Quick introduction and disclaimer
I’ve enclosed my UCAS personal statement for UK medical school applications in full. My hope is that it can give you some inspiration. My in-depth review of my own essay comes with useful tips embedded on how to write your own. Please note that plagiarism will not be condoned, as clearly indicated on the UCAS website.
My full essay and line-by-line analysis
“Gastric cancer.” My heart contracted; it was years before I had dared to ask my mother what had taken her father from her. The malignancy of cancer became even more poignant as I served at the National Cancer Centre. Though only skirting its periphery, I saw how it eroded the spirits of patients and caregivers.
I attempted to start off with a “hook”, tying in personal experience with my volunteering at the NCCS. Mentioning that I’ve encountered cancer patients before would mean that I have to be well-read, or at least have some knowledge of this disease.
Volunteering weekly at the Moral Home exposed me to a plethora of age-related ailments. I experienced firsthand caring for seniors with debilitating conditions from cataracts and arthritis to dementia. The senior I am closest to had her arm paralysed by stroke. In my first months there I reread Gawande’s “Being Mortal”, triggering ruminations on life, death, and medicine at the intersection of the two. In the years since, I witnessed the brutal realities of senility and the demands of a medical career that are far from alluring. I find solace in the genuine glow in their smiles when I talk to the elderly and engage them in physiotherapy.
This was an experience that touched me personally, so I dedicated a whole paragraph to it. Despite the word limit, this is alright and may even be good practice, since cursory mentions and namedropping convey next to nothing to whoever is reading your personal statement.
Notice that I didn’t just stop at “age-related ailments” but mentioned specific conditions (cataracts, arthritis, dementia, and stroke) that I’d observed in the residents there. (These I will likely be drilled on in the interviews and would be wise to prepare as such.)
Details are crucial for your UCAS personal statement—it shows a certain depth of knowledge and experience (your interest in the subject has pushed you to probe deeper), as well as a level of authenticity (you’ve truly lived that experience and gained something valuable from it).
But be selective about the details. Mention specific diseases and conditions you’ve witnessed, for instance, but leave out inconsequential details like the full names of the nursing homes or places you’ve volunteered at, the number of residents or patients, and so on. I hope you get the idea.
Last point here: I integrated one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read on healthcare and ageing into the description of my volunteering experience. Rather than just blankly mentioning that I read “Being Mortal” in one of the later paragraphs, presenting it in this way shows how the book holds personal meaning for me.
In team projects, I contribute my utmost but empower others to step up too. Beyond leading in the school’s Faculty Committee, my belief in servant leadership led me to two overseas CIP trips. Teaching underprivileged children, I used my creativity to infuse engaging elements into lessons and connected to the kids on a personal level.
This is quite a nondescript paragraph. I hoped to bring across my strong personal identity as both a servant leader and a team player. Of course, the original version was much longer, but brutally trimmed due to the word count. Nevertheless, I would say that in this case, it sufficed.
Full disclosure: Despite it spanning only one-and-a-half sentences in my personal statement, I was actually asked in quite some detail about my OCIP experience in one of my interviews.
I was honoured to receive the PM Book Prize for academic aptitude and bilingualism. Pursuing Bicultural Studies imbued in me an acute cognizance of different cultures, which will enable me to empathise with patients from diverse backgrounds. Fueled by undying curiosity, I took up H3 as a challenge in breadth and depth of content. I relished the self-directed learning, reading beyond the syllabus titles by Mukherjee, Dawkins and more. Kolbert’s book reaffirmed my efforts in climate action. Delving into evolution gave me a more complete understanding of life. Ideas only touched upon, such as medical implications of genomics and proteomics, intrigued me so deeply I did my own research.
The first sentence is not a very good start to this paragraph. It was jammed in only after someone pointed out to me that any achievements—academic or otherwise—are not captured in the UCAS application (it is really just grades and BMAT/UCAT scores). I believe I could have omitted this sentence nonetheless; I’m not sure if the UK professors would have known of this award anyway. Of course, if I had received a prestigious national award as a student in the UK, that could warrant a place in my personal statement, perhaps towards the end.
Fortunately, the main focus of this paragraph was on my academic pursuits. UK medical schools, especially top ones like Oxbridge and Imperial, hold academics to high regard. This is evidenced not just in their selection process but also in the focus on a strong scientific grounding in their teaching and education. Be sure to devote the bulk of your personal statement to academic and Medicine-related activities (roughly 80% academic and 20% non-academic, as stated in this article on how to write your UCAS Medicine personal statement).
In this paragraph, when talking about Bicultural Studies—which formed a huge part of my learning but appears to be more “Humanities”-based—I linked it back to Medicine, specifically, the humanistic aspect of the profession. Importantly, everything you mention in your personal statement—indeed, every line—should say something about why you wish to pursue this course (Medicine) and what makes you a prime candidate for it.
Next, as I wrote about H3 Biology, I didn’t simply say that I “read beyond the syllabus” but gave concrete examples of books I’ve read. Again, this level of detail is needed. Rather than providing the full titles which would have slaughtered the word limit, I put the authors’ names instead. Needless to say, if you mention any books in your personal statement, make sure you’ve actually read them in full and are prepared to discuss them at the interviews.
