Lesson One: What "They" Look For?

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Medical Statement Strategies What "They" Look For? The Why Doctor? Theme The Why Exceptional? Theme The Why Qualified? Theme     Editing Checklist

What "They" Look For

Quotes by members of our panel of admissions officers are in italics.

During that first, quick look at your file (transcripts, science and nonscience GPAs, MCAT scores, application, recommendations, and personal statement), what the admissions committee seeks is essentially the same: 

1. Proven ability to succeed.
2. Clear intellectual ability, analytical and critical thinking skills.
3. Evidence that this person has the potential to make not only a good medical student, but a good doctor.

But the committee is looking for more than this in the essay specifically. We will discuss in detail the essay issues that were listed as most important by our advisory panel of admissions officers.

Motivation

Your application to medical school is a testimony to your desire to ultimately be a doctor. The admissions committee will look at your essay to see that you've answered the obvious, but not so simple, question "Why?" You must be able to explain your motivation for attending medical school.

I look for a sustained understanding of why the candidate wants to enter medicine, how they've tested their interest, and how they've prepared for medical school.

Touch on your passion to pursue medicine. For many, medicine is akin to a calling, and the evaluator must get a sense that they are hearing and responding to the same motivation.

You will be offered much advice in the upcoming pages, with plenty of do's and don'ts. In the midst of all of this, whatever you do, do not lose sight of the ultimate goal of the essay-to convince the admissions committee members that you belong at their medical school. Everything we tell you should be used as a means to this end, so step back from the details of this process regularly and remind yourself of the big picture: 

The essay is the way for candidates to make the argument as to why they, among all the highly qualified candidates, should be admitted to medical school and the eventual practice of medicine.

Writing/Communication Skills

Another obvious function of the essay is to showcase your language abilities and writing skills.

In the essay I want a clear sense that they understand and can communicate well why they are compelling candidates.

Especially if an applicant did some or all of the prerequisite coursework in another country, we will look to the essay to ensure strong English language skills.

At this level, good writing skills are not sought; they are expected. So, while a beautifully written essay isn't going to get you into medical school, a poorly written one could keep you out.

Beyond showcasing your writing abilities and demonstrating your motivation, what else can the essay do for you? Following is more of what the members of the advisory panel said they look for in an essay.

Soft Skills

Let the rest of your application, not the personal statement, speak for your hard skills and achievements (such as your academic excellence, your fantastic MCAT scores, your class rank). What admissions officers seek in the essay are some specific soft skills such as sincerity, maturity, empathy, compassion, and motivation. These qualities were rated especially high in the medical community, more so than for any other graduate-level program we studied. 

Because these qualities are not quantifiable, and therefore not easily demonstrated through the usual criteria of grades and numbers, the essay is your first opportunity (and one of your only ones) to showcase them.

A successful essay will demonstrate in one way or another that the writer has the soft skills necessary to be a good doctor. This applicant was very direct in asserting his soft skills.

Motivation, independence, maturity, precisely those qualities my experiences in Eastern Europe instilled, will be essential to a fruitful career.

When qualities are mentioned as directly as this, the applicant must be careful to support the claims with clear evidence gathered from personal experience. More often, applicants let their achievements and experiences speak for themselves, and the qualities that they demonstrate are inferred. 

A Real Person

This list is not ordered by importance; if it were, this category would be listed first. What our admissions officers said they seek more than any specific skill or characteristic mentioned in the personal statement is a real, live human being:

The members of a medical admissions committee are responsible for choosing the next generation of medical doctors. These are the people who will be healing our children, curing us and our parents, and literally saving lives. Put it in that perspective and the responsibility we feel is enormous. For this reason, we're going to choose to accept someone we feel we know, trust, and like.

In light of this, then, it might not surprise you that when we asked admissions officers and medical students for their number one piece of advice regarding the essay, we received the same response almost every time. Although it was expressed in many different ways (be honest, be sincere, be unique, be personal, and so on) it all came down to the same point: "Be Yourself!"

My number one piece of advice is: Be yourself when you write the essay. The medical profession is a lifetime commitment. Let those in the profession know what drives you towards it!

