Your personal statement, start to finish.

This is the essay that decides whether a program wants to meet you. I'm walking through what belongs in it, what doesn't, and the logistics people mess up every single year.

Write it in a separate document. Trust me on that one.

What I cover:

• Telling the story of how you found the PA profession
• Making your motivation specific instead of generic
• The 5,000 character limit and how to actually use it
• Drafting outside of CASPA so formatting doesn't wreck your essay
• Choosing which personal experiences make the cut
• The lines that make a reader stop reading

Resources:

Free personal statement worksheet: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-personal-statement-worksheet-download

Free personal statement email course: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-personal-statement-email-course

PA School Personal Statement Guide: https://www.thepaplatform.com/pa-school-personal-statement-guide

Have me review your essay: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/pre-pa-essay-review

Welcome to episode 38.

Today we're talking about personal statements.

Welcome to the Pre PA Club podcast.

If you want to learn how to become a physician assistant, you're in the right place.

I'm your host, Savannah Perry.

Let's get to it.

Hey, guys.

Savannah here I am the host of the Pre PA Club podcast.

If you are new here, thanks for joining, thanks for listening.

Always happy to have new people and old people and Pre PA people, PA students, whatever, but we're happy to have you.

Today we are going to talk about personal statements and just kind of dive into all about that.

I asked in our Pre PA Club Facebook group, which if you're not a member, definitely join about what you guys wanted to hear about.

So I did a little poll and overwhelmingly the vote went to personal statements.

So here we are.

I want to know what you guys want to hear about.

So it was nice to get some feedback there and I hope that this will be helpful.

It is kind of perfect timing with CASPA being in full swing.

The application cycle's in full swing and so, yeah, if you are working on your essay or if you're not, it's time.

Because those applications at some point need to be submitted and you could probably work on your essay and edit it forever and ever, but eventually you have to just push submit.

So we will kind of dive into that and it's perfect because the sponsor of this episode is mypa Resource.

We'll talk about editing some, but I edit for my PA resource.

That's an online service website, www.myparesource.com that offers personal statement editing specifically for PA school only.

PAs are editing.

They're only editing PA school essays.

And so if you need help with kind of polishing, figuring out if you're on the right track, make sure to check them out.

And you can use the code Pre PA Club for a discount.

That's in the description of this episode as well.

And there's going to be a ton of links in there to, to blog posts, worksheets, all kinds of stuff to help you with your personal statement.

So make sure if you are listening and I refer to something that you look in the description to find that.

But I wanted to actually read a couple reviews.

I haven't done this in a while, but I really like it when you guys leave reviews on itunes.

It helps me know if I'm on the right track and that we're doing what you want to do.

So I really liked this one from Emily.

She said, I came across this podcast a few few days ago and I've been binge watching ever since.

As a sophomore prepa student, I find this podcast extremely helpful.

So thankful for this.

And that's so funny to me because I am totally a podcast binge watcher listener.

So I was like, that's me too.

But yeah, if you have questions, feel free to leave them in an itunes review and just let us know how we're doing.

But we'll have some more interviews coming up in the next few months.

But I did want to spend some time just focusing on content and subjects that you guys want to hear about.

So if there's something in particular you want me to cover, let me know.

All right, let's dive into personal statements.

Now.

I'm going to try to make this not too long because I feel like I could talk about this forever and ever.

I've done a personal statement webinar that's on YouTube.

I'll link to that in the description as well, that if you like to watch things, you can see kind of a PowerPoint presentation and some more info.

There's some Q and A there.

We'll cover some of the same stuff, some different stuff, and then, yeah, it'll be good.

So the first thing with your personal statement is.

Let's just talk logistics.

You can refer to this as your personal statement, your essay, your personal essay, whatever.

Basically, this is your chance to explain to the reader, the PA, School Admissions committee, why you want to become a pa.

The prompt may slightly change from year to year, but basically it's something along the lines of discuss your motivations for becoming a physician assistant.

Why have you chosen to pursue the physician assistant career?

Something like that.

Why do you want to be a pa?

That's what it comes down to.

So when you go into caspa, you will enter your essay directly into caspa.

You'll ideally copy and paste it.

So one thing that I always recommend is do not write your essay in CASPA or save it there as your only source because there is a chance that it could get lost or messed up.

And so do it in a Word document, a Google Drive document, something that you'll be able to save it and get it if there was an issue.

