Mastering the UofT Medical School Essay

By Joshua Liu

Part 1:  The Secret

I want to share a secret with you. It’s something I discovered last summer, and is the reason I believe my essay was successful in the University of Toronto medical school admissions process.

It began when a friend of mine (who by coincidence, or perhaps not, is also entering UofT medicine this fall) showed me the essay of one of his friends who was accepted into UofT’s medical school last year. The content of the essay was rather unexpected as it went against the common intuition of what the essay should include. I think most applicants think that the essay should be some sort of interesting piece that simply highlights the applicant’s accomplishments and qualifications for medicine – but if anything, this essay had a different overall focus

Without getting into the specifics of the essay, I remember reading through it, and being rather engrossed in it. And when I finally finished the essay, I had this strong feeling inside of me – the essay made me want to help him get into medical school.

It wasn’t that the applicant was a Rhodes scholar, or published in a million journals, or had a resume that blew my mind. And it’s not like he had some traumatic life changing moment that made him want to be a doctor that moved me to tears. No, nothing like that. In fact, there was nothing particularly outstanding about him on paper that would make him stand out among any other random applicant.

I mean, let’s think about it. If I read that you’re a Rhodes scholar who has been on the front page of Nature magazine, I’m sure as heck going to be really impressed and think you have the sickest resume ever. But that isn’t necessarily going to give me this strong, deep feeling that I want to do whatever possible to help you become a doctor. I’m just going to think you’ve done some crazy cool things.

However, this essay was different – in his own words, he was able to make me, the reader (and potential admissions judges) want to help him get into medical school. And if there’s someone you want to have that feeling, it’s the person deciding whether you get an interview or not.

Why is this so powerful and how was his essay able to make me feel this way?

The fact is that, right now, there are too many qualified applicants for medical school spots. As a result, the admissions committee probably receives a lot of essays that present very qualified applicants – and I’m sure many of these applicants would make good doctors. But with so many applicants who could be “good, competent doctors”, how do you sift through them even further?

Think about it from the admissions committee’s perspective. Training a medical student involves making a significant investment of time and money. So they want to pick students who they think will be good long term investments.

The reason this person’s essay was so powerful was because he was able to demonstrate to the reader that he would go above and beyond as a physician – that he is seriously interested in being the best physician he could be for the long haul. He showed that he has put serious, mature thought into being a doctor, and that he wasn’t applying just for the heck of it. He demonstrated that it really does make sense for him to be a doctor.

When there is an abundance of talent and impressive resumes, “stats” alone aren’t good enough. And from the perspective of medical schools and health care, perhaps that’s rightly so. They want (and as patients, wouldn’t you?) candidates who won’t just be competent at their jobs, but will be dedicated day after day for the unforeseeable future – because dedicated individuals are more likely to make significant impacts in health care and in the community. An essay jujst focusing on accomplishments and qualifications, while impressive, isn’t enough to create that special feeling in the reader.

And while you might very well be that serious, long-term dedicated individual, as I’ve mentioned countless times before, no one knows that unless you tell them – and the same goes for the telling the admissions committee in your essay.

So how do we show this serious, long term interest and dedication?

Of course, we need to present these ideas in a structured manner in the context of the essay. The UofT admissions committee helps us out by presenting three items they want us to think about and answer within the 1000 word essay. It’s amazing not only how often applicants neglect the guidelines (either absentmindedly, or as if thinking they know better than to answer the actual questions the admissions committee want answered), or don’t spend enough time thinking deeply about those items and why they might be asked. These guidelines are provided for a reason. Without further adieu, here they are:

1. As a general guideline, the statement should address and discuss the applicant’s personal background, including particular interests and extracurricular experiences.
2. Candidates should outline their choice of, and preparation for, a career in medicine.
3. Applicants should also describe their premedical studies, expanding on what they have chosen to pursue and how this has prepared them for their future, including a career in medicine.

In the next three parts of this series, we will analyze each of these questions in terms of what they really mean, figure out why the admissions committee want to know about them, and therefore, what we need to be presenting in the essay. Moreover, we will study how we should be answering these questions in the context of the overarching concept of showing our long term dedication, and thus, making the reader want to help us become physicians.

