Disclaimer:
The following article was originally written in 2009 for the University of Toronto medical school admissions essay. Although the advice here is still useful for general medical school essays, since 2012, the University of Toronto medical school changed its admissions process to require the applicant write 4 Brief Personal Essays instead. Don’t fret – I have a written a new step-by-step guide to help applicants with these new 4 Brief Personal Essays.

As you have read in Part 1 of this series, I strongly believe that your essay should have an overall focus on your genuine desire to not only be a physician, but one who is dedicated for the long run – that is, help the judge understand that being a physician is something you are so passionate about that they will feel motivated to do anything to help you.

Just to be clear, when I talk about showing long term dedication, I’m not saying you need to say that you will do this or that once you are a physician. What I’m saying is that you need to illustrate that you have seriously thought about your decision to apply, because individuals who are serious about applying would have done some decent research into what it means to be a physician, and yet still want to be one. Someone who shows this seriousness and maturity about life decisions is likely to be someone that will strive to do their best in their role as a physician for years to come.

In this article, we will focus on the first item the University of Toronto admissions committee wants us to comment on within our essay: Your personal background, including particular interests and extracurricular experiences.

However, I’d like to make my own modification to that statement. I think your essay should comment on your personal background, including particular interests and extracurricular experiences, which are relevant to your journey towards a career in medicine.

This is a medical school essay, so talk about medicine

Even though the essay asks you to talk about your personal background, interests, and experiences, realize that you have a word limit (1000 words, which isn’t very much) and so you need to be selective – that being said, even without the word limit, you should be selective in the first place because this is not a random personal essay. This is an essay for your application to become a doctor. So if you’re going to write a life story, it shouldn’t just be your entire life story – it should be the parts of your life integral to your journey towards medicine.

Everything you mention in your essay should somehow relate to your overall theme – that is, if you were to pick any paragraph in your essay, you should be able to tell me exactly how it relates to your interest medicine and/or your journey towards becoming a physician. If you can’t do that, then you might need to rethink that part over.

Now, the relationship doesn’t have to be extremely direct – that is, every paragraph or idea you mention doesn’t have to be about doctors, hospitals, diseases, etc. But everything you write should always be relevant to your overall theme, and this relevance should be made obvious. The admissions judge should not have to think about why you’re mentioning this experience in your essay – you want to be direct and clear.

For instance, in my essay I mention that a lot of my community involvement has involved working with or advocating for children and youth. If I had just described these experiences and left it at that, this would be a rather weak component of my essay – it would be some floating experience. While those experiences have played a significant role in nurturing my interest in medicine, not elaborating further on why would be a big mistake. So I didn’t stop there. Rather, I made it quite clear (in fact, I even blatantly stated so), that these experiences have motivated me towards pursuing a medical profession in pediatrics.

Perhaps you ran a university club that has nothing to do with medicine or health care. Yet if you strongly feel that this experience has helped you develop collaborative, leadership, and communication skills that will make you a good doctor, then yes this is definitely relevant – but like I said, you need to make this connection clear in your essay.

The important thing is not necessarily the experience, event, or accomplishment itself in a vacuum, but how it has impacted/shaped your journey towards medicine.

So when considering what background/interests/experiences you should focus on in your essay, ask yourself these questions:

• What experiences have inspired / motivated me to consider medicine as a potential career? Which had the most impact, and why?
• What events have significantly impacted the type of physician I want or hope to be?
• What experiences have helped me develop skills that would be useful as a physician?

Making sense: Why mentioning “relevant” experiences is crucial

People don’t like to be confused. Everything is easier when things make logical sense. In the same way, it is easier for an admissions judge to see you as a future doctor when the essay you give them suggests it makes sense for you to be one.

Imagine an applicant whose essay focused on him being the top student in his philosophy program, winning an Olympic gold medal in figure skating, and representing Canada at a prestigious international conference on climate change. Despite their amazingness in a vacuum, none of these experiences, without further elaboration, clearly point to an interest in medicine. So unless the applicant can clearly explain how mentioning these experiences relate to his interest in and long term dedication towards a career in medicine, it may have been better to mention less “unique” experiences, such as the year he spent volunteering in a medical clinic and interacting with patients.

You don’t want the admissions judge questioning either your interest in, readiness, or ability to be a competent physician. You put all of that at risk unless your essay demonstrates that it “makes sense” for you to be a physician.

The Obsession with Standing Out

I think there is sometimes an obsession with applicants about the need to “stand out” – to be unique among the rest of the applicants. Here are the facts though – admissions committees are not looking for individuals who are different, they are looking for individuals who they believe will be good doctors.

My take on this is that you can stand out by writing a more powerful, moving essay than anyone else. Write your true, honest story about your desire to be a physician. But in order to do that, you need to be selective about the aspects of your personal history you mention – and it should all be clearly relevant to your interest in the medical profession.

Part 3 – Why Medicine and How Did You Prepare >>