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Can you reuse your personal statement?


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You should be able to use some of the main themes throughout, but it's important to improve your essay by discussing what you've done SINCE last year to make yourself a better applicant.  Also, you don't want them reviewing your file from the year prior and realizing you used the same essay out of laziness...

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  • 3 weeks later...

It depends.  Your personal statement, along with the rest of your application, got you the interview.  It was enough to make them want to meet you.  You also made their waitlist, so you didn't tank your interview (but might be worth looking at how you could do even better there).  Keep in mind that there's no guarantee they'll re-interview you next application cycle.  I didn't (I did get more than a dozen interviews and multiple acceptances the following year, however, the school I wanted, where I'd been waitlisted, didn't even offer me another interview).

 

Are you only applying to that one school?  If so, yes, you might take a hard look at your essay and shift the focus and/or start from scratch.  But you also can't just assume that the AdComm will be all the same people.  

 

Are you applying to multiple schools?  Make sure you consider how an essay that focuses on what you've done in one short year might appear to schools that didn't offer you an interview last year ... or to schools that are seeing your application for the first time.  

 

I didn't change my essay much at all.  My motivation for becoming a PA and how I got here hadn't changed one iota ... and that's the question your CASPA is supposed to answer.  What I'd done in the past year to continue to improve myself as a future clinician was already captured in the stats and other sections of my application.  I did improve some wording in my essay, added a few details here and there as you can almost always find ways to improve something you've written 6 or more months ago, but I only added a few sentences along the lines of "over the past year, I've continued to XXX, as well as xxx" - just enough to draw their attention to those details that were already added to the application (coursework, experience, etc.).  

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  • 2 weeks later...

You should be able to use some of the main themes throughout, but it's important to improve your essay by discussing what you've done SINCE last year to make yourself a better applicant.  Also, you don't want them reviewing your file from the year prior and realizing you used the same essay out of laziness...

Hi paprof! I didn't want to start a new thread so I decided to ask you here if that's okay. I'm working on my personal statement; lately I have been stumbling pretty often on articles about personal statements and statements of purpose written in LaTeX (like this one - Why to Submit Your Personal Statement in LaTeX Format?) But I didn't find anything about LaTeX on the sites of schools I'm applying to. Can you give your opinion on this? Is it important to write a ps in LaTeX?

Thanks! And sorry for taking your time!  

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  • 2 months later...

Hi paprof! I didn't want to start a new thread so I decided to ask you here if that's okay. I'm working on my personal statement; lately I have been stumbling pretty often on articles about personal statements and statements of purpose written in LaTeX (like this one - Why to Submit Your Personal Statement in LaTeX Format?) But I didn't find anything about LaTeX on the sites of schools I'm applying to. Can you give your opinion on this? Is it important to write a ps in LaTeX?

Thanks! And sorry for taking your time!  

I was also wondering about this so it would be great if anyone could give a proper answer :D

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm same boat as far as interviewing at multiple places & then being waitlisted. I am you're playing the cycle. For my personal statement, I wrote about different things as far as what led me to this point of wanting to become a PA patient interactions I've had that made an impact on me and also a little other sprinkled details about the population I live in etc. But how do I address things that I've improved since my last application cycle if the school has a supplemental essay for re-applicants asking the same thing? I'm at a crossroads because I don't want to write the same thing twice so I'm not sure how to address that. suggestions? My last question is if I'm applying to a couple programs I didn't apply to last year will they frown upon me talking about my improvements from the previous cycle or will it not matter?

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