✍ Personal Statement Guide by Doctor Shaene Hi My name's Shaene and I'm a recently qualified doctor and neuroscience supervisor at Cambridge University. I've put together this UPDATED template and step-by-step Guide to help you craft your very own expert personal statement. This is currently formatted with medicine in mind, but the general points apply to all subjects, so just switch out the medical examples with your desired subject. What's new? 3 New Pillars in the Framework Oxbridge Pointers with Examples Detailed Structure Breakdown New way to make a start New tips on refining 📌Watch my 2.5 Hour Personal Statement Masterclass for FREE https://skl.sh/30zAcQy Wishing you all the best with your applications. If you have any ❓questions, 💌 drop me a message on 📸 Instagram (@doctorshaene). And, if you’d like to read the ✒written blog post on this, please visit 📌www.askcamdoc.com. Let’s be buddies🤝 📸Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doctorshaene/ 📺Subscribe to my YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DoctorShaene 🧠Visit my Website: https://www.askcamdoc.com/ 🐦Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DoctorShaene Personal Statement Guide by Doctor Shaene 1 🎶Follow me on TikTok: @doctorshaene 👤Add me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doctorshaene/ Who am I? 🏥 🏛 My name’s Shaene and I’m a Junior Doctor in Oxford, a Cambridge Uni grad and neuroscience supervisor. I produce content about medicine , study tips , productivity , science and life . 🧠 📚 ⏰ 🔬 🏃 🏥 📺What’s my YouTube channel about? I use my channel to share advice and information for students about medicine, study tips📚 & productivity⏰. I also VLOG 🎥 my life as a junior doctor . I also give more detailed advice to those at medical school🏥 and those applying to medicine🏨. These videos have a “askCamDoc” logo on them to make it easy to find. ❓Who's it for? Students📚, medics , science fans🔬this is a place for you! Subscribe📺, like👍, follow👥 and share🗣! 🎯Introduction A personal statement is a document written by yourself about yourself that gets sent to Universities as part of your University application. It should be a maximum of 4,000 characters and 47 lines. Universities use this alongside your past and predicted grades, as well as any entrance exams and interviews they require, to determine if they should offer you a place on the course. 🏗The Framework: MESRAPPP Use this Framework to organise your thinking to help you decide what to include and how to structure and word sentences. An excellent personal statement has 5 key components: Conveys motivations for medicine - why you want to study medicine. Personal Statement Guide by Doctor Shaene 2 Conveys engagement with medicine - what you have done to learn more about medicine and care. Conveys suitability for medicine - what makes you the ideal candidate for medicine. Shows reflection - you can meaningfully interpret past experiences and learn from them. Demonstrates academia - you have successfully engaged with and achieved within and outside the curriculum. Shows projection - you are able to consider the future challenges of studying the subject and have a clear vision. Conveys personality - you are able to maintain healthy extra-curricular activities and positions of responsibility. Conveys passion for medicine - how important studying medicine is to you. ⚖What to Include? So what should you include in your personal statement to make sure you hit these points? Your Motivations: Reasons for applying to medicine Outline why you're applying to medicine. Is it the subject interest and wanting to know more about the human body? Is it because you want to help people? Try to use reasons that broadly cover these 2 principles: Medicine as an interesting subject - the scientific side. Medicine as a vocation to help people - the human empathy side. Now, you and thousands of other people are going to say broadly the same motivations. But, we're going to spice it up and make it uniquely yours with reflection and passion, but more on this later. Also, try Personal Statement Guide by Doctor Shaene 3 including more out of the box motivations such as interest in global health, public health or driving research (if this is something that applies to you of course). Your Engagement: Talk about things you've done to pursue medicine It's important to include the things you've done to engage with and explore medicine. This includes: Work experience in GPs and Hospitals. Volunteering in Nursing Homes, Youth Centres, Day Cares. Reading medical journals like the Student BMJ, medical books, keeping up-to-date with current medical news and topics. Any other relevant experiences that shows that you care enough about medicine to actually do something about it. Your Suitability: Show that you are the ideal candidate for medicine This is what it boils down to. Out of the 1000s of students that apply. Why should you be picked? You have to use the personal statement to really sell yourself. To do this effectively, it's important to first consider what qualities make a good doctor or medical student. A list of ideal qualities is also called a person specification and an example of one, is this: Able to demonstrate communication, team-working and leadership skills. Able to demonstrate personal maturity, ability to work under pressure (resilience), enthusiasm, determination to succeed and ability to adapt and overcome adversity. Excellent insight into own limitations and takes steps to improve and overcome these. Able to demonstrate how to escalate concerns and seek help when uncertain. Personal Statement Guide by Doctor Shaene 4 Able to take initiative and pro-actively direct own learning. Good time management skills and ability to balance academic, clinical and extracurricular/ personal roles. So here's a list of key person specifications that make you a good doctor and that makes you an attractive candidate for medical school: communication team-working leadership resilience determination insight empathy compassion pro-active organised good time managements Whenever you're thinking of what to include in your personal statement always think of these key terms, and ask yourself "this thing that I have done, does it link to any of these person specifications?" If so, great! Include it and highlight how your experience shows that you have this quality or helped you develop this quality. E.g. "My participation in the Youth Enterprise Programme helped me hone both my leadership and team-working skills. It also helped me develop skills such as empathy and conflict resolution. *Use a specific example of a scenario etc.