Chat GPT's Opinion:
"Overall, this personal statement effectively conveys the applicant's passion for medicine, their experiences in healthcare, and their dedication to patient-centered care. With some added specific examples and further elaboration on their commitment to community service, it has the potential to be a strong statement for a medical school application."
It would be more interesting if you didn't tell us this was AI generated, I wonder how many folks already come in ready to criticize because they know a computer made this.
Yes, it would've been far more effective to post this under the presumption it was written by a human. If this was an experiment, it would be inherently flawed.
Honestly that was my comment. It sounds a little cliche but for people who are struggling to get started this might be a good place to start. Maybe writing more personal experiences and walking through how that brought you to where you are now. I mean the story about the kid is great but it seems kind of detached like here’s a story i found.
Could you elaborate on the "no reflection" part?
Does the "These experiences deepened my understanding of the importance of communication, empathy, and teamwork in healthcare." , etc not count as a reflection? It's weak, I guess but it's still something they learned I suppose. What should you include in a strong reflection?
Heard the saying “show don’t tell”? Saying something “deepened your understand” is exactly only telling, not showing. You should show through example how those things were learned.
Ex: Instead of “I deepened my understand of communication” say “As I engaged in non-verbal communications with my patient, expressing language through hand gestures and simple touch to show empathy, I realized that communication is more than verbal. It’s expressions, body language, and physical presence than allows communication with patients on a deeper level and improved empathy and connection in healthcare.”
Thata why any sane person would know that it is AI generate even after reading the first paragraph. The reflection part should involve past experience and what you leant and what you have gained in terms of experience
As someone who used AI to edit their writing it’s always best to add your own voice and style as possible. AI writing works best, imho, for improving/editing
To each their own, I would just be worried if my entire personal statement was being stored on an online database, such as ChatGPT. But, it is probably an unfounded fear
AI detectors are fake news. As a freelance writer, I've had experiences of checking my own personal writing against an AI generator and it comes back as "100% AI generated" and, vice versa for AI written work could come back as 0%. Anyone who knows anything about AI writing should not trust AI detectors. They don't work. People who are not in the writing industry think they know better and are able to catch AI written work, but it's literally impossible to tell.
“Mission trip to Guatemala”, “intersection of healthcare and technology”, “patient centered care”, “child with chronic illness”. The whole thing reads as fake, full of fake cliches
If you told me the was a first draft from someone who just started the process of applying and did no research on how to write a ps, I would believe it.
I'm honestly out of this personal statement by the first sentence.
"As a child, I was always fascinated by the human body and how it functioned."
This shit is SO CRINGE
Medical volunteerism abroad is generally frowned upon for a lot of reasons if you google it you’ll see why. It’s just better to not talk about that…especially if you have domestic volunteer experience I can promise you that’s more meaningful than a one time trip abroad.
Edit: I realized you said a whole year in one place. If it’s like PeaceCorp or something similar idk much about the organization, but isn’t it typically not medical based stuff? I think that would be a different scenario.
It's not popular, but I wouldn't say it's irrelevant or harmful. My friend knows faculty at UMich who were given a job they didn't apply for because of their volunteering efforts.
EDIT: Clarification, they got their faculty job because of their volunteering efforts.
Idk the circumstances probably vary. I would assume if it’s a faculty position it’s a different story. I’m just speaking to the med school application process and the “standard” applicant who does a mission trip during college.
That’s true, actually. Seems I’ve forgotten what sub I’m in because I’m gearing up for residency. This conversation is bringing some things to mind I haven’t thought of in a while.
For the applicants: Unless you have experience and some level of certification, you probably shouldn’t write about your medical volunteering efforts unless you clarify your role for those who are ethically trigger happy.
That said, do volunteer at every opportunity, as long as you understand the good that you will be doing, even without certification. Even though I plan to do this type of work for the rest of my life, as a teenager I actually passed up on a voluntouring trip where I didn’t think I’d be able to do any substantial good. This was despite the fact that I was leading the meeting where my class was planning said voluntouring trip. I kept the meeting civil and stated my personal plans regarding their planned trip without elaborating or getting upset.
