Writing a successful personal statement for your medical school application

Introduction

The personal statement which you submit in your UCAS application could, quite possibly, be the only opportunity you have to differentiate yourself from the thousands of others who apply to go to medical school every year.  Whilst your academic grades and references will demonstrate your basic eligibility for the course at your chosen medical schools, it is your personal statement which will tip the balance on whether or not you get a medical school interview and a place!  This is particularly true when applying to medical schools where everyone applying is likely to have top grades, competition is fierce and there are many more applicants than places available.

The space for your personal statement is limited on the UCAS application.  Effectively, it boils down to the equivalent of roughly one page of A4 typed with Arial font 11, which you must fill with enough engaging and persuasive information about yourself and your motivation to study medicine, to help your application stand out from the crowd.  This is no mean feat as you probably won't have done much creative writing, if any, since your GCSEs and besides, one of the hardest topics to write about confidently, is yourself!

Don't underestimate the power of the personal statement in the application process for medical school.  Many excellent candidates fail to get an invitation for medical school interview and lose out on a place at medical school, because they have misunderstood what was required of the personal statement, or not given enough thought or preparation into producing one of sufficiently high calibre.

There is an art to writing a personal statement which will make the difference between a successful and unsuccessful application and hopefully this guide will provide you with some useful hints and tips to be able to help you develop your own unique and powerful personal statement.

Getting started

Before you get going, remember, this is a 'personal statement'.  This means that you are writing about yourself and not your best friend.  You will be asked questions about the content of your personal statement in your medical school interview, so it is essential that everything you write in it is a factual and truthful reflection of yourself and not someone else, or you will be found out.

A good way to start thinking about yourself and your personal attributes is with a blank piece of paper.  At this point you don't need to be too structured or worry too much about your style, because all you should be doing is brainstorming with yourself and jotting down a few thoughts and ideas which you can then go on to develop further.  Here are some ideas of the particular areas you should be thinking about:

• Your motivation for a medical career.
• Specific aspects of the course that interest you.
• Particular areas of interest which are featured in the course, which will demonstrate that you have identified a particular medical school which meets your area of interest.
• Examples of relevant work experience, such as voluntary work in hospitals or care homes, St John's Ambulance of the Red Cross.  Also any community or charity work you may have done, what you learned from it and how it helped you decide to study medicine.
• Courses, conferences and exhibitions you have attended which can help demonstrate your commitment to study medicine.
• Any personal experiences which have lead you to the decision to study medicine - perhaps caring for a sick or elderly relative.
• Details of any sixth form committees or other social or sporting clubs in which you have an active role.
• Examples of helping out at school events and open days.
• Any awards, prizes or particular achievements of note, such as Duke of Edinburgh, sporting medals, etc, and what you gained from these experiences.
• Details of what you do in your free time - sporting activities, playing musical instruments, amateur dramatics, etc, which demonstrate that you are sociable and proactive and enjoy doing things with other people.
• Languages which you speak.
• If you're planning to take a gap year then why, what do you plan to do and how may this relate to your decision to study medicine?

You should have a few thoughts listed by now.  Don't worry if you don't seem to have too many from this list because you should be concentrating on things you have done or achieved which will show off your good qualities and shound reasons why you want to study medicine.  Remember, it's the quality of your experience and personal attributes that matter, not the quantity.  You're not trying to prove to the admissions tutors that you're Superman!

Hopefully the attributes in your list will begin to demonstrate that you are enthusiastic and passionate about studying medicine and becoming a doctor.  If you're not really sure you want to study medicine and would rather do something else, then you will struggle to come across as genuine in your personal statement, so it's important that you are absolutely sure this is what you want to do.

Structuring your personal statement

At this point, you should think about moving away from pen and paper and start preparing your personal statement on a computer using a word-processing package.  You will then be able to copy and paste your finished personal statement into an online text editor which is part of the UCAS website, where it can be saved and amended until you're ready to submit your application.

The space allowed for your personal statement is up to 4,000 characters (including spaces), or 47 lines of text (including blank lines), whichever comes first.

