hi my name is dr. Lauren Cooper I’m admissions expert of Benoit economic consulting thanks for joining me on this week’s edition of BMO’s admissions vlog today I’m going to talk about how to create a personal statement from scratch using my own example I’ll take you through brainstorming and how to create an essay outline by the end of the video you’ll know how to create an essay that admissions committees are going to love before we get started we should talk about why the personal statement is actually important to medical schools because it is important right it’s your only opportunity to set yourself apart from the competition it’s important because the personal statement tells the admissions committee why you are applying to medical school your sketch gives them the what how you spend your time what you do but the personal scene it tells them why why you do what you do what you’ve learned from your experiences and how you’re going to carry that forward to your future medical schools are looking for students who are able to reflect on their experiences derive meaning from them and communicate that in a coherent and meaningful way with that in mind let’s get started on our brainstorming I’ve got a little brainstorming chart here with all these boxes that represent the different areas of my life I’ve got education work extracurriculars volunteer family you can add whatever you want next quickly jot down one word titles under each category leaving space around each one I’m not running down everything I’ve ever done I’m just choosing the most meaningful quality activities and experiences and writing those down once you’ve done that and this next step will be the most important step you’re going to look at your favorite activities and right beside each activity why you enjoy it and what you learn from it so in my example for running why I enjoy it isn’t black and the skills I learned are in blue the important thing for the Y is that you ask why you like it and then you ask why again so that’s too wise for example I thought about my favorite part of running and that would be trail running why because I like exploring not knowing what’s around the next corner why do I like that I like the anticipation of discovering new places and the opportunity to learn more about the world around me so you can see this exploration curiosity piece is starting to take shape in my brainstorming as I go through my chart doing this asking why and why again suddenly all these little connections are going to start to pop out if we go over here to educate we can see I majored in life sciences and specialized in neuroscience and what do you know I chose my major for the same reason I enjoy running I believe that the human brain is the last unexplored unknown frontier clearly curiosity and exploration are big drivers for me so you’re gonna take some time go through your chart and dig down and then dig down again with your wive’s and eventually you’re gonna start to see these connections you should be able to start to draw a connection here between why you do the things that you do and why you just have decided to pursue medicine a next step is to pick out three of these common themes that seem to be coming up again and again for you and relate them to why you are choosing to pursue a career in medicine so you can see for me a lot of the reasons I’m passionate about my favorite activity running are also needs that I’m hoping to meet with a career in medicine here I’ve been exploration / creativity passion such perseverance which I think of as loving the day to day and working as part of a team these three things will become the mapping statement form is a great once all that has been done I can move on to creating an outline so here I have my academic essay outline with its introduction paragraph three body paragraphs and concluding paragraph and you’ll notice I’ve this little arrow going down the side indicating time this is because my essay is going to be a chronological narrative I’m going to start with labeling my three body paragraphs with my three common why’s and then start filling in each box I’m not worrying about perfect wording here it’s just about getting the overall schematic ideas right basically what I’m doing is I’m going to relate my passion and what I learned from running two passions in various other areas of my life showing that these are common themes for me over time I’m then going to relate that to my decision to pursue medicine and talk about how that is in line with my passions and characteristics so I would start off my introduction write a hook talking about running maybe some imagery about me on some beautiful trail I’ll then move on to my mapping statement saying I’m passionate about running because it allows me to explore and learn more about the world around me has taught me the value of patience and achieving goals and has allowed me to be part of a team and meet many interesting people my thesis would be that these interests have shaped my experiences and my interest in pursuing medicine I would then go on to introduce my first body paragraph starting off by talking about my love for exploring on my runs and relating that to my interest in studying the human brain I’ll throw in some anecdotes about my interest in science and the brain as a child and some science clips that I was in during my undergrad and relate that to how my interest in medicine was piqued I’ll move on to talking about how branding has taught me the importance of patience and perseverance in achieving long term goals and relate that to some volunteering I did earlier in undergrad with some inner-city youth who initially had a hard time trusting me I’ll talk about how much that hard-earned trust meant to me and how much I enjoyed using my scientific knowledge to help others and then reflect on how that furthered my interest in pursuing medicine finally I’ll talk about how running taught me that groups of individuals working together can achieve more than they ever could on their own I’ll relate this to my time volunteering in the emergency department and how creating a therapeutic alliance through building trust with the patient allowed me to help them achieve a better outcome I’ll conclude this by saying that the ability to form alliances with patients and help them reach their goals is what solidified my decision to pursue medicine I’ll then move on to the conclusion reiterate my thesis and mapping statement and relate everything I just said to my decision to pursue medicine and where I see myself in the future you can also see that in this essay there’s an overarching description of how I became interested in medicine what furthered my interest and what solidified my decision to pursue medicine so I basically taking my passions and the things that mean the most of you as a person and woven them into this chronological narrative that gives the reader an idea of where my interest in medicine began how I explored that and what finally solidified my decision to become a doctor this is what you want to be communicating to the admissions committee and if you go through and do all this on your own following the steps I’ve outlined for you you should be ready to start your first draft in no time that concludes another episode of vemos admissions meet log if you want even more tips on writing personal statements please visit our blog we have a lot of great tips as well as sample essays for you guys to take a look at if you’re looking for help with your application anything from essay writing to interview prep please click the link below and set up your free initial consultation today thanks for joining me and I’ll see you again next week [Music]
