INTRODUCTION
Competition for admittance into the nation’s top medical schools has never been more intense and it has become increasingly important to write a personal statement that sets you apart from thousands of other medical school applicants.
However, that is a daunting task—in less than fifty-three hundred characters, you must weave together your experiences, interests, and passions into a memorable and evocative narrative that resonates with a panel of admissions officers. While there is no magic formula for writing the perfect essay, by picking up this helpful book you are already on the right track. Whether you are just beginning to write your essay or have written several drafts already, this book will provide you with the insights and guidance you need to succeed.
On these next pages, you will find fifty standout essays that helped students successfully secure a spot at Harvard Medical School, one of the best medical schools in the country. No two essays are the same: A young woman describes creating mental health awareness in her community. A hockey player opens up about their unexpected entrance into sports medicine. A pianist explores the intersection between music and care. Each student presents a different set of experiences, ideas, and perspectives that informs their path to medicine.
Each essay is coupled with analysis by a Crimson editor or editors on specific essay qualities and techniques that worked, so you can learn from their example and apply it to your own writing. You will find that for many of these essays, their strengths lie not in the writer’s topic of choice, but instead, in the writer’s ability to forward an argument about their character, drive, and passion for medicine with elegant prose, precise organization, and sometimes even a sprinkle of unexpectedly charming humor.
We have divided the book into five thematic categories: Passion, Influential Figure, Impactful Experience, Identity, and Intellectual Desire. While these broad themes by no means fully encapsulate the complexity and depth of each of these essays, we hope they will serve as helpful guiding points as you pinpoint the types of stories you want to tell. At the end of this book, you will find a chapter filled with words of wisdom from some of the students behind these essays. We hope their words will encourage and guide you as you embark on this journey.
We wish you the best of luck with writing your essay and finding the medical school that is right for you.
—Sabrina W. ChokPublishing Manager,146th Guard of The Harvard Crimson
JUN LIU
Hometown: Nanjing, China
Undergraduate School: Private, Williams College
Major: Biology
GPA: 3.86
MCAT: 36. PS: 10, V: 14, BS: 12.
ESSAY
Detention. The word filled me with youthful indignation. I knew I was being punished for tasting the alkali earth metal salts we were categorizing in the science lab, but from my 12-year-old’s perspective, I was in legendary company. My hero, Dr. Shizhen Li, the 16th century Chinese herbalist from my history books, had famously risked his own health to locate and sample the thousands of medicines he exhaustively researched for his Compendium of Materia Medica. Though the punishment tempered my reckless tasting of lab materials, it failed to restrain my adventurous spirit. Like the relentless Dr. Li, my aspirations to become a physician-scientist have spanned the globe and led to unexpected journeys.
In my early years, two very important women inspired me to carefully question conventional wisdom. My grandmother was obsessed with the medicinal properties of food. Diagnosed with severe diabetes in her 70s, she ignored her physician’s advice to begin insulin shots and successfully controlled her condition with diet and exercise. As a child, I eagerly followed her maverick example. I must have seemed an earnest little quack, “prescribing” all kinds of foods to “cure” my friends’ ailments. But it wasn’t simply play. I still find myself resorting to some of my grandmother’s herbal solutions. I even converted my undergraduate thesis advisor into the habit of drinking Chinese Tieguanyin tea to fight his Coca-Cola “addiction.”
My close relationship with my grandmother prompted an early interest in nutrition and natural remedies. But it was my admiration for my mother’s work as a leading HIV/STD epidemiologist for China’s CDC that introduced me to the essential roles of public outreach and research in battling diseases. As a teen, I took on the tasks of performing simple data analysis in my mother’s lab and distributing handouts from the CDC detailing STD support resources in clinics. I particularly enjoyed face-to-face interaction with patients, and was intrigued by the close collaboration between doctors and epidemiologists. Moreover, I began to understand the stake we have in overcoming cultural taboos in order to prevent, detect and treat infectious diseases. Talking with young AIDS patients fighting uphill battles, I realized I didn’t have the patience to wait until I received a physician’s license to spread the “gospel” of preventive care. I felt compelled to act.
Recognizing that a Chinese medical education would focus almost exclusively on the hard sciences, I decided to instead pursue a US liberal arts education despite considerable obstacles. I yearned for the freedom to engage with the public to promote disease prevention and explore the diversity of factors affecting health. Williams College offered me the opportunity to connect my passion for medical science with my concern for the community through the student organization Public Health Alliance. First as a participant, and then as Chair, I worked with campus and community leaders to raise awareness of preventable and sometimes controversial health issues since my sophomore year—ranging from sports injuries to HPV awareness—facing the Williams community. My undergraduate years also sparked my love for the interdisciplinary nature of neuroscience and deepened my interest in research. Rewarding laboratory experience, clinical shadowing, and mentorship from physician-scientists reinforced my aspiration to work at the exciting interface between brain research and medicine.
After graduation, winning the Herchel Smith Fellowship allowed me to embark on another journey to the University of Cambridge, UK. I enjoyed in-depth research training in the lab of Prof. Andrea Brand, who pioneers in genetic strategies to study neural stem cell (NSC) regulation. I believe that understanding fundamental mechanisms in this field will be key to preventing and curing many fatal CNS diseases, such as certain types of neurodegenerative disorders and brain tumors. My PhD research investigates mechanisms of amino acid regulation of NSCs, which enabled me to unite my earlier interests in nutrition and the brain. Outside the lab, I sought to understand neuronal diseases from both the doctor’s and patient’s perspective by shadowing neuroradiologists and volunteering at a dementia care center. The exposure to laboratory and clinical neuroscience in the past 2.5 years has motivated me to continue investigating NSC biology as a physician-scientist.
With the aid of a comprehensive medical training, I am eager to extend my current interest in nutritional control of NSCs to improving brain care. Understanding the regulation of NSCs on a molecular level will help me to develop targeted approaches for interventional therapies. When screening for potential therapeutics, I am particularly interested in expanding the current range of available synthetic compounds to naturally occurring ones derived from plant extracts. Ultimately, I hope to contribute to the prevention and treatment of neuronal diseases by developing novel therapies that will benefit patients.
ANALYSIS
From the start of the essay, it is clear that Jun is a natural storyteller and this aids him when sharing a compelling narrative of his aspirations towards becoming a physician-scientist. Whether it’s phrases like “legendary company” from his introductory anecdote in which he perfectly conveys the sense of triumph his twelve-year-old self felt after landing himself in detention or the way he describes himself as an “earnest little quack,” Jun skillfully adds snippets of his personality and witty humor into his essay. He uses specificity and imagery to his advantage, employing telling examples that show readers the experiences that not only connect him to medicine but also convey his curious and defiant nature. In doing so, he successfully keeps his readers engaged as he transitions into the second half of his essay, where he details his medicine-motivated journey around the world.
Though he pivots to a less playful style of writing in the latter half of his essay, he is able to elegantly weave together his collective experiences into a coherent narrative. With each experience, more than simply exploring the nuances behind the impact it had on him, he describes how it compelled him to take action and to further his relationship with medicine. By the conclusion of his essay, he demonstrates his ability to be a passionate and proactive learner through highly specific examples and successfully leaves readers with a clear idea of his character and aspirations.
—Sabrina Chok
Copyright © 2020 by The Harvard Crimson