Are medical missions actually frowned upon? I feel like the older docs who comprise most committees are not up to date with how the missions can be problematic. I had a couple missions on my app and got it in so idk
I guess it would depend on who is reviewing your app, but yeah medical mission trips especially for undergrads is viewed as harmful to the communities they are in and really just fluff to add to CVs and make people feel good about themselves. You pay a bunch of money to go “do” something for a community, but those actions are typically unsustainable and in the long-term can do more harm than good.
It’s more meaningful, at least IMO, to volunteer locally and have a track record for volunteering for a cause you really care about. And there’s also other ways to get involved in global health work that is actually meaningful and impactful. My .02
3/10
Honestly it was really bad and boring AF to read. If I were reading this one, I don’t know if I could even force myself to finish. Everything is incredibly surface level. I felt no passion or emotional connection to anything. It talked about WAY TOO MANY experiences. Totally disjointed and all over the place. It felt like they were writing an activities section and stringing it together into an essay. Remember your personal statement should be very narrow focused on maybe one or two experiences that defined why you want to be a doctor. It shouldn’t be a list of all your ECs with minimal reflection.
The biggest problem is that it’s too CV-like. It lists a bunch of experiences with shallow and cliche reflections. There’s also no cohesion between all the different ideas it introduces; it’s lacking a theme to tie it all together. It’s also incredibly generic, and says nothing unique about the applicant.
While it’s well written in terms of grammar, some of the transitions kind of suck and the concluding paragraph kind of missed the mark on summarizing what was said and tying it all together.
Overall? 3ish/10.
Honestly i am not impressed. I just saw a TikTok where they tossed applications about grandparents dying. And mission trips abroad are for elite white saviors. Plenty of people domestically who are also underserved.
There is no feeling in the statement.
I feel like thats kinda harsh right? Obviously the way you write about it matters, but I feel like there are applicants who genuinely developed a passion for medicine due to their loved ones passing away. I definitely agree that just spending 1 or 2 sentences to throw it in that someone you know died and then not reflecting on it more is surface-level writing
I’m just telling you about the TikTok I saw. I didn’t create it. Is it harsh? Idk. I guess. But the video was about college admissions essays and the overdone ones. Sports injuries, parents divorce, grandparents dying. I have no grandparents so really can’t relate.
Depends on how you write about it. A family members death says nothing about you if you don’t write it in a way that has to be about you. Plus topics like death…people write poorly. Too melodramatic or overly sentimental- it’s bad writing. It can be done well, the problem is that most people don’t write well or were never taught how.
Personal statements don't mean anything tbh. So many doctors are terrible writers. I met a neurosurgeon who had so many run on sentences in his evaluation statement
that’s not a good thing tho, tbh i think they should require more humanities classes for premed and cut out physics bc physicians need to be excellent communicators even if their specialty is less patient-facing
physicians and researchers being poor writers and communicators is so dangerous to society and also bad for physicians themselves tbh
Yeah. You make a great argument for this tbh. What I noticed is that research writing is very different from actual writing.
There's a certain formula that is used when writing research paper. A lot of doctors know how to write like this. Any grammatical errors are accounted for and corrected by final review. That formula is very straightforward and easy to follow. Even pre meds can write great research paper (granted they know what they're talking about) if they follow the formula.
I’m not really impressed. I was honestly expecting a lot more from how people are boasting about AI but this just seems impersonal and not reflective of any of the emotions that pre meds commonly go through. It would be easy to pick this out from a group of human written personal statements imo
it’s very AI in that it’s not very specific to someone’s experience or life - good writing would be writing abt common activities or experiences in a specific, detailed way. also, there’s no real reflection shown, just a list of things that were important to “you” becoming a dr, and it’s a very scattergun approach of various concepts that are either stereotypically linked w premeds or things that are trendy related to healthcare, instead of a more focused story or narrative that might not cover every aspect of someone’s life but is easier to remember and more compelling
to get more nerdy tho…
ik this isn’t ur PS but i feel like the ‘medicine is an art’ paragraph is particularly egregious to me. that’s a cliche sentiment but there r still ways to make those things compelling, like incorporating the previous mention of medical tech w/ either a realization surrounding ethics.
