your personal statement? Absolutely not. Okay. Help and serve. Don't tell me you want to help and serve. Give me examples of it. Tell me how you've actually helped or served or made a difference. Show, don't tell. So often I get what I call politician speak where it is. I'm going to change the world. I'm going to do this. I've got the best plan. But there's no substance. It's just words. I know we've only given you 5,300 characters, but it needs to be, I want to be a doctor. Which by the way, please don't tell me you want to be a doctor. You're applying to med school. I pretty well already know that. Okay. And things like in that moment, I knew for my calling to be medicine or I get this all the time. I was born 6 weeks premature and the doctors that helped save my life I am forever grateful to. And that launched my commitment to medicine. I'm pretty sure you don't remember anything from the day you were born. So be realistic in the storytelling that you're doing. And my dean used to say all the time whenever he would see that word in that moment. And we have pet peeves in that moment is one of them. And he would always say there has never been a med fairy who came down hit you on the top of the head and said, "Wang, you are going to be a physician." There are moments that have helped guide your journey. But I truly hope that there was not one inspirational world change where it was and you never looked back. Because it is a process. It is an evolution. And you've got to be realistic about what you did. So back off the cliches, cliches, help and serve, make a difference. I want to serve, underserved people. Those are all reasons you should go to med school. But those are things we've heard over and over. Be different, create your brand, which is be interesting. Initiatives committees are not looking for a whole new world view. They want to get to know you and what you bring to the table. One of my clients a few weeks ago had talked about. She said, "I've looked at all these examples and everybody has some big pivotal moment. They had a personal injury. They had something." And she goes, "I don't have anything." And I looked at her personal statement and I said, "You have it in spades." And that is, she told a story and I'm going to share it with you. She actually worked, much like I did. I worked throughout college, three jobs to support my education. And she worked at a daycare to help pay for her college education. And she told a story about how she made the decision to go to med school. She was working at the daycare one day. And one of her little nuggets was on a swing, seeing how high she could go. And she jumped out of the swing and you know what happened. She totally destroyed her knees. So she's got these skinned up knees and she said she thought, "This is my chance to be a doctor." She ran, she got the medical kit. She said she sat down with a little girl, she opened the kit, she opened the alcohol swab, she's getting ready to clean the little girl's leg. And she said she looked up and there is sheer terror on the little girl's face. And she's like, "I'm going to be the worst physician in the world if this is how I approach my patients." And she said she set the kit down and she looked at the little girl and she said, "You know what?" She said, "I'm trying to go to med school." And she goes, "Oh, I want to be a doctor." And she goes, "Then let's do it together." And she helped the little girl clean off her knee and the bed bandaged her and she gave her a big hug and she ran off. And she said that day when her mother came to pick her up. She said, "Mommy, mommy, mommy, I got to play doctor today." And she said, "I had to stop and explain how we played doctor and explain the whole scenario." But she said that it was an opportunity for her, for the very first time to realize that it wasn't about her trying to become a doctor. And it even wasn't even about those little patients that she, her little patient in front of her. It was about the frightened little girl who was a person and her approach to teaching treating that person. Give a feeling, take me there. Help me see that you get it in your 5,300 characters. So be interesting. Give me something in that catch that's going to want me to read more. And then let me see that journey. Give clear images of what was happening and how it was happening. She told that story just like that and I could see that little girl jumping out of that swing and her taking care of her. And a little tip, okay. I see people all the time who will go, "Mr. X, Mr. Am!" or whatever. Okay, I don't know anybody named Mr. Am. If you want your personal statement to be approachable, give them a name. It doesn't have to be their name. I use Sam and Sue all the time because I have 5,300 characters. That's three letters. Okay. If it's a physician, you can say their name, Dr. Pascal. Okay. If you're relating to that because they're likely going to be in your experiences. But you're not violating any hip-a by giving me a first person's name and especially if it's not the real name, but it makes it much more personal. If you're talking about something, an event or something that happened with you, I get this all the time where it will go as a child. I did such and such and such