Please select from the following common medical school topics:

• Why Medicine?

• How Am I Unique?

• How Am I Qualified?

Note: The below passages were not edited by EssayEdge Editors. They appear as they were initially reviewed by admissions officers.

Why Medicine?

Because people don't usually make career decisions based on pure reason, it can be difficult to explain why you've chosen the field you have. Moreover, your basic reasons probably look a lot like everyone else's. In this section, you'll learn how to develop your ideas effectively and insightfully while emphasizing your uniqueness.

Here are a few of the common ways that students incorporate this theme:

Medicine requires such a serious commitment that few people stumble across the idea of pursuing it late in life. It's very likely that you have always wanted to be a doctor, and that's not a fact that you should hide. But you also have to watch out for two potential problems:

1. Don't offer your point in such a clichéd, prepackaged way as to make your reader cringe. For example, you shouldn't start your essay, "I have always wanted to be a doctor" or "I've always known that medicine was my calling." Better to describe early experiences and then let the point about your early interest unfold naturally.

2. Don't rely solely on this reason and forget to justify your choice with more recent experiences.

Tell us not only why you want to be a doctor but what you have done to test your decision. Have you had some experience? Have you observed doctors?

-- University of Michigan Medical School

This applicant does state his lifelong interest in the first sentence, but with a twist: "Sometimes I like to tell people that my father knew I wanted to be a doctor long before I did, but the truth is that the idea of becoming a physician has probably been gestating within me in some form or other since an early age."

By the third sentence, however, he moves to details in support of his lifelong interest. Telling a story is the best way to guarantee that your discussion stays grounded in concrete evidence. The second paragraph provides the "test" aspect: how he confirmed his interest in medicine through direct, hands-on experience. In this paragraph he does not tell another story, but still stays focused on details by describing some of his responsibilities and naming procedures he observed.

Although your own details might make the difference between a good and great essay, you can ensure a solid result simply by avoiding the above pitfalls, as this applicant did. On the first issue, he used a specific story to make a typical idea his own personal point. On the second issue, he used his childhood fascination only to describe the roots of what eventually grew into a more mature commitment. The result is a compelling explanation of his motivation to become a doctor.

Some applicants will cite their parents as reasons for their choice. Here again you have to be careful not to sound juvenile or overly simplistic. The mere fact that one or both of your parents were doctors does not explain why you would want to follow in their footsteps. Some readers might even conclude that you haven't been able to make up your own mind. The above applicant included the following disclaimer: "I idolize my father and admire his commitment and contributions, but this alone would not be enough to make me want to become a doctor myself."

This is also a standard theme, but potentially a very powerful one. Describing the direct impact a doctor had on your life or the life of someone close to you can be a very effective way to demonstrate what draws you to medicine.

Perhaps someone close to the applicant was very ill once or died, and the experience with that person or with his or her doctors became very significant. After having read many statements, I believe these are the sorts of experiences that make people aware of what they themselves could do in medicine. These experiences can be very powerful material for the statement.

-- School of Medicine, University of Washington

The same caveats apply, however. First, the fact that admissions officers have seen this approach many times means you have to find a unique, personal story to tell. Second, the story you recount should serve only as the original inspiration, and you still need to use recent experiences to show how you've confirmed that first recognition.

One applicant recalled the impression that doctors who treated his mother left on him. He provided useful details, including the illness that afflicted her and the specific qualities that impressed him most about the physicians. Again, the second paragraph shifts to the trial stage, emphasizing action rather than dwelling on passive response: "I also had the chance to gain some firsthand experience in the medical profession when I volunteered for over a year in the emergency room of a regional hospital." You won't necessarily have to follow the exact structure of going from inspiration to action, nor does your inspiration have to come from a dramatic experience, but the relevant details will be present in every good essay.

A twist on the "patient's perspective" approach is to describe a time when medicine failed to save or heal someone close to you. The purpose of this tactic would not be to rail against the medical profession, of course, but rather to show how a disappointing loss inspired you to join the struggle against disease and sickness.

This applicant describes the limits of the field he plans to pursue: "However, in time physical therapy became the logical focus of my attention for a number of reasons. For one, I have memories from a very young age of my grandfather in Czechoslovakia, disabled by a stroke, his problems unmitigated by any attempts at physical therapy. I will never forget the devastating consequences of this." He goes on to describe ways in which both he and his grandmother benefited from physical therapy, but by mentioning a failed recovery, he shows that he understands the scope of medicine at a mature level.

How Am I Unique?

The purpose of this section is to show you how other people capitalized on their unique qualities. When it comes to your own essay, only you can identify the optimal strategy for making yourself stand out. One way to start is to look over your answers to the brainstorming questions in Lesson Two and try to find aspects of your background that separate you from your peers. Ultimately, however, what will make the difference is your ability to assess yourself honestly and thoughtfully.

The examples that follow are not meant to be exhaustive. Rather, they represent the efforts of particular individuals to recognize the unique elements of their background and use it to their advantage. You should notice that these unique elements often have nothing to do with medicine, but can still be tied effectively to the applicants' goals or integrated with their character and background.

