Insider Medical Admissions: Personal statement and secondary essay pitfalls

Monday, October 13, 2008

Personal statement and secondary essay pitfalls

Here's an oldie-but-goodie blog entry written by my colleague Ann Levine who is a law school admissions consultant. I have found these same errors in medical application essays, especially Ann's number four "I believe" (and its corollary "I feel"). Along these same lines, please see my blog entry about the importance of brevity in essay writing.

For one-on-one help with your statement please contact me at insidermedical@gmail.com or see www.InsiderMedicalAdmissions.com .

About Me

Years of candidate selection at Harvard taught me what characteristics comprise a desirable applicant and how even bright candidates make mistakes that undermine their admissions success. I am a practicing Emergency Physician with nine years of experience training medical students, residents and fellows. I won three teaching and mentorship awards while at Harvard. Please see Insider Medical Admissions for the full array of personalized services I offer to clients applying to medical school, residency, fellowship and post baccalaureate programs.

Dr. Finkel thanks David Presser, MD, MPH for his contributions to the content of her blog entries. Dr. Presser is a practicing Emergency Physician who has written several primers for applicants to medical school and Emergency Medicine residency. Dr. Presser is a graduate of Stanford University, UCSF Medical School, the UCLA/Olive View-UCLA Emergency Medicine Residency Program and the Harvard School of Public Health.

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