Personal statements may be written in an essay format, but you don't have to do this, in fact, using headings to structure your personal statement into paragraphs is a good way of providing a focus to the content and also to the way you develop your ideas.  It may also demonstrate an organised and logical way of thinking which are, of course, good attributes of a doctor.  

We suggest you try following a format like this:

Section one - introduction and why you want to study medicine

Your introduction will be the most appropriate section for you to explain why you want to study medicine and the factors which have influenced your decision, so briefly, your personal experiences, family members in the medical profession, work and voluntary experiences, etc.  If you are applying as a graduate entrant, you may also give a brief explanation of what you are currently studying and why you think this is of relevance to a career in medicine. 

Section two - work and personal experiences

In this section you can discuss the personal attributes and skills which you have developed through various life and work experiences which you think are relevant to a career in medicine.  This is the opportunity for you to describe these experiences in a little more detail, what you learned from them and how they influenced your decision to study medicine.  Try to avoid turning it into a long list because you won't get an extra marks for that.  Instead, really focus on demonstrating that you recognise the key attributes of being a doctor and feel passionate about it.  Include in a little more detail, any personal experiences of the healthcare profession that have contributed to your decision to study medicine, but be careful here not to use life experiences which are stretching the reason why you have chosen a career in medicine.  For example, it would be appropriate to say that caring from a disabled sibling may have motivated you into medicine, but seeing how doctors worked when you were admitted with a broken leg will not sound as plausible.  It is acceptable to use personal or informal experiences as part of your personal statement, providing you can confidently demonstrate what you have learned from them.

Section three - other interests and hobbies

You may then consider demonstrating that you can work in a team and that you are a reliable and responsible person who has contributed to the community.  You can include your school responsibilties here, along with any other positions of responsibility such as committees, societies, sports teams, community or charity work.  If you have any other hobbies or interests which are not directly related to studying medicine, then you can also include them here.  These may include music, travelling, reading, going to the cinema, swimming and anything which demonstrate you are a well-rounded individual with a variety of interests.

Section four - closing statement

Finally, you should give a conclusion which summarises your personal statement.  Explain why would have considered a career in medicine, the reasons why you feel you would make a good doctor and why your application for medical school should be taken forward.  Keep it short and attention grabbing.

Spend as much time as you can on the start and finish of your personal statement.  An interesting start will grab the reader's attention and encourage them to read your statement thoroughly rather than just skim read it.  A good ending will make your personal statement memorable, help it stand out from the crowd and hopefully result in a recommendation for medical school interview.

Writing your personal statement

Now that you have some ideas on paper and you know roughly how to structure them for maximum impact, it's time to start fine tuning and developing these into coherent statements.

First of all, make sure you allow yourself enough time and preferably with the minimum of distraction because you are going to have to concentrate on writing and need to remain focused.  Never lose sight of how important this is - it will make the difference between getting that medical school interview or not!

Explaining why you, personally, want to study medicine is probably the most important part of the personal statement.  You might have the best academic achievements, the most impressive array of extracurricular activities and be the nicest person the admissions tutors may ever have come across, but if they feel you don't demonstrate research and a sound understanding of the rigours of studying medicine, then you won't get an interview.

If you have put enough thought into your brainstorming, you should already have a pretty good idea about why you want to study medicine and how you intend to get this across in your personal statement.  If they accept you, you're going to be studying this course for the next 4 to 6 years and need to convince the admissions tutors that you are committed to it.  Remember, this bit is all about you and your reasons and motivations to study medicine, so this will be very unique and personal to you and no one else.

Try to isolate three or four key points about exactly why medicine appeals to you and write down as much as you can about it.  If you find you have too many points, then just pick the best ones.  You will be able to modify these until you're completely happy with how it sounds and that it gives a strong and coherent explanation of your rationale for studying medicine and your committment to the course.  Obviously, if you do this exercise and find that you can't think of any good reasons why you should want to study medicine, then you ought to really consider when you should be!

Plagiarism/similarity detection

Be very careful when reading others' personal statements, that you aren't tempted to copy chunk of them into yours, because you think it sounds really good and you couldn't have phrased it any better yourself.  UCAS operates a Similarity Detection Service called Copycatch, which can identify statements that show similarity or have been plagiarised - plain copied!

