Medical School Essays That Made a Difference (Graduate School Admissions Guides) [Paperback]

Princeton Review (Author)

Book Description

Series: Graduate School Admissions Guides | Publication Date: September 12, 2006

Many pre-med students have great MCAT scores and excellent grades–the best way to stand out in a crowd of medical school applicants is to write an exceptional essay!

The experts at The Princeton Review have teamed up with real medical school applicants and admissions officers to bring you Medical School Essays That Made a Difference. This book puts you in the admissions officer's seat–inside you'll find real application essays, interviews with admissions pros, and profiles of students who've been through the process and made it through to medical school. This book is an essential guide for anyone navigating the very competitive medical school admissions process.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Review; 1 edition (September 12, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375765719
• ISBN-13: 978-0375765711
• Product Dimensions: 1.9 x 1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,189,388 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #81 in Books > Education & Reference > Education > Graduate School Guides > Medical

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 41 actual, unedited personal statement essays, August 20, 2008

By 

Dr. Rose - See all my reviews

This review is from: Medical School Essays That Made a Difference (Graduate School Admissions Guides) (Paperback)

This book gave me a lot of confidence when writing my personal statement. You can find a lot of information online that gives you suggestions on how to format your essay and what to include within the essay. For example, "start your essay with an interesting antecdote" or "tell stories instead of listing accomplishments." However, it doesn't all "click" until you see examples of other personal statements. This book provides 41 actual, unedited medical essays that other students used in their applications. The essays are of varying skill levels- reading the bad ones lets you become more aware of what you want to avoid and the good ones give you ideas of how to make your essay more appealing. Great book :-)

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Random assortment of mediocre essays, December 2, 2007

By 

Branden "cardinal04" (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Medical School Essays That Made a Difference (Graduate School Admissions Guides) (Paperback)

This book should be called "Random assortment of Medical Essays that mostly didn't work". As a medical school applicant, I thought I could get some insight into the anatomy of personal statement by reading other examples. The truth is that most applications with these essays resulted in rejections. The essays are of no higher quality than a random assortment.

Why are these essays held up as exemplary examples when most of these candidates (and their essays) only get into 1 out of 5 schools that they apply? Even few applicants featured in this book got into top tier universities. AAMC indicates that 50% of students who apply to medical school end up getting in somewhere. I fail to see how reading essays--only to find that it was part of a denied application--helps candidates. Granted, a handful of essays in this book are well written and the students did well with their applications.

In sum, I flipped through this book but it didn't help me with my personal writing process.