ngilly17 Posted June 21, 2018 Share Posted June 21, 2018 This is my first draft and I would love some feedback as soon as possible. Thank you! Personal Statement CASPA.docx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lctexas4 Posted June 21, 2018 Share Posted June 21, 2018 Hi, I am a first time applicant this cycle so take my advice for what its worth... In my opinion, you spend a lot of time in the opening paragraph describing a story, and while it may be critical to why you chose to pursue the PA profession, I feel that you could say the same thing with much fewer characters. I know with my own essay, I tried to make every single sentence matter. If it wasn't absolutely essential information, I cut it out and used the extra characters to explain what I learned from a situation, why I was a good candidate and why a school should choose me. I also think you went into probably more detailed than you needed regarding the academic misconduct issue. Again, find a way to say the same thing in no more than 2-3 sentences. You mention at the end of the story that you learned from this mistake. What did you learn? How will this incident make you a better student? A better PA? Utilize more characters to demonstrate how you grew from the situation and less characters simply describing it. As a whole, I think you need to talk a lot more about yourself. I feel that you spend too much time describing the patient and her conditions in your opening paragraph. Consider cutting out some of the patient background and still mentioning the incident, but also using that as as opening to talk about how your scribing experience as a whole has impacted you and your decision to pursue the PA profession. You are wanting to be selected out of hundreds and possibly thousands of other applicants. What makes you stand out? What can you contribute to your school and to the profession that will make an admissions committee member want to choose you? These are the questions I asked myself when writing my personal statement. Ultimately its up to you, but I might refrain from saying things like "I now understand every aspect of a patient’s chart. I can comprehend why a PA or doctor orders certain labs, imaging, and medication for a patient after initial contact. "...this might come across as being somewhat presumptuous. While you may have gained a great amount of knowledge from scribing, it is still an entry level position and it might rub some admissions committees the wrong way if you say you can comprehend the critical thinking and decision making behind ordering labs or prescribing medicine. Thats just my two cents though. In general, you want to make the admissions committee understand why you have chosen to tell them each thing in your personal statement. What learning value did you gain from the experience/difficulty, and how it will make you a better PA. Talk about you more because this is the only opportunity they have to see who you are a part from your GPA and hours on your application. Of course feel free to disregard everything I said. As I mentioned, I am a first time applicant so my opinion may not count for much, but I do hope that something I said helps you in some way! Personally, I rewrote my statement twice and edited it down another 5-6 times before I really liked it and felt it was a good representation of who I was and what I hope to contribute. I would seek more opinions from people you trust and also ask some medical professionals if you have any that are accessible to you. Good luck!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hmtpnw Posted June 22, 2018 Share Posted June 22, 2018 I agree with the above about the first paragraph. It could be condensed into a few sentences. It reads like a patient history. It’s MUCH more important to explain what you learned from interactions with patients than it is to display medical knowledge or patient history. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ngilly17 Posted June 22, 2018 Author Share Posted June 22, 2018 Thank you for the quick feedback! I really needed a first draft to finally work with and get an idea of what to change on it. I will conduct a new draft and post it in here. Hopefully you two can provide some more input. Thanks again!. @lctexas4 @hmtpnw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lctexas4 Posted June 22, 2018 Share Posted June 22, 2018 2 hours ago, ngilly17 said: Thank you for the quick feedback! I really needed a first draft to finally work with and get an idea of what to change on it. I will conduct a new draft and post it in here. Hopefully you two can provide some more input. Thanks again!. @lctexas4 @hmtpnw No problem! I know my first and final draft were much different from each other. I will be on the lookout for your next draft if you end up wanting feedback on it as well. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ngilly17 Posted June 25, 2018 Author Share Posted June 25, 2018 Here's the second draft. I condensed some things and talked more about myself in this one like what I learned and things of that nature. Let me know what you think @lctexas4 @hmtpnw PersonalStatementCASPA.docx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hmtpnw Posted June 25, 2018 Share Posted June 25, 2018 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1F620Hb1-1mWjqA3ZXzq9tqhF9xkam3dXyaWd0LHIdkw/edit?usp=sharing Overall I still think it needs some work. Right now both the intro and conclusion aren't memorable, for different reasons that I have listed in the edits. Your paragraph about work experience needs to be focused around why you want to be a PA. I really think that you spend too much time addressing the weak points of your application and it takes away from you being able to explain who you are and what is interesting about you. It draws a lot of attention to the negatives and