1. Jane is a woman from a military background. Notice that her first paragraph grabs the reader's attention by emphasizing extreme experiences to which the average person has never been exposed: "I am a 26-year-old woman who has spent much of the past nine years engaged in such unusual activities as jumping out of airplanes, briefing Chuck Yeager (on more effective flying, of all things!), running through trenches, being a test parachutist, taking apart and then reassembling (blindfolded) a vintage M-1 rifle, earning a pilot's license, and learning how to survive behind enemy lines (including resisting interrogations and escaping captivity)."

Don't dilute the power of your description with premature, forced connections to medicine. Your first task is to convince the reader that what you're describing is indeed unique on its own terms. In fact, this applicant never forces an explicit connection on the situation, but rather simply notes that she can finally apply to medical school because her term of military service is ending. The reader can easily deduce for himself how the rigor and intensity of her military background have prepared her for the challenge of medicine.

2. Another applicant describes his experiences performing in a Las Vegas show. Again, he does not try to argue that his work as a performer will directly help him in handling dental operations, but instead makes the following point about his character: "Working each night, for a total of 42 hours a week, has forced me to structure for myself an educational schedule that has required more time in college than most spend. However, as a result, I will be emerging from my university experience with greater maturity, self-knowledge, and certainty about the professional direction I am choosing to follow than many of my peers." The one mistake this applicant makes is his continual emphasis on how he's different from his peers. In general, you should try to let uniqueness speak for itself; if it's noteworthy, the reader will pick up on it without having to be told.

3. This applicant describes the unfortunate circumstances of his childhood. He does so without seeking pity, instead focusing on how these circumstances shaped his character. Here a connection to medicine is natural: "I spent a great deal of time trying to care for my mother, a fact of my young life that I think later on may have subliminally drawn me toward a career in medicine. Besides instilling within me a desire to help others who are ill, my experience with my mother also heightened my sensitivity to other people and the difficulties with which they sometimes must cope." The writer goes on to back up his heightened sensitivity by describing his work assisting a doctor in rural Mexico—itself also a noteworthy experience.

4. This applicant details her commitment to martial arts: "Martial arts and medicine. They seem worlds apart, but they both have played significant roles in my life and for reasons that are surprisingly similar. They both offer challenge, require great discipline, and necessitate a goal-oriented approach." In this case, the activity itself is far from unique, even among the specific population of medical school applicants. Nevertheless, the qualities she has cultivated in her experience and the way she ties them to medicine provide a new dimension to her candidacy. This essay is an effective example of how you can turn even a standard extracurricular activity into a unique strength by using illustrative personal details and an insightful perspective.

Again, these examples are only a few of the possible routes you could take. There are even more obvious routes for which we did not include examples, such as extraordinary talents in athletics or the arts, or extensive work experience in another career. One particularly delicate issue is how to approach diversity. If you are, for example, a minority, foreign, or older applicant, you should not hesitate to use this to your advantage. To do this effectively, however, you need to show how your background has shaped your life in some tangible way and possibly tie that in to how you plan to contribute to the school's community. You should not mention it for its own sake and suggest—even implicitly—that you expect some kind of special attention, because you risk offending the reader or coming across as manipulative.

How Am I Qualified?

The way to prove your qualification is not to list attributes you believe you possess, but rather to discuss concrete experiences that show your abilities and qualities. Details about the process are paramount. What we mean by the "process" is the path to achievement. The rest of your application has already summarized your accomplishments and your activities. Show the reader what you did in concrete terms, and again, highlight your active roles.

The experiences that demonstrate your qualification are not necessarily distinct from those that explain your motivation. You shouldn't plan on dividing the essay into two separate sections for each, but rather organize the structure by topic and extrapolate insights as they develop. We will cover structure in greater depth in its own section, but it's important that you begin thinking in terms of an integrated essay.

Clinical Experience

Some degree of hospital experience is usually expected, though it's more essential to the "testing your interest" aspect we discussed in the last section of the course than to your qualifications. The main point you're trying to convey here is that you will work well with patients in a clinical setting. If you have had opportunities to engage in more hands-on work, then you should by all means include it, particularly if you are pursuing dentistry or are interested in surgery as a specialty.

Research

A strong research background helps your case, because the laboratory is such an integral part of the medical school experience. It's not possible to prove your intellectual capability through a short description of your projects, so that's not the real goal here. Instead, you should try to convey such intangible qualities as creativity, initiative, and original thinking. Note: You should limit technical details to only what is necessary to establish context.

The way to convey such qualities as creativity and original thinking is to focus on your contribution rather than your research topic. For example, you could describe a situation where you recognized a flaw in a procedure and had the initiative to show your supervisor how efficiency could be improved. No matter how minor your contribution seems, it's better to focus on some tangible input that you had than to describe the project as a whole. As always, the key is to delineate your active role. 

Your shadowing experience might overlap with the previous section's material, but the emphasis here is on what you learned through observation. There is less potential here for forceful points, because observation is a passive activity, but it can be useful for proving your in-depth understanding of the profession.

It's very possible to demonstrate the relevant qualities you possess for medicine in non-medical experiences. In most cases your goal will be to demonstrate an ability to work and interact effectively with people. For instance, you might describe experience as a camp counselor, a tutor, or even the captain of an athletic team.  

Move on to Lesson Two: Brainstorming a Topic