So that's my little tip for the day.

As far as length, you have 5,000 characters, including spaces that comes out to around a page and a paragraph, single spaced.

You cannot use any type of special characters.

So no italics, no bolds, no underlining, no colors.

You actually can't even use a tab.

So when you're doing your paragraphs.

Instead of putting a tab in front of each paragraph, you have to click enter twice in between paragraphs.

And that can be a little confusing.

I'll actually put a link in the description as well to a post I did a while back about my personal statement.

And I posted it there so you can see what I mean if you go look at that.

So I think one of the hardest parts for the essay is getting started and knowing what to cover.

Obviously, content is very important.

When I'm editing, editing an essay.

I mean, I'm looking at grammar and flow and all those things.

Those are also very important.

But the content, it has to be spot on.

It needs to tell me what I'm looking for.

And it can be easy to get sidetracked by different things.

We may even need to do a separate personal statement FAQ episode because there's lots of questions about what to include, what not to include, that type of thing.

And one, when you're working on preparing for me, I'm someone who just sits down and writes.

Like, I don't really think about it.

I just need to get some words on paper.

They're probably going to be terrible or all going to change, but I just need to get it out.

I need to get my thoughts out.

And so when I was writing the PA School Interview Guide, that's kind of what I did.

It took me two and a half years.

So it shouldn't take you that long to do your personal statement.

But I would just sit down and if I had a thought about something about a certain question or a topic, I would just write.

And that's how I approached my personal statement as well.

I just kind of wanted to pour out my story.

And that's how I think about the personal statement for PA school.

They want to hear your story.

They want to know what has.

What pivotal moments have gotten you here to make this decision.

And that brings up something that I get asked about a lot as far as I don't have this big aha moment or I don't have this major traumatic event that happened to me.

And that's okay.

So to be honest, sometimes the dramatic type essays that have these over the top intense stories, they get a little old because it feels like a reach.

The only reason you should include a story in your essay is if you feel like it is extremely relevant to you becoming a pa if there is a reason that that story either shows something about you or had a big impact on your decision to become a pa. And we'll talk about content more.

But yeah, just.

I would say sit down and just start writing.

I feel like some of these things we like to procrastinate and they seem intimidating, so we just put them off.

But eventually you just got to do it.

If you need help with brainstorming, there are some worksheets on my website that you can download.

I call them my brainstorming worksheets that just have questions and things to prompt you.

And we'll talk about some of those.

So you can download those.

The link is in the description, but thepaplatform.com downloads.

And then MyPA resource has a free video workshop where you can go through.

I think it's about 30 minutes of videos where Brian, the creator, kind of breaks down how to get started, what should be included, what shouldn't, how to address certain things.

So those are two ways to kind of get.

If you're struggling with.

I have no idea how to go about this.

Start there, get some help.

Don't feel like you have to do it completely on your own.

There are resources out there to help guide you a little bit.

No one is going to write your essay for you.

And if someone offers or you find a service that does that run, that is not okay.

You need to write your essay.

You can have help editing and polishing it, but no one else needs to write your essay.

All right, so let's see.

Let's get into content.

And this is kind of what the brainstorming worksheets focus on and kind of how they help you.

But when I'm reading an essay, there are certain things that I want to know.

And by the end of your essay, I want to feel like I know you and that I kind of have a personal connection with you and that I feel very confident that you know what you're doing and that you have taken the appropriate steps and that you are completely ready for PA school and that you're going to be a great pa.

So if your one mistake is just kind of keeping your essay very generic or general, because at the end of that essay, I'm not going to be able to say that I have a connection with you or feel like I know you.

And so definitely the more personal you can be, the more vulnerable, the better, to a degree.

I mean, it shouldn't be like a sob story or definitely no excuses or anything like that, but just really kind of sharing about you and your background can be helpful.

Yeah.

So the first thing that I want to know in a personal statement is where.

What made you interested in medicine?

And typically the essays that I like to read the best are the ones that kind of follow a chronological order.

They have a good flow, they're easy to read, easy to follow, they're enjoyable.

The descriptions and the details aren't too over the top, to be honest.

You don't really have so much space for intense descriptions because you only have 5,000 characters and sometimes that means cutting out some extra wording or description.

But yeah, I want to know where your interest in medicine came from.

Was it.

Is it something you've always been interested in?

Is it something that you were around as a child?

