Real essays. Real edits. Out loud.

This is part one of live personal statement editing, where I read submitted essays and tell you exactly what's working and what isn't. It's the closest thing to sitting in on an essay review without paying for one.

The patterns repeat every single year. Wordiness that buries the point. Vague statements that could describe any applicant. Long setup before we ever get to why PA. And essays that never actually answer the prompt, which is simply: why do you want to be a physician assistant?

What I keep looking for is specificity. One concrete moment beats five paragraphs of adjectives. If a sentence could appear in someone else's essay, it doesn't belong in yours.

Listen to these with your own draft open. You'll catch things in your writing that you couldn't see before.

What I cover:

• Reading submitted essays and editing them line by line
• Answering the prompt instead of circling it
• Cutting wordiness without losing your voice
• Replacing vague claims with specific moments
• Showing you understand what a PA actually does
• Openings and closings that don't sound like everyone else's

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

Pre-PA Essay Review: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/pre-pa-essay-review

Mentioned in this episode:

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Are you ready for some live editing of personal statements?

This is from a webinar we did recently.

It's also on YouTube.

But we love going through essays in real time and talking about the good, the bad and the ugly.

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.

That was slightly dramatic for an intro, I have to admit.

But I do love live editing and.

We're editing so many personal statements right now.

If I edit your essay, it will.

Have a lot of comments and some good, some bad.

You know, a mix of everything.

But in today's episode we will go through some essays and talk about what.

Should be in there.

We'll talk about mistakes, kind of get into what your essay should be focusing on.

We're almost at the end of May.

And that's crazy, like halfway through the year.

But if you are still struggling with.

Your personal statement, that needs to be done.

Like we gotta wrap it up.

It is time.

Can't procrastinate anymore.

So we have a lot of personal statement resources beyond the podcast.

We have worksheets on the website that can help you kind of brainstorm.

We have the personal statement guide on Amazon you can use to go through and it has examples and really goes through everything.

And then we edit personal statements also.

And don't forget you can use the code future pa on the pa platform.com for help with any of that.

We have lots of stuff on social.

Media, but essentially you got to find some time.

Got to do it.

It's not super fun, but got to make it happen.

So we'll jump into today's episode.

I wanted to remind you that we do have a webinar coming up on interview prep because it is time to start kind of transitioning into thinking about that.

So that'll be on Thursday, June 8th at 8pm we'll put the sign up in the description for that so that you'll have access and there will be a replay.

It will be on YouTube if you.

Can't be there live.

But wanted to make you aware of that.

Another cool thing coming up which I need to talk more about is maptcon.

So we are planning an in person conference in conjunction with mapt which I'll be talking about more as well.

It's an online free application tracker.

It has a great GPA calculator and.

Experience details and stuff that you can enter.

So there will be a link for that in the description.

But mappedcon is going to be an in person pre health conference.

Lots of schools will be there, resources.

We'll have so many great pre pa talks.

And you can check all that [email protected].

I will be speaking.

I will be there.

I would love to meet as many.

Of you as possible.

It's in Baltimore on October 7th.

There is some stuff going on on October 6th and 8th as well, but some signups are live for that and you can use the code PA platform for $25 off.

We would love to see you there.

All right, let's jump into today's episode.

And start talking about some personal statements.

I also didn't realize quite how long this webinar was.

So this will be split into two.

Parts just to keep it at a.

Reasonable amount of time so that you're not listening for two hours.

I think you're gonna get a good handle on my pet peeves that I have when it comes to editing essays.

Unfortunately, you know, there's some stuff that just I like to correct when I go through essays, but I also like to point out the good stuff.

So these essays I would say were all are fairly good to start with.

I really didn't change anything in them or do anything.

And these are like exactly what was submitted.

So kind of to talk you through this process, when we are editing essays, you send them to us and we send them to a coach anonymously or you know, I get them, I don't know anything about you.

And we, we don't know your stats, we don't know anything about your background.

And that's for a couple of reasons.

When your application goes through this process, every school is going to do this differently.

Some schools will have the same person looking at your entire application and reading your essay and doing all that at once.

Some, some programs will have kind of like a screening where they go through, make sure you hit, you match all the stat blah, match all the stats they're looking for so that you've checked all the boxes, you have the gpa, you have the classes, all that.

So after you've done that step is when then they look at your experience more, they look at your essay more.

So all that to say the person who reads your essay may or may not have background on your experience and what else is on your application.

They might be going into it blindly for just knowing that, okay, this person checks all the boxes, they've done what they need to do.

So let me read their essay and see if there's somebody that we want to interview.

They may also just honestly not have the time to go back through your whole application.

An application usually ends up being anywhere from 25 to 35, 40 pages long.

It is a lot of stuff and it can be very time intensive to just have to sift through all that to look at your classes, to look at your experience, especially if they're trying to reference something from your essay.

And honestly, they're probably not going to do that when they are getting thousands and hundreds of applications and essays that.

They have to read.

So that is kind of why we do the process the way we do it.

We're going to edit.

Content's the big one.

Like making sure your content's on track, that you're answering the questions we want you to answer.

Looking at flow, looking at grammar stuff, but mainly content.