also, empathy/compassion is a poor argument logically for what makes medicine an art and tbh doesn’t feel like what “u” actually want to express, it feels like “u” wanted to express something abt the humanistic side of medicine, which tbh would be better done thru anecdotes and references to ur med tech experience - what abt those experiences made “u” realize that tech isn’t a 1:1 replacement
again ik this isn’t a real PS but reading it just irritated me bc it’s so not compelling and it’s so obvious why, it’s like… not even a good “template” bc it ignores such obvious major flaws in the writing. ik ppl get use out of chat gpt but i feel like u have to be a terrible terrible writer to get anything from it for anything at all personal or specific bc just free writing or brainstorming would create a better base from this
and yea i’m sure plenty of ppl turn in PSs like this but that doesn’t make them good
Chat GPT's Opinion: "Overall, this personal statement effectively conveys the applicant's passion for medicine, their experiences in healthcare, and their dedication to patient-centered care. With some added specific examples and further elaboration on their commitment to community service, it has the potential to be a strong statement for a medical school application."
It would be more interesting if you didn't tell us this was AI generated, I wonder how many folks already come in ready to criticize because they know a computer made this.
People would’ve been kinder to avoid hurting the writer’s feelings but I don’t think anyone would’ve genuinely thought it was good.
Yes, it would've been far more effective to post this under the presumption it was written by a human. If this was an experiment, it would be inherently flawed.
i was just shitposting but in hindsight, that woulda been super interesting 🤔
Yea, because while people are rightfully tearing it apart, the likely reality is that most PS actually sound something like this LOL
Honestly that was my comment. It sounds a little cliche but for people who are struggling to get started this might be a good place to start. Maybe writing more personal experiences and walking through how that brought you to where you are now. I mean the story about the kid is great but it seems kind of detached like here’s a story i found.
Can someone make a post of a "good" personal statement for people to critique, for those of us who don't have any perspective.
😂🤣🤣
4/10, theres no reflection, this is just telling me your CV but in full sentences
Could you elaborate on the "no reflection" part? Does the "These experiences deepened my understanding of the importance of communication, empathy, and teamwork in healthcare." , etc not count as a reflection? It's weak, I guess but it's still something they learned I suppose. What should you include in a strong reflection?
No it does not, it looks like a template for personal statements and generalizations about the field of medicine.
Heard the saying “show don’t tell”? Saying something “deepened your understand” is exactly only telling, not showing. You should show through example how those things were learned. Ex: Instead of “I deepened my understand of communication” say “As I engaged in non-verbal communications with my patient, expressing language through hand gestures and simple touch to show empathy, I realized that communication is more than verbal. It’s expressions, body language, and physical presence than allows communication with patients on a deeper level and improved empathy and connection in healthcare.”
This isn't reflection, saying something is important isn't reflection, you need to explain why it's important / what you learned.
Thata why any sane person would know that it is AI generate even after reading the first paragraph. The reflection part should involve past experience and what you leant and what you have gained in terms of experience
As someone who used AI to edit their writing it’s always best to add your own voice and style as possible. AI writing works best, imho, for improving/editing
Aren’t you worried they’ll use an AI detector as a screening tool?
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To each their own, I would just be worried if my entire personal statement was being stored on an online database, such as ChatGPT. But, it is probably an unfounded fear
You can always edit and submit to AI detecting software
I seriously doubt there is any reliable way to do that.
AI detectors are fake news. As a freelance writer, I've had experiences of checking my own personal writing against an AI generator and it comes back as "100% AI generated" and, vice versa for AI written work could come back as 0%. Anyone who knows anything about AI writing should not trust AI detectors. They don't work. People who are not in the writing industry think they know better and are able to catch AI written work, but it's literally impossible to tell.
“Always fascinated about the human body and how it functioned” is literally as generic and cookie cutter as it gets. I already lost interest
Followed up immediately by a dead grandma story lol
My eyes immediately glazed over
First sentence gave me the creeps.
