Personal Statement

Right now I'm in Personal Statement land. Though I started many months ago, I have not been able to escape constant rewrites and revisions. Fortunately, I am surrounded by many gracious people who are helping me through this process. Unfortunately, they rarely agree on what makes a strong personal statement.

If you don't know, CASPA (and therefore PA programs) requires a personal statement no longer than 5000 characters. This will tell the program(s) of your choice why you want to be a PA and why they should interview you.

There are several resources available to help you write and proof your personal statement. There are professionals you can hire to coach you, forums that will review and recommend changes, and countless opinions of friends, colleagues, and schools. Here are a few thoughts I've accumulated:

The Don'ts
- Don't be too weird - don't write a poem or some other unique, creative interpretation of the essay format. Its not professional and this is for professional school.
- Don't be too bland - when I read through my statement from last year it sounded horribly plain. Whoever is reading this reads a LOT of these and plain will get overlooked quickly.
- Don't repeat your CASPA - this is the one consistent message I get from people. They know who many shadowing hours you have and what classes you've taken. You're wasting precious characters repeating yourself.


The Do's
- Write about yourself - this is a PERSONAL statement, make it personal. Speak in your voice, not in the rhetorically appropriate voice.
- Write about what you've done - Experiences count for more than intentions. People reading this want to see evidence of who you are, not just thoughts.
- Get lots of advice - ask questions at info sessions, talk to PAs about their thoughts, read school FAQs and email if they don't talk about what they look for in a personal statement. Sort through all those internet opinions. Some of them are worthwhile.