Unfortunately, achieving this level of communication in writing does not come naturally to everyone, but that does not mean it cannot be learned. Part of what can make this kind of writing seem so difficult is that it is very hard to gauge the impressions you are creating through your writing. Even if you have followed every tip in this course, it is a good idea to have some objective people-preferably those who do not already know you well-read it over when you have finished. 

Get Personal

The only way to let the admissions committee see you as an individual is to make your essay personal. When you do this, your essay will automatically be more interesting and engaging, helping it stand out from the hundreds of others the committee will be reviewing that week.

After reading hundreds of essays in my time on the Harvard Medical School admissions committee, I would tell people a couple of key things. First, make it personal. The most boring, dry essays are those that go on about how the applicant loves science and working with people and wants to serve humanity, but offer few personal details that give a sense of what the applicant is like.

Personalize your essay as much as possible-generic essays are not only boring to read, they're a waste of time because they don't tell you anything about the applicant that helps you get to know them better.

What does it mean to make your essay personal? It means that you drop the formalities and write about something that is truly meaningful to you. It means that you include a story or anecdote taken from your life, using ample detail and colorful imagery to give it life. And it means, above all, being completely honest. 

Please see our sample essays for examples of essays that get personal, including the essay by this Duke applicant. The writer begins by recollecting her experience with anorexia and her admiration for the doctor who saved her life. But it is more than the story that makes her essay real -- it is the way that she describes her experiences. She uses a personal tone throughout the essay, for example when she describes herself while volunteering at an AIDS clinic:

… I am constantly reminded of how much I have to learn. I look at a baby and notice its cute, pudgy toes. Dr. V. plays with it while conversing with its mother, and in less than a minute has noted its responsiveness, strength, and attachment to its parent, and checked its reflexes, color and hydration. Gingerly, I search for the tympanic membrane in the ears of a cooperative child and touch an infant's warm, soft belly, willing my hands to have a measure of Dr. V.'s competence.

It is her admittance that she doesn't yet know everything she needs to know coupled with the picture she paints of herself noticing a baby's "cute pudgy toes" and "gingerly" searching in "the ear of a cooperative child" and touching "an infant's warm, soft belly." As readers, we do not have to strain to create a mental image of the author as a caring, still somewhat tentative individual. This vivid portrayal is painted by a series of personal details.

Just as this writer did not rely on her story of anorexia to make her essay personal, one admissions officer comments: 

A personal epiphany, tragedy, life change, or earth-shattering event is not essential to a strong essay.

This point cannot be stressed enough. Personal does not necessarily mean heavy, or emotional, or awe inspiring. It is a small minority of students who will truly have had a life-changing event to write about. Perhaps they have spent time living abroad or have experienced death or disease from close proximity. But this is the exception and not the rule.

In fact, students who rely too heavily on these weighty experiences often do themselves an injustice. They often don't think about what has really touched them or interests them because they are preoccupied with the topic that they think will impress the committee. They write about their grandfather's death because they think that only death (or the emotional equivalent) is significant enough to make them seem introspective and mature. What often happens, however, is that they rely on the experience itself to speak for them and never explain what it meant to them or give a solid example of how it was emotionally influencing. In other words, they don't make it personal.

Details, Details, Details

To make your essay personal, learn from the example above and use details. Show, don't tell, who you are by backing your claims with real experiences.

Essays only really help you if they are unique and enable the reader to get a sense of who you are based on examples and scenarios and ideas, rather than lists of what you've done. The readers want to find out who this person is, not what the person has done, although the two are obviously interrelated.

The key words from this quote are examples, scenarios, and ideas. Using detail means being specific. Each and every point that you make needs to be backed up by specific instances taken from your experience. It is these details that make your story unique and interesting. 

Tell a Story

Tell a story. It always makes for more interesting reading and it usually conveys something more personal than such blanket statements as "I want to help people."

