Why are there so many poorly written Personal Statements?

[acozadd]

I actually wrote my personal statement as a series of haikus.... chicks on the adcom dig haikus..

[EMEDPA]

I actually wrote my personal statement as a series of haikus.... chicks on the adcom dig haikus..

 

maybe the adcoms could write the rejection letters in haiku as well:

 

no experience

22 yr old wannabe

what is this crap

[acozadd]

maybe the adcoms could write the rejection letters in haiku as well:

 

no experience

22 yr old wannabe

what is this crap

 

Way over the hill

He's older than the cadavers

just retire please

 

... I'm joking about the haiku part, I can write a mean analytical/scientific paper but I lack the ability to write poems/stories. I actually just sent a picture of myself in a white coat with the message "for a good time call (my number)." They called, and I'm now in PA school :)

[just_me]

you missed an important option:

" it's hard to write about why you should get into pa school if your only "experience" is shadowing an ortho pa for 8 hrs and volunteering at the juice and cookies booth at a blood drive once".

 

I didnt work with PAs during my first clinical and I still dont--currently I work with 2 MDs and a ARNP

 

The only time I worked with a PA, I was in a non-clinical position.

 

I didnt find it hard to write about why I want to be a PA ....but I understand how lack of exposure could cause difficulty. A lot of that difficulty comes from people not completing simple research. I notice people coming here to ask simple questions about the profession because they want someone to give them the answer when it could have been answered with research. Heck I have seen several questions that could have been answered by reading wikipedia **eyeroll**. There are a few pre-pas that havent even read the homepage of the AAPA website much less the portion for pre-pas and students

[just_me]

were you wearing pants?

 

Way over the hill

He's older than the cadavers

just retire please

 

... I'm joking about the haiku part, I can write a mean analytical/scientific paper but I lack the ability to write poems/stories. I actually just sent a picture of myself in a white coat with the message "for a good time call (my number)." They called, and I'm now in PA school :)

[EMEDPA]

Way over the hill

He's older than the cadavers

just retire please

 

 

ran a 3:43

26.2 last year kid

not bad for old guy

 

ouch....I'm not as old as you think...I'm still 20 yrs+ from retirement.

 

ps your 2nd line needs 7 sylables, not 8 and your last needs 5 not 4.

5/7/5 baby.

[acozadd]

were you wearing pants?

 

Would you like a copy?

[acozadd]

ran a 3:43

26.2 last year kid

not bad for old guy

 

ouch....I'm not as old as you think...I'm still 20 yrs+ from retirement.

 

ps your 2nd line needs 7 sylables, not 8. 5/7/5 baby.

 

I was trying to copy the pattern of the one you posted... Solid job on the running EMED. I'd love to train for a marathon but I've already had 3 knee surgeries and a herniated disc l4/l5. My glory years are behind me, but I was a multi-year all state soccer player who played on a top 25 nationally ranked club team back in the day. Now I lift weights and run on an elliptical at the ripe old age of 22... :(

[just_me]

were you wearing pants? :-)

 

Would you like a copy?

[Iain1028]

Just an FYI, when I applied in 2006, CASPA word limit was a 500!!

 

So long ago, that was when men were men, and the sheep were scared!

 

 

Another point I just thought of, because there seems to be a fairly large deficit in actual hands on (solid) HCE these days in many applicants, they attempt to blow fluff up our butts, but it just comes across as amateur.

[acozadd]

Just an FYI, when I applied in 2006, CASPA word limit was a 500!!

 

So long ago, that was when men were men, and the sheep were scared!

 

 

Another point I just thought of, because there seems to be a fairly large deficit in actual hands on (solid) HCE these days in many applicants, they attempt to blow fluff up our butts, but it just comes across as amateur.

 

I thought last year when I applied it was limited to 500 words also? Could be wrong.

[EMEDPA]

Another point I just thought of, because there seems to be a fairly large deficit in actual hands on (solid) HCE these days in many applicants, they attempt to blow fluff up our butts, but it just comes across as amateur.

 

that was the point of my first post in this thread. really now, how interesting can you make a few hrs of shadowing and a project at a nursing home in the boy scouts for your eagle scourt badge sound?

[Iain1028]

talk to the schools about that. they are taking these good students over folks with hce. some of them have come to the conclusion that those non hce'ers are just as successful as us hce folks.

 

Dr. Stead had a different vision I guess.....

