Five thousand characters. That's what you get to explain why you want to be a PA.

In this one I go through what a strong personal statement actually does. It answers the prompt. It shows you understand the PA role specifically, not healthcare in general. And it tells a story only you could tell.

The pitfalls are predictable, which is good news, because that means you can avoid them. Opening with a dictionary definition. Listing your resume in paragraph form. Writing about a patient without ever getting to what it changed in you. Saying "I want to help people" and stopping there.

The writing itself is the last step. The real work is the reflection before it, and the editing after.

What I cover:

• CASPA's requirements and character limit
• Answering the prompt instead of writing around it
• Showing you understand the PA role
• Common openings and cliches to avoid
• Reflection: turning an experience into a reason
• Editing, and how many drafts this really takes

Resources:

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

Personal statement guide: https://www.thepaplatform.com/pa-school-personal-statement-guide

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

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

Mentioned in this episode:

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All right, all right.

Let's break down the personal statement today and talk about what needs to be in your essay to make it stand out for your PA school application.

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, thanks so much for tuning in.

Savannah, here, your friendly Georgia dermatology pa.

But thanks so much for listening and if you are a long term listener, I appreciate your support.

If you're a brand new listener, thanks for tuning in.

So this week on the Pre PA Club podcast, and I'm gonna be perfectly honest, I have lost track of how many episodes we're at.

I just know it's over a hundred.

And so on this episode we're jumping into the personal statement and if you've already applied this cycle, this may be a little bit too late for you, but you may be able to take some of these principles forward if you have to reapply or for your supplemental applications, which we have a different episode on.

But if you are getting ready to apply next cycle or even in the next few years, this episode is really going to be important for you.

I've talked about personal statements before, but I felt like I really just need to dive in and do a boot camp.

Something where we really get into talking about everything there is to talk about with personal statements.

I probably still left some stuff out, but I'm going to cover the logistics, how to actually write it, and then get into some mistakes and things to look out for.

This is actually a talk that I did last last week with a Pre PA Club.

And if you weren't aware, I love talking to Pre PA clubs, like actual ones, not just my computer in what I call the Pre PA Club Podcast.

So if you have a club, a society, a group, and you think you'd want to set up a meeting, feel free to reach out.

Send me a message on instagram @the PA platform or an email.

Savannah with no ho the PA platform.

Or if it's easier, just infoepapa platform.com and we will get back to you.

And we have a contact form on our website as well.

Lots of ways to contact us, actually.

This week we posted on Instagram a post asking about the podcast and what topics you guys want to hear about and got some great responses.

So if there's something that you wish that we would cover or someone you'd like us to interview, whatever, hop on that post and leave us a Comment or send us a message so that we'll know.

But we're gonna jump into talking about personal statements.

This video is actually on YouTube as well with a slideshow attached, so you may want to check that out and would love to hear your thoughts and feedback there as well.

And if once you've listened to this, you feel like you need more help with your personal statement, keep in mind that you can use the code futurepa for any of the services at mypa Resource, which I'm going to go more in depth about in this episode.

You can also use that at PA School Prep if you're about to start PA school and at the PA platform.

Alright, let's get into it.

Thanks for listening.

Personal statements are very important when you have your application.

Kind of just to do a little overview of how CASPA works in the application process for most schools is you're going to enter everything into caspa, which is the universal application.

Yeah, no, I'm just, I'm just moving.

You closer to the crowd.

Okay.

So CASPA is your universal application and you're going to enter all your experience and grades and everything in there.

When your application gets sent to a school, if it meets the minimum requirements, at that point they actually look at your application and will read your personal statement.

If you don't meet the minimums of a program, it's more than likely that your application will get thrown out and they won't even look at your essay.

So number one, first step is meeting the requirements.

Number two is having a really great personal statement.

Your personal statement.

I say this probably, I say this a lot.

A personal statement is what's going to get you an interview, and then the interview is what's going to get you accepted.

Those are the most important parts.

If you can kind of get over those hurdles and impress a program, that's what's going to ultimately get you a spot in a PA program.

Because at this point in time, everyone has a lot of experience, everyone is qualified, and there are a lot of really, really great candidates out there.

Alright, so let's talk about some personal statement, just kind of basics.

Because if you haven't really looked into caspa, you probably haven't spent much time kind of figuring out what you're going to need when it comes to the personal statement.

So for just the logistics, Your essay is 5,000 characters and that includes spaces.

That's something that trips a lot of people up.

They write this great essay, but then when it comes time to enter it, it's way over on characters.

