 Are you committed to medicine? You're just not sure your story is going to move the AdCom's? Stay tuned for three key steps to turn a blah and cast personal statement into a compelling story. Thank you for joining me on my channel for the best medical school personal statement coaching. Please make sure to subscribe and hit the bell so you don't miss out on a video. To tell a compelling story, you need these essential elements. Hi, I'm Dr. Josie with Write Your Acceptance as a university faculty member and a personal statement coach. I have helped hundreds of students perfect their story. And now it's your turn. Step one, build your narrative frame. Your 5300 character essay is not a long-form version of your resume. You want to include accomplishments, yes, but you want to make sure your candidacy has an elevator pitch. Basically, one or two key themes that the entire essay is wrapped around. So is it resilience, kindness, compassion, mentorship, diversity? Once you have that kind of elevator pitch, every lesson learned, accomplishment, anecdote, story, experience that you mentioned in your essay needs to tie back to that and advance that point in some way. Step two, making sure you are testing your content for maximum efficacy. So once you have that narrative frame and you then pick your opening anecdote, let's say, and two or three experiences that all in a way tied to that one or two elevator pitch theme, then you want to test it and you want to make sure that they are as kind of strong and compelling as possible because we are more than one story. So you want to make sure that the anecdotes that you are sharing are strategically advancing your candidacy and that theme. So beyond kindness, resilience, you want to make sure that the anecdotes, the experiences that you narrate are answering the essential questions. Why do you want to pursue medicine and how do you see yourself in medicine and beyond medical school? So you want to make sure that these anecdotes and experiences are in a thoughtful and detailed way answering those questions. So beyond kindness, resilience, mentorship, whatever that elevator pitch is, once you have the anecdotes, the experiences that you're going to narrate and then break down and reflect upon, once you have them, you want to make sure that you are in a thoughtful and detailed way answering through these experiences and reflections, lessons learned, why medicine and how do you see yourself pursuing medicine, actively pursuing medicine beyond med school. So you want to get as detailed as possible because essentially this is where you are answering your actual question of why medicine and why meet in medicine. If you have any negative experiences in your personal statement in the sense of like you having an obstacle or a hardship while in a clinical experience or volunteering, that's actually an asset because you are showing that you have thoughtfully kind of vetted the hardships and obstacles that can come with the rigors of medical school and the rigors of the career. So you want to make sure that if you have any kind of drawback or negative experience, that you kind of reflect upon that as a force to compel you forward, that you are even further committed to the career and the profession. Once you're confident that you have one, your elevator pitch and two, that your experiences that you're narrating are nuanced and detailed enough to answer the big why medicine, then you're ready to move on. Step three, make sure that once you have all of these elements that they're getting to know you as a person. So the whole personal statement, the personal part of the personal statement is not this kind of highly dramatic, tear jerker type content. It's really just getting to know you beyond the quantitative statistics. So beyond your MCAT score, beyond your GPA, beyond the bullet points on your resume, who are you? So that vulnerable, humble, amazing person that you are, yes, ambitious and driven and hardworking, but also caring and empathetic, you want to make sure that your essay is doing all of that work for you, that it becomes something that the ad comms are rooting for and getting to know you and wanting to know more about you hence the interview and secondaries. So you want to make sure that your personal statement is really helping them getting to know the human and humane side of who you are and your application. So once you pick your examples and anecdotes, you want to make sure that you figure out what you're going to tell how. So you want to have some form of storytelling in your essay, you want to narrate in real time as if you had camera on your shoulder and you are kind of guiding the ad comms through the experience. So think about the kind of bullet points on your resume as end products. I achieved this, I organized that right all past tense, but the kind of sparingly, but the anecdotes that you have in your personal statement are in the present tense in real time. So they are kind of moving along the experience with you and then you reflect upon it and you talk about lessons learned and how it solidified your commitment to medicine XYZ. Do you have an idea for your elevator pitch for your not sure it could work? Comment below, I'd love to help. So bonus, let's run through a student example. So the student wants to write about her global perspective of healthcare and how they grow and learn within diversity. So they have an opening story that narrates an encounter with a 42 year old woman asking for care for her seven year old son who's having trouble breathing and she was at a medical mission trip in Haiti. So she kind of opened with that story that encounter in real time as if she had the camera over her shoulders. And then she has kind of a thesis and elevator pitch basically talking about that diversity and kind of global perspective of healthcare. Then the next paragraph goes into who she is. So as a bilingual student born in Puerto Rico, I've always played the role of translator returning to the Haiti example, how the woman kind of felt that even though there was a language barrier that the student didn't speak Haitian Creole, she still felt seen and felt heard by the student, which was very important for her as a volunteer there. So although I could not speak Haitian Creole with cautious movements and a flash of creativity, we bridged the divide and she felt seen. Then she moves on to kind of academic experiences. So whether it's study sessions that boast multiple languages, mnemonic devices and pizza or my volunteering in my home country post hurricane Maria, I thrive when I add value in medical spaces. And so then she goes into the volunteer experience and makes shift clinics in Puerto Rico. And so the language barrier was not an issue there, but access to supplies and overcoming the feeling that sometimes what we can do is not nearly enough. And so that there is that negative kind of experience of healthcare, but that's okay because she sees the hardships of global healthcare. And so she's witnessed this and she feels compelled to do something about it and to help in any way she can. So important to add that, you know, the obstacles, difficulties of the field to sound mature and that you've carefully thought about the kind of drawbacks of the medical profession. And so you end with an example of this experience and how that has reinforced your commitment to medicine. And then bonus, if you can tie the ending to an image from the 42 year old woman in the Haitian medical mission trip even better, because then it kind of the essay has like this cyclical or nice wrap up and it feels cohesive, which is very important. You want to kind of stay away from these like three disparate experiences, disconnected experiences, but you're not really tying it into kind of one narrative. And so that is why step one is always to build that narrative frame. If you want more expert feedback, you should definitely book a call one on one call with me so we can strategize together and see what your next steps should be. Also, if you found this video helpful, please hit that like button, share with your pre-med friends, and comment below any questions helpful, any elevator pitches that you have. And I'd love to help you out. Thanks for watching. I'll see you soon.