Incorporating a story into your essay can be a great way to make it interesting and enjoyable. The safest and most common way of integrating a story into an essay is to tell the story first, then step back into the role of narrator and explain why it was presented and what lessons were learned. The reason this method works is that it forces you to begin with the action, which is a sure way to get the readers' attention and keep them reading. A story is best used to draw the reader in, and it should always relate back to the motivation to attend medical school or the ability to succeed once admitted.

Sample Essay One

Note: This essay appears unedited for instructional purposes. Essays edited by EssayEdge are substantially improved. For samples of EssayEdge editing, please click here.

Worked on Grandfather's Farm in Hungary; Orderly/ Surgery Assistant in Former U.S.S.R.; Organized Financing for First Private Hospital in Estonia and Mission for Bosnian Refugees

In communist Hungary in 1986 ownership of property meant certain things. It meant that you were envyed by your neighbors. It meant that you were mistrusted by the state. It meant that you were prohibited by a government which feared the reemergence of a landed aristocracy from purchasing machinery or hiring laborers. Above all it meant you held on to your land for all you were worth and cherished it as your most precious family heirloom.

In 1986 and in the following summer, my parents sent my sister and I to Hungary to work on my Grandparent's farm as they were getting old and unable to manage it any longer on their own, particularly in light of the communist restrictions on private landowners. I woke up at five, harvested hay by hand, tended the cows, and spread manure. I used the same tools my great-grandfather used and on the same land that he had tended a century ago. A fifteen year old boy with little sense of responsibility or of himself, the experience hit me with the force of a cyclone.

In 1993 I was awarded a fellowship to work in the health sector of the former Estonian Republic of the U.S.S.R. I was employed as an orderly in the operating theater of what was once the elite Communist Party hospital. I assisted in surgery, performed twenty-four hour shifts, distributed humanitarian aid, and wrote reports for the Ministry of Health that went from my hands to the directors of the World Bank and U.N. World Health Organization. The experience cemented my plans for becoming a physician and also convinced me that I wanted a career with policy- and theory-shaping responsibilities beyond those of the ordinary doctor.

In addition to being entrusted with work no twenty-one year old in America would be allowed to perform. I saw history being written before my eyes. I got a sense of the degree to which an individual, with enough motivation and a few good ideas, can be an effective force for positive change. I understood the responsibility and the capacity we all have to work for the good of society. The experience was tremendously empowering as it gave me the perspective and self confidence to attempt to seize the future and the ambition to attempt to change the world to the degree I can. With two other Columbia students and a group of Estonian doctors I organized an attempt to finance the first private hospital in Estonia which indirectly contributed to the first Estonian laws on health care privatization and reform. Since my return I have with another Columbia student organized a mission to travel to the N. camp in southern Hungary to distribute clothing and medical supplies to the Bosnian refugees. My role has been in the obtaining of funds and in acting as an intermediary between our group of 10 Columbia University students, two of whom spent this past summer working in the camp, and Hungarian officials here and in Hungary.

I became an adult during my first summer in Hungary. The same changes that have allowed my grandfather to hold onto his land allowed me to first test in Estonia the wings I had developed years earlier. I hope to use those wings make an impact on medical science. Genetics and biochemistry represent the future of medicine and the area in which someone with ambition, a desire to work for the public good, and the necessary technical background could make the most significant contribution. Motivation, independence, maturity, precisely those qualities my experiences in Eastern Europe instilled, will be essential to a fruitful career. I can imagine none potentially more fulfilling, nor a more worthy aim for my life's work, than connecting the worlds of medical science and international public health.

Sample Essay Two

Note: This essay appears unedited for instructional purposes. Essays edited by EssayEdge are substantially improved. For samples of EssayEdge editing, please click here.

Survivor of Anorexia; Emergency Medical Technician Training; Clinic Experience; Medical Volunteer in Honduras; HIV Test Counselor

I decided that I wanted to be a doctor sometime after my four month incarceration in Columbia Presbyterian Children's Hospital in the winter of 1986-87, as I struggled with anorexia nervosa. Through the maturation process that marked my recovery, I slowly came to realize that my pediatrician had saved my life-despite my valiant efforts to the contrary. Out of our individual stubborn wills was born a kind of mutual respect, and he is one of the people who make up my small collection of heroes.