[Firemedic13]

I still blame the public school system... though EMEDPAs point about lack of HCE is a good one, as is the point that some are hoping we will write their essay. Look, if you can get through high school by showing up every third day high as a kite, then the people getting As in HS don't have to work as hard. I remember going to a public school outside Detroit my junior year and being the only person able to write a 5 paragraph essay. I am not kidding.

 

When these kids get to college the first two years become (by necessity, and especially at the state schools) classes on what they SHOULD have had in HS but the school had to leave out because they aren't allowed to fail anyone anymore. So if these kids take ENG 101 and 102 and then graduate with their BS they probably never had to write a single paper that anyone of us would consider college level.

[delco714]

I'm not going to post my PS now, but I never posted it and asked for suggestions last year when I applied. I did fine and look, I got accepted to my 1st choice (at 20yr old). I dunno my point of writing this... I guess it's okay to bounce ideas off others who have succeeded and stuff..

[EMSArtist]

I'm currently working one The Worst Personal Statement Ever. I'll post it when I feel I have mastered banality, poor grammar, worse syntax, failing structure, and sappy histrionics.

 

Then I'll write mine :-)

 

In all seriousness though, even a decent PS looks good in comparison, and I'm glad I'll be competing with some of these writers!!

[lbkiss]

The real problem is that people...don't...read. It's as simple as that. In my family, it wasn't up to the public schools I attended to teach kids how to speak or read. It was up to the families. It's called reading night, people. Half an hour a night before your kid goes to bed and they will get a perfect verbal SAT score like me, despite the horrid conditions of the school system. I have never lived in a city or town that did not have a free public library--everyone should be taking advantage of them more often. If you have read a lot, the schools don't have to start from square one with you. The ESL students in my childhood classes seemed to understand this better than the ones who grew up speaking English. They all read newspapers, novels for young adults, and magazines. By fifth grade, they had blown past most of the kids who had grown up in my hometown. The school system had very little to do with it.

[EMEDPA]

I'm currently working one The Worst Personal Statement Ever. I'll post it when I feel I have mastered banality, poor grammar, worse syntax, failing structure, and sappy histrionics.

 

 

Something like this:

I want to help people. ever since I learned about pa's last week when I talked to one at the grocery store it has been my life's ambition. I am halfway through my home ec. degree with a 2.5 gpa at nowhere state U.

math and science are hard but I get all b's in the classes that are not science related.

I spent almost 8 hrs shadowing a pa and know all about the profession. I know that I want to work in derm or plastic surgery so I can make a physician level salary and not take call. my daddy is a dr and says pa is a good job for girls. if you pick me I will make wicked margaritas for everyone in class once I turn 21 and can legally purchase alcohol.

[Firemedic13]

The real problem is that people...don't...read. It's as simple as that.

 

You might have a point here. People who don't read for pleasure or information generally don't do as well at writing. Between the poor writing available on the internet, television, and video games many (too many) people simply aren't exposed to good uses of the english language in written form.

[Firemedic13]

Something like this:

I want to help people. ever since I learned about pa's last week when I talked to one at the grocery store it has been my life's ambition. I am halfway through my home ec. degree with a 2.5 gpa at nowhere state U.

math and science are hard but I get all b's in the classes that are not science related.

I spent almost 8 hrs shadowing a pa and know all about the profession. I know that I want to work in derm or plastic surgery so I can make a physician level salary and not take call. my daddy is a dr and says pa is a good job for girls. if you pick me I will make wicked margaritas for everyone in class once I turn 21 and can legally purchase alcohol.

 

I like that one. It inspired me to write one with even more truth in it:

 

Hi! My gaol in life is to some day became a physician's assistant. I have spend perhaps three or four hours doing resaerch on the internets about PAs and realised that this is the easist way for me to get paid a bunch of money while working as little as possible. I am basically lasy and have no real interest in doing more than the minimum. Also, I want to have a family and I believe raising them in an environment where mommy/daddy does only the mimimum and spends a lots of money on my kids would be best. I really wants to say that I will make an crappy PA who will make all of the rest of you look bad. But because I was able to get into classes with all my new BFFs and copy their homework enough to get Cs on my tests which averaged with my HW excellence came to Bs. That and my sociology classes in which I totally agreed with everything the teacher said to get As I totaly have one of those 3.6 GPAs. I also used a lot of stuff off the internet. Did you know you can get, like, whole papers written for you? After a little work you can totally turn them in, and then, like I felt I learned something from them too. I mean, you have to read them before you make them sound like yours, you know? So, I am planning to get a EMT-B certification sometime soon so that I can volunteer for 3 or 4 days at a fire station that never actually runs calls, but will allow me to take pictures in front of the big fire truck to post on FB for all my friends. Obviosly you don't care about my HCE experience as a school or you wouldn't have let my friend ______ in who did the same thing. Anyways, I would just like to say it is really important to me to make a lot of money in a job where I can totally play up my experiences as compassionate to the opposite/same sex and someday have a house with a pool for my friends from HS to totally envy me.

