Writing the "Anything Else We Should Know About You" Statement

[thewendster]

Hi all,

A few of the post-bac applications I am looking through ask me to please discuss anything I feel that they should know about me. this is in addition to the personal statement essay.

i am not sure what people typically write for this section.. any thoughts?

thanks

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[sfnix]

not sure if this helps, but i wrote a good deal about our "democracy" here in the states and my opinion on the war for the Bryn Mawr app. was pretty blunt about how i felt and when i called to schedule the interview, the lady i talked to said my statements were "interesting."

 

[DrMidlife]

not sure if this helps, but i wrote a good deal about our "democracy" here in the states and my opinion on the war for the Bryn Mawr app. was pretty blunt about how i felt and when i called to schedule the interview, the lady i talked to said my statements were "interesting."

Wow, seriously ballsy move. If that essay landed in front of the wrong adcom you would have been dead meat.

If I can't talk about it at Thanksgiving dinner I wouldn't put it in an app essay. I have 3 sisters, no brothers: our 4 votes ALWAYS cancel each other out in an election.

I'd probably write a "This I believe" kind of short essay, something that reaches the same conclusion as your main application essay from a totally different direction. Like when you were 8 and X happened and you reacted like Y and that was when you realized people looked to you for Z.

Best of luck to you.

 

[caloh]

not sure if this helps, but i wrote a good deal about our "democracy" here in the states and my opinion on the war for the Bryn Mawr app. was pretty blunt about how i felt and when i called to schedule the interview, the lady i talked to said my statements were "interesting."

wow, that's pretty off topic from medicine. i suppose the safer road to take is to talk about something that explains the steps you've taken in your life towards where u are right now. maybe for example, why you did so poorly during college.

i wonder though how many people just go totally off tangent with this question. i'm tired of saying the same thing but from a different angle.

 

[Trismegistus4]

not sure if this helps, but i wrote a good deal about our "democracy" here in the states and my opinion on the war for the Bryn Mawr app. was pretty blunt about how i felt and when i called to schedule the interview, the lady i talked to said my statements were "interesting."

Give the kind of people who probably run Bryn Mawr, you couldn't have done something safer. Well, maybe include a picture of George W Bush with horns drawn on him and scrawl "Death to Israel!" across it.

 

[sfnix]

Give the kind of people who probably run Bryn Mawr, you couldn't have done something safer. Well, maybe include a picture of George W Bush with horns drawn on him and scrawl "Death to Israel!" across it.

considered the bush thing but decided to be a little more subtle... very little...

as for being ballsy, i would rather get rejected for being what i am than for trying to be what they would like for me to be. also, the statement was actually about the war in so much as i was writing about a teach in/lecture/panel discussion my roomate and i put together at our school about the war. we actually garnered some media attention and managed to get a 4 star general(a member of the panel) feeling very uncomfortable when he was asked by a grad student to define "terrorism." pretty extraordinary, we're trying to get the DVD on youtube but having some problems b/c we're technologically illiterate.

 

[DrMidlife]

we're trying to get the DVD on youtube but having some problems b/c we're technologically illiterate.

You need to put the DVD in a laptop and rip an MPEG or another file and then post it. Look for people with shiny Mac laptops around campus and ask them to help. PC people can do it as well but not without starting at least 4 arguments about things you don't care about.

 

[sfnix]

You need to put the DVD in a laptop and rip an MPEG or another file and then post it. Look for people with shiny Mac laptops around campus and ask them to help. PC people can do it as well but not without starting at least 4 arguments about things you don't care about.

i actually have one of those shiny mac laptops (powerbook G4- bought it one month before the new macbooks came out... was not happy). it's actually the sound quality we're trying to work on, it really sucks.

 

[kimiij]

Hi all,

A few of the post-bac applications I am looking through ask me to please discuss anything I feel that they should know about me. this is in addition to the personal statement essay.

i am not sure what people typically write for this section.. any thoughts?

thanks

I am alaso interested in this second personal statement essay. Any other suggestions?