Let me check my housekeeping rules here.

So if you see anything from Michelle or Emily in the chat there with me and they will point you in the right direction, give you links, give you resources that you can use and you'll find helpful.

We'll email some of that out afterwards.

Also, this session is being recorded, so if you can't hang out with us, you'll get an email with the replay so that you can watch it later and it doesn't expire.

You can watch it whenever you want.

So yes, so this will be recorded and then we'll try to get it on YouTube.

Also, if there is any issues with Internet or lagging, try refreshing, try using Google Chrome.

We found those things work the best and got a private question about is there a link where we can submit our personal statement for editing?

Yes.

So we.

I don't know if I have it in here.

Let me check.

No, I don't see it.

So we'll get the email or, sorry, the link for essay editing put in the chat and it'll go out in the email afterwards also.

So turnaround times about three to four days from when you send your essay in.

We do also edit experience details, Covid essays, if that's a thing this year, and supplemental applications and we'll be doing some sessions on that also.

But tonight we are focused on personal statements.

So we do.

We've kind of tried to plan out some upcoming webinars.

We don't have the links for those yet, but you will see them coming out in your email.

So be on the lookout.

On March 19th we're just going to do like a Q A.

We after last session felt there were a lot of still questions about personal statements that hadn't been answered.

So you can join us on March 19th at 8pm Eastern for a CASPA and personal statement Question and answer.

You can send questions ahead of time to info@the pa platform.com or bring your questions with you and we will try to answer as many as possible.

We try to keep our sessions to around an hour.

Want to respect yalls time Also when I do them on Sundays I got to work tomorrow so gotta go to bed at some point.

But we'll make sure that we get as much answered as possible and then we are going to do like a big Casper walkthrough boot camp session on what day is that?

April 23rd, tentatively.

So that should be kind of getting you ready for the actual application and what to expect.

And I'm doing a webinar with AAPA on March 20th.

Usually they cap theirs pretty early as far as how many people can attend.

So make sure you're following on Instagram.

I'm just the PA platform on there to sign up for those and we'll let you know about anything else coming up as it happens.

So so somebody says there a link for experiences in Covid review as well.

It's all under that essay review.

So we just do it by characters.

If you want everything edited, you kind of bundle all that together.

You can submit it in one document.

Just make sure you're choosing the right number of characters that you need.

Ed Clean spaces and if you have any questions just email us and we'll help you out.

We also have the PA School Personal Statement Guide if you're still struggling.

This has a lot of examples in it and just kind of guidance about writing your essay steps.

Talk about brainstorming, content, editing mistakes.

There's some checklists in here, examples, lots of stuff so that is on the website or Amazon, which is quicker shipping than me.

All right, let's get into it.

Okay, so we're about to jump into essays and a couple things that I want you all to like think about.

So as we're going through these essays, when we get to the end we want to keep the prompt in mind.

So explain why you're interested in becoming a physician assistant.

We have 5,000 characters including spaces to answer that.

That's about a page and a paragraph, single spaced at the end of our essays that we're going to read.

I want y' all to be considering and answering.

Do you feel like you know why this person wants to be a pa?

Do you feel that they have a good, solid understanding of the PA profession and that they feel confident and you feel confident that they will complete PA school and be an effective provider as a pa?

And can you tell that this person is passionate about becoming a pa?

This is really, really what they want to.

So those are the things I kind of want you to be thinking about.

But as we go through this, I want you all to edit with me and put your thoughts and comments in the chat.

The good, the bad we can be.

You know, there's good, but we also want to be critical and thinking through some of this.

So let's go.

Someone said, can we sign up through the aapa?

If I'm a member, you should get emails about it.

I don't think it's exclusive.

Exclusive to members, but, yes, you should get emails.

So definitely sign up.

All right.

Yeah.

And Emily said, keep your.

If you can keep your questions in the chat, that's really where we monitor the most.

The Q A really doesn't give us a great way to, like, make sure we're getting all the questions.

So recommend the chat for questions.

I. I tested my screen share ahead of time to make sure this was going to work, and it did.

So let me make sure I choose the right one.

Ta da.

Okay, can y' all see that if you're on a, you know, phone or something, it may be very small, but again, you can always look back later and kind of check in.

So essay number one.

Here we go.

Let me get all my wind.

I have a lot of windows open.

So we're going to answer it.

I see some of these questions coming up, and we're going to answer some of these.

All right, so this first person is kind of our traditional applicant.

They have a kind of average gpa.

Can you see my mouse?

And it's over here.

Okay, perfect.

So they have an average GPA here, 3.48 clinical hours.

You know, good amount of hours.

They've done some scribing in the ER hours, some hours as a medical assistant, some volunteering, planning on taking the gre.

So we know a little bit.

We know that this is their first time applying.

And.

Yeah, so that's all we have to go on.

All right, so please explain why you're interested in being a pa.

So the first thing that I always do is get a character count, which y' all can't see.

It's not letting me show you up here, but, like, I'm in Google Drive, right?

Now, and if you go to Tools and Word Count, you can display it while you're typing.

And again, it's not going to show you all, but down at the bottom I can see how many characters there are.