*" If it doesn't link with any of the qualities, ask yourself why am I including this? Does it add anything to explaining your motivations or engagement, if the answer is no then you're probably better off leaving it out. Personal Statement Guide by Doctor Shaene 5 Your Reflections: Reflect at each point to show that you have introspective ability. It's important to not just mention these key terms vaguely. Everyone can find the key terms from a Google Search and if you were to just list them out, you're unlikely to get far in the application process. The art is to use specific examples and scenarios you've been in, link it to a person specification and then reflect on it. For example, in the previous sentence: E.g. "My participation in the Youth Enterprise Programme helped me hone both my leadership and team-working skills. It also helped me develop skills such as empathy and conflict resolution." You've mentioned the Youth Enterprise Programme and then gone onto list several person specification qualities. This is okay, but it's not excellent. To help this get to the next level, you should use a specific example. Take this: E.g. "During my participation in the Youth Enterprise Programme I was able to hone my leadership and teamworking skills. As a specific example, there was disagreement amongst the team about product selection and I was able to discuss calmly with each member and suggest a voting system to decide on the final product. This helped me develop skills such as empathy and conflict resolution by engaging with other team-members to understand their point of view." Now obviously this has now become much larger in content, but that's the point. A specific example with adequate detail to show a select number of person specifications is better than a vague sentence that lists loads of person specification with no evidence or reflection. Personal Statement Guide by Doctor Shaene 6 Your Academia This academia pillar refers to your academic achievement as well as further building on the "academic engagement" that we discussed during the engagement lesson. This pillar can be split into 2 broad categories. 1.Intracurricular and 2.Extracurricular. Intra-curricular academia One aspect of intra-curricular academia is to do with academic achievement during your school, 6th Form or college years. These are things like exceptional examination scores, scholarships, ranking highly and things of that nature. This pillar is really great for you to showcase any of these achievements you might have. Of course, it's not a necessity but it's great to mention if you do have any. And just as before link an achievement to a person specification like hard-work or resilience. Another aspect of intracurricular academia is to talk about the subjects you do as part of your normal a-level curriculum and link it to how it has either made you more interested in a subject or has given you certain skills to deal well the uni course. Like for example, further maths helping you develop problem solving skills. So to quickly summarise, intracurricular academia involves talking about academic achievement within the curriculum and also talking about the A level subjects you do and what skills that has given you. However, not everyone does this and it's actually more favourable to focus on the second component of academia which is extracurricular academia. Supracurricular academia So just as as intra-curricular academia, the supra-curricular one comes in two aspects also. One aspect of extracurricular academia refers to things you've got involved with within the academic sphere outside of the normal school curriculum. This can be things like national debating competitions, maths or science Olympiads and basically other things like them, as well as any achievements associated with them, like for example winning gold at chemistry olympiad. Another aspect of supra-curricular academia includes any interesting academic work you might have read surrounding the subject you want to Personal Statement Guide by Doctor Shaene 7 study at uni, which is not featured within any normal a-level curriculum. Basically, this aspect is quite similar to the academic engagement we spoke about before, but gives you scope to go much deeper and talk about more specific and higher level work. Of course this style may not suit you at all and it may not suit all universities. This style however, is relatively favoured by Oxbridge as they lap that sort of stuff up. But you're not just applying to 1 uni, so it's important to maintain a balance and not nerd out too much. Your Projection The next pillar within our framework is called projection and refers to the idea of projecting yourself into the future and deeply considering the realities of the subject and its associated profession. This shows two things: 1.You have thought deeply about the decision to study this subject weighing the pros and cons and 2. You have a clear vision for the future and are able to make decisions based on this rather than current states. This last aspect in itself is a massive strength that'll help you stand out. Your Personality The next pillar within our framework is personality and this again is a fantastic opportunity for you to shine through as a unique and special candidate. Personality really refers to two things. 