You’ve probably read about the multifaceted requirements of medical school admission. If so, this post is an attempt to, first, demystify them a bit and, second, untangle one of the least understood ones. The price of admission begins with an excellent GPA and MCAT score. Most applicants have both. The definition of “excellent” varies from…
How to Project Confidence, Professionalism, and Positivity in Your Essays
So you’ve sat down and brainstormed, and you’re now ready to hit the ground running with your essays. Great! You might be wondering how to best convey your reasons for pursuing graduate school to the admissions committees. What kind of tone or approach should you use? A good rule of thumb is to project three…
First Drafts of Residency Personal Statements: Let Yourself Go
For many residency applicants, writing the first draft of their personal statement is the most difficult part of the entire application process. And the most difficult part of composing that first draft is often getting the first few words on the page. Don’t fret – even accomplished novelists and famous journalists struggle to get started…
How Personal Is Too Personal In Your Application Essays?
The personal statement is your chance to stand out and make an impression on the admissions committees. How can you make your essay original? How much should you tell? And at what point are you crossing the line into TMI? When I applied to college, I wrote a personal statement describing some challenging family circumstances…
The Diversity Essay: How to Write an Excellent Diversity Essay
What is a diversity essay in a school application? And why does it matter when applying to leading programs and universities? Most importantly, how should you go about writing such an essay? Diversity is of supreme value in higher education, and schools want to know how every student will contribute to the diversity on their…
Four Tips for Displaying Teamwork in Your Application Essays
Teamwork – and its close cousin leadership – are highly prized by graduate programs and universities. But if you haven’t worked in a team on any regular basis, don’t worry! You’ve probably got a number of examples of teamwork in your back pocket that you didn’t even realize were there. Consider the following four ideas…
Admissions Tip: Be Yourself!
Psst! How would you like to know the one thing that admissions committee members really want from applicants? Here it is: they wish – sometimes they even dream – that applicants would stop writing what they imagine the adcom wants to hear. Instead, they want candidates to just be themselves, presented articulately, of course. We…
Four Ways to Highlight Your Strengths in Your Application Essays
One of the most important pieces of advice you will ever learn regarding your personal statements and application essays is this: Show, don’t tell. It’s a classic writing lesson, and you’ve probably heard it before, perhaps many times. But how do you actually “show, not tell,” in your essays? Simply “telling” is ineffective, because it…
Writing an Essay Lead That Pops
How many times have you sampled the first few lines of a book and decided, “Nah, this isn’t for me”? Whether you picked the book up in a store or library, or downloaded free sample online, you probably made a pretty speedy decision about whether it would hold your interest. The human tendency to rush…
Writing Your Career Goals Essay
Check out all the blog posts in this series: Your career goals essay demands a laser-like focus. A personal statement, by contrast, allows for some flexibility in its content, though you can – and often should – discuss your career goals. But a career goals essay has a particular and packed agenda. In fact, the…
Finding a Theme for Your Statement of Purpose
Check out all the blog posts in this series: All effective essays have a distinctive theme, and it can take time and careful thought to identify what yours should be. If you go back to the essays we examined in the previous post in this series, you will see that the public health program applicant…
Starting Your Application Essay: Three Tips
If you haven’t yet read the other blog posts in this series, go ahead and check them out: Once you have reflected on the questions that helped you identify and develop your essay theme, you should have a clear path to writing an effective essay. Here are three essential steps to help you achieve that…
Revise and Polish Your Application Essays
Check out all the blog posts in this series: You’ve completed your first essay draft – this is a great milestone! Outstanding essays are not sprung into the world on the first try, however, so now it’s time to revise and edit. Here’s how to get the job done: 1. Let your essay rest for…
The Resilience Factor: How Flaws and Failures Can Strengthen Your Application
A speaker recently told a story about traveling in Asia, where he saw a stunning emerald. Enchanted by the stone’s beauty, he decided to buy it on the spot. He returned home and took the emerald to a jeweler for appraisal. The jeweler began examining the stone through his magnifier, and as he did so,…
Proving Character Traits in Your Essays
When you write an application essay or statement of purpose, you’re trying to accomplish two equally vital goals at once. First, you need to establish your worthiness for acceptance at your target school. However, as part of that task, you need to show the adcom that you have the character traits that their program values….
Strategy for Writing an Accomplishment Essay (with examples)
Maybe you’re familiar with macros – the nutrients your body needs to function. Achieving the proper balance of macros leads to optimal health. When it comes to writing your MBA personal statements and application essays, it might be helpful to think of your accomplishments as the carbohydrates, protein, and fat – in other words, the…
Three Ways Writing About Obstacles Strengthens Your Application Essays
Applicants love to write about their accomplishments, whether in a personal statement for graduate school or in a b-school essay that asks about one’s greatest achievement, challenge, or the like. And they are not shy about sharing their accomplishments, such as driving innovations that led to revenue boosts for their firm, conducting original and meaningful research…
Four Ways to Show How You’ll Contribute in the Future
Schools are looking for and will actively contribute not only to their student/alumni communities but also to the greater community and society. Many applications include an essay question with some variation of “What would you contribute to your future campus community?” or “How will you contribute to our program?” If you are invited to interview, you’ll…
Three Must-Have Elements of a Good Statement of Purpose
What are the essential components of a strong statement of purpose essay? Very simply, you’ll need to include your MAP: your Motivation, Aspiration, and Perspiration. At Accepted, MAP has a double meaning for individuals writing statements of purpose and goals essays. It illustrates the road one should follow when writing one of these essays. Here’s…
How to Get Into MSU’s College of Osteopathic Medicine [Episode 537]
Michigan State’s College of Osteopathic Medicine provides an innovative patient-centered curriculum with multiple specialties and multiple opportunities for clinical exposure. Sound appealing? Well, plug in your earbuds because today I’m speaking with the senior associate dean of admissions at Michigan State University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine. Welcome to the 537th episode of Admissions Straight Talk….
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