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Personal Statements
Please read the Personal Statement resources below and then you are welcome to meet with a Pre-Health Professions Coach to discuss your ideas before starting your personal statement.
RECOMMENDATONS FOR PERSONAL STATEMENT CONTENT
The Purpose
The personal statement/essay should provide evidence to the admissions committees that you are knowledgeable about the profession (know what you are getting into) and are well-suited to the profession (have the necessary qualities, strengths, and skills).
The Audience
The essays are likely to be read at different stages of the process.
- Initial review of application
- Committee decision to invite for interview
- Interviewers in preparation for interview
- Committee admission decision
You are not writing for one reader as you do for a course where you write what a particular professor is looking for.
The readers are very diverse. A committee may have up to 20-30 people on it who represent different generations and cultures and have a variety of ideas about who is suited to and prepared for the profession and a particular school.
Keys to Content
All essays are essentially about the same thing – you! – your strengths, your knowledge of the profession, how you have tested your desire to pursue this health profession, and in what ways you are suited to and prepared for professional education and training.
You need to know yourself and the profession well enough to choose the personal strengths, knowledge, and insights you will write about.
Take an inventory of your qualities and skills and how they relate to your experiences. Check out the “Tools to Help You Build Your Personal Statement” under Personal Statement Resources & Tools below.
Get more mileage out of your essay with valuable content.
Write about experiences that will demonstrate the qualities, strengths, skills that a successful health care professional must have.
Make the invisible visible.
Consider what the committees will see in your application. Is there something important about you that is not obvious from the numbers and information already listed in your application?
Make it matter.
Is there something included in your application that needs to be emphasized? For example, will you be listing one experience where you took on a leadership role, but the actual knowledge and abilities that you developed there are not obvious? Did you volunteer in one place rather than several but the experiences there were substantial and of great value in your pre-professional development? You may decide to give these more weight by writing about them.
The Prompt
Read the Prompt Carefully.
The applicant is responsible for understanding the prompt and providing the kind of information that the admissions committees have asked for.
Some prompts are as simple as “Why do you want to be a _________?”
Many are more complex.
In either case, the prompt requires thoughtful consideration, first to understand it and then to decide on the content of your response.
Don’t get hung up on any one word or phrase in the prompt. Read the whole prompt and decide what they are really asking for.
Can you explain the prompt in your own words?
Decide which of your personal strengths as well as your knowledge and insight into the profession relate best to the prompt. (This is when the “Tools to Help You Build Your Personal Statement” can be of help.)
In responding to the prompt, your goal is to use your experiences to demonstrate those things about you that predict your success in professional school and in professional practice.
Writing About You
“Why do you want to pursue a career in this health profession?” is not asking you to write an essay on how very much you want to be in the profession. It is not asking what is so amazing about people who are in this profession. Admissions committees want to know who it is that wants to pursue this career and in what ways you are capable of and prepared for professional school and professional life.
“I love science and want to help.” is important but is not enough. Demonstrating how compassionate and caring you are is great, but there are many careers in which one can apply a love of science to help people. Write about the experiences that demonstrate specific knowledge of and exposure to the profession and the strengths and skills that will help you to succeed in this specific role.
Writing about mentors.
If you write about what you observed/learned while shadowing a healthcare professional, you must then turn your attention to yourself and in what ways you have developed and demonstrated those qualities that you admire in your mentor.
Remember, this is about your qualities and skills and knowledge. The experiences you choose to write about are the vehicles that convey that information.
Inspiration is important, but then what ….. ?
Inspiration is essential to pursuing a health professions career. But… while the most interesting, breathtaking, awesome, unique inspirational experience can be a place to start, after the “ah-ha” moment, what did you do to test your motivation, to find out what professional education, training, and practice are actually like. Show the committees that you are an informed applicant who has made a rational and mature decision to apply for acceptance into training for this profession.
By the way, it is not at all necessary to have one of those mythic and epic inspirational experiences. There are many health care professionals who realized their interest in their profession in a more gradual evolution of experiences.
No matter how you got here, the committees are more interested in what you’ve done recently than every step along the way.
Writing It
This is not an English or Rhetoric or Creative Writing assignment.
Still it will make an important impression. So, if you want to make a very good impression that will help you earn an invitation to an admissions interview, it should be well-written, technically correct, and, most-importantly, respond appropriately to the prompt.
Don’t get hung up on having a theme that takes over and steals room you need for details about valuable experiences. This is a very short essay, and themes eat characters and spaces for lunch. Let the theme be subtle. Let the theme be the things about you that show you are suited to the profession and have what it takes to succeed and to care for patients.
Use active verbs, active voice.
Health professionals are proactive. Write about what you’ve done and the value of those experiences.
If you write about a challenge or struggle or obstacle or mistake, get some mileage out of it by showing what you did to succeed, what you learned from it, and who you are as a result.