and my aunt did this and we were here and you don't tell me where you were. I have no idea how old you were. I have no idea who this person is. The more tiny nuggets that you can put in there. If you say, "When I was just 6 years old, my aunt Tia gave me the opportunity to while we were living on the coast of Florida. There are not many characters there, but I know who you are, how old you were and what was happening." What you don't want to do is open your personal statement or leave holes that leave the reader. That person on the other side like me reading 10,000 applications going, "Who, where, Well, who is that? And that is what we see time and time again. And that comes in my other tips, okay? Show, don't tell. Don't just talk, give it to me, okay? Now, one of the things that is a cardinal sin that people often don't realize is the overuse of the word "I." Okay? So a professional tip is never ever start your personal statement with "I." Don't start paragraphs with "I," and limit the use of "I" throughout your personal statement. Because to a committee member, it gives the impression that you're very self-focused and actually not focused on things beyond you. And that is you would be amazed how often I read, I did this, I did that, I went here, I went there. Very your sentence structure, and that doesn't mean you can't use the word "I," but to say, for instance, working in the research lab, I did, rather than I worked in a research lab where I, okay? And again, don't tell me that you're empathetic or you're compassionate, and that's why you wanna go into medicine, demonstrate it to me. That student that I just referred to, who took the time to stop and see the frightened little girl, to stop and incorporate her into the treatment, and to give her comfort, demonstrated her compassion and empathy without her having to say, I'm compassionate and I'm empathetic. All right, oh my gosh, please don't ramble. There are days where I go 5,300 characters, and there were not enough breadcrumbs to get me home. You need to guide me, take me there, show me what's going on, and be concise and clear. Let me explain something else we're doing. As a physician, you're gonna have to explain things to people, and you're gonna have to write notes that we're gonna be able to understand what happened and what transpired. And those have to be concise, clear, and well-written. If you can't do that in a personal statement, articulating the things you know best, how are you ever gonna do that in a clinical setting? So again, I told you a catch, three to five paragraphs with a concluding paragraph that takes me back. But between those paragraphs, there need to be clear transitions that take me to the next point in your discussion. So oftentimes, I read personal statements that literally read like a resume that is, and then this, and then that, and then this, and then that. And how you conclude a paragraph should lead into what we're gonna talk about in the next paragraph, so I can follow that journey. All right, number five, address your weaknesses, and build a bridge and move on. So often, I have people who, yes, have hiccups in their journey. Maybe a bad academic semester. Maybe they left their journey and came back for something. Maybe they made a mistake on something. But the most common thing is poor academic performance, poor MCAP performance. The first thing I wanna tell you is almost every secondary will have a component where it will say, is there something else you would like to share? Perfect place to talk about. If you struggle with the MCAT, if you struggle academically, if something went on, or if you are a re-applicant, you should always, before your concluding paragraph, have three, roughly about three sentences, a small statement that says, although I would have loved to have received an acceptance in the first application cycle, this additional time to foster my service, my whatever. You acknowledge that you were denied. We already know that, but already, give me a nugget of how you've grown and the things you've done, so I'll be on the lookout for those in your application. But any weakness has more of a tendency to draw attention to it than to help you. And those 5,300 characters is not why I wanna hear about your poor MCAT score. What I'd rather see is how you learn from it and you grew from it and show me a better MCAT score. And you are never going to override a poor MCAT score by a statement in your personal statement. The only way you're gonna get through that first line screen is to improve your MCAT score. All right, so addressing it here really doesn't help me out a whole lot, so use your characters well. Watch those transitions. I was telling you this, it needs to read like if you're watching a TV show. And have you ever watched a TV show where they switch to another scene or they have a flashback and you have no idea what is going on and you get frustrated and you get confused in reading a personal statement and keeping in mind as we review a entire application, we'll spend three to five minutes, which means we're gonna spend about a minute and a half reading those 5,300 characters. That's not hard to do, okay? But if I can catch those moments, those nuggets, those things that stand out that show