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“I have always wanted to be a doctor.”

Even if this is true, saying this in your personal statement can work against you. But what if it is true?

The key stumbling block in the phrase “I have always wanted to be a doctor” is the word “always.”  What is your first memory of wanting to be a doctor? If it was playing doctor as a six-year-old, you are best advised not to go there, precisely because many candidates actually do go there. The goal of your statement is to set you apart rather than to put you in a category with other applicants.

Revisit that moment when you were first certain that you wanted to be a doctor. Where were you? What were you doing? What were those around you doing? What aspect of the circumstances convinced you?  If you address all these facts in your statement, such a passage can work for you.

“Immigrating to the United States was a great challenge.”

As an international student, almost anything that you can say about the immigration experience will come across to your reader as a cliché. That is why international students are well advised to completely avoid this topic in their medical school application essays.  Your reader knows that as an international student, you have faced unique and in some cases seemingly insurmountable challenges. Saying nothing about those challenges is what can truly set you apart.

“That’s when I knew I could make it in medical school.”

The most important tone to avoid in your essay for medical school is a tone of overconfidence.  The key is to achieve a tone which balances humility with enthusiasm.

You can achieve a tone of humility by offering a brief self-deprecating passage in your essay, and you can express your enthusiasm by showing it in action, in a situation in which you took initiative or developed a project well beyond its stated requirements.

Underestimating the Importance of your Med School Essay

Some of the best candidates for medical school have managed to achieve outstanding grades by developing term papers and research papers at the last minute in countless courses.  What could be so different about an essay for medical school?

Your personal statement for medical school is not a term paper. It is not a research paper.  It is a document that must set you apart, set the right tone, and convince your reader that you have unique qualities that will contribute to a medical program. Writing it at the last minute could ruin your chances.

Neglecting to Polish and Proofread you Work

This is another mistake often committed by some of the most qualified candidates.  A typo or grammar irregularity in a term paper can be overlooked.  A typo or grammar  irregularity in your medical school application essay can sabotage your best interests and ruin your chances of admission.

College Applicants

What sets you apart?  What do your friends say is the best thing about you?  Their answer to this question may well offer a very good idea of what to develop in your personal statement for college.

Even more important: Do your research! Go to the websites of the colleges to which you hope to apply and find out what they most value in applicants.  Think about the type of essay that you can develop that will not just distinguish you as a candidate , but that will also play to

Medical School Applicants

Your life in 5300 characters with spaces: It is a tall order.  But it can help to take it in pieces.

What can you offer as an anecdote that sets you apart? If you cannot think of one, it might not hurt to ask family members or friends what they think of when they think about you becoming a doctor, and those of your qualities that align best with a future in medicine. It is by no means a requirement to open your AMCAS essay with an anecdote, but if you can offer a good one, it is often the best approach.

What is the strongest element of your resume? Think about how you can develop that one element into one or two paragraphs that best play to your strengths as a candidate for medical school.

MBA Applicants

Most business school applicants must develop multiple essays as part of their applications. Think of any general personal statement or statement of purpose as being you chance to explain where you have been, and how this has led you to want to attend business school. You will also probably need goal-focused essay of some type, which demands a concise rendering of what you hope to achieve in business.  In addition, you may also have to develop essays about leadership, past mistakes, and specific accomplishments. In what settings were you most effective as a leader? When did you make a mistake whose resolution actually served to reflect favorably upon you? What are the accomplishments in your life that are most valuable to you?  Keep in mind that these do not have to be in business.  If you reconciled a conflict between family members or business colleagues, it would not be inappropriate to offer this as a valued personal accomplishment.

Law School Applicants

Law school applicants must do one thing: they must present an argument that is concise, clear, augmented with evidence, and irrefutable.  Nothing is more advantageous to a law school applicant than brevity.  Nothing is more dangerous to a law school applicant than a tone of overconfidence.  What is the best argument that you can make that they should bring you into their program? What is the evidence that you can present?