Likewise, I didn’t just leave it at “I learnt a lot of different topics” (extremely vague and useless statement) but gave specific examples (impact of climate change, biological evolution, medical implications of genomics and proteomics).
I frequented the General Hospital and was admitted. Yet my love for learning never ceased. I learnt to read my electrocardiogram and observed the technique as blood was drawn from my veins. I read up on endoscopy before it was performed on me—and was thrilled to try manoeuvring the scope in one of the many programmes I attended. My parents implored me to discontinue school before my final exams, but I would not acquiesce. Even in the ward, I was constantly absorbed in my books, self-learning every missed lesson.
This is just a ‘different’ experience I had. I kind of wanted to highlight my rapacity for knowledge and a certain inexplicable drive that endured even through pain. It was very hard, however, to convey the true extent of growth that the experience engendered. A personal statement also should not become a philosophical ramble. So that was deliberately left out.
Note that if you did have similar experiences, you may include these in your personal statement. Focus on your growth and how you persevered in spite of the challenging circumstances (in terms of health, finances, or others). And maybe even how that has fortified your resolve to practise Medicine (a bit of this comes in the following paragraphs for my personal statement).
Emotionally invested in every pursuit, I trained relentlessly in basketball. The sport shaped me; above all, it fortified my courage and tenacity.
The focus should be on academics, so I kept this very short. In retrospect, perhaps I should have left these two lines out entirely. This paragraph seems a bit out of place, mostly because I didn’t have any other ‘opportunity’ to mention it. The sport truly shaped who I am as a person, but it is really difficult to show any of that in the limited number of words I have left.
Once I was with my doctor and realised—profoundly—how she had to bear the emotional brunt of her patients, never once revealing her own. There was an invisible—yet ponderous—weight she carried. Interacting with patients, I found myself feeling for them with a compassion that transcended all I had known. I discovered that it is inherent in my nature to uplift others, even if in pain myself.
Finally tying in a bit of my experience as a patient with why I want to do Medicine, although this paragraph is not particularly well-written. The link to the preceding paragraph is nonexistent. This may not be grievously problematic, but it does help to have a nice flow to your personal statement, making it a coherent and smooth read. As mentioned, therefore, maybe the previous paragraph could have been omitted, or integrated more seamlessly at another point in the essay.
Not-so-important stylistic note but the frequent use of em dashes (including more in the next paragraph) makes me want to stab myself. Remove the completely unnecessary ones around “yet ponderous” at least! That would have removed two precious characters from the word count (UCAS has a 4,000-character word limit). (I held fast to them at that time believing they were essential to show emphasis in that particular line.)
I was never inured to the asperity of the job—the daily work, burnout, grappling with death. Only after learning the unadorned details—by speaking to doctors, attending various programmes and reading widely—did I set my heart on this. I believe you never know if something is truly for you until seeing the worst of it; you never know what you can endure until pushed beyond your limits.
The tutors would like to see that you have an understanding of exactly how tiring, gruelling and unglamorous the whole medical journey is going to be. (And that in spite of this knowledge you’re hell-bent on doing it anyway.)
This paragraph is okay, but the last sentence is a bit too superficial. I lacked the word count allowance to expand on “pushed beyond your limits”, and anyway really did not want to victimise myself in any way by recounting my struggles. So maybe it would have been better to rethink this line and add a more valuable insight.
I always thought my mother brave, for living through her father’s death. It was not until confronted with pain and loss myself that I realised how our state of mind in adversity defines how we fight through every struggle. A doctor must have great mental strength—to remain steadfast in the most trying circumstances, yet at times learn to let go—in life as it is in death.
Here I’m echoing my starting line by bringing back the loss in my family due to cancer, now fusing it with my own “coming-of-age”. I knew there was much more that I wanted to write, but as usual, we have to keep our insights concise. Aim for simple but trenchant expressions.
Disease will never cease to afflict us. To devote myself to a vocation that alleviates this perennial suffering, so others can have the liberty to pursue their dreams—to me there is no greater purpose.
Looking back, I do not like this conclusion much. Although it is what I genuinely believe, it sounds high-minded and somewhat clichéd when expressed in this way.
It is standard, though, to conclude by restating why you want to do Medicine. Perhaps mine could have been improved by tying in some of my personal qualities, e.g. my innate compassion and my love for both science and human interaction.
Overall comments
Each paragraph is generally fine, but this personal statement lacks a sense of cohesion when read as a whole. How I structured it was more of one activity or idea after another, with each paragraph being quite distinct from the others. And this was all while trying to fit everything into 4,000 characters. It turned out, therefore, slightly disjointed, and the flow could have been improved.
I would advise, however, for you not to be overly concerned about this aspect of your personal statement. The UCAS personal statement is unlike the personal essay for US colleges, where they’re looking for a compelling and well-written story. Here, the ‘narrative’ is not the focus. Make sure that the key elements are there first. (You may wish to read this guide to writing the UCAS Medicine personal statement for more.)
Note: I applied to Oxford, Imperial and UCL, and received interview offers from Oxford and Imperial.
Have a question? Leave a comment below, contact me, or DM me on Instagram @thelowkeymedic.