And then I can just highlight this first essay.

There we go.

And we can do it up here so y' all can see.

It'll show me that this is 4,595 characters.

So that leaves us a little bit of room if we need it when we're going through this going back to the top.

So one thing to keep in mind for Caspa is that tabs do not work, so we will not be able to use any tabs in caspa.

The best way to do this is to do a double enter in between paragraphs.

So often that's the first thing I do is just get the formatting right for submitting tabs.

Don't transfer special characters, don't transfer things like italic, bold, what else underline.

None of that is going to work when you try to copy your essay over.

Okay, so let's read this intro together and then we'll talk about it.

Here we go.

A sharp knock interrupted the conversation in the car.

After a brief moment of silence, chaos erupted.

We were being robbed.

My uncle hurriedly emptied his pockets under the threat of guns.

Okay, this like, automatically has my attention.

That's, you know, a lot.

Okay.

Suddenly there was a bang and my aunt yelled out.

A bullet had grazed her arm, causing a steady flow of blood.

My 5 year old cousin Elisa was lying unconscious in her arms.

I jumped to action, wrapping my dupata around my aunt's arm as a makeshift tourniquet.

My uncle passed Eliza to me, shouting, she's not responding.

Wake her up.

I shook her, called out her name, checked her pulse and searched for the bleeding site.

But my efforts were futile.

Despite our frantic calls for help, nobody came to our aid.

The closest hospital was an hour away and the ambulance was stuck in traffic as nobody yielded to the emergency vehicle.

By the time it reached us, my cousin had passed away.

Hey, that's a lot.

That's definitely has some shock value.

That,.

You know, I think could be kind of triggering to some.

Like I have a four year old and that is a lot to hear, but this is a good personal experience.

The one thing that I will be kind of looking for, and I think I know where this person's going, is how this brought them to the PA profession or to medicine, how it impacted their future actions.

Clearly this was a very meaningful experience that they wanted to Share.

One thing that I think would be helpful here would be some context of age of the writer.

So there's.

You're going to have a very different outlook and response whether you are, you know, an 8 year old versus an 18 year old.

And then your actions moving forward from that are going to be different.

So having context for your reader is very important so they can follow along.

I think somebody asked maybe in the other part, is it better to go in chronological order or importance order?

And I prefer chronological order.

I think it's easier to follow the kind of story if it just flows very well and you're not kind of jumping back and forth.

So depending on when this is, that may be the case that this is chronological.

If we're looking at, we'll.

We'll get into some wording stuff a little bit, but not too much here.

So there's some excessive words.

So bullet had grazed your arm.

So you can probably just say like a bullet grazed her arm.

You can take that hat out.

And then I think down here, like down.

What part was it?

Yeah, this part you could probably take out.

Like you could just say the ambulance was stuck in traffic, not that nobody yielded, and take that part out.

So let's see, what are some thoughts on the other pages?

No questions here, guys.

Questions in the chat is great.

Do you think in order for.

To be a good personal statement, we need a storytelling intro like this?

Not necessarily.

I think story.

Okay, so I do want stories and I do want examples included.

But you don't necessarily have to tell them in this way.

Like you can simplify it a lot.

And so that's going to be more of like a style and what you feel comfortable with as to how descriptive you are and how much you share.

So then the next question.

Do you recommend being that vulnerable?

It depends.

It just depends on how it relates to you becoming a PA and what you're comfortable with.

Anything you put in your essay could come up in an interview.

So if it's not something you feel comfortable talking about, don't include it because you know that it's gonna be weird if they bring it up and you're like, I don't want to talk about that when you're the one who introduced it.

And that does happen.

All right, so let's.

Let's keep moving.

Next paragraph.

Okay.

When the shock and adrenaline from the event wore off, the grief and outrage set in.

If the ambulance had arrived earlier, or if there was a closer hospital, could she have survived?

This childhood tragedy resonated with me.

And made me aware of the lack of healthcare infrastructure in Pakistan and sparked my interest in healthcare.

It made me aware of the various healthcare barriers people face, such as crime, violence, finances, and geographic location.

Okay, so we learned some stuff here.

We learn some kind of personal background where this person was.

A little insight into that.

I think this could potentially be shortened into like one to two sentences and added to the previous and previous paragraph if we needed to, to save characters.

But this does kind of show us where that original interest in healthcare came from.

One technique.

If your essay is over on characters and you're struggling with that, look for these types of situations.

So places where there are and.

Or.

Or statements.

So when the shock and adrenaline, the grief and outrage.

I'm just going to highlight some of these so we can talk about them.

If the ambulance had arrived earlier or there was a closer hospital.

Not saying that any of this is bad, it's perfectly fine.

But when we're looking at.

Okay, how do we make this shorter?

If you have anything that's like a list or these multiple descriptors, you can shorten and take those out and save on characters.

So.

So we could just say when the shot from the event wore off, the grief set in.

Okay.

And it has the same meaning.

Like it's a little different, but it's ultimately, it's not changing anything overall in your essay.

So those are just some things I think I see a lot of people struggling with getting their essay shorter.

