 Maybe I'm a downer, but I always tell students to think about the mistakes. So missteps that they could avoid that could potentially cost them acceptance. So stick around to find out what those are for a dental school personal statement. For the best personal statement coaching, definitely hit that subscribe button, the bell, all that good stuff so you don't miss a video I post every week. Also if you'd like to chat about how I work with students on their personal statements, definitely book your free one-on-one call with me. The link is in the description below. These five mistakes or cliches can cost you your pearly white dreams. So make sure that you learn how to avoid them and we're going to run through them today. Hi, I'm Dr. Josie with Write Your Acceptance. I work with students as a personal statement coach and I'm a university writing faculty. So I know how to help you perfect your story. Let's get started. Mistake one, summarizing your resume. So your resume is a great place to start for kind of canvassing through your experiences, but it's definitely not the type of tone you want to strike. Your personal statement should be vulnerable, authentic, genuine, but also compelling and detail-oriented with descriptive narrative so that you're telling multiple stories of your journey to dentistry. And so your resume, if you think about it, it's all past tense, right? It's all kind of accomplishments in past tense. I organized this trip or I volunteered for Operation Smile or I did this all past tense, past tense, but your personal statement, you want it to be kind of this navigating between past experiences in story form and kind of current reflection. So since your resume is a compilation of accomplishments, you can start there. But for instance, when you say, you know, I organized a volunteer trip through Operation Smile, you don't really kind of capture in the resume in that bullet point how you connected with the shy kid in the corner and you brought him to kind of help you and kind of work with the model toothbrush, right? So like you don't kind of give that human connection type vulnerable anecdotes that really help readers connect with you and root for you. So these stories allow the reader, the admissions committees to really kind of learn about you from an emotional perspective, to connect emotionally human to human, which is great. And that is what's missing from a resume. The resume feels a little sterile and transactional. And so you want to infuse the narratives, which is how you tell compelling stories. If you just narrate your resume, one, it may be too long. And two, it's going to feel disconnected. And one of the main tasks of the personal statement to be compelling is to kind of find those connections throughout so that you're telling one cohesive story, not just kind of four short answers. So the trick number two is to avoid cliches at all costs. So cliches are cliches for a reason, right? They are overused kind of sentiments that are either conveying a similar kind of emotional trajectory or the wording is exactly the same. So over the years, the cliches that I've seen for dental applicants are as follows. So the I had a terrible smile or I had kind of like low confidence because I had an ugly smile and then I went to an orthodontics and they kind of I regained my confidence. So that I see a lot and maybe your story and it may be your truth, but you want to make sure that you keep that in mind. So if you decide to tell that story that you tell it in a different way through a different angle, another cliche is the mission trip. So the kind of I attended X mission trip in Haiti and this is what I did. And my takeaway, I was just so surprised that people were so happy with so little. It could be a profound kind of realization for you and I'm not mocking that at all. But what I kind of caution you against is that it doesn't kind of land emotionally the way you think it does. It just kind of sounds a little contrite. It sounds a little kind of a privileged and you don't want to kind of put anyone off. Another one is I interned at a dental practice and I learned so much and watch me, you know, use all these fancy dental jargon type language. You want to sound like yourself. You want to sound like your best self. You're kind of most compelling, detailed, you know, I'm detail oriented kind of writer, but you don't need to overuse the source and you don't need to overuse all these kind of dental practice jargon or dental kind of, you know, treatment names that are really fancy and complex mistake three, writing to impress. So this sounds a little counterintuitive, but if you're using a lot of that fancy jargon language or if you're kind of, you know, laying it on thick with your resume, then you are specifically writing to impress. And I know we all want to impress. We all want to kind of write the best personal statement possible, which will impress, but the writing specifically and solely to impress, it sounds counterintuitive, but they read as formulae contrived and expected narratives. And so what you kind of take out and you're missing is that journey aspect. So you really want to show kind of a journey to a wiser self and how these moments of growth have helped you ready yourself for dental school and how would they brought you here? So feel free to kind of inject some vulnerability to kind of describe when a patient of surprised you, but then you gained your bearings and you knew what to do or when kind of something went haywire at the practice that you were volunteering and at first you didn't know what to do, but then you kind of put a system, a new checklist in order. And so you show initiative, you show kind of, but you're also showing vulnerability and growth within your journey. Do you have a story you want to tell, but you're not sure if it's going to work? Comment below. I'd love to help you out. Mistake four is getting to kind of bold or cheeky with your format. So I'll give you an example. A couple of years ago, I worked with a student who wanted to write their personal statement as a recipe with three quarter cup of tenacity and sprinkle in some commitment and compassion. I am now ready for, you know, the cake or my dental school journey in between the kind of instructions of the recipe, they would narrate an experience. You want to make sure that this personal statement, I mean, it's kind of, yes, creative nonfiction in the sense that you are bringing in stories and you want to be creative, but definitely kind of on the more conservative side. So you don't want a format that kind of detracts from the message. So either visually where it's kind of all over the place or, you know, has a lot of numbers or it has like, you know, it doesn't have paragraphs, but it's like a bunch of like bullet points. I've seen that too. You want to make sure that the format that you use is pretty conservative so that it's your message, your voice, your tone, your descriptions that carry and convey priority and not kind of visually detracting and distracting from that message. So when I work with students, I, you know, help them kind of empower them to tell their best story. And I want them, I want you guys to honor your truth and your story. But I will kind of caution against this, because I think it undoes a lot of the work that your message, if it's strong enough, should be doing on its own. Mistake five is do not write about red flags. So so many students want to write about kind of why they had a dip in their GPA or kind of, you know, why they didn't do as great as they wanted to do in this class or that experience and how kind of they want to write away or explain away their quantitative shortcomings. And this personal statement, in my opinion, has to be, should be your best self showcasing your journey to your wiser best self and how you are today ready to take on the rigors of dental school, right? If you want to explain something, just be careful that it's not the kind of heart and soul of this personal statement. The heart and soul of this personal statement should be why you want to be a dentist, right? And you never know. Sometimes there's a dip in GPA or there's something negative. And because these are kind of holistic reviews, maybe the admissions committee has already kind of thought about that, or it's not as big a deal as you think and are worrying about it and kind of refocusing your personal statements, such valuable real estate to a negative versus a positive kind of can can do more harm than good. So I would definitely focus on positive, constructive, actionable experiences that you've undertaken to ready yourself for this time, for this journey. If you want more expert feedback on personal statements, definitely book your one on one call with me and learn how I work with students. The link is in the description. If you found this helpful, give us a like, share with your pretense friends and more will come at you. Thank you so much. Have a good one.