The personal statement in each application is checked against a library of all personal statements previously submitted to UCAS and sample statements collected from a variety of websites and other sources.  Each personal statement received at UCAS is added to the library after it's been processed.

Any personal statement showing a level of similarity of 10% or more, will be reviewed by the UCAS Similarity Detection Service team and if deemed necessary, the University you are applying to will be notified and will decide on the significance of the results and what action, if any, to take.

So you have been warned, even if you get inspiration from looking at example personal statements and find it helps you structure and write your own, make sure it's all your own original work and don't be tempted to copy.

Language, layout and tone of voice

You may have looked at lots of other personal statements and now have an idea about how you are going to write yours, based on what you liked and disliked about those you've read.  The next step is to fine tune your content, your own style of writing and consider the language and tone you want to use as well as the final layout of your statement.  Here are a few hints and tips to writing an effective personal statement:

• Use your best English and check spelling, punctuation and grammar.  A personal statement full of errors will give a negative impression of the amount of effort you are prepared to put in to your studies.
• Avoid the use of 'SMS' language and abbreviated words.
• Consider the layout of your personal statement.  A well presented and organised statement will give a much better impression than one where little thought has been put into its actual readability.
• Try to compose your personal statement while you are in an enthusiastic mood, because you will find that this translates into a positive image on the page.
• Try to use an interesting or attention-grabbing statement to start and finish with.
• Try to avoid using elaborate language.  Keep it simple.  If you're not usually confident in using long or fancy words, then don't even try using them in your personal statement because your discomfort will show.
• Try not to sound arrogant or pretentious.  You want to try and make sure that you come across as sincere.
• Don't waffle about things that aren't relevant to your application.  If you feel like you're beginning to go off topic then stop, take a break and come back to it when you're feeling more focused.
• Avoid the use of humour. Remember, the admissions tutors may not share your sense of humour.
• Don't lie or exaggerate. Remember, you will be questioned about the content of your personal statement in your medical school interview and you will be caught out if you are asked to elaborate on some interesting fact in it.
• Don't include a long list of hobbies and interests just to fill space, unless you can make them relevant to your application.
• Don't repeat things that are already on your UCAS form.
• Read and re-read your personal statement as many times as possible to check that it makes sense and that there aren't any typos.  Don't rely on spellcheck because this isn't foolproof.

Revising your personal statement

Hopefully, you should now be at a stage where you have a first draft of your personal statement.  Don't worry if it's too long because it's easy to edit it down.  It's much harder to increase the length of a short personal statement than trim down a long one.  Incidentally, if your personal statement is a little short, but you're sure you've included everything in it, then don't panic.  There is no requirement to fill the allocated space and it's better to have a short and well written, succinct statement, than a long, waffly and irrelevant one.

The next thing you should do is read your statement out aloud and slow.  This will help highlight any areas which sound disjointed or if you've missed anything out.  You will also spot if anything doesn't read very well or sounds confusing, because if you find yourself confused about something you read in your personal statement, then it's likely that anyone else reading it will do too.

You should also ask other people to read your draft, as it's hard to spot errors in your own writing because you're so close to the content.  Ask family, friends or teachers to give you an opinion.  Career advisers are useful people to read through your statement because they will have seen many in the past and have a good idea what it should contain.

By now, you should have read and re-read your personal statement several times and have input from anyone else you may have shown it to, so you will have quite a few changes and amendments to make to it.  Before you go ahead and start re-writing the bits you're not happy with, make sure you save a copy of the original statement because you may want to refer back to it.  After you've made your changes then repeat the process of reading the statement to yourself and showing it to other for comment.  Each time you go back and make more changes then save the previous version of the statement, so that you keep a copy of each one for reference.

Be mindful of your character limit and if your personal statement is too long, look for warys of editing out unecessary, repetitive or irrelevant words and phrases.  You can easily check whether or not you're within the 4,000 character limit by using the 'word count' in your word processing package.  Just remember that your statement may fall within the character limit, but still exceed the 47 line limit, so just bear this in mind as you put the finishing touches to it.

Now your personal statement reads well, it looks good and is well presented and contains no spelling, punctuation or grammatical errors.  You're happy with it, so now you're ready to upload it into your UCAS application.