 

******** You know what is really sad? There are at least three or four people in these forums who are actually like the above. I know most aren't, but you know I speak the truth. Also, I got my BA in sociology, so don't go ragging me if you got a HO for Soc... It is a joke, kay?

[EMSArtist]

My patient looked up at me pleedingly and said "am I gonna die"? I told her "I'm not gonna let that happen", and in that moment I knew that I could save her, but I wanted to be able to do more. All of my life I have wanted to be a doctor, and when I went to college I Studied really hard, but it wasn't good enough and I olny got a 3.5 GPA with a 3.0 Science GPA. I went ahead and took my MCAT too, but didn't score well enough to apply or be accepted so I thought my dreams were over and that I would never be able to help people again in my life.

 

After my failed try for medical school I went to business school where I did really well. I almost got my MBA, but I decided that I really want to help people because so many people have so much less than me, and I know that I can help them. Then I went to school to get my Emergency Technisians liscense. I passed the class just barley but I got my license and started volunteering at the local firehouse, and I got to see lots of patients. While I was volunteering I slammed my hand in a door and went to see a doctor at the ER, but I was told I had to see a PA. She was really nice and took the time to show me my exrays and explained to me that my hand wans't broken, but it still probably hurt a lot because I had crushed the bejeezsus out of it.

After meeting the physicians' assistant I decided to learn more about them. I found out that even if I couldn't be a doctor I could go to physicians assistant school and help people, and I can even get it done in too years and then I can get married and have a family and a life and make almost as much as I would have if I had become the doctor I wanted to be. The really nice Physicians assistant in the ED let me shadow her for a day and I decided that I liked how she never actually had to talk to the doctor about how to treat people and how she was nice to every patient and copmassionate.

 

I decided to keep volunteering at the firehouse and got to save a patients life when we got to her house and she was having a stroke and I helped her into the ambulance and got her to the hospital less than 4 hours after she started having a headache. This moment solidified my knowledge that I am destined to help people, and I think that my experience shadowing PA Smith at the ER and my volunteer work have provided me with excellent skills and along with my innate compassion I have the traits of a successful Physicians assistant.

 

***This is probably insulting to a lot of people- it is intended as humor and only humor- all situations depicted here are false except those drawn from personal experience (if you wanna know you can ask me privately)- and yes this hurt to write***

[EMEDPA]

emsartist- I'm sure I have seen that one here before...you stole it!....:)

[EMSArtist]

I did- it's an important trait of The Worst Personal Statement (TWPS) to have large chunks badly plagiarized. It's especially important to have those plagiarized bits be totally incoherent and unrelated to the rest of the text.

 

Actually writing TWPS is hard work. You have to scan the PS threads for every negative comment, and then compile to find common mistakes, then forget everything you have ever learned about writing and creatively reinterpret these common themes into a new and wholly awful text.

 

OMG! It's like totally post-modern!!

 

PS I'm curious as to the score this would get from certain pithy commentators- anything above a 10% on the RottenTomatoes scale is completely unacceptable.

[rev ronin]

Gaah, they're too painful to read, I'm afraid. I really do love eloquent writing, and bad prose is downright painful to read.

[Evan]

EMS - when I read your example of TWPS I laughed so hard I almost blew Diet Pepsi out of my nose... The MAs thought I was having a stroke...

 

If I may make one small suggestion to improve an otherwise excellent effort: you might have included some text abreviations (like LOL). That would make the whole thing look quite a bit less professional...

 

I've been suckered in to replying to a couple of these PS threads lately mostly because something they say catches my interest (a story about a cancer patient, for one) but I think I'll try to keep my advice to myself from now on...

 

Great thread, Iain... Another triumph!