Mastering the UofT Medical School Essay

By Joshua Liu

Part 2:  Background, Interests, and Experiences

As you have read in Part 1 of this series, I strongly believe that your essay should have an overall focus on your genuine desire to not only be a physician, but one who is dedicated for the long run – that is, help the judge understand that being a physician is something you are so passionate about that they will feel motivated to do anything to help you.

Just to be clear, when I talk about showing long term dedication, I’m not saying you need to say that you will do this or that once you are a physician. What I’m saying is that you need to illustrate that you have seriously thought about your decision to apply, because individuals who are serious about applying would have done some decent research into what it means to be a physician, and yet still want to be one. Someone who shows this seriousness and maturity about life decisions is likely to be someone that will strive to do their best in their role as a physician for years to come.

In this article, we will focus on the first item the University of Toronto admissions committee wants us to comment on within our essay: Your personal background, including particular interests and extracurricular experiences.

However, I’d like to make my own modification to that statement. I think your essay should comment on your personal background, including particular interests and extracurricular experiences, which are relevant to your journey towards a career in medicine.

This is a medical school essay, so talk about medicine

Even though the essay asks you to talk about your personal background, interests, and experiences, realize that you have a word limit (1000 words, which isn’t very much) and so you need to be selective – that being said, even without the word limit, you should be selective in the first place because this is not a random personal essay. This is an essay for your application to become a doctor. So if you’re going to write a life story, it shouldn’t just be your entire life story – it should be the parts of your life integral to your journey towards medicine.

Everything you mention in your essay should somehow relate to your overall theme – that is, if you were to pick any paragraph in your essay, you should be able to tell me exactly how it relates to your interest medicine and/or your journey towards becoming a physician. If you can’t do that, then you might need to rethink that part over.

Now, the relationship doesn’t have to be extremely direct – that is, every paragraph or idea you mention doesn’t have to be about doctors, hospitals, diseases, etc. But everything you write should always be relevant to your overall theme, and this relevance should be made obvious. The admissions judge should not have to think about why you’re mentioning this experience in your essay – you want to be direct and clear.

For instance, in my essay I mention that a lot of my community involvement has involved working with or advocating for children and youth. If I had just described these experiences and left it at that, this would be a rather weak component of my essay – it would be some floating experience. While those experiences have played a significant role in nurturing my interest in medicine, not elaborating further on why would be a big mistake. So I didn’t stop there. Rather, I made it quite clear (in fact, I even blatantly stated so), that these experiences have motivated me towards pursuing a medical profession in pediatrics.

Perhaps you ran a university club that has nothing to do with medicine or health care. Yet if you strongly feel that this experience has helped you develop collaborative, leadership, and communication skills that will make you a good doctor, then yes this is definitely relevant – but like I said, you need to make this connection clear in your essay.

The important thing is not necessarily the experience, event, or accomplishment itself in a vacuum, but how it has impacted/shaped your journey towards medicine.

So when considering what background/interests/experiences you should focus on in your essay, ask yourself these questions:

• What experiences have inspired / motivated me to consider medicine as a potential career? Which had the most impact, and why?
• What events have significantly impacted the type of physician I want or hope to be?
• What experiences have helped me develop skills that would be useful as a physician?

 

Making sense: Why mentioning “relevant” experiences is crucial

People don’t like to be confused. Everything is easier when things make logical sense. In the same way, it is easier for an admissions judge to see you as a future doctor when the essay you give them suggests it makes sense for you to be one.

Imagine an applicant whose essay focused on him being the top student in his philosophy program, winning an Olympic gold medal in figure skating, and representing Canada at a prestigious international conference on climate change. Despite their amazingness in a vacuum, none of these experiences, without further elaboration, clearly point to an interest in medicine. So unless the applicant can clearly explain how mentioning these experiences relate to his interest in and long term dedication towards a career in medicine, it may have been better to mention less “unique” experiences, such as the year he spent volunteering in a medical clinic and interacting with patients.

