Residency Personal Statement: What's Your Best Strategy and How Do You Execute It?

I frequent get residency applicants asking me if they need to showcase their accomplishments in their residency personal statements if they have already drafted a strong, full ERAS activities section. The simple answer is yes.

First, remember that you don't know at what part of your application the readers will be starting. If some start with your residency personal statement, and it's pale, you will have lost those readers from the beginning. You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Also, note that the faculty members seeing your application are reading many more ERASes than just yours. If you only mention an important achievement once in your application, the program director might simply forget your accomplishment. After all, she is reading scores or even hundreds of similar applications. Your readers have to be reminded several times of your candidacy's strengths. (You'll mention those accomplishments in your interviews as well.)

Lastly, the personal statement should be a persuasive one (not a narrative one). You are defending your thesis that you are a valuable applicant who will be a strong resident and a future leader in the field. You will need to use examples to prove your point of view.

To a program director who hasn't yet met you, you are what you've done. You need to use substantive examples of your achievements in your residency personal statement to demonstrate your worthiness for a potential position. In that way you will be showing – not telling. Evidence is persuasive; use it!

The Medical School Interview: How to Manage Questions about a Gap

You put your heart and soul into your compelling, charismatic medical school personal statement; you showcased your accomplishments and drive to succeed in your activities section; and you demonstrated the endorsement of respected faculty allies in your letters of recommendation. Now your hard work has paid off and helped you get a foot in the door: You’ve been invited to interview at your dream medical school.

But how do you manage the medical school interview questions when you have a gap in your resume? Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you took a year off after college and moved to Barcelona to pursue an exciting romantic relationship, only to find yourself dumped two months later. You moped the rest of the year and had neither research nor volunteer experiences to show for your time off. Your interviewer asks you that dreaded medical school interview question: What exactly did you do, anyway, during the gap year?

A prepared candidate can see this interview question as an opportunity to turn a skeptic into an ally. Responding with a calm demeanor – without making excuses or delving into the intricacies of your personal life – will make you look professional. This is a great time to explain that, although you graduated college with a minimum of life experiences, your year off helped you consider alternative professional paths and strengthened your resolve to enter medicine. Consequently, you will pursue your medical career with greater maturity and commitment and a broader perspective than those who went straight through.

The medical school interview requires preparation and an optimistic attitude. Support your medical school application and candidacy with practice and enthusiasm.

Medical School Personal Statement: Not the Time to Pull an All-Nighter

I’m amazed at how many applicants study hard for the MCAT, prepare zealously for tests, and yet don’t spend the time necessary to write a strong medical school personal statement. Of course top grades and competitive MCAT scores are essential for a viable medical school candidacy (you must be this high to ride), but the essay is the admission committees’ clearest window into what you’ve done and what your priorities are. It is your way of distinguishing yourself colorfully. Conversely, it allows the committee a means to screen out medical school applications whose lack of effort or poor judgment is reflected in the personal statement.

Writing a great essay takes work and a lot of lead time. Before you hit the keyboard, consider alternate approaches – three or four topics for your introduction, for example. Also, make a list of all of the accomplishments you want to highlight. Moreover, don't overlook the basics: Start with an outline to ensure sound organization, develop graceful transitions between paragraphs, and provide convincing examples that support your assertions.

Don't let the red ink frighten you. Expect to write ten or more revisions of the medical school personal statement before you are ready to submit. Get help from someone who has extensive medical admissions experience by accessing the resources available to you: If you are fortunate to have an adviser, relative, or family friend who has sufficient expertise, ask that person to review multiple drafts. 

You may not require the services of an experienced admissions consultant. A motivated applicant who has strong interpersonal and communication skills and full access to sound medical advising can - not only survive - but thrive in the applications game. However, for those applicants whose advising resources are less optimal, who are targeting highly competitive institutions or programs, who are applying with specific geographic constraints, who are coming from lesser-known or international institutions, or who do not feel sufficiently confident in their current writing and interviewing skills, 

the right admissions consultant can make a positive difference with long-lasting consequences.

Bottom line: Writing your medical school personal statement is not the time to pull an all-nighter.

Medical School Application and AMCAS Tips

In early June of each year (the date varies), you can submit your medical school application. In preparation for medical school interview and for that date, here are a few quick tips for writing your AMCAS activities:

1. Use full sentences. The medical school application is a formal process, and you want to respect that fact. Also, you want to make your written materials as readable as possible. Faculty may have tens or hundreds of these to read. Making their lives easier is to your advantage.

2. Avoid abbreviations. Again, you want to be formal, and abbreviations you think are common might not be familiar to the reader.

3. Make sure you spell out your accomplishments clearly. If your reader doesn’t understand an activity, you will not get “full credit” for what you’ve done.

