personal statement help?

[Eam]

hey guys, was just wondering if any of the more medically experienced people would be willing to hav a quick read over my ps for an honest opinion and possible advise? iv had to cut it down and cut it down again to get it within the limit so just a wee bit worried about adressing all the important points and still sounding genuine.......was so hard to include all the important aspects of experience iv seen and had to leave stuff out. In the end I only really had space to include a few experiences but thought it more important to go into what i learned and took away from it all....

[iain_261188]

if you don't go into too much detail then you are likely to be asked about it at interview. my advice would be to list as much as possible (without sounding repeative) and briefly sumarising the skills developed, saving more indepth comment for your interview.

[marcus_k]

Write as many versions of your ps as you can, until you yourself are happy with it. I think I ended up having about 7 drafts in total! LOL.

[iain_261188]

i was happy with mine at the time but when i look back on it it kinda sucks!

[Eam]

yea i think im on my 5th draft but read over it last night for the 765th time and realised it was total garbage! now at the stage where its been chopped and changed soo much i dont know which drafts are better!!!

[Dehydrated Water]

try to get as much in as you can ( i know its hard) and try and use key words - like communication, team work etc etc

[0dsmith88]

Don't go into to much detail in your statement, try to leave opertunities for questions open. Bare in mind that when you get to the interview you want ot have something to talk about.
It might also help to get a teacher to look over the drafts you have, i did that last year and was given a few usefull pointers.

[iain_261188]

It might also help to get a teacher to look over the drafts you have, i did that last year and was given a few usefull pointers.

This is a good idea but don't pay TOO much heed to their comments. Remember: teachers and teachers (or in yrou case, lecturers are lecturers) and have extremely limited knowledge of applying to medicine - you probably know more. The best comments for me were from my Higher English teacher who just gave me some pointers on expression to make it sound a bit more fluent. My guidance teacher and AHT of year group were both rather pants and i didn't take anythign they said on board. Try and find the lecturer who knows you best, and whose opinion you most value, and run it by them.

PLus - it is a PERSONAL statement so you want the interviews to get a sense of you rather than a lecturer's interpretation of you.

P.S. Just remembered you're doing access to medicine course so your lecturers probably do not quite a lot about applying! lol