So for me, if you go and read my personal statement, you, you'll hear about how my sister kind of had some illness when she was younger and she's younger than me.

So we were in and out of doctor's offices and hospitals.

And even as a child, that didn't scare me or freak me out.

I found it very fascinating.

And so I think for me, that was kind of what started this.

This is a really interesting setting.

And when it came time when I got older to start thinking about what I wanted to do, do, I really liked being in those settings and kind of listening to the doctors explain things.

And my sister ended up in business, so we do completely different things and she would not.

She won't even let us talk about medical stuff around her.

But I guess she was scarred.

But yeah, so for me, that was kind of my catalyst into thinking, okay, this may be something that I'm interested in, in.

So, yeah, so what made you interested in medicine?

And then from there, how did you find out about the PA profession?

I think it's very normal for someone who wants to go to PA school to have considered multiple other professions, especially since the PA profession is newer and the majority of the general public does not really understand what PAs do.

And I didn't know what a PA was until my senior year of high school.

And so I think it's completely normal to have thought about medical school or being a doctor.

And you can say that.

Don't feel like you can't.

You just need to at this point be very confident in your decision to become a pa.

So whether that was from a family member, from a doctor's visit, where you saw a PA from meeting a page randomly, I just want to know kind of how you found out about it and what that, what your initial thoughts were.

Were you intrigued?

Were you confused?

Were you excited?

Like, where did you go from there?

Was it something at the time you didn't even think about?

And then later on you decided, oh, yeah, that PA was really cool, and that might be something I want to do.

You know, there's a lot of options there.

So how did you find out about the PA profession?

And then from there we get into more of, okay, from finding out about the PA profession, how does it fit with you?

So at this point, you've done so much work, and you're at the point of applying to PA school.

Why?

What about this career makes it something that you want to work that hard for and pursue to do every single day?

And.

And so what appeals to you about the PA profession and what have you found to be the reasons that you personally want to do it?

One thing to be careful of here is not just telling me why the PA profession is a great job, because it is.

There's lots of great things about it.

A lot of flexibility, lateral mobility, good pay, good hours.

You can do a lot of different stuff.

Short schooling, that's all great, but those reasons may not be your reasons.

And when it comes down to it, it really should be more about the roles and responsibilities and what a PA actually does than the perks of the career.

So when you're talking about this, I really want to know why you decided this.

And so, I mean, I've written about why I wanted to be a PA multiple times, but what it really comes down to for me is I didn't want to go to school that much longer, and I felt very ready to be out there taking care of patients.

And when I was able to Shadow and see PAs, working with patients, working with their supervising physicians, I loved that teamwork aspect.

That should be part of the reason you want to be a pa.

If you're not excited about having a supervising physician and working closely as a team, you may need to reevaluate, because that is part of the job.

Yes, PAs have a lot of autonomy in certain fields, but at the end of the day, you do have that relationship.

So just really kind of dive into, like, really reflect on why you want to do this specifically.

And from that, I want to know that you do understand what a PA is and what a PA does.

And the best way to do this is to.

To address your either work or shadowing experience and what you've seen as far as PAs, working with patients, working with doctors, working with other members of the healthcare team, what they can do, can't do, and how that has impacted your decisions and kind of influenced you and how you see yourself in that role.

So when you see a PA who's able to educate a patient about a medicine that they were taking incorrectly.

Why is that something that you want to do?

And how do you see yourself doing that in the future?

Help me to kind of envision you as a PA at some point.

One thing to keep in mind too, is that you're currently applying for a spot as a PA student, not a pa, and that is something that you don't want to jump too far ahead.

Typically, I recommend not addressing certain wanting to do a certain specialty or anything too specific in your essay because you want to leave it open.

Those are things that you might could discuss in an interview.

But for your essay, don't get too far away from the prompt.

It's not asking you what are your motivations for becoming an emergency medicine pa?

Just why do you want to be a pa?

So take it one step at a time.

Don't get too far ahead.

Then I want to know how you've prepared to be successful and why you're going to be a great PA student or a great pa.

So when we go to that PA student part, I want to know that you've done well academically.

Sometimes people when I'm editing will say, well, why do I need to address that when they've seen my transcript?

Because the person who saw your transcript may not be the same person reading your essay.

And if you have a great GPA or even a competitive one, which means that you've met the minimum, address it, reinforce it, let them know I'm ready for PA school.

It doesn't have to be a whole paragraph, but it can be something where you just kind of mention it and throw it out there.