And usually there's a lot of statements like this in it where we're just using a lot of extra words that you can cut if needed.

Okay, I'm gonna get this on.

There we go.

Okay, So 11 years later, I was drawn to becoming a medical scribe at an emergency department with a large low income demographic because I noticed similar healthcare barriers in the United States.

And I am passionate about working towards helping patients overcome these barriers.

A common theme I noticed in the ED was was patients sharing that the exorbitant price of medications prevented them from following treatment, causing them to return for preventable issues.

I became inspired by how the medical providers would go above and beyond to help patients overcome this financial barrier so patients can receive high quality care.

I am eager to emulate this behavior as a physician assistant by being transparent when patients ask me questions about costs and directing them towards more cost effective methods regardless of their socioeconomic status.

Okay, there's a lot there.

What do we.

Any thoughts?

What are we thinking?

Anything.

Anything.

The chat is very quiet.

Okay, so this 11 years later part here, this gives us a little bit of context, but it still doesn't give us enough to know, like, is this person in college, out of college?

Like, where are we at?

So I think I would want still a little bit more context there.

So condensing maybe running on a little bit.

Okay.

I want to hear about the experience.

No mention of PA yet.

What if we don't have a shocking story like that one?

That's totally fine.

Define the roles of a PA better.

Okay, so, okay, this is what I like.

They could be more specific about YPA versus any other medical profession.

And that's the main thing that I'm getting here.

Yes.

I don't know how specifically the PAs would help as opposed to a pharmacist.

And that's a good catch.

Destiny.

Yes.

For the emergency department.

She might want to put ED afterwards, since they use it later in the paragraph.

Correct.

So y'.

All.

Y' all have nailed it.

Very good.

So here we would want.

If you're going to use that abbreviation later, we want to add it there.

PA is done correctly down here.

I wouldn't necessarily say it's that late for mentioning pa but I do think the sooner the better.

I really like it when PA is mentioned very early in the essay.

And yes, after you write this out, Physician assistant once and add pa, you can use pa Just the abbreviation the rest of the time.

Totally fine.

So, yes, Kimberly, I agree.

How did their personal experience with low socioeconomic status inspire pa Exactly.

Yes.

And agree, too.

Why not public health, healthcare administration, social work?

Y' all are like nailing this because I like skimmed this, but I didn't get in the weeds very much.

This is a great experience.

So scribe in an emergency department in an area that has needs.

Great love.

They're discussing that.

And this is something that commonly happens in essays.

I see this all the time.

Every single year.

We get away from the prompt of why PA and why PA for you?

And we start getting into what you want to do to fix medicine and fix healthcare, which is hard because that's a great thing.

Like, that is a absolutely great goal.

There's plenty of things that need fixed in medicine.

I feel like over the past however many nine years I've been doing this, I constantly were adjusting what we're doing and having ideas and trying things to make things easier and better for patients.

But this is not the place to include that.

You can discuss it some if there's space.

But we got a lot to talk about before we get to this.

Like, I need to know how you were introduced to the PA profession.

What was appealing about it, why it resonates with you.

And like others have said, this is not specific to PAs.

A lot of people can do this role.

Nurses can do this role.

You can do this role as a patient care tech, a medical assistant, social work, public health administration.

There's lots of ways if you're just trying to increase patient access to do that outside of being a pain.

Okay, let's see.

I'm trying to keep up with the chat a little bit and see where we're at.

Okay, so we'll get into how to explain YPA better.

Okay, cool.

So, yeah, so I like the sentiment and this is where I'm not saying that there's not ever a place to discuss this because you may get the opportunity in supplement supplementals, it is common for a supplemental to ask, you know, what are your goals as a PA?

Where do you see yourself in five, 10 years?

What do you want to do as a PA?

And that would be the time to go into detail about this a little bit more and share what your plans are and what you would like to do in that setting.

So we still, I wouldn't say have exactly their YPA yet.

We have their why medicine.

They want to, they, you know, I, I fully believe this person wants to help people and has great goals for that.

But I don't think we've gotten into their, their why for PA quite yet.

All right, so moving on.

My passion for contributing to overcoming healthcare barriers led me to work at a COVID 19 testing site during a severe need for testing kits and healthcare workers.

Working during such an unprecedented time where I was seeing an upward of 500 patients a day, I realized that I thrived during fast in challenging situations.

From this experience I realized that providing high quality patient care while paying attention to detail as a PA in a fast paced environment would be the perfect fit for me.

So again, like why is this specific to as a pa?

And yeah, give me all thoughts.

If the COVID essay still exists in this upcoming cycle, I would try to keep all discussion there unless it's something like very specific to pushing you towards the PA profession.

Otherwise like this honestly could also just be experience details.

Like I'm not seeing why this specific example is like such a big meaningful reason for your ypa.

Does anyone know the worst four letter word in the alpha in the, in the dictionary in the world?

Do you know the worst four letter word?

Because I will tell you and it's one that I take out all the time that it's just not necessary.

So if we, you know, take that out, I realized I thrive.

It's totally fine.

Saves characters.

I realized providing high quality patient care while paying attention to detail, you know, we just don't need that.

Yeah, that.