Because they didn't account for the spaces.

So 5,000 characters, including spaces.

This comes out to about a little over a page, single space, regular 12 font.

So about a page and a paragraph.

And then for the prompt.

Usually this is some variation of why do you want to be a page?

Most recently it was discuss your motivations for becoming a physician assistant.

Explain why you chose the physician assistant career, something along those lines.

And you want to keep this prompt in mind as you're writing your essay, and we'll talk more about that.

Your essay will be written directly in caspa, but that should not be the only place you write it.

I recommend using, honestly, like Google Docs online, just because it saves automatically, even instead of like a Word document, because if you lose your essay, that will be devastating.

So you want to be saving it frequently, having it somewhere where it saves, where you can copy and paste it into caspa.

And just something to keep in mind with the personal statement.

I always hope that no one has to reapply.

But if you were to have to reapply, your personal statement does not carry over between cycles.

That is one thing that you would have to resubmit.

And on another note, once you've submitted your application, you cannot change your personal statement.

So if you were to submit kind of early in the cycle to some schools and then notice a few typos and want to change it for submitting later in the cycle, that wouldn't be possible.

So you want to make sure that first submission has it exactly the way you want.

Also needs to be general and not specific to a program, because you have one essay that gets sent to every single program.

These are not specific.

So you may have supplemental essays that are specific for each program, and that's a little different.

But as far as just your general personal statement, your essay, it is one essay that goes to everybody.

So what does it take to have a really great essay?

And we're going to break these down a little bit more, but at this point in time, so for people who are not applying, but maybe applying in the next few years, you are in that brainstorming phase.

So even if you haven't really thought about your personal statement, you should be in this brainstorming phase.

And that just means, you know, opening a note on your phone or having a document somewhere that you kind of jot down ideas.

If you see a patient that really just leaves an impression on you and makes an impact, go ahead and write it down.

Because a year, two years from now, you may not remember that, that that was that important or that you wanted to put it into your essay.

You probably won't use all the information that you write down, but this is kind of just to keep a running list so that when it comes time to write, you're not just sitting down to a blank piece of paper and feeling writer's block and not sure what to do.

So go ahead and kind of start brainstorming about what you want to put in your essay and things that would be important.

Then we get in the writing phase.

And I recommend starting your essay no later than the January before you apply to PA School.

So the application opens in April.

You don't want to be scrambling in April or May or June to get your essay done, because you're going to have a lot of other stuff to do with getting your transcripts and your letters of recommendation and entering everything in caspa.

Your personal statement ideally should be done before you even get to the application process.

So if you give yourself some time, you know, beforehand, that can be helpful.

Then editing yourself and making sure that there's no errors that your essay makes sense, and then getting other people's opinions on it, too, since ultimately this is going to be read by someone who is making a judgment call on it.

So getting started, like I said, brainstorming.

You can go ahead and start doing that a little bit.

When it comes down to it, when it's really time to get started on your essay, my favorite way to write, and you may be different, but for me, what works best is just kind of getting words on paper.

I think it can be difficult if you are trying to come up with, let's say, the perfect introduction and you're just feeling like you don't have anything to say.

Well, that may come later.

So don't feel like you have to, you know, write your essay in order.

Just get some thoughts on paper, like really pour out your words and passion and why you want to be a pa and then you can change it and edit it later.

Your first draft will definitely not be your last draft.

It may not even have the same ideas in it.

So just get some thoughts on paper.

30 Minutes, no distractions, no computer, no email, no phone.

If you want to type it, that's fine.

If you want to write it, that's fine.

Something to where you can strictly work on getting everything out.

Some things to think about, you know, what has influenced your decisions, what has gotten you to the point of applying?

I describe these sometimes as being kind of pivotal moments.

So what stands out to you as kind of what led you to this point.

And we'll talk more about those.

But we have some brainstorming worksheets on the PA platform.

I didn't really say that that's what I do.

So I have a blog called the PA Platform, which started after I finished PA school out of just realizing that sometimes it's difficult to find answers to questions about PA school and it's still a relatively new career and I ran into some issues with getting the answers I needed that would just make the process easier.

So I started a blog and it's really turned into a really fun community that I've enjoyed a lot.

So I created a while back some worksheets to help you kind of brainstorm what needs to be in your essay so that you don't feel like you're just starting from scratch.

And those I can send the link, but it's just the PA platform.com downloads.

And if you go to the website, it's easy to find in the prepa section.

They're free, you just download them and that can help you kind of get started started in this process.

So these are the questions that I'm looking for answers to in your essay.

