Hanna Renaldi's Blog: Lack of Substance: Med School Application Essay Flaw #1

Avoid Med School Application Flaw #1: Lack of Substance

Watch what you write! In this blog series, we’ll examine the 5 fatal flaws that you should avoid when writing your med school application essays. In our first post, we’ll discuss how to avoid writing a personal statement that lacks substance.

Writing about nothing will bore your readers. If your personal statement or secondary essay lacks substance, you’ll lose your audience very quickly. It’s that simple. And you may never get them back.

Pique your readers’ attention and then maintain their interest with an essay that contains:

1. Substantive self-reflection

2. Use of specifics, examples, and anecdotes

3. Revelations of your thought processes and feelings

1. Substantive self-reflection

You need to start your writing process with self-knowledge. You don’t have to search the internet or a large library to fulfill this introspective step. Start by thinking about your experiences and your dreams. Search your head and your heart. That is where the substance of a good personal statement is stored.

2. Use of specifics, examples, and anecdotes

Once you’ve collected your thoughts, use anecdotes, specifics, and examples to show that your dreams are grounded in experience. Good examples can bring your essays to life and engage the reader.

Which is more vivid and engaging: stating that you worked in a soup kitchen over the summer, or describing how you felt standing behind the buffet table ladling out soup to mothers and children at your local women’s shelter in 90+ degree weather?

3. Revelations of your thought processes and feelings

At the same time, recognize that essays containing only examples and anecdotes won’t necessarily reveal your thought processes and motivations. Limiting yourself like that may also come off as superficial. Make sure you balance your stories with insight and analysis. To return to our women’s shelter example above, which would be better – saying that you built relationships by talking to some of the women, or describing a particular conversation you had, and then elaborating on how it affected you? Motivated you? Changed you?

Avoid Fatal Flaw #1: Engage your readers by constructing your essays (AMCAS personal statements and secondaries) on a foundation of self-reflection and with a structure consisting of an astute use of examples balanced by analysis.

Now you that you know what NOT to do, it’s time to focus on what you SHOULD do to submit the absolute best medical school applications possible. Work one-on-one with a pro to create an application that will get you ACCEPTED.