1.Is Style and 2. Is ExtraCurricular. What I mean by style is the way you word sentences, the choice of words, use of things like smilies and metaphors. What I mean by extra-curricular is talking about the non-academic things you've done outside the classroom. This will serve to show that you are a well rounded student who has the ability to manage their time really well and pursue their wider interests. This can also be a space for you to talk about any positions of responsibility and any team activities you might have done, which will help show your leadership and team-working skills. Your Passion: Show that you are passionate about medicine Personal Statement Guide by Doctor Shaene 8 The easiest way to show that you're passionate about medicine is to use emotive language and powerful adjectives. For eg. "I like medicine because I can help people" This is an okay sentence that conveys your motivations for studying medicine, but it's not very passionate is it. Now take this: "My excitement for medicine was sparked when I understood how it empowers doctors to positively impact people during their time of need". The 2 sentences essentially say the same thing but the latter uses multiple powerful, emotive words. 🏛Oxbridge Pointers Oxford and Cambridge University prides itself on the importance they put on academia and research. This should be reflected in your personal statement if you've decided this is where you want to go. As a result a fair chunk of your personal statement should be devoted to discussing academia, especially supra-curricular academia. Here's the guidance from one Cambridge University college: Strong applicants to Cambridge and other competitive universities have often explored their chosen subject through wider reading and enrichment work outside of their A Level studies. This is called ‘supra-curricular’ activity, rather than ‘extra-curricular’, as it is primarily academic exploration, building on and going beyond what you are studying in school or college. With this in mind, in the main body of the personal statement under the academic section, talk extensively about supra-curricular reading and activities, link that to key qualities and reflect on this. Personal Statement Guide by Doctor Shaene 9 Here's an example. Writing my own Medlink research paper on the link between exercise and Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor gave me invaluable experience in self-reliance and organisation. This ignited my interest in the complexity of our brain and I wrote my EPQ on the segregation of psychological and physiological treatment in the NHS and how the power of the brain, such as the placebo effect, can be used to help cure patients. Cross-referencing sources, especially whilst participating in the Chemistry Research Club, led me to question what I read, making me realise the importance of scrutinising scientific knowledge. This is a fantastic demonstration of talking about supra-curricular achievements and linking them to key qualities gained (reliance and organisation) and reflecting on this (the last sentence is a great example). To add to this, there's passionate words thrown in such as "ignited". So to summarise, the Oxbridge tailored personal statement requires a more special focus on academics, especially the supra-curricular elements. If you're looking for ideas about what supra-curricular thing you can quickly do to put into you personal statement, then I've linked below in the class materials a document from Cambridge University that gives an extensive list of things you could read or listen to. 🧰Planning Open up a document and write down these 3 headings: motivation, engagement and suitability. Then write down using bullet-points your motivations, things you've done to engage and all the key person specifications I mentioned under the respective categories. Then add some flesh to these points, especially writing examples of experiences you've had that highlight why you possess those person specifications. Personal Statement Guide by Doctor Shaene 10 This is a far less daunting and a far easier way to start planning. At this stage don't restrict yourself. Create a list of everything you could ever possibly say relating to these points. Then start thinking about the structure of your personal statement. 🏗Structure Overview Try to have an introduction at the beginning where the first sentence is as unique as possible to grab the attention of the reader. Then go into your motivations, engagement and ending with suitability, use reflection and passionate language throughout. For each point you make, link it to a key specification, provide evidence from your life and reflect on it. 🏗Detailed Structure Introduction Now, the introduction is arguably the most important part of your personal statement as it's the front facing, attention grabbing segment. So, it's important to put your best efforts here and make this part the strongest. The introduction heavily features 2 main pillars: motivation and engagement. And these pillars should be used to set the scene about the subject and about you. Main Body So now that we've crafted the introduction with sentences talking about motivation and engagement that set the scene about the subject and you. It's time to move on to the main body. Here we can build on these ideas and add in the other pillars. The trick here is to come up with a coherent structure to tell a story. The structure I've seen work really well for medicine follows a 3 chunk formula: 1)work experience, 2)academia and 3)extra-curricular formula. Conclusion Finally, we're at the last bit of the personal statement: the conclusion! This quite similar to the introduction and carries a lot of weight. Just as the Personal Statement Guide by Doctor Shaene 11 introduction needs to make a good first impression, the conclusion needs to leave a good lasting impression. There are 2 important elements of the conclusion. 