A lot of the work is done. You’ve finished writing your admissions essay, academic paper, or personal statement, and the sense of relief that you are experiencing is a welcome change from the pressure and anxiety that you had while writing.

But the most important work remains to be done: if there are grammatical errors or errors in logic in your document, you must address these when you revisit your document for its final polish.

There are three tactics that can really help you ensure that your finalized essay is as strong as it can possibly be. If you know of another one or have your own idea, feel free to add/share in the comments!

Take a Break!!!

The best way to achieve substantive improvements in the document that you have written is to put a bit of time between its completion and its polish.  It is almost impossible to effectively polish an essay that you have just completed writing, since the constructions that appear on the page are still in your head. You’ll unconsciously accommodate errors in the diction, logic, and presentation of your document if you attempt a final polish right after its development.

Ideally, wait at least 24 hours before undertaking the final polish.

But what if you don’t have that much time? What if your essay is due in three hours?  There are two other effective approaches that you can use in those situations. These aren’t just for last-minute polishers, though – you can also use these in conjunction with this first idea.

Listen to Your Work, Don’t Just Read It

Chances are, as you developed your essay, you did not speak the words aloud as you entered them on the page.  That’s why one of the most effective ways to polish your essay, when you are in a hurry, is to read it out loud, ideally in earshot of a good friend or colleague who can help draw your attention to possible problems.

Another advantage to this approach is that it is one of the most effective ways of identifying punctuation problems in your document.  In particular, it is important to realize that pauses in your spoken word do not automatically translate into commas in your document; they can translate into commas, semicolons, colons, “em dashes,” or even periods.  Faulty punctuation can ruin an otherwise beautifully developed essay, and one of the best ways to catch faulty punctuation is through the spoken word.

Give Yourself a Different Look

As effective as the policy mentioned above can be, it can backfire on some students, especially if they are not native English speakers. In such cases, one of the best ways to polish your essay is to print it out in a completely different font — ideally in a different size and color as well.  This is a great way of catching mistakes in your essay and ensuring that the document that you worked so hard on will not be sabotaged by minor errors in usage, diction, and syntax.

Today, I’d like to use this space to point out some things that are happening over at www.essayedge.com. With the 2011-2012 application season about to shift into high gear, we’re working very hard and are excited to share some updates with you.

First off, we’re pleased to announce that you can learn more about some of the top editors at EssayEdge on a brand new page:

www.essayedge.com/editors

I strongly encourage you to take a look at this new section of our website when you have a chance. You might learn something interesting, like…

Did you know that EssayEdge has editors who have MBAs, Ph.D.s, and law degrees? Did you know that one EssayEdge editor has earned degrees from Brown University, Columbia University, AND Princeton University? Did you know that one EssayEdge editor worked in the Columbia University admissions office and is a decorated military veteran who presided over an historic event with the U.S. and French presidents? Did you know that some EssayEdge editors have been editing admissions essays with us for over a decade? Did you know that one EssayEdge editor graduated from one of the most selective and unique schools in the world, a school that admits only 10-15 students annually? Did you know that some of our editors have edited published books (one of those editors plays blues guitar and one loves to eat fried pickles)?

Check out our brand-new editor profiles and see what else you can learn about some of the top editors at EssayEdge. No matter where you’re applying, we have an experienced admissions and writing professional ready to help you make the most of your application essay or personal statement.

In addition to our featured editors, we’ve continued our focus on the essay prompts at top MBA programs by adding breakdowns of the prompts at more schools. In addition to HBS, Stanford GSB, and UChicago Booth, we now cover six other top MBA programs on our site:

Kellogg (Northwestern University

Sloan (MIT)

Wharton (University of Pennsylvania)

INSEAD

Haas (Berkeley)

London Business School

If you’re applying – or even thinking about applying – to any of those programs, check out our advice for how you can approach each essay on their complicated applications. If you want even more personalized guidance or help with the essay-writing process itself, be sure to check out our MBA Video Course and MBA Essay Editing Services.