You don’t want the admissions judge questioning either your interest in, readiness, or ability to be a competent physician. You put all of that at risk unless your essay demonstrates that it “makes sense” for you to be a physician.

The Obsession with Standing Out

I think there is sometimes an obsession with applicants about the need to “stand out” – to be unique among the rest of the applicants. Here are the facts though – admissions committees are not looking for individuals who are different, they are looking for individuals who they believe will be good doctors.

My take on this is that you can stand out by writing a more powerful, moving essay than anyone else. Write your true, honest story about your desire to be a physician. But in order to do that, you need to be selective about the aspects of your personal history you mention – and it should all be clearly relevant to your interest in the medical profession.

Mastering the UofT Medical School Essay

By Joshua Liu

Part 3:  Why Medicine and How Did You Prepare

If there’s one question you should be able to answer, it’s “why medicine?”

Sure it’s arguably the most common interview question asked. But more importantly, you better have a darn good reason for wanting to be a physician because it would be pretty unfortunate if you did not think your decision though, and ended up regretting entering medicine after years of training and thousands of dollars invested. Of course it’s possible to change your mind and regret your decision even if you thought it though initially, though I would imagine you’re less likely to change your mind had you put a good amount of thought into it at the beginning

That being said, I’m sure you also realize that your answer to this question is also important to medical schools, and the University of Toronto is no exception. As I outlined in Part 1, the UofT admissions committee wants your essay to: outline your choice of, and preparation for, a career in medicine.

Let me put that guideline in another way. Your essay needs to answer:

• Why do you want to be a doctor?
• What proof is there that medicine is something you have seriously thought about and are genuinely interested in?
• How do you know being a doctor is a good fit for you?

Why do you want to be a doctor?

One of the key messages I have been stressing is that medical school admissions committees want students who have a genuinely strong interest in medicine because those are the candidates who are likely to try their hardest to be the best physicians they can be. The depth of your reasons for wanting to be a physician are going to have a high correlation with this, which is why being able to convey them in a powerful manner in your essay is paramount to your success in the process.

When I talk to younger students interested in medicine, some of them just “feel” like they want to be physicians but can’t give me a tangible reason why, or they give me a really general response that could be applied to anything. For instance, one of the most common responses is “I like and/or am good at science, and I want to help people, so I want to be a doctor”. The problem with this statement is that you could remove “doctor” and replace it with many other professions, such as researcher, teacher, professor, etc. There are many careers that involve science and improving the lives of others – so why medicine, specifically?

If you can’t answer that question right now, it could mean one of a few things. It could mean that medicine might actually not be right for you, and you should start exploring some other careers.

However, it could also mean that while you know you are attracted to medicine, you haven’t spent enough time thinking about it, and being able to extrapolate your thoughts onto paper. If that’s you, then now’s a good a time as any to start thinking. You want to be as complete as possible when answering why you want to be a physician, so here are some questions to help you brain storm:

• Was there an event/experience that sparked your interest in medicine / becoming a doctor?
• Do you have any personal / family reasons that made you interested in medicine?
• What is it about being a physician that attracts you? What does medicine have that you want but can’t find in other careers?

Some students are concerned that they don’t have that “magical moment” of wanting to be a physician, like after using CPR to save a person’s life. Or they fret about not having a close relative who was afflicted with some disease. Basically, there are students who are concerned that they don’t have an “inspiring” set of reasons for becoming a physician, so dwelling on the reasons why is a waste of time for them, and so they focus their essay too much on other things.

This is a mistake. No one’s reasons for becoming a physician are “better” than anyone else’s. And regardless of how “amazing” you think your reasons and motivations are, realize that delivery of those reasons is just as, if not more, important than the actual content of those reasons. Remember, application essay writing is a skill. I am sure that if you put the time into thinking your reasons through fully and spending the effort to craft a strong delivery, you can answer “why medicine” just as well as anyone.

With regards to those three questions I wrote above, you might be able to answer only one of them well, or your answer might encompass all of them. It doesn’t really matter how you use those questions, so long as you can provide a comprehensive answer.

