(二)
Critique
Hi XXX,
Your e ay is quite solid to begin with, and it has a lot of strengths.
First and foremost, you clearly indicate your burning desire to become a physician, something that medical schools do value. You lay out your case for admi ion in a straightforward ma er, and give some examples to back up your statements. You should be proud of your progre thus far.
There was some work to be done, however. Some of your sentences included fragments of other sentences, and a few were run-o these were re-worked to provide a better sentence flow. Your isolated elling and punctuation errors were also corrected. On the larger scale, we focused your e ay in two ways: by cutting some u ece ary or redundant sentences, and by adopting a clearer overall structure. As written, your e ay included sentences that didn't add much power to your e ay, and were very general or vague in meaning. For example, we cut the sentence, "I believe that in order to be a 'complete' physician, one must be strongly motivated by both his mind and his heart." This sentiment is echoed more clearly in the rest of the work, and your references to the mind and the heart are better expre ed when you discu "the physical and emotional needs of the patient." The structure we created goes roughly like this: introduction discu ing the genesis of your career ambitio , discu ion of the emotional requirements of medicine, discu ion of the intellectual i ues involved, and a conclusion citing your dedication to medicine and to the study required of students in medical school.
We also ecifically edited your language to better prepare the e ay to be read by a committee on admi io . In some areas, your wording seemed "overheated." For example, you twice used the phrase, "overwhelming desire." Although you clearly want to impre the committee with your desire to study medicine, you run the risk of "overwhelming" them in the proce . When you write, "As I finished High School and entered college, and now Graduate School, every decision I have made has been centered around one goal…" the e ay ru the risk of coming on too strong. Your goal should be to present yourself as a serious and committed a licant, while avoiding a "rabid" tone.
The edited e ay reads quite well, but there is still something mi ing - you. The e ay is called the AMCAS Personal Statement for a reason: it's time to get personal. Schools will read this e ay to get an idea of who you are, not what you have done. Your accomplishments are enumerated elsewhere in the AMCAS a lication. You ought to include more stories, more ecifics about who you are, and about the people and events that have made you the person you feel you have become. For example, details about how you ecifically helped your siblings would be great, as would a story about an elderly person whose life you improved.
A final note - your primary goal in filling out your a licatio should be to get an interview, not to convince an admi io committee that you're worthy of admi ion. You want to make them want to get to know you better, and to want to meet you in person. Keep this point in mind as you continue in the a lication proce .