If you’re applying to other MBA programs, be sure to visit our MBA Essay Prompt Page on a regular basis, since we’ll continue adding breakdowns of the essays at more top MBA programs in the coming weeks.

Finally, with the busy part of the year for most applicants just around the corner, don’t forget that we always want to hear from you. If you have a question, a suggestion for an article or blog post, or feedback on any of our offerings, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Comment on the blog, send an email, post on our Facebook wall – whatever works best, we’d love to hear from you!

Your personal statement is precisely that: it is unique to you.  But after having read countless examples of personal statements, you’re probably wondering how best to set yours apart. There are many effective strategies, but today’ we’re going to focus on just three of them in this post.

Facts, Facts, Facts: They Distinguish You

An ideal personal statement is comprised of content that only the individual candidate can offer.

Consider this sentence:

I have wanted to be a doctor ever since the age of 15, when in Mr. {NAME’s} {SPECIFIC CLASS} at {NAME OF SCHOOL}, my research project on {SUBJECT} was selected as the best in the class. I then developed it into a poster presentation for {NAME OF CONFERENCE}.

You get the idea: Nobody else can offer this material.  If you leave out the facts, you wind up with a sentence that almost anyone could offer:

I have wanted to be a doctor ever since the age of 15, when my research project was named “best in class” and I developed it into a poster presentation.

Nothing sets you apart like the facts. Nothing works better in your personal statement then offering names, locations, timelines and specific subjects of research and study that have motivated you to go on and pursue a particular field. When you review your personal statement, ask yourself this question with respect to every sentence that appears in it: Could another candidate offer this sentence?  If the answer is “yes” to more than 20% of the material in your essay, you have a problematic personal statement, because it is too generic.

Be Creative

Some of the best application essays are those that deviate completely from accepted formats that suggest that you should open with an anecdote, go on to “touch certain bases” such as leadership, academic achievement, and professional goals, and conclude with the synthesis of what you have just offered.  The key is to choose material that will play to what your reader wants; in other words, the key is to know your audience.  If you are applying to an international business program in which cultural sensitivities are considered a vital priority, an entire essay devoted to how you demonstrated your own cultural sensitivities in a particularly compelling context could very well serve your best interests.

International Students: The “Coming to America” Cliche

If you are an international student, the best way to talk about the many challenges that you encountered as an immigrant to the United States is this: don’t.

Unfortunately, content of this type is vastly overused in admissions essays of all types. As a result, sharing stories of this nature will only serve to make your application less original, and may even cause the reader to associate you with a stereotype.

The one exception to this is if you have a particularly humorous story (which several individuals have assured you is very funny, and is in good taste) about your immigrant experience. If that is the case you may wish to include this in your personal statement. Almost anything else that you offer in the context of the challenges faced by an immigrant student will come across to your reader as clichéd.

Medical application season is in full swing so EssayEdge wanted to use today’s blog post to provide some guidance specifically tailored to residency applicants. If you’re working on your residency personal statement and wondering how to write a great one, look no further. Follow these pieces of advice to ensure that you’re on the right track in your residency statement.

This is not your application to medical school!

Hey! You’re a doctor! You do not need to explain to the residency director why you wanted to become a doctor — unless, of course, your goal all along has been this target residency.

But many candidates are applying for several different types of residency, or even more likely, to a large variety of different institutions. They do this because they remain unsure of what specialty they will ultimately pursue, or at least unsure of where they have a chance to get accepted.  This does not have to be a problem.  It only presents a problem if you think the same essay is going to work for different types of residencies in all different locations – because that isn’t the case.

Take the time to ensure your statement is tailored to the specific residency you’re seeking.

What quality is most valued in this type of residency?

Anesthesiologists and radiologists have to be great team players. Internists and family practitioners have to be great diagnosticians who are passionate about continuum of care and preventive medicine. Each type of medical residency tends to require specific qualities in the best applicants.  If you are not sure of what qualities are most valued in the residency for which you are applying, the best thing to do is go online and find out.  Know your audience! Know what they are looking for in applicants!  If you can provide evidence that you have those qualities, you are well on your way to winning them over.

