 Hey guys, my name is Boris. I'm a position assistant. And in this series, I am doing live edits of real personal statements or bits and pieces of personal statements for PA school from real pre-PA students. These are all essays that I have personally helped edit over the last few years, and all of these essays have gotten people into PA school that I personally helped. So all the people that you're going to see in this series are either already PA students or they are already graduated and practicing PA is just like me. So if you missed the last one that I did part one, I'm going to link it right here. And part two is what you're watching right now. So without further ado, I'm going to share my screen. And I'm going to go over this paragraph that I helped to edit. And as you can see, it's going to get much better. And hopefully you can gain something from that as you work on your own personal statement for PA school through CASPA. And yeah, take some of these tips and tricks that I'm going to give this person or that I already gave this person and see if you can apply it to your own personal statement. Okay, here we go. So this is example number three. The first video I did in the series was examples one and two. This is example number three. So here we go. Just real quick the way that this works. Just like the last video before this is a real paragraph from a real personal statement. Comments is the comments that I gave them to improve it. And then after is what they came up with after implementing my comments. Okay, so the comments or better yet the the original says, Growing up, my dad would tell me good thoughts, good words, good deeds, which is the mantra of our faith. Zoro astrionism. I totally butcher that I'm sorry to all the Zoro astrionist out there. I don't think I pronounced that correctly. But anyway, that's the mantra of their faith. The dogma of my ancient religion focuses on living a charitable life and giving to others. That's beautiful. My first introduction to medicine began at a very young age through my family members who were in various healthcare professions. I came to appreciate their patient interactions and it made me realize that I wanted to work with people and to help them improve the quality of their life. The healthcare experiences I have participated in thus far have not only reinforced my feelings about choosing the career path of becoming a physician assistant, but also given me valuable lessons that will help me provide the best care for the patients. Once I discovered the career pathway of a PA, my dad's teachings began to make sense to me. I will also, it will also allow me to practice good thoughts by challenging myself daily as medicine evolves is an evolving field. Good words through the education and mentorship I will be able to provide patients and good deeds by being able to improve the well being of others. Yeah, I apologize for not reading some of that correctly I'm very tired it's late at night, but I want to do this every day until Caspa opens in about two more weeks, because I want to give as much help and as much service and value as I possibly can until Caspa opens because I know right now is when everyone's like, kind of freaking out trying to get all their stuff together right there essays. So I want to help as much as I can these next few weeks. So, you're welcome. Anyway, okay. So that's the paragraph overall just initial comments I think it's okay. I think it's kind of wordy it's definitely not very efficient. It's probably like well over 1000 characters by itself. And as you know for the Caspa personal statement you can only have 5000 total characters including spaces. So this is definitely way too long. And I'm pretty sure this was the person's introductory paragraph. So, first critique is it's just way too long way too wordy. And let's see what we got. Yeah 1100 characters for one paragraph. It's kind of a lot, you know, and it definitely wasn't very efficient there was a lot of words in there, a lot of description that didn't need to be there. Also, I felt like some of the transitions within the paragraph for a little bit of robbed it just didn't flow very well. So let's see what I actually said three years ago when I edited this the first time so I said, I like how you started. I like the transition or no, I like how you started. I think the transition from describing a religion to introduction to medicine was a bit abrupt, and I still stand by that. It would be helpful to describe at least one of your family members who works in healthcare. Tell us what they do. Did you shadow them what's that person's name, make it personal, which will make it memorable. Okay, so anything personal details imagery site sound smells names emotions that's what's memorable that's what's going to make somebody actually feel something while they're reading your essay instead of just another boring, you know, essay. And I continued and I said, you want the admissions committee to see you as a person, not a number. Also, I really love your last sentence it ties everything together beautifully. So, honestly, this one as far as paragraphs go as far as personal statements that I've edited this was probably in the top. I don't know, probably top 10 or 20%. It's overall it's quite well written. It's got a very good theme you know good thoughts good words good deeds, and I love how this person related all of that and then kind of tied it back in at the end. So overall it's quite good. It's just not super efficient and it's a little bit jarring when you think about the transitions. So, the rest of this edit here. It's about the rest of the essay so we'll come back to that. But just for this paragraph, I wanted you to hear the paragraph, and then hear the comments and now implementing these things that I told this person. Here's what the after sounds like. Growing up, my father would repeat. Good thoughts, good words, good deeds, the mantra of my faith Zoroastrianism. My mother embodied these qualities both as a parents and a dentist. She instilled in me the concept of caring for others. And as a child, I was fascinated with stories of her patient experiences. My influence fueled my interest in medicine, and my various experiences confirm my desire to work in health care. It wasn't until I discovered the career of physician assistant that I realized, or that I recognized how my father's teachings could so seamlessly translate to a specific vocation. It will allow me to practice good thoughts by continuing my pursuit of knowledge, as the medical field is an evolving field. Through my words, through the education and mentorship I will