your journey and I can follow it, it's a clinical scene that then led you to maybe some work that you did, that enlightened the research that you did, but make sure that your paragraph ends with a sentence that helps weave me into what's coming next. And in that next paragraph, you start with something that gives me an illusion of what is happening. You may say something like, I fostered my love for helping others through my commitment of doing blah, blah, blah. In a few minutes, I'm actually gonna show you a strong personal statement that actually is my sons. I was looking for a personal statement that I could actually use and to be totally honest, I never saw either one of my children's applications when they prepared their med school applications and I actually asked my son to send me his so I could look at his, I was like, "So, work." And he actually talks about his commitment to service that was taught to him by his grandparents, not his mom, evidently, but his grandparents, which is great, but it actually inspired the work he would do that was service-driven and it was a program that he founded. So he speaks about the commitment to service that was taught to him by his grandparents, which inspired him to start his own program for the homeless. All right, use an active voice and this is really, really key. Be it your personal statement or your experiences, the more you can lean into an active voice. So for instance, I already gave you an example of saying, I worked or I conducted research for five years in blah, blah, blah lab, versus working in the such and such lab I had the opportunity to use positive, forward thinking words in an active voice. I cannot emphasize that enough, especially in your experiences, but definitely in your personal statement. Make sure, if it's still something that you're doing, speak in the active voice that displays what you are continuing to do. In my outreach work with USAID, I am currently developing blah, blah, blah, blah, it is teaching me. So also use powerful words. I will tell you three letter words of, I got to see, I had the opportunity to work with. It sounds so much more professional. I know we're trying to save characters, but you can use terms, save those three letter words for the people that you name in your personal statement, use more professional words as you go along. Seek multiple opinions. Okay, this, if I give you a piece of advice, is one of the most valuable pieces, which is, you will have people like your parents or your friends or other people read it. And that's great, because they may give you nuggets that you're missing, but the one thing I want you to do is, I want you to take your personal statement to somebody who doesn't know you very well, who doesn't know anything about you, who doesn't know your background, and ask if they can follow your journey. Do they know what was happening? Does it give a clear picture? Do they understand who the players are? Because I can tell you the one thing that turns me off most for a personal statement, if I am reading it, is if there is lack of clarity, and I have to think about it or overthink, it distracts me from the rest of the personal statement that you're giving me. And so if your catch is unclear, and I'm in the back of my head trying to figure out, wait, what's going on? Who's she talking about? Who are they talking about? It distracts me from the value of your entire personal statement. So have other people read it, and see if they can understand it and follow it. It is invaluable advice. Focus. Focus your personal statement on your journey. It needs to clearly articulate how you got here without saying, "My journey to medicine, gang." Oh, I'm siting on that, or in that moment. But it should clearly tell me how you have evolved and how it's added, how you've done things to add to your application portfolio. Again, I told you, ideally, I like to see a clinical or a certain thing, but some but times, people have a very powerful story to tell about their journey. And so it may be built more with the journey that's shown how you've evolved as a person. but you've got 50,000. 300 characters and I need to pick up how you got here, how that can treat why you be a physician and who you are now as an applicant. And that still comes back to, I tell you, people focus on the GPA and the MCAT. They focus on the checkbox of experiences and they may have them all, but they have no idea how that makes them who they are today. So remember I was talking about I grew up on that little arm and who I wanted to be. I have continued to lean into the words that my father taught me and you're going to see in my son's personal statement and I thought the irony of it was uncanny because it is the things that stick with us that have motivated with us. Okay, I knew that when I made the decision to go in to healthcare just like you guys, I wanted to help and serve and make a difference, but I had not seen the inklings of who I was and how I evolved through that. How much my upbringing as a child, how much my experiences caring for others and animals are played to that. How much my own life of having to work to put myself through college and working three jobs impacted my ability to manage my time but to really relate to