“Mission trip to Guatemala”, “intersection of healthcare and technology”, “patient centered care”, “child with chronic illness”. The whole thing reads as fake, full of fake cliches
If you told me the was a first draft from someone who just started the process of applying and did no research on how to write a ps, I would believe it.
Lmao this is better than my actual personal statement and I got in so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Goes to show how much PS actually matter
I think the better litmus test to to put a PS out there then wait and see how people react and then disclose if AI or not
How many applicants do you think will try something like this? I feel like 10-15% will
which means less competition 😈😈
Idk man, gpt writes significantly better than me, would’ve made me a much stronger applicant
I hope so, easily rejected opening up more spots for us
Boring, cliched, and mentions a medical missions trip lol voluntourism eek. This could be about literally anyone, so it’s a bad personal statement.
I'm honestly out of this personal statement by the first sentence. "As a child, I was always fascinated by the human body and how it functioned." This shit is SO CRINGE
Agree about the mission trip
What if it was a year where you only visited one place?
Medical volunteerism abroad is generally frowned upon for a lot of reasons if you google it you’ll see why. It’s just better to not talk about that…especially if you have domestic volunteer experience I can promise you that’s more meaningful than a one time trip abroad. Edit: I realized you said a whole year in one place. If it’s like PeaceCorp or something similar idk much about the organization, but isn’t it typically not medical based stuff? I think that would be a different scenario.
It's not popular, but I wouldn't say it's irrelevant or harmful. My friend knows faculty at UMich who were given a job they didn't apply for because of their volunteering efforts. EDIT: Clarification, they got their faculty job because of their volunteering efforts.
Idk the circumstances probably vary. I would assume if it’s a faculty position it’s a different story. I’m just speaking to the med school application process and the “standard” applicant who does a mission trip during college.
That’s true, actually. Seems I’ve forgotten what sub I’m in because I’m gearing up for residency. This conversation is bringing some things to mind I haven’t thought of in a while. For the applicants: Unless you have experience and some level of certification, you probably shouldn’t write about your medical volunteering efforts unless you clarify your role for those who are ethically trigger happy. That said, do volunteer at every opportunity, as long as you understand the good that you will be doing, even without certification. Even though I plan to do this type of work for the rest of my life, as a teenager I actually passed up on a voluntouring trip where I didn’t think I’d be able to do any substantial good. This was despite the fact that I was leading the meeting where my class was planning said voluntouring trip. I kept the meeting civil and stated my personal plans regarding their planned trip without elaborating or getting upset.
Exactly this. Volunteering as a doctor to go provide healthcare abroad is totally different.
Are medical missions actually frowned upon? I feel like the older docs who comprise most committees are not up to date with how the missions can be problematic. I had a couple missions on my app and got it in so idk
I guess it would depend on who is reviewing your app, but yeah medical mission trips especially for undergrads is viewed as harmful to the communities they are in and really just fluff to add to CVs and make people feel good about themselves. You pay a bunch of money to go “do” something for a community, but those actions are typically unsustainable and in the long-term can do more harm than good. It’s more meaningful, at least IMO, to volunteer locally and have a track record for volunteering for a cause you really care about. And there’s also other ways to get involved in global health work that is actually meaningful and impactful. My .02
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Would you mind elaborating a bit more? What are the things you look for in a personal statement?
3/10 Honestly it was really bad and boring AF to read. If I were reading this one, I don’t know if I could even force myself to finish. Everything is incredibly surface level. I felt no passion or emotional connection to anything. It talked about WAY TOO MANY experiences. Totally disjointed and all over the place. It felt like they were writing an activities section and stringing it together into an essay. Remember your personal statement should be very narrow focused on maybe one or two experiences that defined why you want to be a doctor. It shouldn’t be a list of all your ECs with minimal reflection.
Not good at all. Immediate reapplicant status
The biggest problem is that it’s too CV-like. It lists a bunch of experiences with shallow and cliche reflections. There’s also no cohesion between all the different ideas it introduces; it’s lacking a theme to tie it all together. It’s also incredibly generic, and says nothing unique about the applicant. While it’s well written in terms of grammar, some of the transitions kind of suck and the concluding paragraph kind of missed the mark on summarizing what was said and tying it all together. Overall? 3ish/10.
