Personal Statement Secrets

End Your Personal Statement on a High Note

DonOsborne — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:09:00 +0000

Let’s say you’re far along in your personal statement and you’re wondering how you can really drive your motivation to medicine/dentistry home and bring your audience to tears and a overwhelming round of applause.

A boring recap of the essay won’t do, so what will do the job?

Head over

Future goals or past accomplishments in your personal statement?

DonOsborne — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:03:30 +0000

There’s a classic dilemma bouncing around inside the head of every personal statement writer: Should the focus of my essay be my past accomplishments, or my future goals.

Most writers end up choosing to fill their personal statements with their past accomplishments because the thought is: “My future hasn’t happened

Personal Statement: Show, don’t tell

DonOsborne — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 19:57:01 +0000

Here’s a common personal statement writing mistake I see all the time:

“I volunteered at a clinic in Central America and helped administer medical services to underserved local people. It helped to instill a love for service and medicine in me.”

What’s the problem here? This sentence is all “tell”

Four personal statement pitfalls to avoid

DonOsborne — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 19:49:55 +0000

I like to tell all premeds, pre-dents and other graduate school applicants about the four personal statement pitfalls I’ve seen hundreds of students trip and fall into, head first.

It’s so easy to fall into these pitfalls because several of them actually seem like solid, sound techniques for essay writing

Getting Over Writer’s Block

DonOsborne — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 19:45:36 +0000

Here’s the scenario: You have the personal statement prompt open in one window on your computer and a blank text document open in another window. The cursor flashes at you over and over again for about 15 minutes while you tap your fingers on your keyboard without actually hitting any

Are you stuck on your medical school personal statement?

DonOsborne — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 19:39:36 +0000

If you’re stuck on your medical school personal statement, don’t stress and don’t fret because there are lots of easy ways to get unstuck. Getting stuck can happens in many ways:

You have absolutely no idea where to start
You began brainstorming, but you’re not sure what to do next

“Should I explain bad grades in my med school personal statement?”

DonOsborne — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:58:01 +0000

A common question I hear often from college students applying to medical school:

“Way back in Freshman/Sophomore year of college, there were a few semesters where my GPA really stunk. I’m talking 2.5 or lower. Should I explain why I got those bad grades in my personal statement? Do medical

What is the correct law school personal statement length?

DonOsborne — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:50:40 +0000

Unlike the AMCAS for medical schools, law schools don’t use a standardized application with a universal personal statement prompt. Each law school can ask you to write a personal statement of any length; ranging from 250 to 2,000 words.

But generally speaking, most law schools limit the personal statement to

How to write a law school personal statement?

DonOsborne — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 20:46:49 +0000

There are five things you need to keep in mind as you begin to prepare your law school personal statement. It’s not easy to know exactly how to write a personal statement for law school because it’s an essay unlike any you’ve ever written, and these five pointers should get

Where to get law school personal statement samples?

DonOsborne — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 20:24:05 +0000

One of our free personal statement samples

Most law school personal statement prompts simply ask you to talk about yourself, your upbringing, your goals, your experiences and your accomplishments. But that doesn’t make it an easy paper to write because there are so many different directions that you can take your personal statement.

And the stakes are