other people. I had no understanding of how the mistakes I would make along the way filled into who I became and if you remember I ended last week's session with talking about when I made the decision to go into medicine and working in the burn unit and I'm going to help and serve and make everybody better, but it was losing a patient that I had worked on for over two months and the devastation in that and my attending pulling me aside and saying, you got to remember medicine is not about you, it's not about being a doctor, it is not about treating and making a difference, it's not about patients, it's about people, it is about treating people who have lives and words and journeys outside of our clinic walls and we are looking at do you understand that are you involved outside of I just want to be a doctor and take care of people are you actively treating people already outside your imaginary clinic walls what is your dedication to this career and make it come across in that personal statement. So be mindful of the four Rs and I know they're not all Rs I can spell but write, rewrite, review, write it again. I cannot emphasize you cannot be a one hit wonder in what you do. So let's take a look at the pointers and then we're going to take a look at the bad and then we'll look at the good. So watch your character count. This is a tip for you guys. The applications will actually take more than the 5300 characters as well your experiences. It will just cut them off in the PDF. So if you think you're just typing and you're getting away with something on the download, no, you will have your application come across and it will cut it off and that is the first indication that you can't follow directions. Take a very systematic approach outline it first. Okay, what do you think might be your catch? What are the three to four things you're going to talk about and how will your conclusion reflect back to where you started. Okay, so outline it. Make a summary of your journey, your experiences and the things you've done to get here and try to go to that five to six paragraph rule. That's the other thing. I'll get some personal statements that are like 10 paragraphs and they're again, they're not in a break grumps to get me home. It's like stream of thought, stream of thought, stream of thought. Here they're everywhere. Catch three to four paragraphs, conclusion, reflect back to where you started. Two personal statements, the tell of two stories. Now I never read off of slides, but I'm going to have to so we can talk about this. So what makes a strong personal statement? The goal is to convey your understanding of why medicine is the career that your journey has brought you to and why are you unique? Applicant brand, applicant brand, applicant brand. Again, avoid I like science. I want to help and serve. I want to make people better. I want to make a difference in the world. In that moment, I had a family member that got sick. I can't tell you how many times I read this same stuff and those same words. A good personal statement says these things without saying these things. All right, poorly written personal statements, read like a resume, they're boring, dry and mechanical. They have poor transitions and they have awful grammar flow and you oh my goodness, the number of times I get personal statements that have comments like you can see where people edit them and left the comments in them, have spelling errors, have grammatical errors. It does not have to be a perfect thesis, but it has to be well written. Let me give you an example. All right, I started my journey to medicine. Well, we started with I and my journey to medicine with an experience that happened when oh, wait a minute, I needed to go backwards. Whoops. How do I back? Oh, nope, not what I want. Can somebody help me go backwards? My reverse is not working. There we go. All right, get rid of this. I am not technically challenged, but I got a bunch of smiley faces here. I can't get rid of. There we go. All right, I started my journey to medicine with an experience that happened when an 11 year old girl said to me, is my blood being bad like my mother and is this the reason my dad doesn't like me? No, and I need to rearrange these because they're in my way. No, dear, it's not. You are very special. I assured her. My dad says he's going to leave my mother and I because our blood is filthy with tears on her face. I had no idea what to say in order to uplift her mood. All I could see was a shattered kid with hatred toward herself. Okay, not bad and a good point, but I have no idea who this girl is. I have no idea what's wrong with her. There's very poor grammatical synastructure. I have no idea her role in talking to this girl or even what's going on. So the catch left me completely confused. No idea with what was going on. All right, how about this one? What are we doing wrong? It's cliche writing, unclear phrasing, incorrect and unprofessional formatting, and oh my goodness, I, I, I, I, I, back off. Let's try another one. All right, smile for the camera. The photographer called out. My mom and papo held each other close as a wide smile flashed across their faces. A beautiful moment that just laid day later on our local newspaper. Been the headline volunteer