Hey everyone! I recently completed a personal statement revision for a mentee in my Pre-PA Coaching program (currently filled). Below are the suggestions I made for revisions. However, I will not share the student's essay for privacy reasons. I attempted to make the comments as broad as possible so they would make sense without the essay being present.
Here they are:
RECOMMEND REMOVING. FLUFF. YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE TO SAY THIS – SHOW IT.
Show it through a story, don’t say it.
“exceptional,” avoid “very” as a modifier
Too broad. What do PA do specifically that is amazing to you?
Too broad. How do PAs make a difference in someone’s life? Do you have a personal example?
You don’t have to tell the admissions committee what a PA does – they already know.
I’d recommend this as the beginning of the essay. Everything before this tells me nothing about YOU. Summarize the paragraphs before this through stories like this about your start in healthcare, what pushed you towards the PA profession, and what you’ve done to make yourself a better future PA. Get specific. Get personal.
Example. Don’t tell, SHOW.
Your academic abilities are demonstrated by your GPA, you don’t have to explain this. The goal of the personal statement is to show your passion and your ability to function as a PA. Your performance in classes does not actively reflect this.
Again, the admissions committee understands what a PA does. They want to know, what does what a PA does MEAN TO YOU, not that you know what I PA does. This is shown by your shadowing hours. Don’t share information that they already know based on your application. People are bored by repetition. You DO NOT want to bore the person reading your essay – you want to intrigue them, and feel like they know who you are based on your story. I want to get to know you, not the PA profession. I’m well aware of that.
More of this. Personal experiences. What did YOU learn?
Little broad. In response to ". As a PA, clients are going to be telling me about their issues and it is my job to listen to them"
13. Again, you’re telling. You’re telling me why you THINK you improved your communication abilities, are more task-oriented, etc.
I want you to SHOW me (what specific experiences with patients have you had) how you became a better communicator.
This is your PERSONAL statement. Here’s a quick test:
1. If someone could copy/paste your essay and it would make sense as their own – it’s a POOR essay.
2. If someone with the same major/job as you could copy/paste your essay and it would make sense as their own – it’s a POOR essay.
3. If someone with the same experiences as you could copy/paste your essay and it wouldn’t make any sense – that’s good. It represents you and you only, not them.
Everyone that applies is going to “want to be a PA,” “like what a PA does,” “understand what a PA does,” “have good academic abilities,” and “have good communication skills,” but not everyone had the same experiences with patient’s you did. I want to hear those stories.
Here’s an example of a story I told in my essay:
“There are people I have met within the medical profession who have continued to empower my passion for medicine. One of them was a young lady I met while working in a hospital. She was a college student with a recent brain injury that had flipped her life upside down. With her mother present every day, we worked her back to the point of walking and communicating effectively with the collaboration of speech therapists. As medical providers, what our team provided for her goes beyond medicine. In one of her darkest moments, we not only assisted her with her ability to walk and function normally but also to bring back her hope. On the day she was discharged, she told me she was more optimistic than before her grave injury and that her story would make an inspiring personal statement in the future! I agreed with both and wished her the best of luck in her journey, emphasizing how grateful I was to play my part in her it Medicine has offered me an opportunity to pursue my values in life and given me a strong sense of purpose. I yearn for the experience of making a difference in someone’s life, in turn creating a difference within my own, and feel confident I will achieve this as a physician assistant.”
14. Try not to repeat words.
15. If this is already in your resume, don’t repeat it here. You don’t have to explain what your duties were specifically, just say “In this position I accomplished this specific task,” and learned ____, which will make me a better PA by _____
Avoid repetition.
16. Make this ending paragraph more personal.
Again, you’re telling them you want to be a PA. You’re telling them what you’ll do to become a PA.
Show them. Here are some options:
1. Finish with an impacting patient story (Refer to my last example above - this was my finishing paragraph).
2. Share your plans as a PA. What do you hope to accomplish? Who do you want to serve?
Again, everyone will take the board exam and apply to be a licensed PA. You don’t want to look like everyone else. Focus on what sets you apart (by SHOWING what sets you apart via personal stories), and don’t inadvertently box yourself in with everyone else.
17. Here’s another example of a story I told in my essay, this was my introduction and my “why PA story”:
“The first inclination to further my education and become a physician assistant (PA) came while working in the Intensive Care Unit as a physical therapist assistant (PTA) student. I became accustomed to navigating the entanglement of wires and tolerating the continuous dissonance of alarms. However, immediately upon entering a patient’s room, I noticed something was different. There was a whiteboard on the table next to the intubated man. It had appeared heavily used, stained with remnants of marker ink. He was in the end stages of esophageal cancer, and his throat, mouth, and face were so swollen he could not talk or see and could barely hear. He had been swiftly declining in the last few days, and when I met him, he was unable to write to communicate. Though I performed passive movements with him, his only communication with me was thumbs up or down motions. However, I was determined to offer all I could for this patient as an advanced practice provider. I could not help but feel a deep, overwhelming responsibility and passion in furthering my education and being at the forefront of providing patient care. In the ICU particularly, I paid attention to the PAs working there and admired their availability and compassion for the patients. Being present for several emergencies within the hospital and observing the PAs providing front-line care inspired me to pursue emergency medicine as one of my main specialty interests. As a PA, I recognized, I would have the ability to offer a scope-of-care that mirrored what I wanted to provide to patients – emergency and primary care in underserved communities.”
I wrote this a few years ago. I would’ve done certain things differently now that my writing has improved. Nonetheless, the structure would be the same. Tell a STORY! It says it perfectly in your title - “PERONAL STORY”
Hope this helped!
Also remember, the CASPA essay limit is 5,000 characters WITH spaces included. This is around 3 pages double-spaced or less.
I'd HIGHLY recommend you use grammar software, like Grammarly premium to review your essay and fix issues before submitting it. I found hundreds of issues with my essay. The Grammarly premium ($140 for a year) is absolutely worth it, especially if you'll be writing essays for PA school scholarships later in the year.