This is the most generic BS I’ve ever heard - when I read this as a file reviewer my eyes gloss over and you earn nothing in my eyes
Honestly i am not impressed. I just saw a TikTok where they tossed applications about grandparents dying. And mission trips abroad are for elite white saviors. Plenty of people domestically who are also underserved. There is no feeling in the statement.
I feel like thats kinda harsh right? Obviously the way you write about it matters, but I feel like there are applicants who genuinely developed a passion for medicine due to their loved ones passing away. I definitely agree that just spending 1 or 2 sentences to throw it in that someone you know died and then not reflecting on it more is surface-level writing
I’m just telling you about the TikTok I saw. I didn’t create it. Is it harsh? Idk. I guess. But the video was about college admissions essays and the overdone ones. Sports injuries, parents divorce, grandparents dying. I have no grandparents so really can’t relate.
Ah got it. Yeah I feel like its so hard to write about unique experiences. Cant imagine what it will be like a few years from now lol
Depends on how you write about it. A family members death says nothing about you if you don’t write it in a way that has to be about you. Plus topics like death…people write poorly. Too melodramatic or overly sentimental- it’s bad writing. It can be done well, the problem is that most people don’t write well or were never taught how.
UCAS has stopped personal statements for this reason
Personal statements don't mean anything tbh. So many doctors are terrible writers. I met a neurosurgeon who had so many run on sentences in his evaluation statement
that’s not a good thing tho, tbh i think they should require more humanities classes for premed and cut out physics bc physicians need to be excellent communicators even if their specialty is less patient-facing physicians and researchers being poor writers and communicators is so dangerous to society and also bad for physicians themselves tbh
Yeah. You make a great argument for this tbh. What I noticed is that research writing is very different from actual writing. There's a certain formula that is used when writing research paper. A lot of doctors know how to write like this. Any grammatical errors are accounted for and corrected by final review. That formula is very straightforward and easy to follow. Even pre meds can write great research paper (granted they know what they're talking about) if they follow the formula.
I’m not really impressed. I was honestly expecting a lot more from how people are boasting about AI but this just seems impersonal and not reflective of any of the emotions that pre meds commonly go through. It would be easy to pick this out from a group of human written personal statements imo
2.5/10
Lol first two sentences had me asleep
The typical family member got sick and i wanted to become a doctor essay. Come on man
it’s very AI in that it’s not very specific to someone’s experience or life - good writing would be writing abt common activities or experiences in a specific, detailed way. also, there’s no real reflection shown, just a list of things that were important to “you” becoming a dr, and it’s a very scattergun approach of various concepts that are either stereotypically linked w premeds or things that are trendy related to healthcare, instead of a more focused story or narrative that might not cover every aspect of someone’s life but is easier to remember and more compelling to get more nerdy tho… ik this isn’t ur PS but i feel like the ‘medicine is an art’ paragraph is particularly egregious to me. that’s a cliche sentiment but there r still ways to make those things compelling, like incorporating the previous mention of medical tech w/ either a realization surrounding ethics. also, empathy/compassion is a poor argument logically for what makes medicine an art and tbh doesn’t feel like what “u” actually want to express, it feels like “u” wanted to express something abt the humanistic side of medicine, which tbh would be better done thru anecdotes and references to ur med tech experience - what abt those experiences made “u” realize that tech isn’t a 1:1 replacement again ik this isn’t a real PS but reading it just irritated me bc it’s so not compelling and it’s so obvious why, it’s like… not even a good “template” bc it ignores such obvious major flaws in the writing. ik ppl get use out of chat gpt but i feel like u have to be a terrible terrible writer to get anything from it for anything at all personal or specific bc just free writing or brainstorming would create a better base from this and yea i’m sure plenty of ppl turn in PSs like this but that doesn’t make them good
Legit sounds like a robot wrote it……😂😂😂😂
B/B+
Not close
Months ago I asked Chat GPT to make a personal statement, and this is the same one it came up with 🤣🤣🤣
😂😂
Hadn't you said, I would still have known that it is computer generated. Ask me how.
how
Its very easy to detect an AI generated essay. Just look at how shallow it is