Prove to me that you have seriously thought about a career in medicine

It’s easy to say that being a doctor is something you have really thought about, but when you have to filter through thousands of applicants, having some evidence really helps.

Imagine you are the scout for a basketball team. A young man comes up to you, saying that he is interested in playing for your team. He sounds very passionate about basketball, so you ask him what experience he has. Has he been on a basketball team before? No. Okay, well has he ever just played basketball recreationally? No. Has he ever even watched a game of basketball before? Still the answer is no. As the scout, not only does this young man’s request to join your professional team sound rather strange, but taking him on would seem like an unwise risk. Furthermore, you question how he can even be sure basketball is for him, if he’s never even played before?

While it’s impossible to “play doctor” before actually entering medical school, the overall concept still applies. If you have never demonstrated the slightest interest in medicine, it’s not very believable to the admissions committee that being a doctor is something that you are actually serious about. Which is why I highly recommend that you do explore medicine in any way possible. Perhaps that’s shadowing a physician, volunteering at a clinic or hospital, etc.

But having these medically-related experiences isn’t the only important thing. You now have to go ahead and mention these experiences in your essay. If you volunteered in a hospital and got the opportunity to follow a physician around, even for a short period of time, I think it’s crucial that you mention it. It shows that you’ve taken the time to explore medicine as a potential career, and thus you are serious about it. Otherwise, your interest in medicine may appear questionable.

When writing about these medically-related experiences, it’s important to not just describe them, but explain their impact on you and your aspirations for a career in medicine. What did you learn from these experiences about being a doctor? How did they confirm or support your interest in medicine?

How do you know medicine is a good fit for you?

When the essay asks you to explain how you have prepared for a career in medicine, it’s a bit misleading in the sense that nothing you do before medical school can really “prepare” you the way that medical school does.

But in terms of preparation, I think one of the key things you can do is not just learn more about medicine and being a physician, but trying to find out if it’s something you actually want to do. It’s easy to say you like or don’t like something with limited information, but the conclusions you draw may not be fair – I mean for most of us, besides going to a doctor for check ups or when we are sick, how much do we really know about doctors and medicine?

Exploring medicine through volunteering, shadowing, and so on is a good opportunity to improve our understanding of what it means to be a physician, and whether it’s still something you want to do. And if these experiences do support your belief that you would enjoy medicine and would be a good fit for it, why do you think that?

Drawing on your past experiences, hobbies, and interests is crucial for making this connection. Perhaps you believe you would make a good physician because you have always been a very compassionate person and are passionate about taking care of others. It’s not only important that you say this, but connect this statement to prior experiences that prove this side of you.

Mastering the UofT Medical School Essay

By Joshua Liu

Part 4:  How Your Premedical Studies have Prepared You for Medicine

Of the three idea the University of Toronto medical admissions committee wants you to address in your essay, I think the guideline referring to how your premedical studies have prepared you for medicine is least important. Not saying that you can neglect it (because you shouldn’t), but rather, it’s the one you should spend the least time and effort on compared to the other aspects. It’s also why this will be the shortest article in the series!

So Don’t Worry About It

The simple reason why you shouldn’t worry about this guideline too much is that good doctors can come from a variety of backgrounds, which is why medical schools have come to realize that it does not make sense to prefer certain undergraduate experiences over others, let alone certain university institutions. Everything you need to know to become a competent physician can be learned in medical school, but the question is which candidates have the best potential for medicine, and of them, who is ready at this point in time.

So don’t fret if your university background is not one of the more “popular” areas of premedical studies. Yes it’s probably easier for someone who is a kinesiology major to talk about their studies in anatomy or a biology major to describe their experience with immunology to demonstrate preparation for medicine, but don’t count yourself out if you come from something completely different, such as music.

There is more to being a doctor than simply basic science knowledge. Being able to work in teams, displaying compassion for your patients, problem solving, etc. are all important skill sets that go beyond knowledge, but are necessary for being a good physician. Some of these skills can definitely be better developed in programs other than kinesiology or biology, and if you’re in that group of applicants, then perhaps that’s something to think about.

