Firstly let’s look at what your personal statement should include…
What you have to demonstrate:
- Your motivation
- How you have demonstrated your commitment and interest e.g work experience and wider reading
- Qualities that show your suitability for the course/ being a doctor
- Reflection/ realistic insight – do you understand the difficulties of being a doctor?
- A bit about your hobbies and how this allows you to achieve a work-life balance
1. Look at university specific guidance
Look at the guidance given by the universities you’re applying to about what they look for in a successful personal statement. For example, some universities emphasise evidence of clinical work experience whilst other value extra-curricular details.
Especially with Oxbridge, there is an emphasis on super- curricular activities as opposed to extra-curricular, i.e how you have demonstrated engagement with medicine rather than your hobbies.
By looking for this information you can tailor your personal statement to your top university, but make sure you don’t sway too heavily to one ‘format’ – even an Oxbridge personal statement should appeal to all the other universities.
Just as a side note, it might also be helpful to look into how each university uses your personal statement, for example, some universities don’t even read it, others only read it after interviews whilst some even choose to score them.
2. Have a theme
This is not an absolute essential but having an overarching theme to your personal statement can help it feel more cohesive, especially when you introduce it at the start and explore different elements of that theme in your main body and finally summarise it in the conclusion ( cyclical structure)
For example, some potential themes are the evolution of medicine, the holistic nature of medicine, qualities that are important for a good doctor etc. In this way, you may begin by giving an example from your work experience or volunteering that resonated with you and emphasise a certain aspect of the theme above. For example, after talking an elderly patient bed bound out the fear of falling again I appreciated the importance of not simply addressing the physical aspects but also the mental and emotional ones too- you could even add in a bit about the different roles of the multidisciplinary team in achieving this goal.
3. Show your motivation with examples
Motivation to study a degree in medicine comes in two main broad categories
- You want to help people
- You have an interest in science
Whilst these are the most common reasons they are by no means to be overlooked, just don’t simply write about them in a cliche way.
Give your own personal examples and experience e.g Why do you want to help people? Where have you enjoyed doing this? What impact did it have? What interests do you have in science specifically? What have you done to pursue these interests?
Other things you could add alongside this could be:
- Your desire to contribute to research
- Your interest in public/ global health
4. Demonstrate qualities that show your suitability
As you know, a successful medical applicant requires not only the academic ability but also the necessary interpersonal skills- give examples of where you have demonstrated this- you could also link the importance of this skill to a doctor you shadowed on your work experience (if you perhaps did some before Covid-19 hit!).
Another way to understand the importance of these qualities is to read the GMC Good Medical Practice guidance (this is also a good read pre-interviews)
One of the best ways of getting started is to link your experiences and examples to particular qualities needed for a good medical school/ doctor.
Stuck for ideas? Here are some things you can do to clearly demonstrate these skills
| Commitment | Wider reading e.g books, articles, contribute to societies in school e.g lead discussions at MedSoc / BioSoc, do essay competitions, long term volunteering |
| Discipline | Musical instrument practice, dance or sports |
| Leadership | Leadership roles in school/ Mentor a younger pupil in your school/ tutoring/ organising an event at school, run a club at school |
| Teamwork | Sports, dance, example from work experience, group projects or competitions |
| Empathy | Volunteering at a care home, volunteering at a primary school or a special needs school, working with the homeless. |
| Compassion | Volunteering, peer mentoring (similar to the empathy example) |
| Organisation | Organising events e.g a fundraiser, time management with your other hobbies |
| Insight | Do you understand the difficulties of being a doctor? Any examples from your work experience? E.g long hours, emotional impacts, working pressures, books you’ve read |
| Time management | What other hobbies and interests do you have? E.g sports, music, debating etc. Do you have a job that you manage alongside school work? |
| Proactive | This relates to the leadership aspect, solving problems proactively, organising events, e.g having a leadership role in school. |
If you’re finding it hard to start writing, brainstorming ideas of how you have demonstrated these skills is an easy way- make some rough paragraphs about your different experiences and the qualities you’ve developed or realised were important.
5. Keep it simple. Don’t use flowery language. Don’t exaggerate.
It is easy to labour over it for weeks on end, trying to make it a masterpiece but this is not the purpose of it. Excessively flowery language can detract from the personal statement’s simple purpose and can seem disingenuous. Keep it clear, conscience and show your enthusiasm.
For example, avoiding cliches (especially for the introduction) and overly strong adjectives- keep it real. They’re not looking for amazing writers but potential medical students with genuine enthusiasm and commitment.
6. Make it flow by linking the paragraphs
Linking paragraphs is a great way of creating flow in your personal statement- it also makes it much easier to structure.
