How To Write Your Personal Statement For Physician Assistant School

A big topic to tackle, but I think we can do it: How To Write Your Personal Statement.

This post will be starting from the basics of the basics. I will have plenty more blog posts about the details of a personal statement and other tips and tricks to perfect it. But here? We will be walking you through the basics of how to actually get a personal statement from thought to paper.

I want to preface this by saying you can use these steps to write really any kind of personal statement. However, I’m going to tailor this blog post specifically to writing a Physician Assistant Personal Statement.

To begin, there are many different writing styles. For a personal statement, you need to think about the bucket of “professional” writing. We don’t want any slang, any “etc” or any casual vibes at all. No no, that is for this blog post only! While I am writing extremely casually here, your personal statement should certainly have a professional yet personal feeling to it. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t have writing that is beautiful, poetic, moving, and appealing. Because I’m a firm believer those things truly UP LEVEL your personal statement. However, the vibes should be academic and professional. Got it? Ok, let’s dive in!

Step One: Brain Dump Personal Statement Ideas

I want you to grab a piece of paper or blank Word document and just write down anything that comes to mind regarding your life, what is meaningful to you, what has influenced your decision to go into the healthcare field, and why you want to be a PA. Don’t overthink this step. Don’t make it look pretty or shiny or neat. Don’t ONLY think about what would be good in a personal statement, simply write stuff down. No need to make categories or organize your thoughts. Just get everything down on a piece of paper. Is your dog meaningful to you? Put it down. Is your experience in research impactful? Put it down. Watching your dad growing up inspire you? Put it down.

Step Two: Think of Your “Why”

Next, on a separate piece of paper, I want you to start writing out “why” you want to go into healthcare and be a physician assistant. So the above paper may have had things like “played sports growing up, volunteered at a food shelf, saw cancer’s effect on my parents” etc. This piece of paper will have things on it like “team oriented profession, I like science and the human body, I want to help people”, etc. Don’t make it sound neat or tidy. Just write down why you want to go into healthcare and why you want to be a physician assistant. Once this is complete narrow it down to maybe 5-10 “reasons” or adjectives of the profession that stand out to you.

Step Three: Narrow Down the Brain Dump

Put piece of paper #2 to the side and only focus on your brain dump. I want you to circle 3-6 things on that paper that are the MOST impactful and meaningful to you. The things you desperately want to discuss with admission committees. Things that have changed your life, have made you into the person you are today, and have developed your character. Do NOT think too hard about this. Do not pick the perfect experiences that fit nicely with PA school or the topic of healthcare. If your love of knitting has deeply changed you, circle it. For instance, my topics were playing sports/teamwork, tutoring kids, working as a medical assistant, and my research project in college.

Step Four: Find the Connections

This step is going to take the most time probably, but the time at this step will essentially write your personal statement for you. I want you to take what you have narrowed down on both papers and start connecting them. Did your time playing sports make you interested in a team oriented career? Did you learn the art of being meticulous and detailed during research that you see displayed in the PA profession? Have you been impacted by a thoughtful and empathetic person that makes you want to emulate that as a provider? Start connecting the pieces. My favorite part about this step, and what I urge you to strive to do, is to get creative and dig deep. If knitting is truly that important to you, why? How is that connected to healthcare or a career caring for people? Creative connections are KEY and make for unbelievably moving personal statements.

Step Five: The Outline

I like to tell students that their personal statement should be about 5-6 paragraphs. First paragraph is an introduction. You should catch the reader’s attention, tell a story, and start strong. The next three paragraphs will outline you “why” with the connections you have made in step four. To note, these paragraphs should have DETAILS in them, should tell a story, should SHOW us why you want to be a PA through your connections, experiences, and personal anecdotes. The last paragraph will reiterate what you have said, possibly introduce a new short powerful anecdote, and circle back to the original story (or language/wording) you started with in paragraph one. Of course, you totally don’t have to write your personal statement this way. However, I think it’s a great place to start.

Step Six: Edit, Edit, Edit

Once you write down your thoughts, and move things around, and erase sentences, and rearrange, and write some more, you will finally have a rough draft of a personal statement. Your next job is to edit edit edit. This can be a tedious process but is imperative. This is also where I can come in (Gosh, Marisa don’t plug yourself!) But, in all seriousness, I think editing is the most important part of your personal statement (for obvious reasons) and sometimes an outside perspective that you trust can really help! I adore editing personal statements and have had a lot of success with it. However, you can ask anyone to help you edit- a friend, coworker, parent. You just want someone you trust and who is good at writing. There are two pieces you should focus on when editing: the substance (which hopefully is top notch if you follow steps 1-5) and the writing/grammar itself (this is the toughy, and why you really do need someone who is decent at this).

I 100% want to help you if you need it, and quite frankly think it is worth every penny to perfect your personal statement. After all, it’s one of the most important parts of your application that will help you get into PA school. Good luck my friends!

Cheers!