Your personal statement is one of the most important essays you will ever write, no stress, right? Today I am breaking down the steps to writing your personal statement so it isn’t quite so daunting. I also have a FREE Two Week Personal Statement Challenge to help you get your first draft on paper.
LOGISTICS: The essay is 5000 characters, including spaces. This trips up a lot of people when they finish writing their essay and enter it on CASPA; it will end up over the character limit because of not accounting for spaces. 5000 characters including spaces comes out to a little over a page, single spaced, regular 12 font.
Keep in mind, if you have to reapply, your personal statement does not carry over between cycles. That is one thing that you would have to resubmit. Once you've submitted your application, you cannot change your personal statement. Make sure that first submission has it exactly the way you want it. It also needs to be general and not specific to a program because you have one essay that goes to every single program. You may have supplemental essays that are specific for each program.
PROMPT: Usually, this is some variation of “Why do you want to be a PA?” Most recently, it was “Discuss your motivations for becoming a physician assistant, and explain why you chose the physician assistant career.” Keep this prompt in mind as you're writing. Your essay will be copied directly in CASPA. However, that should not be the only place you write it. I recommend using Google Docs online to save automatically instead of a Word Document. Save frequently so you can copy and paste it into CAPSA.
So let’s discuss! What does it take to have a really great essay?
BRAINSTORMING PHASE: First and foremost, for those who are not applying currently but may be applying in the next few years, you are in a “brainstorming” phase. Open a note on your phone or have a document somewhere – just jot down ideas. If you see a patient who leaves an impression on you and makes an impact, go ahead and write it down. A year, or two years from now, you may not remember those important encounters. Keep a running list so when it comes to write, you’re not staring at a blank piece of paper and feeling writers’ block.
PLANNING OUT THE WRITING PHASE: I recommend starting your essay no later than the January before you apply to PA school. The application opens up in April, and you don’t want to be scrambling in April, May, or June to get your essay done. You will have plenty of other stuff to do like entering transcripts and keeping up with letters of recommendation. Your personal statement ideally should be done before you get to the application. Give yourself time, making sure there are no errors and then get others’ opinions.
My favorite way to write and your preference may be difference. What works for me is just getting words on paper. It can seem more difficult if you are trying to write the perfect introduction and not feeling like you have anything to say. That may come later! Don’t feel like you have to write your essay in order, but just get some thoughts on paper. Pour out your words and passion about why you want to be a PA and then change it and edit later. Your first draft will definitely not be your last draft and may not even have the same main ideas.
Sit down for 30 minutes with no distractions, no computer, no email, no phone. If you want to type it, that's fine. If you want to write it, that's fine. Think about what has influenced your decisions, gotten you to the point of applying, and your other pivotal moments.
CONTENT: These are the questions that I'm looking for answers to in your essay.
What made you interested in medicine?
You need to show that this is not a last-minute decision; but something that has developed. You don’t need a dramatic story or event that made you interested in medicine. For me, I’ve always been interested in science. My sister had some health problems as a child, which exposed me to medicine. Honestly, I prefer the essays that are not as dramatic. You can read my personal statement here.
How did you find out about the PA profession?
To become a PA, you most likely considered other medical professions at some point, especially medical school, because they're so similar. I found out about the PA profession through my dad. He had a doctor's appointment for a cold and ended up seeing a PA. He thought she was great, and came back home and told me about it. You want to show how you found out about the profession and describe your journey through this process. It needs to relate back to the prompt!
What appealed to you about the PA profession?
Don’t feel like you need to compare med school vs PA school directly in the essay, especially because you are limited on space. Break down where your interests came from and focus on more than just the perks of the career. Talk about the day to day responsibilities of working with a physician, working as part of a team, and the job itself. Emphasized getting to take care of patients and being directly involved with their care. You can mention the flexibility and lateral mobility, but those should not be the primary reasons you want to be a PA; it should be about the patients more than your benefit.
Do you have a good understanding of what PAs do?
I want to know you have a good understanding of what PAs do, and this comes from your shadowing or work experience with PAs. If you read your essay and think you could have pulled the information from Google, then you are probably being too generic and general. Avoid generic and include things that are specific to you and what you saw. Anytime you can use a specific example or story in your essay, that's more effective. Show more than tell that you know what a PA is and what they do, and use those experiences to model the type of provider you want to be as a PA.
I've read so many essays that don't even say the phrase “physician assistant” or “PA” until the conclusion or the last two paragraphs. PA should be stated much sooner in your essay because that is the main idea and focus of your essay.
What will make you a successful PA student?