I hate that.

So that's one of my biggest pet peeves.

And then we get into some nitpicky stuff with like multiple.

What's the word?

Like repetitive wording.

So I realized, I realized, like, we could just mix it up a little bit more.

Yeah, so I. I'm getting, you know, vibes that this person may want to be an emergency medicine, Pennsylvania, but they don't necessarily say that yet.

So anyway, like, yeah, I like that they're using specific examples, but I think somebody else said, like, the timeline, the flow, it's not quite there.

And we're about to like really kind of, I think, get into that with this one.

We're not sending out people's essays.

We won't be sending this out as a word document to anyone.

Okay.

So my dad passed away my last semester of College after a 12 year long battle with cancer.

Again, being very vulnerable, which I appreciate.

I mean, I think the more you share and having those experiences makes you more relatable to patients.

So anyway, the impact that his pa's time and dedication has had on our family has inspired me to go the extra mile for all my patients as a pa, her time and dedication as she supported my whole family by helping my dad with financial assistance packets, gaining acceptance into clinical trials and helping to overcome the language barrier made my family struggle against cancer easier.

As a pa, I'm eager to have this long lasting impact on my patients and their families in the future.

So that's super sweet and definitely shows familiarity with the PA profession.

This brings up my question of, like, is this where you found out about the PA profession and where you were introduced to it?

Could you say that more clearly and could that be said sooner in your essay?

Like, I think this could be moved up to kind of after you've talked about your other experience that led you into medicine, if that makes sense chronologically.

This is okay.

So one thing that's interesting to me about this too is a lot of this stuff is like really nice, kind things, but it doesn't necessarily show me that you have an understanding of what PAs do.

Again, these are things that a lot of people in any medical profession can do.

So I'd like to see a little bit more about like how she was involved in the treatment or the education and how maybe she worked with the Doctor, I haven't had seen any mention of the collaborative relationship between PAs and physicians yet, so I really can't say.

I. I think you do have a good understanding of what a PA does, but I can't 100 say, like, yes, you absolutely know what a PA does from what I've read so far.

So that's some things I would change and add there if possible.

Let's see.

Okay.

I typically don't recommend mentioning specialties in a personal statement.

Most PA programs are primary care based and will train you kind of as a generalist.

And so usually they're looking for people who are kind of more interested in that as well.

And so if you kind of pigeonhole yourself into a specialty, depending on who your reader is, that can potentially backfire.

Okay, cool.

So let's keep going.

Move this down so we can see the whole thing.

Okay.

So.

My healthcare experience has taught me the significance of advocacy.

I helped my family through my dad's fight against cancer by serving as translator and preparer.

I learned to navigate language and medical literacy barriers that commonly exist in immigrant families.

When his oncologist first pushed for hospice care, my dad and I protested and implored him to find another treatment, causing him to include my dad in another clinical trial.

Once an 18 year old checked into the ED with complaints of numbness in her legs, I overheard another employee comment that the girl was simply fat and lazy and wanted an excuse to miss work.

The provider needs to send her home instead of doing a lumbar puncture.

Despite my uneasiness, I spoke up, saying that the lumbar puncture was necessary for the symptoms presented.

The results from the puncture came back indicative of cancer, reminding me of the importance of advocacy.

Okay, so these are good examples.

They just feel a little bit random and, like, disjointed.

I think they definitely show this person's kindness and compassion.

I think it might be more effective to just like, stick with one example here versus trying to use both of those.

And there's not really, like, a transition here, and they don't really relate to one another.

So I think that could be reworked a little bit and probably just.

I would stick with one and try to optimize that example versus fitting both of these in here.

Yeah.

So, okay.

None of those are okay.

So that'd be my thoughts there.

And then let's get to our conclusion, and then y' all let me know what your overall thoughts are.

So the event with Elisa sparked my interest in medicine, but my experiences in the healthcare field have inspired Me to become an advocate for patients to help them overcome socioeconomic and healthcare literacy barriers as a pa, A career as a physician assistant that can just be PA will be deeply satisfying for me because I can thrive in a fast paced environment while having a long lasting impact on my patients.

Okay, so this is a, you know, when we think of a conclusion, usually what we think of is like, just summarize what you said.

For a PA personal statement, the conclusion can be a little bit different.

And it should really be your last attempt to convince your reader that you are the best person for a spot in their program.

And a really confident statement of that.

There hasn't really been a mention throughout this essay of academic success or preparedness for a PA program.

So I'd like to see them mention like, you know, I feel I'm ready for PA school.

We have to keep in mind you're not applying for a spot as a pa, you are applying for a spot as a student.

And that's the role you want to show that you're ready to take on.

I think this, this conclusion could definitely be stronger.

Overall, I think the writing is very good in this essay and I think the content is on track.

There are just some areas that could use a little bit more specific.

Information.

And polishing to make sure that they are really showing that ypa.

I don't know if we can say specifically YPA and not another medical profession at this time.

So.

Yeah, so it's almost like we're writing a little bit more about advocacy then talking about kind of ypa because that again, you can do advocacy in a lot of different medical professions.

So I wouldn't talk about anything program specific outside of supplemental applications because this is going to go to every program.