And I these came from a blog post from my PA resource.

And that's someone that I work with pretty closely.

My friend Brian, he's also a pa, but his kind of thing is the interview.

But I love essays too.

But his kind of thing is the essays.

And so with my PA resource, their focus is editing and helping with essays.

And this is from a blog post on his site, but I edit for him too.

So five things to include in your PA school personal statement.

Now when I'm editing an essay, I'm looking for the answers to these questions.

And if I whenever I edit an essay, it comes back with like a ton of red marks usually.

And some of them are good.

You know, I definitely add good comments, but if these things aren't answered, I don't necessarily feel like it's a complete essay.

So number one, what made you interested in medicine?

And this goes with, you know, really trying to show that, you know, this wasn't a last minute decision, that this is something that developed.

You don't have to have a dramatic story or event that happened that made you interested in medicine.

It can be subtle.

I mean, for me, I've always been interested in science, which kind of led to medicine.

My sister had some health problems as a child which exposed me to medicine and kind of helped to culture that interest.

But I feel like for a lot of people it is just something that you're naturally drawn to, kind of like me.

So that's fine.

It's okay if it's not dramatic.

Honestly, I prefer the essays that are not as dramatic.

From what made you interested in medicine?

How did you find out about the PA profession?

So I feel like to become a PA you pretty much have to have considered other medical professions at some point.

Point.

So especially medical school, because they're so similar.

I don't think people, especially our age, maybe this will change.

But I don't think there are many people who wake up as a kindergartner and go, I want to be a pa.

Unless maybe they had a parent who was a pa.

They go, I want to be a doctor.

So for that to switch from doctor to pa, how did that happen?

How did you find out about pas?

For me, it was my dad.

He had a doctor's appointment for a cold, like a little triage, and ended up seeing a pa.

He thought it was so great what she was able to do and came back and said that that's what I should do.

So you kind of want to show how you found out about that.

Your personal statement should be kind of your journey through this process and everything in it needs to relate back to that prompt of what has motivated you to become a pa.

So how did you find out about the profession and then what appealed to you about the profession?

So it may have been that initial interaction that you just felt like this was something you wanted to do.

It may have been that that first interaction was something that kind of made you go, that was interesting and then not really think about it again for a while and then you revisited it later.

I think, you know, you do have to consider med school for PAs.

I don't think you have to consider nursing necessarily.

So don't feel like you have to put those comparisons in your essay, especially since you're limited on space.

But if you can kind of break down, you know, where these interests came from and you want to talk about more than just the perks of the career.

You really want to talk about the day to day responsibilities, the job itself and what that looks like.

So.

So that would be working as part of a team, working with a physician.

That would also be getting to take care of patients and getting to be directly involved with their care.

Other things are great, the flexibility, the lateral mobility.

And those are things you can consider and mention, but they shouldn't be the primary reasons that you want to be a pa.

It should be about the patients more so than about you.

So beyond that, I want to know that you have a good understanding of what PAs do.

And this comes from, you know, your shadowing or work experience with PAs.

If you are reading your essay and there's anything in there that you're like, I probably could have found that on Google.

It's too general.

So you want to avoid being generic, and you want to make sure that you are including things that are specific to you and what you saw.

And anytime that you can use a specific example or story in your essay, that's going to make it more effective.

So do your best to kind of really show more than tell that you know what a PA is, what they do, and you'll be able to kind of use those experiences to model the type of provider that you want to be as a pa.

I've read so many essays that don't even say the phrase physician assistant or PA until the conclusion or the last two paragraphs.

And that should be stated much sooner in your essay because that's what it's about.

So you need to make sure that that's something that you're focusing on in your essay.

All right.

Once you've shown all that, I want to know how you've prepared to be successful as a PA student or as a pa.

So this could be, you know, your work experience, shadowing, volunteering.

One thing that a lot of people leave out is their academics.

So you have to keep in mind that you're currently applying for a spot as a PA student, not yet as a pa, and so you need to be able to show them that you're academically prepared.

With your current history of grades and gpa, upward trends, and being able to show them, you know, I have the time management.

I'm confident that I'm going to be able to succeed as a PA student.

So that's kind of your ideas that you want in your essay.

Now we talk about actually writing and organizing it.

Like I said, I like to just start writing and not worry about the organization yet.

But, I mean, you don't want to get too much on paper because you're going to have to edit it down a lot.

But when you're kind of going through and trying to put things in order, things to think about, your essay should make sense.

And ideally, it goes in chronological order.