Don’t be afraid of your resume.

Many candidates believe that the material on their resume should be avoided in their personal statement.  While it’s true that a statement should be much more than a resume in essay form, there’s no reason to avoid mentioning accomplishments and past experiences in your statement. This is particularly true if you’re elaborating on those experiences, going deeper into them than you are able to in your resume. You can actually play to the strengths of your resume in your personal statement, by selecting the one or two highlights of your resume and developing those in the context of what the residency director is seeking in applicants. Again, just make sure to offer greater detail than your resume is able to, and avoid turning your statement into a laundry list of accomplishments.

It’s not all about doctoring.

Again: As a resident, you are already a doctor.  It may be that the strengths and qualities most valued in the residency for which you are applying are best demonstrated in your extracurricular activities, such as sports or artistic endeavors.  Don’t be afraid to develop these themes in your essay for residency. The more “personal” your residency statement can be, the better. If you can point to specific extracurricular activities that distinguish your character and play to what the residency director seeks in applicants, by all means do so.

Where are you going?

What are your goals in residency? What is your long-term goal as a doctor? The candidate who knows not only where she or he has been, but where she or he is going, tends to be the candidate who appears to be the most focused. This can serve your best interests in your essay for residency.

At EssayEdge, we spend a lot of time thinking about, reading about, and directly working with the written word (go figure). In doing so, one of the things that both amuses and frustrates me is popular opinion of the passive voice. From many guides out there, you would think that use of the passive voice was on par with using a word like “ain’t” or chat speak in terms of major writing mistakes.

There are several reasons for this. The first probably has to do with the word “passive” itself. In much of society today, almost anything that is considered to be “passive” is thought of in a negative way.

Another problem is the proliferation of media that encourage short, if not cryptic, communications, and it is true that constructions rendered in the active voice tend to be shorter than constructions rendered in the passive voice. (side note: this can actually be a great reason for using more active voice in your admissions essay, since it can save you space when working under a tight word limit)

Even though the passive voice is routinely condemned, many people still have trouble defining and identifying it. Let’s take a crack at that to start.

What is the passive voice?

Simply put, the difference between the passive voice and the active voice is this:

In the active voice, a subject performs an action.

In the passive voice, a subject has an action performed upon it.

An example:

Active Voice:

This blog posting discusses the passive voice.

Passive Voice:

The passive voice is discussed in this blog posting.

It’s important to be aware that when you change the first sentence to the second sentence, you change the subject of your sentence: this means that you change the focus of your sentence.

The first sentence would be a good introduction to a paragraph in which you are discussing other blog postings – since the topic is the blog posting itself.

The second sentence could be a good introduction to a paragraph discussing other sources of information about the passive voice – since the topic is the passive voice.

This is what people tend to forget when they become obsessed with removing the passive voice from essays and other written material.  Nine times out of ten, if you change a passive construction to an active construction, you will change the subject of your sentence.

In terms of your application essays, changing the subject of your sentence can be a bad idea.  Consider this sentence:

When I was 12, my mother was diagnosed with cancer.

This sentence in the passive voice is quite powerful with respect to its content.  If you change this sentence to an active construction, you will have to introduce the agent who diagnosed your mother with cancer.  This will probably look something like this:

When I was 12, doctors diagnosed my mother with cancer.

This sentence does not say the same thing, does it?  The focus of this sentence is on the doctors, not on your mother.

Passive voice only becomes a problem when it appears in several sentences in succession. When this happens, the text can become vague to the reader because, once again, the agent behind all of the action is lost in the text.

Passive voice when overused can be a problem. But if the most natural way of presenting your statement is in the passive voice, do not be afraid of it. There’s nothing technically wrong with it and like most elements of grammar, it has its place in the writing world.