Yeah.

So again, like, this is again, I think focused more on advocacy than PA specific stuff, so there's room for improvement.

But good first draft.

Really, really good first like stuff to work with.

All right, let's move to our RE applicant.

Career changer, science GPA 3.8 overall, 3.52 work as an EMT, degree in education.

So this person said they were non traditional and a reapplicant.

So the first thing I want us to notice is this is one big block of text.

This is how it was submitted.

This is miserable to read.

It's terrible.

So when you're, if you enter it like this in caspa, this is how they'll get it and I guarantee your readers gonna be like, oh my gosh, what in the world?

Just because it's so Hard to read.

So I went ahead and like, kind of put in some breaks here because I was like, I can't do this.

Yes, please put those enters in.

These probably aren't perfect breaks, but this is my like, quick skim.

Where do I think we could break it?

Okay, cool.

All right, so now we can jump in.

Okay, we ready?

The day began just like any other summer day.

My mom and I had decided to work on a few needed repairs on the exterior of my new house.

We gathered our supplies and climbed the ladder to the roof.

Before I knew what was going on, she had fallen nearly 20ft from the roof to the ground below.

Nightmare.

Using knowledge gained from first aid and CPR classes, I quickly assessed the situation and called 91 1.

As I waited for EMS and Fire to arrive on the scene, I worked to keep my mom calm.

It seemed to take an eternity for the ambulance to arrive.

And during that time I kept wishing that I could do more to help my mom.

When the members of the local EMS agency arrived on the scene, I was able to help them prepare her to be transported to the landing zone and wait on the helicopter to arrive.

So this is another like shock value story, which it, you know, you don't have to have a story like this.

I did not have a story like this.

We can put a link to my personal statement in the chat because, yeah, I didn't have anything like this.

And one thing that's interesting, I think the last essay did this and we'll see if this one does, is sometimes when you start with this like, well formed descriptive story and then the rest of your essay, like, doesn't match up to that, it kind of is like a letdown.

You're like, oh, like this started out so engaging and then it kind of like doesn't keep doing that.

Okay, so yeah, so I agree.

Like, there's some ways to summarize here.

Let's see.

So, yeah, wanting to do more to help.

Yeah, I don't have to repeat some of this.

So yeah, so I agree.

I think some of this could be shortened.

Again, I would want some context of exactly when this was.

Like it was your new house.

I'm assuming you're older, but is that like after high school and college or like later?

Like, I don't know, just some context.

Was this a year ago?

Something to help me kind of understand the timeline of this would be helpful.

So yeah, you could definitely.

A lot of it, like all of that could be put into one sentence.

I agree.

Yeah, this could be shortened if needed.

Oh, Character count.

I did the character count.

So they actually have some space to kind of work with when it comes to content.

Okay.

So someone said in a private message is talking about my passion for black maternal and child health due to a personal matter between my mom and I at birth.

Too specific.

Even if I talk about the PA profession as a whole, so it's hard to say, like, if a certain situation can or can't be put into your essay, and it depends on how you do it.

If your whole essay was about that, then that probably wouldn't work.

But if it is relevant and there's space and you still talk about everything else we're looking for, then you probably are fine.

So, yeah, it's just hard to, like, one off say, like, oh, yeah, that's good.

Or don't do that.

All right, so again, need a little context, but good start.

Let's see where this person goes.

As I watch my mom being loaded onto the helicopter, I remember feeling a sudden rush of excitement and fear all at the same time.

I probably would take out the exclamation.

I don't really like exclamations in a formal essay.

I knew that.

I knew I never wanted to find myself in this type of situation and not be able to help.

I never wanted to feel that type of helplessness again.

You could take is just say that helplessness.

Like, there's lots of ways to shorten.

We won't get into that.

I needed to become an EMT so I could help not only my family members, but also the residents of my small rural community.

Right then and there, I decided I would enroll in up in the upcoming EMT course being offered.

So we don't do that, just the upcoming EMT courses.

And, like, I'll probably make that, like, in an upcoming EMT course.

So I like this because there was an action taken.

So, you know, this is what happened, this is how I felt, and this is what I did.

So, you know, made some changes.

This is an interesting statement.

I've heard admissions people say different things about this.

Like, when you are in this personal medical emergency that also pushes you to medicine, towards medicine.

Like, you want to be very cautious about how you describe that.

I did a podcast with Dr. Alan Platt of Emory.

I think he's a doctor.

I don't know.

He's a pa. Allen Platt of Emory.

And he was just really funny because he used the example of somebody saying, like, oh, my grandma was so sick in the hospital.

And she was dying.

But I was so excited to do medicine and how it's just this weird juxtaposition that you just have to be a little.

A little cautious about how you go about that.

Yes.

I like, agree that she shares what kind of community she's in.

That gives us some context.

Yeah.

And so I was saying, Nicole, like, I agree, like, maybe.

I don't know if that's the time that you, like, say you felt excitement.

I just feel that could be taken kind of the wrong way sometimes.

So this is interesting.

This is an interesting comment.

This speaks to their experience and seems to be leading to exposure to the PA profession by.