Sometimes I'll read essays and I feel like I'm just jumping all over the place trying to figure out what they're talking about, what's going on, when things were there aren't good.

Kind of like Timings in there to let me know when stuff was happening.

So try to make sure everything's very clear and makes sense.

If you're having questions or whoever's editing it is having a lot of questions, that's kind of a red flag.

And just keep in mind that your admissions person who's reading this, they're reading hundreds and thousands of essays.

They should not have to work hard to try to figure out what you're talking about.

It should be very clear and easy for them, just so that they aren't getting as tired and they pay attention to your essay, which is what you want.

And then you should have a strong conclusion.

Your conclusion needs to sum up your strengths and really just reiterate why you are the best choice for a PA student in their program.

A lot of essays I've read just don't really have a conclusion.

And you can't skip skimp on that just because of the character limit.

So then we edit, and there's a few things that I look for in editing.

So number one, grammar.

I want to see, you know, words spelled correctly.

Correct comma usage, correct punctuation.

Those are also things that you can't skimp on.

Then with abbreviations, you always want to write out.

If you're going to use abbreviation, you want to write out the words first, add the abbreviation in parentheses, and then you can use the abbreviation through the rest of your essay.

So that would be like physician assistant, parentheses, pa. And then you can use PA through the rest of your essay.

Then I look at content and just making sure that everything that I'm reading relates back to ypa, kind of answering that question and then going back to that making sense.

Does the story flow?

Is it easy to follow?

Can I figure out what's going on without asking too many questions or feeling confused?

And so those are things that you can kind of break down and look for specifically while you're reading your essay.

And then I do think it's important to get outside opinions and have other people read it, because you can read it and edit it and work on it from now on, and you'll never feel like it's done.

And so eventually you're gonna have to just submit.

But by getting some other people's opinions who know your voice or who don't know your voice, that kind of helps to make sure that you have a strong essay.

So definitely, family and friends can help with making sure that it sounds like you.

My one caveat is if someone is not familiar with the PA school application process, kind of take their advice with a grain of salt because they may tell you advice like about, I don't know, being creative writing stories that really just isn't appropriate for this type of essay.

And then I do think it's important to have a PA read your essay so somebody you shadow or work with.

But again, if they aren't really involved in that process, they may or may not give you the best advice.

So just take everything with a grain of salt.

And being an undergrad, y' all have a really great advantage.

You can definitely look and see if you have any resources at your school.

If you have a writing center or an advisor or someone who kind of can help you with your essay, take advantage of that for sure.

And there are online services, so like I said, mypa resources, the one that I work with and edit for, actually have an essay to edit right after this.

But you gotta, I mean they're an option just because they only use PAs to edit and they have a really great video workshop on their website that is free that you can do.

That kind of walks you through a lot of what we're talking about, but a little bit more in depth, I think.

It's a couple hours long, so that's a good option too.

The one thing I will warn you against, and I don't know if any of you are in our pre PA Club Facebook group, which is really great, it's on Facebook.

But be cautious of unknown eyes.

So I see people in there all the time and I try to warn them.

You know, they'll say, hey, does anyone want to edit my essay?

But just be cautious with that because you don't know these people.

They're random people on the Internet and they may be writing their own essay and they may decide to borrow parts of yours if it's really good.

So Brian, he said he's actually heard of that happening at a school where two people ended up turning in the same essay, which is 10 terrifying to me.

So definitely make sure that anyone you're letting read your essay that you trust them and it's not someone who could potentially plagiarize from you.

Alright, so some of the hard stuff in the essay that I get questions about a lot is, you know, how do I bring up something that may be a red flag or should I?

Or how do I talk about it?

So my rule of thumb is to only bring something up if you think that it needs explaining because it would prevent you from getting an interview.

So like 1C or 2C's probably doesn't need explaining.

But if you have a whole semester where you did terrible, or an overall low gpa or a year where you took off of school in the middle of undergrad, those things may need addressing, just to give you a chance to clarify.

And supplementals can be that opportunity as well.

Sometimes they'll let you go a little bit more in depth.

So any other red flags?

If you have, you know, any type of, like, legal issues that because you do have to disclose those on your application, they give you a little spot to talk about them.

But if you feel like you need to go into more depth, you can always be positive.

Be as straight to the point and direct as possible.

Do not make excuses.

Don't blame a teacher, don't blame a circumstance.

Just explain what happened and most importantly, show how you improved from that.

So if you did have a tough semester because maybe you had death in the family and you were trying to work two jobs and all this, that's fine to state, you know, but the most important thing is that you really own that and say, ultimately, I realized I had too much going on.

