Mos6581 Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 When I first saw the 0/5000 at the bottom of the CASPA personal statement window, I assumed it was 5,000 word maximum. Come to find out it is 5,000 character maximum which is an absolute joke. First, who in this day and age measures typed written essays in characters? In my entire academic career I have never had a class that had a written response measured in characters and not words. The only thing I have ever seen measured in charcters is on a cell phone with twitter, and the reason twitter measures in characters is because of how little of space it allows. But hey, maybe CASPA is wanting us to type the 5,000 character essay on our cell phones with such little space. Second, this is the rest of our lives we are talking about here. This is not some tweet we are sending to Becky on facebook. By not allowing more space you are limiting our ability to explain and express why and how we came to our decision on applying to PA school. This is a graduate degree for crying out loud, only allowing 5,000 characters is an absolute joke. I've seen more space on essays applying for clubs on campus. I've seen more space on essays applying for scholorships. I've literally seen more space for reviewing a toaster on Amazon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disciple3 Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 I think that anyone can make themselves look better given a huge amount of space to list any/all experiences/motivations/accomplishments. The point of it is to make yourself look compelling and to do so in a concise and effective manner. It is seriously one of the most challenging essays to write given the limited space. I'd say the key really is to show you want to "help people". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mos6581 Posted August 24, 2015 Author Share Posted August 24, 2015 I think that anyone can make themselves look better given a huge amount of space to list any/all experiences/motivations/accomplishments. The point of it is to make yourself look compelling and to do so in a concise and effective manner. It is seriously one of the most challenging essays to write given the limited space. I'd say the key really is to show you want to "help people". One could have the same response for why Twitter should be a platform for intellectual conversation and discussion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disciple3 Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 All I can say is you have to play the game like everyone else, keep in mind the adcoms have to read ~2000 of these depending on the school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator rev ronin Posted August 24, 2015 Administrator Share Posted August 24, 2015 You kids these days... We had to write a personal statement in 3700 characters, and we liked it that way! :-) Seriously, it's an exercise in written communication. You can't say everything, so you have to pick what to say that has the biggest impact, say it concisely and well, and then quit. As was mentioned above, everyone has to fit in the same space, but I'm serious that it was about 1/3 shorter just a few cycles ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RealityCheck Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 I am old and we didn't have personal statements and every school had a separate application...... My school was more interested in what I WANTED to accomplish than anything else and now I am 25 yrs in. I would not be accepted into PA schhol these days due to the health experience requirements but I had a good GPA. My interview is what got me in. I haven't seen an application recently but can only imagine how impersonal it must be. It is what it is -- but I don't care for the depersonalization of anything - wait till you get to EHRs....... Express yourself and believe in yourself - not much else to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DiggySRNA Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 You want more than 5000 characters (~750 words) to explain why you'll be a good fit as a PA? Why? This is not a research proposal, and adcoms for sure don't want to read a long drawn out version of your resume. One of my former professors required a final paper (no word limit) for their class and you're graded on the content of your essay rather than the length. Anyone can write a 10 page fluff paper, but it takes a scholar to produce a well polished literature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilovelost Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 I think the PA admission teams would cry if the essays were allowed to be longer. :p I had many different drafts because I kept cutting back. 5,000 characters was a challenge, but its reasonable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator True Anomaly Posted August 24, 2015 Moderator Share Posted August 24, 2015 When I first saw the 0/5000 at the bottom of the CASPA personal statement window, I assumed it was 5,000 word maximum. Come to find out it is 5,000 character maximum which is an absolute joke. First, who in this day and age measures typed written essays in characters? In my entire academic career I have never had a class that had a written response measured in characters and not words. The only thing I have ever seen measured in charcters is on a cell phone with twitter, and the reason twitter measures in characters is because of how little of space it allows. But hey, maybe CASPA is wanting us to type the 5,000 character essay on our cell phones with such little space. Second, this is the rest of our lives we are talking about here. This is not some tweet we are sending to Becky on facebook. By not allowing more space you are limiting our ability to explain and express why and how we came to our decision on applying to PA school. This is a graduate degree for crying out loud, only allowing 5,000 characters is an absolute joke. I've seen more space on essays applying for clubs on campus. I've seen more space on essays applying for scholorships. I've literally seen more space for reviewing a toaster on Amazon. And yet, we've all done it successfully. Play the game, do the essay, and if you become a PA then you can take over CASPA and change whatever you want to Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious_Ignoramus Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 Is this a real post? Every of the 3 colleges I attended measured essays in character count. There are quite literally 10s of 1000s of students who apply to PA school every year who manage to squeeze a narrative into 5000 characters, you can do the same. It is quite literally like writing any other paper. Start with a rough draft. Does it meet the requirements? How long is it? Edit, review, edit, review, edit, review, edit. There is a subforum on this site devoted just for PS reviews. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishbum Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 "Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief." -Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2 There is far, far more skill involved in writing with a few words than with many. Check out the PS threads...you don't have to count characters to know which ones are too long. You know because at some point you stop paying attention. I'm kind of thankful for the character limit...it helped keep me from droning on and on about nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyM2 Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 I have reviewed a lot of PSs on this forum and all of them, both well written and poorly written suffered from excessive wordiness. When I was getting my MBA we had a communications course in which we were asked to write a 1500 word paper to be handed in the next day. The next day, we all showed up ready to hand in our papers and the professor said: "I want you all to go home tonight and rewrite the paper, eliminating half the words, without leaving out any of the key ideas." Though we all moaned, I was surprised to see how easy it was. When my daughter wrote her PS, she told me she originally had nearly 8,000 characters, had managed to whittle it down to around 7,000 and wondered what ideas she should leave out to get to 5,000. It took several hours, but we got down to 4,995 characters without eliminating any of the original meaning. Sometimes, it means eliminating extra words that actually clutter things up without adding anything. Sometimes, it means rewritting whole sentences to make them shorter. Often we repeat ideas in an essay, saying essentially the same thing two or three times in different ways. All of these things make an essay difficult to read. Reviewers are not interested in your life history; even less so in your family life history. You need to make your case in 5,000 characters. Period. No joke! Try it. You may be surprised. Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAGuy55 Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 So much trololol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PzawifetoPA Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 I started with just a little over 7000 characters and managed to get it down to 4999! yeah me!!! I can not imagine having to read so many essays longer than the required amount. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RealityCheck Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 I am still completely curious about this whole process since it did not exist when I went to school. Perhaps I should read some of these if they are available. If I were on a committee to admit people to PA school - in all honesty - the absolute last thing I would want to read is a contrived statement of any kind. People with perfect GPAs are often socially retarded or cannot communicate effectively. My pharmacology professor was a Nobel prize winner but couldn't teach students to save his life. People with "meh" GPAs often have overcome obstacles or possess "seat of the pants" smarts that make awesome practitioners. So, I just don't see how 5000 characters could convince me that someone should be in PA school. You walk in to my business and want to place a job application and your pants are down to your knees and you say things like "brah" and "dude" and you lisp because your tongue is pierced and you can't hold a rational conversation - I will not hire you unless it is a skateboard shop I own.................... I would hope to see how a potential student would handle a situation or communicate with a colleague or treats people and THEN look at their GPA, etc. So, sorry to be a butt - but, this whole personal statement thing bugs me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishbum Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 Perhaps I should read some of these if they are available. You might want to be careful with that...if you find the idea of the essay esoteric, you're going to hate the way some of us write them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RealityCheck Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 My fear is that the statements are akin to Miss America -- "Well, I want to end world hunger. All those starving children I see on TV...." Sorry if that seems callous. I would be much more interested to put an applicant in a room with me and a patient and see how the student interacts or reacts to the patient in the most basic interview. Interacting with patients and listening is huge and something that the PA profession has prided itself on as long as I have been around. The BEST compliment I get from a patient is that I took the time and offered ideas they could understand. PAs are cultivated in my opinion. 5000 characters can't show me that potential.... My two cents Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyM2 Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 RealityCheck, I agree with your personal interview comments but, as for the length of the essay, I'm not sure 10,000 characters would be any more helpful. So many PSs are loaded with extraneous words and ideas as well as repetition that you are likely to just get longer essays that say the same thing. Also, I find that most applicants find it difficult to really make the case for wanting to be a PA. When I see this: "When I was a little girl, I saw a PA who let me listen to my heart with her stethoscope and I knew, then, that I wanted to be a PA so I could do the same thing for my patients," I think BS. It sounds cute and all but to say you found your passion for medicine from that encounter is really lame. Nurses, doctors, PAs, EMTs, med techs, etc all do things to help patients but choosing from among these careers requires some reflection about your strengths, weaknesses, interests, life goals and financial goals, among other things. A seven year old just isn't capable of doing that. Apparently, many adults also lack that ability. Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GetMeOuttaThisMess Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 I would rather have someone explain to me the relevance of the Kreb cycle as opposed to just the glycolytic pathway in relation to human existence in ten words or less. That way I know if you can learn and also grasp the big picture at the same time. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RealityCheck Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 I probably wouldn't read the essays to be honest. If someone was blatant enough to say "I want a career with the possibility of making $100K a year" - round file.................. survey says XXXX - wrong motivation. I agree, flowery epiphany type statements are equally nauseating. I don't know how I would say it and not have it sound like drivel. My first degree was in Marketing and I figured out I didn't want to sell anything to anyone for any reason. My family told me I was too bossy and hardheaded to be a nurse - came from a bunch of nurses.............(hard to say outloud sometimes) Not sure how I could have worded it. I never had to write this statement and am ultimately thankful......................... I can write a stellar chart note and paint you an amazing picture of a patient. I'll stick with that for now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmw8820 Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 honestly, I think there's a good reason behind it. I made the same mistake when I started writing, thinking it was a 5,000 word count (which is extremely high if you think about it. Even essays for undergrad apps were normally a 500 word limit, not 5,000). Once I noticed the mistake, it was a great thing for my essay. It really helped me get down to the important points and get rid of all the wordiness and fluff that wasn't necessary. CASPA wants to see how well you sell yourself in 5,000 characters. It really is a smart tactic. Like one of you mentioned, sometimes those with the higher GPAS, etc don't always make the better PA because they often times are "socially retarded"... While an essay may not necessarily be able to sell your skill or knowledge set, sometimes it's the personality they are looking for, because it does take a certain type of person to make a good PA, just like in any profession. There's typically a trend in personality. Especially because I'm sure there are some students who may not have the academic side to reflect their abilities; just because a student doesn't do well on standardized tests and has a low GRE score, doesn't mean they can't be a successful PA. Same thing for the GPA- who cares if a student can spit some material back out on a test if they can't apply it to real life? I would rather have a student who does average in the classroom because they have a hard time taking tests but has outstanding clinical skills than have an above average student who is a crappy clinician. I know adcomms look for the students who are above average in both, I get that, but the reality is that every PA program can't possibly fill every single seat with that picture perfect student. Or maybe they can, I'm not an adcomm member so I wouldn't know. Anyway, I digress. I feel like the point of the essay it to show adcomms the side of you that you can't see on a resume. Your voice. If it takes you more than 5,000 charactes to do that, you probably haven't found that voice yet, which also means you have probably not reached the maturity level to be ready for PA school. You need to know who you are as a person first before you decide "what you want to be when you grow up." Adcomms don't want to waste their time rolling the dice on an indecisive student or one that isn't ready for the challenges of PA school. It's just one more tool they can utilize to rule out unqualified candidates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NEB1985 Posted September 18, 2015 Share Posted September 18, 2015 When I first saw the 0/5000 at the bottom of the CASPA personal statement window, I assumed it was 5,000 word maximum. Come to find out it is 5,000 character maximum which is an absolute joke. First, who in this day and age measures typed written essays in characters? In my entire academic career I have never had a class that had a written response measured in characters and not words. The only thing I have ever seen measured in charcters is on a cell phone with twitter, and the reason twitter measures in characters is because of how little of space it allows. But hey, maybe CASPA is wanting us to type the 5,000 character essay on our cell phones with such little space. Second, this is the rest of our lives we are talking about here. This is not some tweet we are sending to Becky on facebook. By not allowing more space you are limiting our ability to explain and express why and how we came to our decision on applying to PA school. This is a graduate degree for crying out loud, only allowing 5,000 characters is an absolute joke. I've seen more space on essays applying for clubs on campus. I've seen more space on essays applying for scholorships. I've literally seen more space for reviewing a toaster on Amazon. Maybe you should consider a different career path... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skyfall Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 Just imagine the people who have to read 1000+ essays when reviewing applications. Keep it concise and sincere! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OLW2018 Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 My personal statement was 3900 characters. Brief, concise, and compelling. Had no problem with the limit! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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