impart to both patients and colleagues, and good deeds by providing all with compassionate here. That's fantastic. I think, I think this person did a wonderful, wonderful job. So, first things first, let's just go straight by the numbers let's highlight this thing. Let's go to an improved, much more efficient paragraph and let's see what we got. The word count is now 867, as opposed to the original which was like 1100. Right. Let's see. Yeah, 1107. So we could off about 30%. But we cut off a lot of unnecessary words, but I think it still delivers the message just as well actually even better because the person now included some more like personal details such as her mother is the person that inspired her what her mother did as a dentist you can kind of imagine these things, you know, growing up as a dentist's child, hearing about the patients that the dentist is interacting with. And then like it just puts more of a picture in your mind, rather than my family members were in healthcare and this blah blah blah blah blah. Instead, it's my mother the dentist did this X, Y and Z, you know, so it's just more detail is better but not too too much. Also, it's much shorter. It's much more efficient. It goes with that wonderfully beautiful theme good thoughts good words, good deeds and I love how the person started with that, and then also tied it back together and ended with that, and also use that theme and that mantra to describe why the person wanted to be a physician assistant so absolutely hats off, slow clap, wonderful wonderful job, implementing the comments that I gave for you, and making this paragraph much much better. Okay. Also, the rest of the comments now I'm not showing you the rest of the essay, I'm never going to show somebody's entire essay, even though you know this person has long gotten into PA school already in there. It doesn't really matter if we show you the whole essay I just don't think it's ethical, and I don't want anyone copying an entire essay. So the most I will ever show you on YouTube is just one paragraph Okay, so that's why I'm doing that. I thought my comments are overall on the bigger essay on more of a things that you can't see right now but I still think they're valuable so I'm going to read them out to you. Okay. So these were the comments on that individual paragraph we just went through that. Next, I said, Overall, I think the biggest thing you need to work on is the flow and transitions in your essay. So what I said, talking about the religion and the teachings in the religion, and then going over to health care was kind of jarring in the first paragraph, and then after implementing my edits, it became much more smooth. So, I said, you could definitely work on your transitions, you bring up a lot of very interesting and unique experiences and things about yourself, but they need to fit together better. Try to use the last sentence or two of each paragraph to start transitioning the reader to what's coming up in the next paragraph, while also summarizing the main points in the current paragraph. So let's say you're on the introduction paragraph paragraph one, the last couple of words, or sorry the last couple of sentences should tie everything in together that you talked about in that paragraph, but also start kind of teasing and introducing the reader to what's going to happen in paragraph two in the next paragraph. That's how you have a smooth transition, and it's not jarring you finish one paragraph and then you have no idea how you got to the next topic, you're actually smoothly just kind of transitioned into the next topic. That's a very important thing to be able to do. And it really sets your essay apart. Okay. That makes sense. I think that it does. It looks like you're describing your evolution as an applicant chronologically, which is good. Not everything has to be chronological. I feel like a lot of personal statements people just say like, in high school I did this and college I did that. After college I did this and now I'm ready for PA school like that's fine you could do a narrative with your life, but it doesn't have to be that way. In this case the person did write chronologically. So I said, looks like you're describing your evolution as an applicant chronologically which is good, but you need to describe how all of these experiences came into your life and how they fit together. You can't just have one paragraph about high school, and then one paragraph about college, and then one paragraph about er describing, but none of them fit together, it's got to all fit together. And these are just examples from this particular person's essay, being an er scribe working as a medical assistant and then they went to a Paraguay for a mission trip. Okay, I also said if I were you I would break this essay down into its most basic parts, pick out the experience or idea in each paragraph that you really want to communicate to the admissions committee and write these down in no particular order, then rearrange them to see how they would fit together while keeping the mostly chronologically, then start adding in some personal details, be careful not to over explain anything, stay efficient, you know don't use too many words if you don't need to. Before you decide to include anything ask yourself, is it important to let them know to understand. Oh, is it important for them to know this to understand my story. Is this something they already know by reading the rest of my application or is this something new that is very important for them to know to understand what I'm talking about. Alright, so those are just kind of some general tips for writing your personal statement. And I think this video is probably long enough so I'm going to go into example four in the next video how about that. Alright guys, stop sharing my screen. Hopefully you got something out of that I apologize for rambling and probably being a little bit unclear and repeating myself a few times because I am very, very tired it's like. Okay, it's sad that I'm tired at 930 but I wake up early now and, you know, work out and do things in the morning because I have a group of friends now that does these things. I don't stay out late anymore so now 930 is like kind of my bad time and I'm exhausted, and I still have to upload this video, make a thumbnail X, Y and Z it'll take me 20 more minutes. So that's how much I love you guys, hopefully you got something out of that video. This is part two of real examples of real personal statements that I personally edited and help to improve tomorrow's going to be part three. Part four, so on and so forth. Have a good night guys.