Feel Free To Use These…

(As many of you know, the personal statement on your AMCAS application is an important piece of the medical school admission puzzle. A good personal statement can land you an interview while a bad one can make an otherwise strong candidate look insipid. I was going through my computer and I found a few ideas to start you off on your personal statements. Feel free to use them-PB)

Sample 1
I had been arrested two weeks before for obstructing logging in the Xocaatl tribe’s ancestral hunting grounds and it was hot in that Mexican jail. Damned hot. The kind of heat that sneaks up behind you and throttles you in manner very similar to that employed by my cell-mate Fernando as he fumbled at his belt while hissing dark Spanish threats into my ear. I think he was warning me not to shout out for the guards, something that I would never do as our personal morality should never be forced on others. Then the pain came. I gritted my teeth and forced back the tears. Homophobia is wrong, I told myself…

Sample 2
His name was Lavon Quintravion Jones, a 24-year-old white male…

Sample 3
The genital mutilation ritual practiced among the Laconda Tribe in the Peruvian foothills looked painful. And it was. Very, very painful. And, as the cermonial dagger was first dipped in the urine of a llama, I don’t think it was very sanitary either. Never-the-less I have always thrived in diverse cultures.

“We need to celebrate diversity.” I said to the flight medic as the Peruvian Army helicopter airlifted me to the hospital in Lima where emergency surgery would later save most of my penis.

“El dumbass mas grande en el mundo,” The flight medic said as he adjusted my oxygen mask and I was gratified that he agreed. (I guess my six-day immersion Spanish course was not a waste after all!)…

Sample 4
It’s all about the kittens. I remember my first experience with my pregnant tabby Snowball as the genesis of my desire to be a doctor and my hope to eventually specialize in OB/Gyn. “Hold her still,” I said to my friend Skeeter, “I’m counting parts here and I think we only have enough for five and a half kittens.”

Even then, at the age of twelve, I was strong believer in reproductive freedom for all female mammals…