I admire doctors who understand both what is said and what is held back, who move comfortably around the world of the body, and who treat all patients with respect. I am lucky because a few of them have become my impromptu teachers, taking a little extra time to instruct me in anatomy, disease or courtesy. During my Emergency Medical Technician training, one of the emergency room doctors took me to radiology to point out the shadow of a fracture in a CT-scan and trusted me to hold a little girl's lip while he inserted sutures. The physicians in the Hospital 12 de Octubre in Madrid, Spain taught me to hear lung sounds and to feel an enlarged liver and spleen. They explained the social and medical difficulties associated with the management of pediatric AIDS until I understood the Spanish well enough to begin asking questions; then they answered them.

I work now in the Mayfield Community Clinic, which provides primary care to members of the Spanish-speaking community near Stanford University. My job as a patient advocate involves taking histories, performing simple procedures and providing family planning and HIV counseling. I try to use the knowledge I have gained from class and practice to formulate the right set of questions to ask each patient, but I am constantly reminded of how much I have to learn. I look at a baby and notice its cute, pudgy toes. Dr. V. plays with it while conversing with its mother, and in less than a minute has noted its responsiveness, strength, and attachment to its parent, and checked its reflexes, color and hydration. Gingerly, I search for the tympanic membrane in the ears of a cooperative child and touch an infant's warm, soft belly, willing my hands to have a measure of Dr. V.'s competence.

I first felt the need to be competent regarding the human body when I volunteered with the Amigos de Las Americas program in the town of T. in Lempira, Honduras. The hospital available to the people of T. (at a day's ride in the bed of a truck) was "where one went to die," so my partner and I, with our basic first aid certifications and our $15 Johnson & Johnson kits, quickly became makeshift "doctors". The responsibility initially created a heady feeling; a distressed mother called on us to bandage the toe her eight-year-old son had accidentally sliced to the bone with his machete. I told him the story of Beauty and the Beast in broken Spanish while my partner and I soaked the dirt from his toe, and during the following week we watched him heal.

Then our foster-mother, who normally tended to the sick, told my partner and me to "check on the foot" of D. The gentle-eyed, sixty-five year old man lay on his bed, his leg encased in bloody bandages from mid-calf to toe. After performing surgery, the hospital had given him a bottle of injectable antibiotics and some clean needles and sent him home without bandages or further instructions. My partner and I had not been trained to handle so serious a situation. We did not know what had happened; we did not know what the antibiotics were (or if they were actually antibiotics); we did not know if handling D.'s blood put us at risk for disease. We wanted to leave, but leaving the house meant leaving D. and betraying our foster-mother's trust. So we injected the antibiotics and cleaned and bandaged the wound every day for our remaining two weeks in Honduras although we felt ill-equipped for the responsibility, crippled by our ignorance and lack of supplies.

In T., I did not feel qualified to receive the trust the townspeople gave so willingly. As an HIV-antibody test counselor in California, I struggle everyday to win my clients' confidence. Somehow a twenty-one-year-old, Caucasian female must be sincere, knowledgeable and open enough to earn the respect of a fifty-five-year-old man who could be her father, a high school sophomore, an ex-drug addict, and a pregnant Latina woman. My clients are black, white, straight, gay, Ph.D. candidates and illiterate; some choose to come to me while others have court-orders. Yet to communicate effectively, each client must have enough confidence in me to engage in dialogue about his drug or sex life and to believe what I tell him, whether or not he chooses to act on our discussion.

Speaking with patients, doctors and community members has opened my eyes to some of the difficulties involved with healthcare provision, and I hope I have given some inspiration or comfort in exchange for the knowledge I have received. I want these lessons in openness and compassion to shape my understanding of medicine and allow me to become the type of doctor I admire.

 

From ESSAYS THAT WILL GET YOU INTO MEDICAL SCHOOL, by Amy Burnham, Daniel Kaufman, and Chris Dowhan.  Copyright 1998 by Dan Kaufman.  Reprinted by arrangement with Barron's Educational Series, Inc.