Everyone Can Answer this Guideline

My message is simply this: no matter what your prior university studies have been, I’m sure you have learned something that will benefit you in a career for medicine. If you believe me, then the difficult part is already over – believing that you can answer this question. The next part is spending some time thinking about how anything you have learned or experienced in your premedical studies will help you in medicine.

How easy is it? Let me put it this way. In my own admissions essay, I wrote exactly two sentences about how I was attending York University for biomedical studies and how the courses I was taking are related to medicine. That is literally all I wrote for that guideline. I’m sure everyone, no matter what your university background is, can do something similar.

That’s not to say that you should only spend two sentences talking about your undergraduate studies like I did – if yours was very relevant to medicine and health care, and thus had a significant impact on your interest in medicine, then for sure, feel free to write more. For instance, perhaps you studied nursing, and thus already have a significant amount of experience in health care, then it would definitely be worth spending more time exploring this area of your life.

However, if you feel that your undergraduate experience had little impact on your interest in medicine, don’t worry about it. Do what you can, and if two sentences is all you can muster, be rest assured, that’s perfectly fine.

What’s Next

In the upcoming and final parts of the series, we will be looking at how to put our answers to these three guidelines together, and general tips for the overall essay.

Mastering the UofT Medical School Essay

By Joshua Liu

Part 5:  Putting it All Together

Over the first four parts of this series, we looked at the overall message we wanted to convey through our essay: that we are proven serious about medicine, that the career makes sense for us, and that the reader will be thoroughly convinced to do whatever it takes to help us become a doctor. We also looked at the three guidelines/questions the University of Toronto admissions committee wants addressed in the essay, and what to consider when approaching them.

So now that you have your overall plan, as well as the main content for your essay (i.e. how you will answer those three guidelines), how do you put it all together?

While there is no “correct” way to write the essay, I think there are some important aspects to address, discuss, and debate. I will give you my thoughts on these aspects, as well as insight into how I approached them, not as necessarily guidelines for what you should do, but rather, guidelines about how to consider thinking about formulating your own approach.

First Person Perspective

I think this should be a pretty obvious one, but there are always a few applicants not sure about which perspective to use when writing their personal essays (i.e. 1st versus 3rd person). My advice is to almost always write in the first person perspective. This is your story, and you can make a much stronger connection with the reader by emphasizing how personal the story through the first person perspective. The immediate reaction isn’t that these experiences happened to some random young man named Josh, for example, but rather, they happened to this very person writing the essay – this makes a big difference.

Essay Structure

Assuming you have compiled all of the experiences and events in your life that you think should be included in the essay, there is always the next question of how to structure those experiences. What order should you put them in?

There are definitely many ways to go about it. Personally, the one I look used was the chronological approach. That is, writing about your important experiences in the order that they occurred. While my essay was not completely written in chronological order, I would say a large chunk of it was. The reason for this was that it allowed me to chronicle my “journey” towards medicine, and nothing makes more sense than chronological order. In a way, I was able to show how each subsequent experience mentioned built upon the previous one, and eventually pointed me towards applying to medical school.

As an example, an early part of my essay talked about my interest in neuroscience, which led to an elementary school project on the brain and nervous system. I would later do a high school science project on an issue involving children. My interest in neuroscience and working with children and youth eventually led me to shadow a pediatric neurosurgeon. I described those experiences in that order, and because of the chronological significance of that order, I didn’t have to do much work transitioning between the ideas.

As you can see, writing in chronological order allows for a good sense of “flow”. The basic idea of flow is for ensuring each main idea in the essay to transitions seamlessly from one to the next. Essays that flow better will be more easily absorbed by the reader. Using the chronological approach as an example, I’m sure you can why it would be much easier to talk about a childhood experience first before describing your transition into university. While the opposite is certainly possible, it is quite clearly more difficult to do.

In short, given the same set of experiences you want to mention, there will obviously be a better way to order them than others. If you are at all stuck at a way to approach the ordering, I highly suggest sticking with the chronological approach until you find something better, or perhaps a combination of both, that works for you.

