Customer Reviews

Essays That Will Get You Into Medical School

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The best lesson from this book is actually the step-by-step process described in the beginning. The essays are just there for you to get an idea of how unique you can get. By following their process and getting the most of what I have learned from my own life experiences, I ended up with a great essay - something that I am proud of submitting. How did I do it? Just read and completed all of their practical exercises. Otherwise, some of the essays are inspiring and they give you some ideas that may be relevant to your application. Don't listen to the post about this book being all for Ivies. I came from a state school and I still ended up interviewing at the very top schools. What gets past the admissions is your true character and sincere expression of why you want to be a doctor.

After applying to medical school once and not getting in, I started looking for a different approach to my second application. This book really turned my essay around. The book takes you through all the steps to put together a good essay that will catch the admission committee's attention. The example essays I found helpful also. Your essay will be what you put into it, but this book will help a lot if you will put the work into it. I would definately recommend it as a must have for anyone applying to medical school. It must have worked, because I will be starting medical school in the fall.

This book was great when it initially came out. However, nowadays, you need some new stuff in order to make it in. Considering the fact that a zillion people bought this book and wrote based on it, admissions are on to it. I suggest From High School to Med school by Raju and Yanofski for some fresh essays. It's written for accelerated medical programs, but they have some good essays in there.

This book is half information and half essays. The majority of the essay writers seem guaranteed a pick of any school due to their background. Many accomplished extraordinary work in addition to having doctors in their family. The first half was great, but, though I am not a very good writer, I could tell that some of the essays needed improvement. I think this book's projected audience is Ivy League students.

I found this book not as useful as it claims to be. The essays feature here are usually too unique to be used as "model essays". Most of these candiates are best of the best students with tons of great experiences or personal accounts. I still enjoy reading through many of these essays and the pointers the book provides. However DO NOT expect to use these essays as model for your personal statements. This is not what this book is for.

The book has great pointers, but it is difficult to read these sample essays and not reflect on how un-interesting your life and purpose for applying to medical school is. Some of the experiences are super random and most of the people were applying to ivy-league schools and lived the lives you would expect of extraordinary students. They gave an example of a student who was exactly like me in the chapters about writing, but then when I searched for the essay...it was not one of the model essays. None of the students seem "average" either. It seems like you have to be a 25+ year old applicant with years of life experience. As in you must have experience in finding mice in a random field and reviving them, time spent in West Africa, Brazil, France, and Asia doing medical internships, your parents must both be physicians, a physician must have saved your life or your little brothers... stories like that. It's difficult to be an average student with no heart breaking stories to tell about experiences in medicine.

As a 20 year old applying to medical school. I realize that research, getting ready to be published, high MCAT, okay grades, 1000+ hours of clinical experience, awesome recommendations, and other extra-curricular activities is not enough to get into medical school. After reading this book, I feel like I basically have to save someone's life by performing a solo heart surgery in the middle of a flash flood for a committee to even consider my application.

This is a good book that covers one of the more important and often neglected areas of medical school admissions. Kaufman does a good job of giving readers examples of how to write essays that admissions committee members will find both interesting and honest. However, I would recommend Dr. Goliszek's "Complete Medical School Preparation and Admissions Guide" for an overall guide to getting into medical school.

This book has a lot of good advice but all the sample essays are from people who got accepted to Harvard Medical School. I know most of us haven't volunteered in a 3rd world country or published research papers or saved someone's life, so it would have been nice to read some essays from a non-superhero applicant. Also a little variety as to what schools they were accepted to would have been nice. They were all Harvard and other Ivy League schools. It also sounds like the authors consider those to be the "top schools" but they may or may not be depending on whether you're talking about research or primary care. Bottom line: needs more variety of example essays. But overall it was a pretty useful guide.

As someone who works privately with students, helping them with admissions essays for medical school, I highly recommend this book. When students call me in regard to assistance with their essays, I recommend that they first buy this book as a means to get started. The guidelines and essays have helped my clients not only to gather their thoughts, but also to organize and write them into interesting and creative essays. By the time they come to me for feedback and editing, they are well on the way to getting into the medical schol of their choice.

Basically, this book tells you to write about yourself. It shows some good ways to transition into the varying aspects of the essay. But, the best thing about it is that it features a background summary of each applicant. It's easy to find the ones that are most similar to you. But again, it only helps for ideas.