One way to do this organically and with little effort is to link your motivation with a particular experience and that with some extra reading.
E.g I volunteered at a dementia care home which encouraged me to explore more about the realities of living with dementia even before getting to a care home. To further my understanding I read Wendy Mitchell’s Memoir ‘Somebody I used to know’.- you could go even further and express your interest in dementia pathology and perhaps mention how you led a discussion at BioSoc in school.
Using this technique, draw on specifics on how this increased your awareness and reflect on its importance. A similar idea would be seeing a particular condition on your work experience and then researching more about it and to go even further you could give a short presentation to your peers at your MedSoc or BioSoc to share what you have learnt. Be proactive!
One way to maintain coherence in your writing is to signpost the different paragraphs – do this in the first sentence e.g This led me to read… to pursue this further I arranged work experience… Furthermore…
7. Look for opportunities and go for them
Summer schools and university workshops/ subject talks are great ways to show your interest but given the current situation they’re not the easiest to access.
Instead look for online resources, for example, online webinars and Q&As with doctors- where you can gain more insight into life as a doctor and its challenges. Look for online university open days, this can be a good way to ask questions you may have to current students.
One thing that I did was participate in an essay competition, a quick google search of biology/ medicine related essay competitions are a great way of not only showing enthusiasm but also your skills in research and writing (or at least that you’re willing to improve them!) I didn’t win any prizes from mine but it was a great learning opportunity- overcome the fear and give it a go! It’s all about the growth mindset.
Perhaps now you could start a MedSoc newsletter that you could send to your peers- this is an easy way to show your commitment. Collate some interesting articles in the science field and write a summary and your thoughts and ask friends if they’d like to do the same. Things are much more fun when you can collaborate.
8. If you’re applying to Oxbridge show your interest in science
When I was applying for Cambridge many people advised that I include a small scientific element to the personal statement, whether it be a particular disease you’ve come across or an article you’ve read. There is a somewhat unspoken requirement that if you mention science you must also demonstrate a reasonable amount of extended research behind it (especially before attending an interview), i.e you should know more than the average person about it.
For example, I mentioned coming across dengue in Sri Lanka, and how I researched the causes, treatment of disease and public health management. I think at an interview for example it would be reasonable for them to ask about how dengue affects the body, what type of pathogen it is caused by, why are certain treatments chosen etc.
So just a heads up, you should only mention things that you would feel comfortable researching and talking about in greater detail.
9. Make it your own.
Don’t compare your experiences with others. There will be some people that will seem to have done every sort of work experience possible, GP, surgery, pharmacy etc. This can feel overwhelming and make your own experiences feel worthless- but don’t worry it’s all about the reflections.
A couple of thoughtful, well reflected experiences go a long way and with only 4000 characters you can’t possibly write about everything.
Whilst it may be difficult to get work experience at a top hospital it is much easier and more valuable to show your commitment through long term volunteering- which is much easier to obtain. Most of all keep it personal, genuine and don’t ever feel the need to make your experiences more dramatic or exaggerated than they really were. For example, through mentoring a peer at your school you can demonstrate more than if you simply shadowed a consultant at a top hospital. Whilst clinical exposure is required to some extent, focus more on the things that you do to help others.
10. Collaborate with the teacher that writes your reference
Often, you will not have enough space to talk about all your achievements or experiences, this is where working with your teacher can be useful. It will not only help them write your reference but also mean that your personal statement and reference can complement each other instead of being repetitions of each other. For example, if you don’t have enough space to write about a role that you have in school e.g house captain, or running a club, this is something you could ask your teacher to add into the reference.
11. Get advice and feedback, then work on it
After you’ve got the skeleton paragraphs together it’s a great idea to show it to a teacher, parent, sibling and ask for feedback. I got feedback from around 3 teachers at school, an English teacher and two Biology teachers. Don’t give it to too many teachers or friends/ family as lots of conflicting advice can make it difficult to take action.
My best recommendation is to stick to a few teachers, get their advice and then work on changing and improving it and then give it back to them. For me, it took quite a few back and forths, but eventually, my personal statement got to a point I was happy with. If you’re finding it difficult to get feedback from teachers/ parents and have tried your best to make a start with the advice above, feel free to drop an email to kujaniw@gmail.com and I’m happy to give some personalised feedback and guidance for free 🙂
Similarly, reading examples of successful personal statements can help, for example, the ISC Medical Personal Statement book is great to flick through if you’re stuck on how to structure yours.
Hope this helped you! Good luck with your personal statement, you’ve got this! Start in the middle, outline paragraphs according to your experiences and qualities then slowly piece together.
Stay positive!