I want to know how you've prepared to be successful as a PA student. Keep in mind that you're currently applying for a spot as a PA student, not yet as a PA. Show the programs that you're academically prepared with your current history and GPA, upward trends, and strong time management skills needed to succeed as a PA student.
ORGANIZATION:
Ideally, the events in your essay should go in chronological order. Sometimes when I read essays, the events jump all over the place, and I can’t focus on the main points because it’s hard to follow. If you reread it and have a lot of questions, or someone editing has a lot of questions, that is a red flag! Admissions committees read thousands of essays. They should not have to try very hard to figure out what you are talking about.
Don’t sleep on your conclusion. A distinct conclusion needs to sum up your strengths and reiterate why you are the best choice as a PA student in their program. Don’t skimp on the conclusion because of the character limit.
EDITING:
I want to see correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation. With abbreviations, fully write out an abbreviation first, and then throughout the rest of your essay, you can write PA for example, instead of physician assistant. You would write “physician assistant (PA)” at first, and then you can use PA throughout the rest of your essay.
Look at content and make sure that everything relates back to the prompt of “Why do you want to be a PA?” In addition, the story needs to be easy to follow – can I figure out what is going on without too many questions or feeling confused?
Consider getting an outside opinion.
I do think it is important to have other people read your essay. You can read your own essay over and over, and you will never feel like it is done. Eventually, you will have to submit. By getting others’ opinions who know your voice or who do not know your voice, that can help ensure you have a strong essay. Friends and family can help make sure it sounds like you. However, the one caveat - if someone is not familiar with the PA school application process or profession, take their advice with a grain of salt because they may offer advice that is not applicable. For example, I don’t think creative writing stories are appropriate for this type of essay. In addition, try to have a PA read your essay. But again, if they aren't really involved in that process, they may or may not give you the best advice.
If you are in undergrad, look into resources at your school. If you have a writing center, or an advisor, or someone who can help you with your essay, take advantage. The PA Platform also offers essay editing services.
Warning! I definitely encourage you to join our pre-PA Facebook group. However, be careful of asking random people to read your essay. They may be writing their own essay and decide to “borrow” parts of yours if it’s very good. Brian has actually heard of that happening at a school where two people ended up turning in the same essay, which is terrifying to me. Definitely make sure that anyone you're letting read your essay that you trust them.
How do I bring up something that may be a red flag? Or should I? How do I talk about it? My rule of thumb is to only bring an issue up if you think it needs explaining and would prevent you from getting an interview. One or two Cs probably doesn't need explaining, but a full rough semester or an overall low GPA may need addressing to give you a chance to clarify. Supplementals offer the opportunity to go more in depth. If you have faced any legal issues, you do have to disclose those on your application. CASPA has a little spot to talk about them. However, if you feel like you need to go more in depth, be positive, get straight to the point, and be as direct as possible. Do not blame a teacher. Do not blame your circumstance. Just explain what happened, and how you can improve. The most important thing is that you own what happened and show improvement from the experience.
Here are some general mistakes:
“Physician's assistant” – If you put this in your essay, and I'm editing, you are going to get ALL RED, BOLDED TEXT. Make sure you know the name of the career you are applying for. There is no apostrophe s in the name. It’s just physician assistant. I don’t personally take offense to a misspelling like this, but you never know who will be reading your essay.
Confusion with timing and jumping back and forth – The writer will talk about working where they work now, but then go back to where they used to work. And then when they shadowed this one time. It's just hard for you to figure out how you actually made decisions with that type of format.
Grammar, punctuation and spelling again!!!
This is a big one. Taking the focus away from you. It's good to use stories and examples, But be cautious that you do not let the focus become on the subject of your story. If you're talking about a patient or your grandma, I should still learn more about you and your role in that story then I do about the person you are talking about. I don’t want to know more about Miss Smith than I know about you. Don’t waste that space on someone else, keep the focus on you
Quotes and clichés - Please don't start your essay with a random quote. It's just not effective and it uses space. Same thing with rhetorical questions and speech. It messes with the flow. Try to use different wording to avoid those types of situations. Also, you don't need to say to the reader, “Thank you so much for your consideration.” These types of phrases just aren't necessary in this type of formal essay.
Check out my Personal Statement Mistakes video on Youtube to help you avoid making some of the most common mistakes people make when it comes to writing their personal statement.
For Reapplicants → The reason why you want to be a PA may not change, but the personal statement should not stay the exact same as the previous cycle. Use some different examples or a different format. Also, if you do reapply to a program and met the minimums, but did not get an interview, really think about your essay and see if that may have been the reason you didn't get interviews.
