No, my fellow fighting violets, I'm not talking about the required writing seminar at NYU that all freshman must take in some form or another. I'm referring to a little step in the residency application process known as the Personal Statement.Though he's been talking about writing his first draft for the past few weeks, Mr. finally sat down last night and hammered out what turned out to be a nearly 800 word piece on how he came to choose orthopedic surgery. While I'm not sure if there is a specific word count, my cousin's statement (which received high praise) was just about 600 words long. Better too long for a first draft, so I feel this is a good start. Of course, after the edits I made to it this morning, it is now 2 words longer. Oops!
If I were the applicant, I think the personal statement would be one of my favorite elements. For one, I'd get to talk about myself, but more importantly I'd really use the opportunity to make those who read them see me as an individual and not merely a list of accomplishments. Mr., on the other hand, finds this element particularly stressful. It's rare for the personal statement to help you, but it can very easily hurt you. As an otherwise highly competitive candidate, Mr. primarily aims to "do no harm" with his statement but is nervous because he's not necessarily a strong writer...or so he thinks.
Upon listening to what Mr. tells me what he wants to say and then reading what he actually puts down on paper, it seems that he was taught ridiculous writing rules that are decent guidelines when first learning how to organize one's thoughts but very restricting parameters when attempting to be eloquent and eye-catching. As a result, my favorite phrases from his statement arose when he told me something and I responded, "write that down, just like you said it" and continued to insist despite his concerns that it wasn't the proper essay structure.
At this point, I imagine some of you are probably thinking, "Come on now, M. Your writing isn't exactly brilliant; where do you get off giving writing advice?" And that is certainly a fair point. My writing is not brilliant, but my reading is. At some point in almost all my jobs and internships, I have been assigned the task to read or proof things, not just for grammatical errors but for content and style as well. I once went through a pile of film scripts and was asked to discard any that weren't interesting after the first 10 pages or so. Another time I reworded descriptions of corporate event planning offerings in client presentations. As a legal secretary, I was often given the task of drafting correspondence to our clients or fixing the correspondence written by associates. Though I had many weaknesses as a producer, I'd like to think one of my strengths (as evidenced by the reviews and my other small successes) is piece selection. I know good work when I see it whether its intent is to entertain, to sell, or to simply just communicate. And though I often lack the talent to create good work from scratch, I truly enjoy tweaking rough drafts to help turn them into final, polished products.
So, this morning I took a look at Mr.'s first draft. I printed a copy and went to town with my pen. Then, I opened the Word doc, set the page to "track changes" and created a redline. After saving and printing the redline, I accepted all changes to give Mr. a clean draft with my edits. I'm sure there will be many more incarnations of Mr.'s personal statement. I don't even know if he'll accept any of my advice, but at the very least it's certainly fun to witness this creative work.
Photo by CPSutcliffe
6 comments:
Oh yes, we just went through this a year ago. It's time like this that Mr. Darling was really thankful that he married someone with a writing degree. :) Good luck to you and to Mr.! I'm sure he's glad to have your help.
Ah yes, the personal statement. We went through so many drafts of that... and I do mean "we." I definitely am a better writer than J so I made a lot of suggestions. In the end, I think he was really pleased with his statement and he got a few positive comments about it during interviews. It made it well worth the effort. Best of luck to you both!
Oh, I think the personal essay definitely can help you! The way it works at several residency programs in Texas, the residents have a say in who is selected into the residency program. A lot of the time, these choices are made according to how well the residents think they'll enjoy working with the applicant, much more so than board scores alone. As you say, the personal essay might be the best picture of who the applicant is as a person, and, if there are 2 applicants with similar board scores, or who have otherwise comparable achievements, the essay is what sets you apart.
In any case, your advice, to "write it down just like you said it," is fantastic. There's no other way to make sure that it's your voice shining through and not simply what you think other people might want to hear. Your hubby's lucky to have your support and advice!
Hooray for B.A.'s! And all those naysayers in the news keep saying that liberal arts degrees aren't practical in this day and age. :)
Anyway, good point about how the statement can help. However, I think the personal statement has the ability to do more good in actually securing interviews than being ranked high. I imagine it can be especially helpful when your stats are only okay but your statement is really interesting. This might be part of why my cousin was offered an interview at a top top radiology program despite her stats being less than the others who were invited to that program. ...At least I'm hoping it was her essay and not her headshot! :)
A strong candidate in all the other categories will likely get an interview unless they seem like a weirdo or dummy (to use technical terms) in their essay. When it comes to actually ranking the applicants, they'll probably judge more on the personality they met than what they see on the page.
Or so I've read, at least.
In E's ortho dept, the residents are given head shots of all the applicants and are asked to give ratings based on their perceptions of them from the dinner and interview day.
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