HTML Preview Residency Personal Statement Format page number 1.
Personal Statements for Residency
Rationale
A personal statement presents the admissions committee with an interesting and
comprehensive picture of the applicant. Specifically, it allows the committee to learn about the
applicant beyond what the resume/CV/transcript conveys and determine if the applicant is a
good match for the residency program. Often, the personal statement is the only writing
sample submitted during the application process and thus the only chance for applicants to
both demonstrate their writing skills and humanize themselves.
Organization
Many schools or programs will provide a prompt or ask specific questions; applicants should
first check for any prompts or length restrictions before writing. These guidelines often define
the scope and determine the organization of information committees want.
The outline below assumes a general personal statement prompt:
Write a personal statement discussing your interest in the field, your career goals, and
why you want to be in this program.
Introduction: Your introduction should grab the readers’ interest, develop a theme, and present
the organization of the essay in the form of a forecast statement.
1. Lead-in/Hook:
Don’t necessarily begin with The Beginning; instead, hook your readers with an
attention-grabbing and/or unexpected first sentence that hints at an eventual theme.
Avoid starting with something cliché that many others will write (e.g., “I want to be a
doctor in order to help people.”).
If the committee/prompt requests a personal statement focusing on research activities,
this statement should be less of an attention-grabbing hook and more functional.
2. Develop a theme:
Ideally, you should develop a thematic idea you can return to throughout the essay that
brings otherwise separate or unrelated ideas together in a cohesive way.
3. Forecast Statement:
Conclude the introduction by providing a forecast statement. Remember that readers
are busy and may not read the entire essay. The forecast statement previews what is
coming and the order it is coming in, thus making the entire statement easier and
quicker to read.