<p>If you’re curious about successful med school personal statements, there’s a few books out there with actual essays. The editors requested impressive essays form the med programs and selected out of that for the book. My husband’s is in there :)</p>
<p>I will say, though, that when we read through them all (he got a complimentary copy), we were not impressed by some of them. But it may give you an idea of what med schools are looking for - [Barnes & Noble.com</a> - Books: Essays that Worked for Medical Schools, by Stephanie Jones, Paperback, First Edition](<a href=“Online Bookstore: Books, NOOK ebooks, Music, Movies & Toys | Barnes & Noble®”>Online Bookstore: Books, NOOK ebooks, Music, Movies & Toys | Barnes & Noble®)</p>
<p>Here’s another one that I haven’t read, but it seems to be basically the same thing - [Barnes & Noble.com</a> - Books: Essays That Will Get You into Medical School, by Dan Kaufman, Paperback](<a href=“Online Bookstore: Books, NOOK ebooks, Music, Movies & Toys | Barnes & Noble®”>Online Bookstore: Books, NOOK ebooks, Music, Movies & Toys | Barnes & Noble®)</p>
<p>If I remember correctly, examples of such essays were solicited from my school with the specific mention that they were looking for all essays of all levels of quality.</p>
<p>They were seeking them from medical students, so clearly no essays were involved that were SO horrible that they single-handedly disqualified us from admission, but there was no specific mention that they were looking for good ones.</p>
<p>The med school people told my husband that they were specifically asked for essays that were high quality and stood out. Of course, that’s still subjective - one person might love and essay and another might hate it - but the solicitation was specifically for excellent essays.</p>
<p>EDIT: At least, that’s the case for the first book I listed. The second one I know nothing about.</p>
<p>I have two med school essay books, one by TPR, one is the Barons. the TPR book only contains essays written by applicants who got into HMS and the like. The Barons book contains essays written by more normal human beings. This is not to say that one set of essays are better than the other. In fact, after having read both books, I can’t really tell a difference in average quality. If you managed to brave a bout of malaria to start your own HIV clinic in Africa and you write about it in your essay, your essay will probably be pretty good regardless of your writing skills.</p>
<p>Hm. I forget which book series was soliciting at my school.</p>
<p>It was actually refreshing to read the Barons book because the writers were normal. Many of them only got into 1 school or a non-top tier school. It was interesting to see the way they tried to craft their more “mundane” experiences into a great essay.</p>
<p>I don’t know what this guy is doing, but his blog just moved again. His AMCAS file is now at: <a href=“http://doctajay.com/?p=107[/url]”>http://doctajay.com/?p=107</a>.</p>
<p>Quick question. Do any of you all ever visit studentdoctor.net? its a great site for premeds.</p>
<p>SDN certainly has much more information than is available here. The difficulty I always had with it is that it was generally a bunch of students stressing out for thousands of posts about when they were going to hear back. Almost the entire value of the site is during the application process itself.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yep. Extremely valuable in dealing with the logistics of the application process. Other than that, the advice for premeds is about the same as on here.</p>