It’s tough to believe, but the 2011-2012 school year is just around the corner. And even though you might not be thinking about applications or admissions for another several month, you’ll probably be writing papers, reports, and other academic work in just a few short weeks. Don’t worry, though – EssayEdge has you covered with a few tips that will help you boost your grades in the coming semester.

Start Early!

This is the single most important thing that you can do to ensure the success of your academic essay.  If you leave the writing of your essay until the night before it is due, you may spend all night writing your essay and then find, to your horror and just one hour before it is due, that it does not work for you.  And if it does not work for you, it is not likely to work for your professor. You will avoid this common disaster if you begin your essay well before it is due.  Effective writing, after all, is mostly a process of rewriting – your work will get better with each passing draft. You will not have time to do this if you wait until the last minute.

Take Time to Develop an Outline

What is your thesis statement? What is the single most important message you wish to convey in your academic essay?

If you have an answer to this question, you are well on your way to developing a very effective academic essay. But even if you know what your thesis statement is, how will you prove it?  There is nothing worse than spending days developing an essay that, when complete, simply does not work.  So, save yourself all that time! If you develop an outline first, you will know whether or not you can prove your thesis statement.

If you do not have experience developing outlines, no problem. Here’s a tip from the pros at EssayEdge: find two or three academic essays that you really like (and that have been judged to be well written), and develop outlines for those. By outlining something that is already written, you’ll get the hang of the process.  This will give you two or three outline models that can help you develop an outline for your own essay before you write it.

Do Your Homework: Research and Provide Support for Arguments

Effective academic essays offer clear, concise proof, throughout their development, of the various points that are being made.  The thing to avoid is “over–referencing” your work, so that it turns into a series of footnoted sentences. Footnotes and supporting quotations are critical, of course, but what is even more critical is the original thought that is contained in your essay.  Be sure that your original thought is introduced early, in your introduction, and summarized clearly in your conclusion. In other words, tell the reader what you are going to say, say it, and then summarize it.

And keep it simple! It is a misconception that the most effective academic essays are the most complex academic essays.  Your professor has read through countless essays characterized by convolution, obfuscation, unclear thinking, and the absence of a thesis statement. If you open with a clear thesis statement, develop it effectively, and then re-present it in your conclusion, you will go a long way toward winning over your professor and getting the A+ you want.

With summer already in full swing and the 2011-2012 MBA admissions season just around the corner, EsayEdge is excited to announce several new products and initiatives designed specifically to help MBA applicants maximize their chance of admission at even the most competitive programs worldwide.

First off, we are now offering two brand new admissions essay services in the MBA market.

For applicants who are not native English speakers, or those who want editing help that is particularly focused on detailed proofreading, the new ESL Service provides an initial proofread, up to a week of interaction with your editor, and a full Standard Service edit (one proofread and one critique). You can add a phone consultation with your editor and/or an additional final proofread for an extra fee.

The ESL Service is also available in a rush variant that provides a proofread, editor interaction, and Standard Service edit in 72 hours total.

For applicants who have not yet started writing essays and who would like to take advantage of the EssayEdge MBA Video Course while also benefiting from an EssayEdge MBA editing service, we now offer a Video Course & Essay Editing package deal that combines video course access with a Standard Editing service of your choice. View the video course as often as you’d like for up to 60 days, and when you’re ready (within that 60-day window) submit your draft essay(s) to EssayEdge to receive one-on-one help from an experienced MBA admissions editor.

Finally, the redesigned EssayEdge MBA homepage now provides detailed prompt analysis for the 2011-2012 admissions essays at top MBA programs. We’ve already uploaded breakdowns of the Harvard Business School (HBS), Stanford GSB, and Chicago Booth essay prompts for this year. Over the next couple months, we will be updating that page regularly with essay prompt analyses for even more top MBA programs. Bookmark the page and check back often (or you can just follow us on Twitter!).

Enjoy the rest of your summer, but be sure to start early when it comes to your MBA application essays – giving yourself extra time will almost always result in significantly better essays.