But I want to hear about your experience and how that has prepared you and the things that you've kind of done to take steps forward, to be as prepared as possible.

All right, so that's a lot of content.

Maybe you were taking notes.

If not, you can probably find it on my website.

But once you get to that point and you've kind of answered all that and written stuff out, then is when you can kind of start organizing your essay and editing and all of that for your introduction.

It doesn't necessarily have to be a riveting story.

You can just kind of jump right in.

And that's what I like.

So one thing that I feel like I comment a lot on essays when I'm editing is you have to be direct and concise.

There is not room for fluff.

So be as direct as possible, make your points, and keep it as short as possible.

You will run out of characters very quickly.

You'll find when you start writing your essay, once you're done and you're going back over it, some of the questions I like to ask is, does your essay make sense?

Is it easy to follow?

Does it flow well?

Can I tell you?

Can I follow your decision making process?

And then are you providing more answers than questions?

So if I'm reading it and I'm just having more and more questions that aren't explained, those need to be addressed.

So make sure that you're not raising more questions than answers.

Your conclusion.

You need a strong conclusion on your essay and it should summarize your strengths.

So this is your last chance to convince the admissions committee that you are the best candidate for a spot in their program.

And so you really need to just make that a summary of your strengths.

Don't introduce anything new, don't make it fluffy and gosh, what's the word?

Like cliche, like, you don't really need quotes.

You don't really need, I don't know, like all this flowy, flowery language.

Just tell me, like, this is what I'm bringing to the table and this is why I'm a strong candidate and this is why I'm going to be a great pa. Like make that kind of punch at the end with just everything that's great about you.

And then when you're editing looking for grammar, you don't want any distracting errors.

This is a formal essay.

Check your content, make sure you've answered all those questions, make sure there's nothing confusing, and then get some outside opinions.

So like we said, one of those is my PA resource and that's a great option if you want something professional.

I would try to get a PA to read your letter.

Now, that being said, There are some PAs who applied to school a long time ago and really know anything about this process, honestly.

So, yes, it's great to have a PA reader, I say, but it doesn't necessarily mean what they're talking.

They know what they're talking about.

So have a PA read your letter.

It's great to have family and friends read your letter.

They may be extra kind to you.

They're probably just gonna be like, oh, it's great, but they know you and that's a good thing because they can tell you if your essay really reflects kind of who you are and provides that information.

One thing I will caution you on is avoiding unknown eyes and people.

Please do not send your essay to people you do not know.

This is something I see on the Internet A lot.

And to be honest, it really scares me and freaks me out and makes me nervous for people.

So if you are in a random Facebook group or you are on a forum and you say, hey, can some.

I read my essay, I'll email it to you.

And 10 people go, oh, yeah, yeah, I'll read your essay.

First of all, you don't know who those people are.

They probably don't know what they're talking about.

And they may be looking for help with their own essay, which means they may take part of your essay.

So that, to me is like the ultimate nightmare and just again, completely freaks me out.

So be very, very cautious with letting people that you do not personally know or trust read your essay.

I would never do that.

And I would caution you to please never do that.

But if you feel comfortable, go for it.

But please don't.

All right, let's talk for a second.

I know this is getting a little bit long about discrepancies and things that you should or shouldn't address.

Kind of just as a rule of thumb, if there's anything in your record, any blips or red flags or grades or low GPAs or breaks in education run ins with the law, anything that you feel like would prevent you from getting an interview can be addressed in your essay.

If you had one C, you probably don't need to address it.

If you had two semesters where you had all Fs, I need to know why that happened and why it's not going to happen in PA school.

So don't feel like you have to address every single bad grade or anything like that.

But if there is something that you kind of are unsure, if your application explains it, well, this is your chance to explain it.

And sometimes supplemental applications or essays will give you a little bit more room to explain those things too.

But yeah, for this purpose only explain it if you feel like it would prevent you from getting an interview.

And don't make excuses.

Really just focus on the positive that came out of it and how you're able to improve from that situation.

But yeah, okay.

And I think that's about it for now.

I think, like I said, we may have to do a personal statement, FAQ episode or something like that, because I don't know that we can fit everything into one episode.

But I hope that this helps give you some direction.

If you have questions, put them in the Pre PA Club Facebook group.

Message me on Instagram at the PA platform and we'll try to help you out.

So, yeah, good luck.