there aren't a lot of positives you mention to outweigh that. More detailed edits are in the google doc, but those are just my general feelings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kpdfuturePA Posted June 25, 2018 Share Posted June 25, 2018 Make sure you mention the woman from your intro into your conclusion. Your essay should come full circle. Also I would work on making your introduction a little stronger. It needs a hook. Something that makes the reader think "I gotta keep reading!" Go into more detail about the experience with the woman having a heart attack. Why was THIS experience so important to you? How does it play into your desire to become a PA? Obviously this experience is very important to you (you're choosing to write about this experience compared to many others I'm sure you've had) so make the reader feel that. And then tie all that into your conclusion at the end. Remember that your essay has to stand out! But also remember that it's a draft. Your draft is going to be day and night compared to your final result. Also a tip, if you get stressed with your essay, take a break for a few days (or a week in my case) and then come back to it. Coming back with fresh eyes will make all the difference! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ngilly17 Posted June 26, 2018 Author Share Posted June 26, 2018 7 hours ago, kpdfuturePA said: Make sure you mention the woman from your intro into your conclusion. Your essay should come full circle. Also I would work on making your introduction a little stronger. It needs a hook. Something that makes the reader think "I gotta keep reading!" Go into more detail about the experience with the woman having a heart attack. Why was THIS experience so important to you? How does it play into your desire to become a PA? Obviously this experience is very important to you (you're choosing to write about this experience compared to many others I'm sure you've had) so make the reader feel that. And then tie all that into your conclusion at the end. Remember that your essay has to stand out! But also remember that it's a draft. Your draft is going to be day and night compared to your final result. Also a tip, if you get stressed with your essay, take a break for a few days (or a week in my case) and then come back to it. Coming back with fresh eyes will make all the difference! In my first draft I went into too much detail about the experience so I cut it down quite a bit in my second draft. I may implement more of those details in this 3rd draft. Thank you for the input! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ngilly17 Posted June 26, 2018 Author Share Posted June 26, 2018 Sorry to keep bugging but here is a third draft. I appreciate your guys suggestions. I think my PS has already improved quite a bit from the first draft. I'm still kind of struggling on what to do with the introduction and conclusion without using more characters. I changed it up a bit a bit but just let me know what you think! @lctexas4 @kpdfuturePA @hmtpnw PersonalStatementCASPA.docx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kpdfuturePA Posted June 26, 2018 Share Posted June 26, 2018 I'm linking a couple websites that really helped me when writing my essay last cycle. I think taking a look at these will help guide you and maybe show you what's missing from your essay. https://www.thepalife.com/31-physician-assistant-personal-statement-examples/ https://www.thepalife.com/mistakes/ There's one more that was extremely helpful but I can't find it. lol But when I do, I'll send it to you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sxc23 Posted June 30, 2018 Share Posted June 30, 2018 Hi, there! I used myPAresource to help me with my personal statement. I would HIGHLY recommend using their revision services. It is quite pricey (around $100-120 for 1 revision or you can get packages). But they helped me immensely on my PS. My PS started off very similar to yours where it was a bit wordy with longer paragraphs and I focused too much on my negatives. Everything you mentioned is important, but I think you should focus more on the experiences that have motivated you to become a PA and what you've done throughout undergrad. I would possibly cut out a lot of the information about the W for the course and maybe cut down the entire paragraph about your GPA. This explanation is important, but I feel like you could dedicate more to other aspects of your experiences. They might ask you about this when you get interviews, and then maybe you can elaborate more on that. As someone said earlier, a hook is VERY important. I feel that this determines how interested the committee will be in the rest of your PS. I think many people start with catchy anecdotes. Personally, I opened with myself holding a baby with cerebral palsy at the orphanage I was adopted from in China (where I went back to visit) and how this experience made me wonder what kind of healthcare this baby would receive in the future. I then ended the last paragraph with the rest of that experience. There are many different ways you could do this! This is YOUR story. It's great that you included some information that shows you understand the PA profession, but I think you should show how this would help you in your goals. Overall, I think you need to include a lot more about yourself and sell yourself based on what you've accomplished/done throughout undergrad, but also show what kind of person you are. This is something the PA who revised my PS twice also advised me to do. Something that really helped me was taking breaks and coming back to writing my essay every few days. When I tried to do it all in one sitting, it didn't work as well. Hope that all helps some! Good luck!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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