Writing the Perfect Medicine Personal Statement
Every year, thousands upon thousands of hopeful students apply for Undergraduate, and Postgraduate, degrees in Medicine, via the UK’s best universities and medical schools. Whilst applications to all degree courses must be submitted via UCAS, with a stellar Medicine personal statement attached, it is no secret that personal statements for degrees in Medicine must be of a particularly high standard, reflective of both the student’s current acumen, and potential for growth and academic engagement over the years of their degree.
So just what goes into making sure Medicine personal statements are of the standard required to secure you a place? Read on for some of our tips on crafting a perfect personal statement, and taking your first steps towards beginning your degree in Medicine.
A personal statement suitable for an application to Medical School takes the form and format as any other UCAS-submitted application for Undergraduate or Postgraduate degrees. The main differences you will have to contend with will involve structure, content, and quality. Only the best and brightest students are likely to be admitted to Medical School, and your personal statement will need to reflect exactly why you are an ideal choice for the student body.
Writing the Perfect Medicine Personal Statement
When submitting your application to UCAS, you will be bound by a limit of 4,000 characters, including spaces. Attempting to convey both detail and brevity at the same time is far from easy, but this is the challenge you’ll face once you realise how very much you have to say, and how little 4,000 characters actually is. The best way to prepare yourself is to plan ahead, and prepare to edit. If you begin the personal statement writing process with plenty of time to spare, the easier the process will go.
Though no part of the personal statement writing process can really be considered ‘easy,’ it is often reported that one of the hardest parts is knowing how to begin. A great deal of this can come down to a perceived ‘lack’ of content — a roadblock that is surprisingly easy to clear, when you remember that everything you need to include is within your past experiences, your knowledge, and your own ambitions for the future!
One useful technique for getting the ball rolling on a personal statement is the ‘Word Dump’ — settle down with a notepad and pen, and write out anything and everything you can think of that feels relevant to your application to study Medicine. From work experience and academic pursuits, to personal anecdotes, wider reading, and extracurricular interests, the stuff you might initially have considered irrelevant to your Medicine application may well be more relevant than you first thought.
Getting all your initial thoughts down on paper is an excellent and very simple means of carrying out ‘self-research’. Just as you would prepare ahead of time for an exam or an academic essay, ensuring you invest the maximum amount of time and effort in perfecting your application from the earliest possible stage is the best way of ensuring you end up with an application of the standard required to study Medicine.
When starting out on the actual writing process, you might want to take the following areas into account:
Making sure your application is written to the highest possible standard is of the utmost importance when it comes to securing offers to study Medicine. University admissions boards study all applications in great detail, and will want to see a statement that clearly demonstrates everything there is to know about the student they are considering for an offer. This is especially relevant for applications to study Medicine, particularly at Oxbridge, or one of the prestigious Russell Group universities. Your use of spelling and grammar must be utterly flawless, and the message absolutely undeniable, with regards your suitability to begin life as a medical student.
No two people have exactly the same motivations when it comes to studying Medicine — or, for that matter, anything else. An effective application for Medicine has to be entirely unique, with no evidence of plagiarism, encompassing everything to suggest the prospective student wrote it alone, themselves, and with minimal external support. Details of your personal motivations and extracurricular activities, even if not strictly related to Medicine, belong in a personal statement just as much as academic achievements and work experience. Whatever it is that makes you tick, make sure to find a place for it in your finished personal statementdocument.
Personal statements submitted via UCAS for Medicine are bound by the same rules and restrictions as those submitted for any other subject. Approximately 500-600 words in length, you will be required to keep your total character count to a strict maximum of 4,000 characters — including spaces! With a limited character count to contend with, it is of the utmost importance that you do not give too much weight to any one area of your personal profile. A great profile will not rely too heavily on any one area, but will effectively communicate a wide range of topics, from your work experience and subject choices back to GCSE (or equivalent), to your hobbies, motivations, and extracurricular pursuits. Requesting a trusted friend, family member or other third party to read your statement is a great method of ensuring no one part dominates the others.
One of the most important things for a doctor, or any medical professional, to accomplish is to inspire confidence in their patients, when it comes to a successful outcome, prognosis, or treatment process. The simple truth is, the more effectively you manage to communicate confidence, the more effective it will be. When applying to study Medicine, no one is expecting you to know as much as a qualified doctor; that said, demonstrating the confidence that you will excel in your studies, and in your future career, can only do you favours in the eyes of admissions tutors. Make sure you carefully consider every single line in order to back yourself, and if what you’r writing doesn’t ring true, remember that it is probably best left out.
The phrase ‘style over substance’ is one that absolutely, unequivocally, should not ever be applied to your personal statement. Medicine is one of the most competitive fields of study, at both Undergraduate and Postgraduate level, and it is absolutely worth considering that cliches, and a lack of demonstrable experience, will almost certainly count against you.
The vast majority of students who are successful in their applications to study Medicine are those who have undertaken work, paid or voluntary, within a medical field. The details of any work experience you yourself have undertaken belong at the forefront of your profile the better to demonstrate that you have taken the initiative to learn what life in the Medical world can be like, and that you consider it a good fit for yourself.
If you have not managed to secure relevant work experience, or are unable to, don’t fret! The way you demonstrate initiative can come in many forms; you might, for example, consider including details of any wider reading or engagement you have completed, with regards Medicine or related fields. Be careful with the nuance here, however, and understand that some sources of ‘wider study’ may be looked upon more favourably than others. Autobiographies or books by real medical professionals, for example, will look far better to admissions tutors than mentioning you have watched all 16 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy!
Make no mistake — the first draft that you finish should by no means be the one you submit, verbatim. When attempting to craft a personal statement suitable for an application to Medicine, you need to be absolutely sure what you are submitting is the best possible demonstration of yourself that it can be.
Initially, invest time in the editing and redrafting process. Do this yourself initially, referring back to your initial notes, and considering where words can be cut, if necessary, or re-ordered. Asking a third party to read through and suggest edits is an equally effective and important measure to take. A second (or third, fourth or fifth) pair of eyes will be able to spot mistakes in your first draft you yourself may have missed, for example, errors in spelling or grammar. Invest time in the drafting and redrafting process, and you are automatically increasing your chances of securing a place to study Medicine. There is no room for errors, particularly not those that are easily avoided. In addition, before submitting, make sure to read your statement aloud, to yourself and to others. Putting yourself in the shoes of the Medical admissions board member who will be reading your statement is the best way to ensure it is effective, and that your application to study Medicine is successful.
Finally, when the writing and editing process is complete, and you have submitted the final draft via UCAS, try your hardest to step away. Applications to Medicine are required to be submitted at an earlier date than applications to other courses, with the exception of applications to Oxbridge, and obsessing over words already written and submitted will not help you in any way. Do your best to step away from your writing after submission, and do not read back over it unless truly, 100% necessary.