couple a moment status. For I or even my own parents were born, my grandparents had spent countless years dedicating their lives to service organizations around the world. And this article had actually been written to honor their lifetime of service. However, when I fully procured my own copy and rushed to show my papo, he only said to me, Austin, that's not why we did it. When you are given fortune, you've got to pay it back. When all is said and done, my only hope for you is that you do the same that your mama and I hope to do to leave this world a little better place than we found it and that we had given back way more than we had received. That stuck with me throughout my life. And I carried them in my head and my heart each and every day to continue my family's proud legacy of selfless service. You guys saw I got a little choked up there. And that's because that's very true. From the time at any of us were the tiniest kids, my parents would always say to us that we had been blessed with more than worked in this world and they would make us most proud if we left this world a little better place than we found it. And in this opening statement, what you're starting to get a glimpse into is somebody who respected his grandparents, who had dedicated their life to service that had inspired him. And he literally transitioned this into his net his first main paragraph that literally talked about leaning into what his tap all taught him inspired him to do good. He everything that he has done has been am I leaving this world a little better place than I found it. Notice how he used an energetic voice clear purposeful scenes that took you there and strong varied sentence structure that transitioned through that opening. So what are our tips for success? And then I want to open it up for some Q&A. Aim for five to six paragraphs. Have an opening catch. I cannot emphasize that enough. Catch my attention and make me want to read more. Have your personal statement themed like think that's the trailer to the rest of your story. And remember that's what that concluding paragraph is going to take me back to. Have three to four paragraphs highlight your journey. Ideally, if possible, one that's some clinical relevance and one that has some service relevance, avoid contractions. Again, we're trying to save characters, but it's weird stuff you don't know. Just talked about watch the overuse side also avoid contractions. The only place you really should use contractions is this a direct quote. Otherwise, avoid say do not did not cannot say cannot, without contractions had the reflective concluding paragraph that sort of encapsulates all of these have come together to guide my journey from my first moments of, you know, my grandfather's words that still ring in my ears to the things that I've started to the patients that I have worked with be unique. Remember, we're seeing and hearing the exact same things over and over again. I want to know your brand what makes you unique. Show do not tell do not tell me your aesthetic and compassionate. I can tell you I stop reading. Okay, demonstrate it through what you do. He talked about my son talked about being a compassionate and empathetic giving person, but then he immediately backs it up with how he has taken those lessons and use them. I want you to think about your favorite TV show your favorite movie where you're always quoting scenes from it. I want your personal statement to give me those catches those images, those phrases. Okay. One of my favorite movies is the reflect the reference with the key on the The final scene where they're like, what are we going to do and they all circle together and he's like pain hills, chick, stick scars, like you remember those words make those memorable scenes, phrases and things that you say that will stick with your reader so that when he comes back to look here, she looks at your application, they remember that be unique in your journey. Have it be memorable tell stories I want to see at least one to two stories in every personal statement, expand your vocabulary beyond the three word of God, opportunity had the opportunity, whatever so that it is more and be clear and create imagery. Please, please, please tell the story, but look for the gaps if I'm reading it for the first time and I know nothing about you, I want to be able to take me there in that journey. Strong personal statements avoid I want to be a physician because and don't tell me you want to be a physician already know you're applying you demonstrate your compassionate empathetic side, you do not over focus on any other person. This is your journey. I hate it that you lost somebody close to you, but how did that mold your journey, not their entire life story. They are not applying to med school. Everybody wants to help us serve. Tell me how you truly do that. Do not speak an passive tone and oh my don't ever speak in third person. I can't tell you the number of personal statements where I have had somebody talking about themselves in third person. I'm like, who told you to write like this. All right. That takes us through our journey for today. All right, guys. Well, thank you all again. How about lovely weekend. Stay safe and we'll see you all next week. Take care.