4. Choose “most meaningful” activities that show a breadth of experience, e.g. one that is related to research, another that is clinical, and a final that is volunteer.

5. Write about yourself and your role – not an organization. For example, don’t use the space to discuss Habitat for Humanity. Use it to discuss the specifics of your role at Habitat for Humanity. Try to use “I” and “my position,” as opposed to “this organization does….”

6. Use numbers to be persuasive. Saying that the conference you organized had 300 participants says it all.

7. Get help. Do not submit your application without having it reviewed by a skilled and experienced reader. Don’t submit suboptimal materials for a process that is this important and competitive.

Managing Difficult Medical School Interview Questions

An important key to preparing for tough medical school interview questions is realizing that a) interviewing is a skill and b) practice improves performance. Every year too many medical school and residency candidates expend tremendous energy assembling fantastic applications, only to undermine their chances by approaching the interview with twisted laws of entropy and enthalpy: They prepare for it with maximum randomness and minimum energy.

Once you’ve done adequate groundwork, the medical school interview represents your opportunity to distinguish yourself and impress your interviewers as the type of candidate they’d love to have at their institution.

That’s not to say every interview will be full of hugs and puppy kisses. Like the myth of the interviewer whose window was nailed shut, there may be uncomfortable moments and even illegal questions. With a bit of preparation, you can learn to hit these curveball questions out of the park. Let’s explore an example that has come up in the not-so-distant past.

Rehearse Your Elevator Pitch

While most interviewers take the time to read your medical school application materials in advance, don’t be offended by the faculty member who did not prepare, is blankly flipping through your application right there in front of you, and who asks open-ended (and dreaded) medical school interview questions, such as “Tell me about yourself” to be brought up to speed. View it this way: These faculty members are offering you the opportunity to define how you’d like to be remembered.

Your goal should be twofold: 1) to persuade them how much you’d add to their institution and 2) to make their job easier by giving them the bullet points they’ll need to persuade their peers about your candidacy’s worthiness. When your interviewer sits around a table advocating on your behalf, steer her to use terms that will be germane to your candidacy. Are you the, “global health advocate who volunteered with Mother Teresa and ran his school’s homeless food program?” Or perhaps you are the “first generation college graduate who held premier leadership positions in medical school?” Help your interviewer help you.

In the end, difficult medical school interview questions are less intimidating if you both prepare well and have an attitude that they are an opportunity to clarify and further your candidacy.

Choosing the Right Medical School Letter of Recommendation Writer

Author: Michelle Finkel, MD

Having read many letters of recommendation (LORs) as a Harvard Assistant Residency Director, I can tell you that these letters matter much more than I thought when I was crafting my own residency and medical school applications. One little considered fact: Mediocre letters (not to mention frankly bad ones) are a lost opportunity at best and a fast way to bomb your residency or medical school application at worst. It is critical that you get strong letters of recommendation. One major factor in getting those includes asking the right people.

Different medical schools are seeking different sources of your letters. Many medical schools require at least two science professors and one non-science professor to submit LORs on your behalf. Some also require a letter from your principal investigator (PI) if you have done research. Many medical schools now prefer a composite letter from a premedical advisor or committee. (For students attending schools that do not provide this service, individual letters from faculty members can be substituted.) And if that isn’t confusing enough, some medical schools have time limits on their letters; they may require that no LORs are older than a year. 

Now, beyond fulfilling a school’s requirements, you want to get the strongest letter you possibly can from the most influential writers. Choosing the right professors can be a challenge, and advisees often ask me for what to look for in a letter writer. Here is my suggested wish list for potential letter-writers:

1. They are senior faculty with weighty titles and are well known in their field.
2. They have spent significant time with you.
3. They are experienced letter-writers.
4. They have explicitly stated they will write you a strong LOR.

Of course all of these qualifications are not possible for all letter-writers. But the more of these you can garner the better. With regard to #1, admissions officers are human just like the rest of us: Receiving a LOR from an accomplished, known colleague will be weighed much more heavily than one from someone deemed less successful and unfamiliar. If you are better connected to someone without a title (for example, a teaching assistant), consider asking the professor (a more senior person who has a weightier title) if s/he would consider writing the LOR with significant input from your closer contact. That way you get the best of #1, #2 and #3.

With regard to #4, don’t be afraid to ask a potential letter-writer if s/he will write you "a very strong" LOR. It may seem awkward at the time you ask but, believe me, getting a wimpy letter will be much thornier. (If they say no, hesitate, or tell you they have to cook Thanksgiving dinner in the spring, think of their negative responses as a big favor.)

Remember that your letters have a big impact on your residency and medical school application, and a mediocre letter can bomb your candidacy.