The Importance of the Personal Essay

Professional school applications generally require a Personal Essay, Personal Statement, Statement of Interest, or Narrative. This is a piece that you write that goes way beyond a cover letter.  It's where you should "come alive" on the page as an individual.

Pay STRICT attention to any instructions that your application package gives about this Essay's desired content. They may very well want you to specifically address "Why I want this career", "why I am the right person for this career", and "why I want to study for this career at this particular institution". They may have a word or page limit. Show that you can follow instructions!

Beyond that, consider the following:

Warning: Your essay can't just say, "The body/disease is fascinating and I want to help people/animals".  That's way too generic. Instead, you should strive to stand out from the crowd.  A good detailed story or two that really gets the reader's attention is invaluable. 

The admissions committee may read hundreds of essays.  Your essay needs to be memorable -- in a GOOD way. If an essay has spelling or grammatical errors, that will stand out in a BAD way. 

Many admissions committees are interested in hearing how candidates have overcome adversity. After all, sick people and animals are experiencing adversity; will you be able to relate?  Only you can decide how much of your life's negative experiences you will share, but you may get some mileage out of explaining how you have grown from them.

Warning: If you have a year of college yet to go, the Personal Essay may be the only place on the application to let the Committee know what courses you are planning to take. If you haven't taken one (or more) admissions prereqs yet and you don't tell them you are signed up to do so next year, they may conclude that you are lacking the prereqs, and dump your application!  Don't let that happen!

The UW Madison campus operates a very helpful web site with even more advice on the personal essay; visit http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/apessay.html

Warning: Writing the personal essay is only one of the writing tasks you likely need to do to compete for admission to Health Professional school. The entrance exam may require a writing sample. Moreover, how a person speaks often mirrors how a person writes, and you will be doing a lot of speaking during any admissions interview.  Strive to develop your writing skills all through college.

Warning: If you have someone else write your essay for you, this dishonesty about your writing skills will be discovered in the interview or later in the Health Profession school. The consequences can be severe.

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Last updated on 04/26/2007.  Contact webmaster.