Everything you write should add value.
You have a small space and, hopefully, many strengths and experiences. Each experience, paragraph, sentence, word takes up space. Know why you are telling the committees a story and what messages you want to send.
Your personal statement should be primarily about your experiences since high school. However, a pivotal moment or particularly valuable relevant experience from your pre-college years may be needed to set the stage for who you are today. If so, take care to write it concisely and save room for more current information.
Structure
You may choose to write in a chronological order of events or in a modified chronological order in which you lead with an interesting recent experience and flashback to background information that is relevant. Either way, the first experience you write about should be interesting enough to get the reader’s attention.
There is not a lot of room for the Big Intro paragraph and the Big Concluding paragraph. Usually a few lines of intro that lead into first anecdote or background statement will work. You may use only the last few lines for your concluding statement.
You may have room in a personal statement for only two or three experiences; however, each experience may reveal several different strengths that will be of interest to the admissions committees.
Be concise
Avoid over-use of descriptive words and introductory words and phrases that are unnecessary to the message.
Get to the point. Each sentence moves the reader forward. No slow build. You don’t have that luxury. Neither does anyone else.
There is no space for reiteration.
There is usually some sacrifice of a smooth, flowing feel that you may have in longer essays.
Use your own vocabulary, not the Thesaurus. When you interview, you should sound like the person who wrote the application essay.
Stand Out
You may see or hear the word “unique” in relation to essay prompts. While you want to stand out, you do not need to have an experience that no one else has had. A unique experience can be thought of as being unique or special to you in your own life rather than unique among all of the applicants.
Stand out by being well-prepared, mature, informed, experienced, and able to communicate in writing that you possess the qualities that excellent health care students and professionals must have.
Where to Find Help
Content
Personal Statement Brainstorming – Health Professions Office
Pre-HP Coaches can help with
- Understanding prompts
- Content brainstorming
- Special circumstances – examples: academic difficulties, health issues, gaps in education, re-application
Writing
Personal Statement Review and Feedback – University Writing Center
- Getting started writing
- Technical writing questions
- Help with structure, organization, style, tone
It is not the responsibility of UWC consultants to interpret prompts or select appropriate content.
As the applicant you should be able to explain to your writing consultant the prompt and the messages that you are attempting to get across. Writing consultants can help with whether and how you are getting those messages into writing.
If you are still struggling with this, spend some time reading and thinking through the prompt. Discuss this in your Personal Statement Brainstorming appointment at the HPO.
YOU CAN DO THIS !!!
Personal Statement Resources & Tools
Find & Read Your Essay Prompt Before Starting
-
TMDSAS Application Essay Prompts
- Other Application Essay Prompts: Find your prompt before you start - website links
Tools to help you build your Personal Statement
- Personal Statement Brainstorming Worksheet
- Use Action Verbs
- Identify your Strengths Skills with this Word List
Requesting Letters
Letters are key pieces to your professional school application. Each application has its own way of collecting letters and number and type of letters vary from school to school. Check with the application service you are using for additional details and guidelines. Check out this video for tips for getting to know your faculty.
You may see the word "Committee Letter" The Health Professions Office does not offer the committee letter option and does not write letters of evaluation. Each UT Austin student who is applying to professional school will select their own individual letter writers and will follow the directions of the professional school admissions application service which they are applying through.
Using Interfolio?
- Check out Interfolio's help page on sending letters for TMDSAS, AACOMAS, AADSAS, etc.
- Interfolio directions for AMCAS
- How to Request Letters using Interfolio
- How to add your ID numbers to your Interfolio deliveries
- Interfolio's Help FAQ for Letter Writers
Pre-Med Letters of Evaluation
Letters of evaluation are key pieces to your medical school application. Each application has its own way of collecting letters and number and type of letters vary from school to school. Check with the application service you are using for additional details. We recommend you look into using Interfolio to collect your letters of recommendation.
- Check out Interfolio's help page on sending letters for TMDSAS, AACOMAS, AADSAS
- Interfolio directions for AMCAS
- Letter guidelines by AAMC
Pre-Dental Letters of Evaluation
Letters of evaluation are key pieces to your dental school application. Each application has its own way of collecting letters and number and type of letters vary from school to school. Check with the application service you are using for additional details. If you are applying to multiple dental school application services we recommend you look into using Interfolio to collect your letters of recommendation
- Check out Interfolio's help page on sending letters for AADSAS
Pre-PA Letters of Reference
Letters of reference are key pieces to your Physician Assistant program application. Each application has its own way of collecting letters and number and type of letters vary from school to school. Check with the application service you are using for additional details. If you are applying to multiple Physician Assistant programs check with each program to see what letters they want or need.