1. Is to sum up your key qualities 2. Is to show projection and passion related medicine. ✒How to Write First Draft After planning and coming up with a brief structure. Try to re-order your plan into a draft. Turn those bullet points into full sentences that link and flow from one point to another. Find connections and build a story. Still don't worry too much about the word-count yet. So go as hard as you can and want. Make sure to add passion to every sentence to make it stand-out and show that you really care. Below is a detailed step-wise approach that'll help you make the best start. 🚦Getting Started If you're reading this and you haven't written a single word down, then don't worry. In this lesson we're going to go through a step-by-step process to help you make the best start possible. Step 1 Use the UCAS search tool linked below under projects and resources or just go on google and type in the subject you want to study (medicine) followed by one of the universities you're applying for. Go to the course website page and have a read of the course description and get a feel for what kind of skills and attributes they like and value. These are the key qualities or person specification, we were banging on about before. Step 2 Personal Statement Guide by Doctor Shaene 12 Open word and create a table with 5 columns. The column titles should be 1 "key quality", 2 "work experience", 3"supra-curricular", 4 "intra-curricular" and last 5 "extra-curricular". You can also find a template for this under the resources section. Step 3 Copy the key qualities you found from searching the course website over to the first column, arranging it as 1 row per key quality. Step 4 Then spend time coming up with an example of something you've done either through 1)work experience, 2)intra-curricularly, 3)supra-curricularly or 4)extra-curricularly that shows the first key quality or has helped you develop it. Then repeat this for the other key qualities. This process means that you now have a focussed list of things you can talk about that's guaranteed to be relevant. And all you have to really do now is string together some connecting words. And use reflection, projection and passion. You can do a similar thing for motivation. Instead of starting with full sentences. Just bullet point why you want to do this subject and then flesh it once you've come up with all the best ones. The key point here is planning. Planning well before writing the full thing will help you make a focussed, stress free start, which will mean that you have less fluff and only the relevant points right from the beginning. However, at this stage don't worry too much about character limit and just write as much as you want. Use a lot of passion and develop a unique writing style using some of the techniques we discussed before like similes, metaphors and personification. And once you feel like you've written down everything you'd like to. Then we can look at the word count and think about cutting down. Which is exactly what we're talking about next. Personal Statement Guide by Doctor Shaene 13 🔧How to Refine Key Quality Table Now it's time to start thinking about refining and moulding it down to fit the character and line count. It's likely the problem is that you have too much rather than too little, so you have to prioritise what to put in. Easiest way to decide this is to think, does this sentence contribute to MESRAPPP. If it doesn't fit under any of these categories, then chuck it. If it does fit, then consider if it's redundant, meaning is it just repeating something that you've already said with another point. If so, then go ahead and delete this also. 📌Space Saver Strategies If you're still struggling or you've got to a point where you don't want to lose anymore because you feel they're all great then use the following strategies to keep all the points but communicate them in fewer words using space-saver strategies such as quality compounding or activity compounding. Space Saver - Quality compounding Personal Statement Guide by Doctor Shaene 14 Use one example and link this to several key qualities. Juggling these activities as well as my academic work has taught me the value of commitment, dedication and time management. This is a great demonstration of quality compounding where they have linked 3 qualities: "commitment, dedication and time management" to one example of juggling extra-curricular with academic work. However, be careful about doing this too much without providing specific examples and reflection, because it can soon start to sound like a list that's not very genuine or authentic. Space Saver - Activity compounding Use one sentence that links several activities. I have taught myself the guitar for my Gold DofE award and I have become proficient enough to join a band This is a great sentence that has linked 3 activities together, 1. Teaching themselves guitar, 2. Gold DofE and 3. Join a band. Here's another example of activity compounding. Outside my academic life, I find that music and tennis help me relax and I have been able to balance my preparation for a piano diploma and Gold Duke of Edinburgh with my pastoral role as a school prefect, allowing me to develop my prioritisation skills. So to summarise, apply the 4 questions to every sentence and remove the low yield sentences that don't meet the criteria. Then if you're still over use spacesaver strategies such as quality and activity compounding to say the same thing but in fewer words. 🔬Review Send it to your teachers, anyone you know who is a doctor, medical, involved in interviewing or just good at writing. Personal Statement Guide by Doctor Shaene 15 Get lots of feedback. 📤Submit Once you've refined your personal statement, got lots of feedback on it and you're happy with how it is now, it's time to double-triple-and-quadruple check the spelling and grammar. Once you've done all of this, it's time to transfer it to your UCAS account. WHOOP YOU'VE DONE IT!!! What next? 📌Watch my FREE 2.5 Hour Personal Statement Masterclass: https://skl.sh/30zAcQy After this, it's time to prepare for your interviews and find out about the medical course. Check out both of these videos on the Doctor Shaene 📺 YouTube channel to help with that! I wish you the best of luck with everything that's to come! Personal Statement Guide by Doctor Shaene 16
