I am aware that 11th October is exceptionally late (deadline is 15th and I'm sure I wrote earlier of sending it in early) but the summer went rather quickly and I was extra-pinickety with what I wrote.
If you haven't yet read the final version of my statement you can do so here.
So, I guess/hope I'm not the only one that finds writing these things incredibly difficult - where do you even begin?! Hopefully, my breakdown should shed some light on the writing process... and also make non-Uni applicants realise just how much is expected of the statement!
The Middle
It may seem counter-intuitive, but for a PS the middle is the best place to start. This provides the filling for your statement and the really interesting parts.
The first step (for a medic) is to brainstorm around three key points:
Why Medicine?
What are your motivations? Specific interests in the field? This section will probably be the shortest and will end up being adapted into your opening
Experiences
How do you know medicine is for you? What voluntary work/employment/work experience have you had? What did you learn from this? (Most of my interviews were based around 'what I've learnt on reflection - they absolutely love it)
Personal Achievements/Extra Curricular
What makes you stand out? This is where your Grade 8 violin/Royal Ballet School/Olympic swimmer/President of the Student Union fit in.
To be awkward, I also added
Gap Year Plans
Debatable whether required - but it makes sense to say what you're planning to do after receiving your A Levels, incase they think you're a bum.
Referee Statement
All the bits that won't fit in your actual statement or are a bit too simple e.g. Maths Awards/helping out with an open evening
The headings help to provide structure to your statement, and you'll probably be able to pick them out in mine, despite not being as perfectly ordered as they are here.
Under each heading I started bullet point-ing my interests.. and another key point: apparently admissions tutors want evidence for everything you say. So, I made notes as to which resources/experiences I could link into each statement. For example, I'm really interested in the role of the brain and nervous system after reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat.
For the experience section it can be difficult to remember back to all of the experiences you've ever had - personally, I'd done over 200 hours voluntary work when I wrote mine, in 5 or 6 places. Luckily, I kept a reflection diary which I could read back through, highlighting key examples that demonstrate this or that skill. Even better, if you can write your reflection diary in the format 'Today we did XXX and I felt/thought XXX and this made me realise/taught me XXX' you'll save so much time later on and be bang on for a medic place.
Achievements can be the difficult bit - particularly if they don't seem a big deal to you, but it's important to remember what skills they demonstrate. To help me with this, I looked up the admissions criteria (each PS is 'marked' for a number of categories such as 'demonstrates responsibility' or 'caring experience') and wrote a list of qualities Medical Schools look for - then all I needed to do was find an example for each. If you're interested, my checklist looked like this:
- Understanding of medicine
- Motivation/Commitment
- Caring attitude
- Social awareness
- Effective communication
- Teamwork and leadership
- Appreciate others' views/empathy
- Responsibility
- Non academic interests and linking these to stress
- Study skills
- Self motivation
- Reflection
- Perseverance
- Over-coming setbacks
Hopefully once you've gone through this process you'll be left with a bullet-pointed list of skills, qualities and experiences you'd like to include in your statement. Grouping these together into topics, linking to related subjects and expanding these topics into full sentences should form a very nice base for your final statement.
Introduction
The most important thing. Since KS3 English you're taught the importance of a powerful opening and it's no different here. I found this bit extremely challenging; it needs to capture why you want to study medicine in a very clear, honest way. There are plenty of examples on the internet that use quotes to open - personally I think this sounds cheesy and lazy, but your choice! (NB However, I do think that quoting a book as inspiration/interesting in your statement is a very valid point).
For my opening I used the 'voice record' app on my phone to record a five minute informal explanation of why I wanted to study Medicine in the format of an answer to 'So why do you want to study Medicine?'. It sounds tacky, but expressing this aloud really focused what I wanted to say and what was most important for me. I listened to it back, copied it exactly and edited the colloqualisms. My final opening was an amalgamation of this opening and my original opening from last year (because let's be honest, in one year my motivations and enthusiasms haven't changed).
Conclusion
I'm very partial to a decent conclusion. Something sharp, summative and powerful always sounds good. I used this section for the standard 'I really want to go to Uni/be a doctor' but it can be good for squeezing in key words that you may not have been able to elsewhere (I'm thinking of my admissions tutor list here). Anything that suggests you want to develop/use specific skills, looking for a challenge etc sounds pretty good to me.
Trimming
Unfortunately, any good medic should find at this point that their statement is double (if not triple) the allowed amount of 4000 characters (about one side of A4 in size 11 font, if you're interested). The really hard part is trimming it down, without losing too much of the meaning. A good start is looking for any repeats, such as any experiences that demonstrate the same quality. After all, the tutor isn't hugely interested in which grade you have in piano - it's the skills that it demonstrates (perseverace, commitment, manual dexterity) that is important. And after that, it's up to you to decide which is most important to keep. However, you will feel a sense of pride in how many positive things you have to say about yourself! There is something satisfying about writing out a list of how fantastic you are...
Whilst medics should be nodding in agreement, I imagine other disciplines recommend slightly different approaches (although saying why you want to study a subject is always a good idea!) but a lot of this can be adapted to individual circumstances. Hopefully this gives a little insight into how such an important piece of writing is built up and why us medics stress about it so much! After all, it is one of the most important parts of any medical application.
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