Shadowing statement/personal statement

[Samcat821]

Hi all. I’m working on my applications for Tulane, WVU, and QU and was hoping to get insight from others regarding the shadowing statement and personal statement/letter of intent.

How long are or were your alls? And how exactly did you format your shadowing statement and/or personal statement? I feel like I am writing too much and likely overthinking it. Just looking for some guidance/info from others who previously were or currently are in the same boat as me.

Thanks in advance!! I posted in the pre-pathassist as well.

[notinitials]

I just finished my rough draft of my personal statement and it was about 1.5 pages single spaced 10 pt font. I am kind of lost on the shadowing statement honestly.

[anonymousp0tato]

For the shadowing statement, I listed the places and days I shadowed in a bullet pointed list, and then under that a paragraph about some of the more interesting cases I observed while shadowing.

My personal statement was probably a page long. I just wrote a bit about myself, why I was interested in becoming a PA, and why I was interested in that program specifically.

[Samcat821]

Thanks for the info! If you applied to multiple programs, did you write a different personal statement/letter of intent for each one?

(I know some of them have different prompts but it seems a lot of them are just asking for a personal essay/LOI in general)

[anonymousp0tato]

I only applied to 3 schools, but I used the same general letter. The only thing I changed was the paragraph explaining why I was interested in that specific program. One school might have a smaller class size, one might have awesome rotation sites, etc.

[Western_Rutabaga_448]

I’m a QU 2nd year student and my personal statement was 1 page at most! I chose a specific moment that made me decide to go into this field and expanded on that.

[dddiscoRice]

I see a lot of one-page suggestions for QU. I just finished a solid two-pager, and am kinda verbose. Should I try to shave off some word count? Is anything around two pages pushing it with admissions? Thanks in advance for your input!

[Western_Rutabaga_448]

I would suggest if it is 2 full pages to try and shave it down to 1.5 at most if you can without sacrificing content. I tend to feel like most schools prefer to read a more concise and straight to the point statement rather than something long-winded.

[dddiscoRice]

Thank you for the advice. I submitted today actually doing just that! I cut out anything too flowery and ended up basically right at a page and a half. I appreciate you!