When they're focusing on emt, strays away from the mission to be a pa.

So I think what we'll find out is this person's been an EMT for a long time.

Like, this is a big career change for them.

So I think in this case, it's probably a little bit more relevant.

But we do, like, we need to get to PA pretty quickly.

Yeah.

So agree.

Like, let's.

Let's get to pa. Like, let's get there.

All right, let's move this down.

Sorry.

I just like to see it all.

Becoming an EMT was a wonderful experience.

That's a little vague.

That's a little general.

I don't know if I rework that.

I gained valuable knowledge and skills.

So this is an example of that, like, double thing.

All while helping those who are in need of emergency medical attention.

I've experienced not only the thrill of helping a variety of patients, but also the heartbreak of losing a patient.

That's a great thing to have experienced in medicine before you become a pa.

I knew I was providing a very.

We.

We don't need words like very and really either.

I was writing a valuable service to the members of my community and felt proud to.

Okay, sorry, this is.

I have a lot of, like, wording pet peeves right now.

To be able is typically also not needed.

So just.

It's usually not okay.

I knew I was providing a valuable service to the members of my community and felt proud to help members.

Like, this is redundant to help when they needed it the most.

I have had the opportunity to respond to all types of calls even after nearly 10 years as an EMT.

I continue to learn from each and every call on which I respond that these sentences seem redundant to me.

This one doesn't tell me enough.

This one tells me the same thing with more information.

While I knew I was providing a valuable service for my community as an emt.

And I really enjoyed what I was doing.

I soon realized I wanted to.

Do.

More for my patients.

I had the desire to get more training and expand on my skills and knowledge.

All right, so this tells me how they felt limited in their role, but all what they've learned from their role, and I think it's a good overview.

So because this is, again, such, like, a big part of their life and experience, we are going to have a lot of focus there, but we gotta, like, we gotta get to PA eventually.

So let's see.

Trying to get caught up with chat.

Yeah, I think that's fine, Sarah.

Yeah.

Okay, Cool.

Nothing super relevant in there, but.

Yeah, so I think this.

I think this is good experience,.

And.

We want to, you know, figure out when we're going to get to pa.

So I think if we shorten these first couple sentences, then had.

Or paragraphs, then had this one, then we can get into this a little bit sooner.

Here we go.

During my EMT training, I was given the opportunity to shadow two physician assistants in the local emergency department.

Okay, so this is where we're going to add that abbreviation so we can use it throughout.

As I shadowed in the emergency department, we just said that so we can take that out.

As I shadowed, I became more interested in the PA profession.

Okay.

I began researching the profession, and the more I learned, the more convinced I became that it was something I wanted to pursue.

I need to show you what it actually looks like when I edit an essay, because I, like, do a lot of red and, like, strikethroughs and stuff, so I'm not just, like, changing your essay.

Clearly.

I'll show you all one.

But as I shadowed, I became.

I'm gonna switch.

This is bothering me.

As I shadowed, I'm just gonna take this out.

I began.

I began researching the profession, and the more I learned, the more convinced I became that it was something I wanted to pursue.

I think that's better.

By the time my shadowing in the emergency department came to an end, I fell in love with the idea of becoming a pa. That's cool.

But why?

Like, why?

I need to know.

The level of care the PAs provided to their patients was excellent.

I was also intrigued with the lateral movement that the profession offered.

Knowing I could work in a variety of settings and help patients suffering from a variety of conditions was very interesting to me.

Okay, so this is a good, like, first start to introducing the PA profession.

I hear.

I learned how you were introduced to it or this person was, and then kind of like a surface Level discussion of what they saw.

But I need more here, and we have space, so we need more.

Yeah, no, I still don't like exclamation points.

So let's see what are we saying over here?

Yeah, the word more is in here a lot.

I see that.

If we submit our essay for review, do you review it or someone else from the PA platform?

It depends.

So if I.

If you.

You can request me, and if I can do it, I will.

We have a few of our coaches who edit, and some of them edit kind of exclusively, and that's all they do.

So they also will tear your essay up.

So I don't like exclamation points in here.

Okay, so this is a good start, but I just want more information about how they feel, like, what they liked about it.

So they researched it and it was something they liked.

And I want to know also like, what they saw while shadowing.

This would be a great time to use an example and tell me.

You know, when I was following Megan, I watched a sheen comforted a boy who came in with a dislocated shoulder.

She consulted with the collaborating physician on the best way to like.

I forgot that said, like relocate.

I saw a shoulder dislocation when I was in the er.

That's why I came to mine to put it back into place.

There's probably a better word for that, but I don't like joints and bones, so I don't think about those things.

And they discussed the case and decided it would be best to do it under sedation and work together to make the patient as comfortable as possible.

So, you know, there are ways to show instead of tell, and that's what we want to think about doing.

So this would be a great time to use an example of what that person actually saw as far as the level of care and what intrigued them as much as possible.

So, yeah, so the flow is okay.

Thanks, Corey.

We.

We really tried to be.

Be nice and put a lot of good stuff in there, but also a lot of, you know, good stuff.

Somebody said, I can see why it's important to mention YPA early on in your personal statement, but what if you became aware of PA later on in your path?