 

[PlAnEjaNe]

I was wondering if anyone else was working on their BU MAMS essay. I am ready to send my application off, the only thing is my essay is ginormous!! In the prompt it says:


Write a statement of not less than 200 words describing your qualifications and the objectives of your educational program. Report any research activities, publications, independent studies, and memberships in academic, professional, or honorary societies. Account for time that has elapsed between formal studies. Applicants for teaching fellowships should indicate previous teaching experience.



The only thing is....my 'essay', if you can call it that, is 2,179 words...exactly (it comes out to about 4.5 pages). Do you think that is too long? Would anyone be willing to read it and edit it (using MS word track changes setting) for me???

Any suggestions/comments would be much appreciated.

-PlAnEjaNe


p.s. I also posted this in another thread but I think this one is more suited for my question.

 

[kimiij]

I was wondering if anyone else was working on their BU MAMS essay. I am ready to send my application off, the only thing is my essay is ginormous!! In the prompt it says:


Write a statement of not less than 200 words describing your qualifications and the objectives of your educational program. Report any research activities, publications, independent studies, and memberships in academic, professional, or honorary societies. Account for time that has elapsed between formal studies. Applicants for teaching fellowships should indicate previous teaching experience.



The only thing is....my 'essay', if you can call it that, is 2,179 words...exactly (it comes out to about 4.5 pages). Do you think that is too long? Would anyone be willing to read it and edit it (using MS word track changes setting) for me???

Any suggestions/comments would be much appreciated.

-PlAnEjaNe


p.s. I also posted this in another thread but I think this one is more suited for my question.

I would be willing to read it for you. PM Me.

 

[01futuremd]

I definitely could have written about Iraq or politics, but I felt that my poli sci major and the things on my resume already made it clear where I stood, so I explained what I felt were weaknesses in my app. It doesn't seem like there's too much space to explain negative things in you application, so it made sense to me to use that essay to do it since if I didn't I might not get to the interview point where I can explain myself more fully.

 

[DoctorPhud]

I was wondering if anyone else was working on their BU MAMS essay. I am ready to send my application off, the only thing is my essay is ginormous!! In the prompt it says:


Write a statement of not less than 200 words describing your qualifications and the objectives of your educational program. Report any research activities, publications, independent studies, and memberships in academic, professional, or honorary societies. Account for time that has elapsed between formal studies. Applicants for teaching fellowships should indicate previous teaching experience.



The only thing is....my 'essay', if you can call it that, is 2,179 words...exactly (it comes out to about 4.5 pages). Do you think that is too long? Would anyone be willing to read it and edit it (using MS word track changes setting) for me???

Any suggestions/comments would be much appreciated.

-PlAnEjaNe


p.s. I also posted this in another thread but I think this one is more suited for my question.

Wow...

That's really long. Cut it down to a page or page & 1/2

They are going to have a list of your academic studies, research, work, etc. in your application and CV already, so you really don't need to mention everything or go into great detail as to what you did for each thing.

Get together the highlights that say:
- Here's what I want to do, educationally (should look strangely similar to the aspirations in the course description published by the school) and why it matches with the course
- Here's a few things that I've done that indicate this leaning
- Here are some highlights of my research (general themes, not specificity, notable works, awards)
- (Optional) I've had some elapsed time (which has been really good, taught me X, Y, Z, developed me in ways I, J, K) (NOT: I've had elapsed time, because of this... But I'm back now)
- (Optional) Here's some teaching experience that I've had (Further Optional: Here's some exciting things that I learned and how I developed because of this experience)

As I said... Time to really cut it down. No-one is going to read 4 1/2 pages of you discussing the fine points of all of your research and experiences (I'm not saying this to be mean, but it's just hard work to do, and easy to write a bad paragraph that goes nowhere and leaves the reader too bored to continue).

The reader will have made up their mind after the first page (perhaps the first half of the page).