- CASPA's Letter of Evaluation Directions
Pre-Pharmacy Letters of Reference
You can have a maximum of four (4) references on your PharmCAS application. Do NOT send more than four references to PharmCAS. Send any additional references directly to your designated pharmacy schools. Pharmacy schools may not consider extra references. Check your school’s entry on the PharmCAS Directory to see what types of evaluations are required, recommended and not accepted by each institution. A few schools prefer that applicants send references directly to the institution. This information will be included on their directory page. Also check out the Preparing to Apply section of this site.
Pre-OT Letters of Recommendation
References should come directly from the evaluator to OTCAS, unless otherwise instructed by your designated OT program. Letters can only be submitted to OTCAS electronically OTCAS FAQ'S.
Pre-PT Letter of Reference
ELECTRONIC LETTER
You should enter only their e-mail addresses and leave the mailing address fields blank. Inform the evaluators to expect an e-mail from PTCAS Messenger (noreply@ptcas.org) with instructions and login information for an online reference form. PTCAS will send this e-mail to your evaluators as soon as you save their information on your PTCAS application, regardless of whether you have e-submitted your final application
HARD COPY LETTER
PTCAS no longer accepts hard-copy (paper) letters of reference. http://www.ptcas.org/References/
Pre-Optometry Letters of Recommendation
Letters of Recommendation are critical to the review of your application. Applicants should not send letters directly to OptomCAS; all letters should come directly from the Recommender to OptomCAS via the OptomCAS online portal. OptomCAS will not accept paper copies of references.
Enter up to four (4) evaluator names on your OptomCAS application. OptomCAS will not determine if you have met the letter requirements for a particular optometry program. Therefore, please review programs’ individual websites to determine the number and type(s) of letters required by each institution for which you wish to be considered for admission.
You will provide the name, email address and phone number for a maximum of four (4) people providing letters. OptomCAS will send an email evaluation request to the Recommender with information on how to electronically submit their letter.
OptomCAS FAQ's
Pre-Vet Letters of Reference
Check to be sure an individual is willing to provide a reference for you before entering them on the application. As soon as you save their information, an e-mail request is automatically sent to them
All references must be submitted through the online reference portal. They should not be e-mailed to VMCAS. If your references have questions, encourage them to contact VMCAS directly. Letter writers can also submit them electronically to TMDSAS.
Interviewing
It is important to professionally and properly represent yourself to an admissions committee. From what to wear, to anticipating what questions might be asked, our Pre-Health Professions Coaches are here to help you prepare for the strongest professional school interview possible.
The Health Professions Office provides interview prep to help you improve your interview skills:
Interview Prep Appointment
If you would like one-one interview preparation, schedule a 30 minute Professional School Interview Prep session with a Pre-Health Professions Coach schedule it online.
Please have a hard copy of your personal statement and be dressed as you would for a professional school interview. Limit 1 per semester.
Medical School Interview Prep Resources:
- Medical School Applicants Virtual Interview Tips
- Pre-Med Students can schedule an 30 minute interview prep appointment with HPO
- Practice doing a Virtual Medical School Interview by using Big Interview provided by the Texas Career Engagement Center & after you have completed it you can schedule a virtual live mock interiew with them.
- Pre-Med Students can also do a virtual mock interview UT Austin's Public Speaking Center. Please note: You will need to have an interview prep appointment with HPO before you schedule a mock interview with the Public Speaking Center.
Pre-Health Professions Interivew Prep Resources:
- All Pre-Health Professions Students can schedule a 30 minute interview prep appointment with HPO
- Practice doing a Virtual Professional School Interview by using Big Interview provided by the Texas Career Engagement Center
- After you do your Big Interview you can schedule a mock interivew with the Texas Career Engagement Center
Dressing for An Interview
What does Business Casual and Business Professional Dress Mean? - Check out the Interview Dressing Guide
Interviewing Resources
- The Medical School Interview
- Sample Medical & Dental Interview Questions
- A How to Guide to The Multi-Mini Interview
- Health Professions Current Event websites
- Post Interview Self-Evaluation
- NY Times Article on MMI
Reapplication Strategies
Reapplying to Professional School?
Here are some reapplication strategies for you to consider, also watch this video to get reapplication tips.
First ask yourself why you think you did not get in, be honest with yourself, as this will be the basis for your reapplication. You MUST show improvement between cycles. Do not just recycle your previous application. This can be a big mistake!
Possible Reasons For Not Getting In
There are several reasons that a person does not get admitted into graduate or professional school. There are seven general reasons that are reflected in this packet. They include:
1. Timing of Application
2. GPA
3. Entrance Exam (ex. DAT, MCAT, GRE)
4. Experience
5. Personal Statement
6. Letters of Evaluation
7. Interview
Keep in mind this is not an exhaustive list. There are other factors that are out of your control, such as the makeup of the applicant pool when you applied, that can impact whether or not you get in.
You may schedule an appointment to speak further with a Pre-Health Professions Coach about creating your reapplication strategy.