That's fine.

Just make sure the beginning of your path and the discussion of it short to get to that PA part earlier.

And I think that the next one we're going to do talks about it early and, like, does that well.

And then somebody privately asked, can we use the real names of the PAs we shadowed or do we need to change the names.

You can absolutely use the real names 100%.

And as a reapplicant, should your second essay be different?

We'll talk about that in just a second.

All right, so somebody says if there's a way to tie in that last part of the paragraph with an anecdote from emt, that would be great.

Yeah, for sure.

I think that's a very good thing.

Like, yeah, share something about one of these patients.

You don't share patient information.

You can make up a fake name if you.

Something generic, like, you know, John, Bill, like something short.

So that doesn't use a lot of characters, but just something generic.

Mr. A, Mr. K. Whatever.

Like just make something up if you're talking about a patient.

Okay, so let's move on to the next paragraph.

Okay.

My passion to become a PA was reinforced when I broke my leg.

While it was the surgeon who performed the surgery, it was the PA who provided the majority of my follow up care.

The opportunity to visit with my PA gave me an even better understanding of the work a PA performed.

So again, this is where we could have some examples, like, what did that PA do?

Specifically?

How did they collaborate with the surgeon?

Did they discuss your case?

Like, help me understand that so that I have a good understanding.

That you have a good understanding.

And I would say both the last essay and this one are kind of where a lot of the essays we get start.

Like, they're a great first draft, but they just aren't digging in and like going deep enough.

Like, I need more.

That's what I write in so many essays.

Like, I need more.

I need more about this.

I need more and more more.

Which then you're like, I don't have space, but we can figure the space out.

Like, I can.

I can cut an essay down.

I've cut a 12, 000 character essay down to 5,000 characters.

Like, we can cut it, but I don't know what my husband's doing.

It sounds like he's shaking a.

Can you all hear that?

Like a jar of coins.

No idea.

He must be looking for something.

Like a tool.

Whatever.

Sorry.

So, yeah, no, we just want you to, like, get deeper into the why.

Like, just keep going.

Don't worry about characters.

We can, we can figure that out.

Yes, you can use real names of doctors that you work with for sure.

Okay, Let's do this one.

I began taking classes while also continuing to work full time.

I was able to take summer and evening classes in order to fulfill the requirements for school.

So I would just Change this to tuk.

With each class I completed, my desire to become a PA grew.

And I knew, God, this bath that's driving me crazy.

And I knew this was the career path I wanted to pursue.

I'm eager to begin this new journey and make a difference in the lives of others beyond what I can do now as an emt.

Okay, the other.

Just pause.

The other thing that doing this, taking these phrases out does is it just gives you like a more confident writing.

Like it just makes you sound more confident.

Okay.

While my mom's accent was terrifying, it also showed me I am capable of doing more and ignited a love of medicine within me.

I feel my past experiences are a perfect fit for the PA profession.

I bring valuable work based knowledge as well as a love for learning and expanding my skills.

I look forward to becoming a PA and providing valuable patient care to those who need it most.

So, like, we might could throw a comment in here.

I think the comment, like Grammarly tells me the comma is kind of like going away.

You don't really need it a lot.

I think I do a more traditional comma, but Grammarly is a great thing to use to check your essay.

I don't have it set up on this computer, but it'll show you in any of your writing just very quickly, like very simple things to include or change.

Okay, so a couple things here.

So do we need to mention we are reapplicant?

Should they have included how they've improved since last cycle?

And yes, as a RE applicant, typically I am going to expect to see that.

The question that I have for reapplicants, because the next one's a reapplicant too, that we don't have in this case is did you get interviews and how much has changed between cycles.

So if you didn't get any interviews and you're applying to the same programs and I want to know if you were qualified, like did they ever even read your essay or did they not?

But even then you want to make probably some small changes to make sure it's different because they most likely will compare your essay and your application and if it looks exactly the same, I don't know why you would expect a different outcome.

Right?

So like you need to change stuff.

You gotta do something better or different.

So in those cases, you know, I would want to see specifically like what you've done differently.

Some supplementals will let you expand on that more.

It doesn't need to take up a whole bunch of your essay, but it is something that you can include.

Yeah.

So they could talk more about kind of like, how they did in their classes, their academics, being ready for PA school.

I think that could be a little bit stronger here as well.

Okay, so somebody said basically, to sum it up, like, they don't have any shadowing.

Should I talk about lacking shadowing experience?

You should go back and watch my last webinar where we talked about how to address, like, weaknesses and how you don't really want to point out, like, a weakness.

You just want to focus on what you do have.

And then someone said, how would I know if they read my essay?

You're not going to.

This is where we have to look at as a whole, like, how your application cycle went.

If you didn't get any interviews, if you felt like you weren't actually qualified for the programs you applied to, then most likely they didn't.

If you got weeded out.

So it's hard to.

You're never really going to know.

And it's fine to talk about other professions.

Do we have to mention coursework or academics?

I suggest it.

You're applying to be a student, so you do want to make it clear that you are ready to take on the academic side of things as a future PA student.

All right, Sam.