Essay Style: Like a Story

While this is an essay, remember that it is a personal essay. My personal suggestion is to forget the word essay, and instead, focus on the concept of telling your story. I have written about this concept extensively in my advice on scholarship essays, and the idea remains the same here. Most people who rather read a riveting story than a random, formal essay. Take advantage of this fact.

One way to look at this story is that the ending is the present – that is, your story should be about your journey towards this very moment as you are applying to medical school. How have you gotten to this point, and perhaps, where do you want to go in the future? That’s really all this “essay” is.

Angle

The concept of your essay “angle” is pretty similar to the common idea of having a “theme” for your essay. The angle you choose is essentially going to be the method by which you achieve your overall goal of convincing the reader to help you through to the next round.

The angle I chose to employ was to show that my interests and experiences in life point me not towards just medicine, but specifically something in pediatrics, and quite likely, in neurology. This is a powerful angle because it not just shows that I have seriously thought about medicine and what type of medicine I see myself doing (i.e. a focus), but also it shows that it actually does make sense for me to potentially pursue that specialty.

I am of course by no means saying that you need to know what specialty you want to do, and I am cognizant of the fact that I may very well end up in something completely distant from pediatrics and neurology. People change their minds all the time (and admissions committees of course realize this). That being said, if there is a specialty you do see yourself seriously pursuing and you have experiences that support it, then it is definitely an angle worth considering.

Your experiences, interests, and aspirations will dictate the angle you choose to present to the admissions committee. The important thing is that you have some sort of angle/focus/theme, and that this angle is obvious.

The Introduction: How do I start?

A lot of applicants have writer’s block, particularly with the introduction. They want so badly to have that magical “hook” that absorbs the reader into their story.

If you already have an idea for that that “hook”, then great – go ahead and develop it. But if you don’t, forget it for now. My advice is to write out the main body of your essay, and then come back to your introduction if need be. You can always come up with that amazing introduction later.

I’m guessing it’s fairly obvious that you want your introduction to pull the reader in some way. Like any good story, you want the reader to be interested throughout the entire thing, and of course, creating this interest has to start at the beginning.

The key thing to keep in mind, however, is that the introduction cannot simply be a stand alone – it has to transition to the body of the essay. It doesn’t matter how great your introduction is if it doesn’t make any sense at all with the rest of your essay.

One common hook used in the introduction is some sort of short story, almost in real time and often with dialogue. If you are at all interested in using a real story anywhere in your essay, I suggest you use it in the introduction, mainly because it would stick out too much in any other part of your essay (assuming this story introduction still flows well into the body of your essay).

Personally, the story approach is what I used for my introduction. If you do choose this route, bear in mind that it should literally be a short story. I have seen essays where in order to make the story seem more interesting, the writer spend literally a quarter of the essay telling the story. This is a mistake. Always remember that it is still an introduction, so if you do want to tell a story, make sure it’s something you can tell in a concise fashion. The main role of the introduction is to draw the reader in, but the longer it goes, the less space you have to get to the important stuff (that is, selling yourself as the best applicant).

Concluding

There are many ways you can end your essay, but personally, I think the best way is to end strong with conviction. I think some applicants go the route of trying to make a fancy, stylish ending the way they develop the introduction, and I personally believe that’s the wrong way to go about it.

Like we’ve discussed throughout this series, our goal is to convince the reader that we are someone they want to help be physicians. In order to convince them with that strong of a feeling, it only makes sense that we need to encourage ideas of strength and conviction in the very last words they read. Your essay should end the same way you would end an argument in a debate – loud, strong, and clear. I remember all those times I would end my opening speech in a debate in a soft spoken, volume decreasing manner, and I kept being told this was a leak. In my opinion, the same goes for concluding your essays.

This is why I prefer an ending that is clear and blunt, that essentially sums up your angle for the essay.

Good luck!

I think I have covered most of the important aspects of writing this essay. I hope you enjoyed this series, and if you have any more questions or comments, I’d be happy to hear them.

All the best!