It probably would have been better for me to step away from a job or take the semester off to grieve.

And I realize that now, moving into PA school and just kind of keep those things in mind.

So these are some of the top mistakes that I see in essays.

And I think I could talk about mistakes from a very long time.

Number one, physician's assistant.

So if you put this in your essay and I'm editing, editing it, you're gonna get, like, red, all caps, bold, huge red flag.

And I'm probably gonna write that in your essay.

Make sure you know the name of the career that you're applying for.

So there's no apostrophe S. It's physician assistant.

And make sure if you're pluralizing it, you do that correctly as well.

But this is a huge red flag for admissions.

Another mistake.

Just being confusing with.

I think timing is probably the biggest thing where somebody will talk about an experience and then refer to it later and jump around.

They'll talk about working where they work now, but then go back to where they used to work.

And then when they shattered this one time, and it's just hard for me to figure out how they actually made decisions and at what point.

Grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Again, make sure those are correct.

And this is a big one, taking the focus away from you.

I mentioned that it's good to use stories and examples, but be cautious when you do that not to let the focus become on the subject of your story.

So if you're talking about a patient or your grandma or your sister, I should still learn more about you and your role in that story than I do about that person.

So every once in a while I'll read one and it talks about, you know, Ms. Smith.

And by the end of it, I know a ton about Ms. Smith.

I know about her husband and what she did for a living and her disease and if she got better.

But I can't really tell you about the writer and what their role was in that situation.

So you don't have space to waste on somebody else.

So you've got to keep that focus on you.

Another one is cliches and quotes.

Please don't start your essay with a random quote.

It's just not effective.

And it uses space.

Same thing with rhetorical questions.

And really the same thing with, like, speech.

If you put in there, like, she said, help me, I said, I'm on the way.

It just kind of messes up the flow.

And so try to use different wording if you can to avoid those types of situations.

And then you really don't need to refer to the reader.

Or I don't want to say beg, but, like, you don't need to say, like, thank you so much for your consideration, or I would be honored to have a spot in your program.

Like, those types of phrases just aren't necessary in this type of formal essay.

All right, I don't think any of y' all are reapplicants, but if it comes time that you do have to reapply, you don't want to use the exact same essay, but you can use some of the same ideas.

You need to show what you've done differently since the first time you applied.

But you can kind of.

I mean, your reason for becoming a PA isn't going to change, but you can use maybe some different examples or a different format.

And one thing if you do reapply to really think about is if you feel like you met the minimums of a program but didn't get interviews, really think about your essay and see if that may have been the reason you didn't get interviews.

So you don't want to submit an essay.

Again, that didn't work the first time.

All right, those are my slides, and then we'll answer questions.

So if any questions come up, feel free to email me.

Reach out on Instagram in the Facebook group.

We have lots of resources and ways to get in touch if you need to, but I'll make this go away.

Do you want to feel completely overwhelmed or scared now?

Hopefully not.

Hi, I have a question.

A couple of us, we were discussing about how, yes, it's important to kind of explain some of the obstacles to things or why maybe certain things affected us.

But is there ever like, how do you know how much is too much information, how to kind of restrain yourself from over sharing?

So the question to ask yourself is, does whatever it is you feel like you need to discuss, does it directly relate to you becoming a pa?

Um, because I've had some people who wanted to talk about, you know, maybe how they've had anxiety or how they like kind of something growing up that was hard, like their life growing up.

But.

And those things are great.

And I think it's great to be personal and vulnerable.

But for your just your personal statement, if it did not have an effect, a direct effect on you becoming a pa, like leading you to that decision making, impacting that decision, it really doesn't have a place in your personal statement.

Supplementals are a better place to expand on some of that information just because they give you more of an opportunity, more space, and tend to ask more personal questions about you that gives you that opportunity.

So yeah, if it didn't cause you to become a PA or impede you in any way that you overcame or have an impact on this path directly, it probably doesn't have a place in your essay.

I just want to say thank you so much for to present personal statements for us and I have your like interview book and I even like won a giveaway for the new horse.

Oh yeah, yeah.

But I definitely say that she has very helpful resources online.

So just take the time out to look atthe paid platform.com and use and just like really look at what she has because I really felt like it helped my application.

Just thank you so much for taking the time.

You're welcome.

And yeah, if you do you see something, if you have a question that's not answered, let me know and I'll either get you an answer or come up with something that answers it.

So I like all shirts too.

Those are cool.

Thank you.