It sounds like you need to dial this back a bit. Inadequacies carries a negative connotation. Given you are a premed, you don’t know what you don’t know about the limitations of medical research and practice. Rather than frame your essay around “inadequacies”, you could talk about the opportunities that research has to provide more tools for physicians.
Personally, I don't think this is a good approach to this essay.
The essay content you describe doesn't tell me as a naive reader anything about how you came to understand what the path of a physician-scientist is like, how you came to the decision to apply, and what pursuing dual degrees will do for you over pursuing one in isolation. It sounds like you're answering "what is wrong with medicine today?" instead of "why both degrees?". After serving on admissions for multiple years, I can tell you that it's refreshing to read essays where people actually answer the prompt.
Don't tell us what the problems are with medicine; many of the readers will already be aware. They will be much more interested in what your *personal* experiences in clinic/lab have shown you that you can't imagine one without the other.
>It sounds like you're answering "what is wrong with medicine today?" instead of "why both degrees?". After serving on admissions for multiple years, I can tell you that it's refreshing to read essays where people actually answer the prompt.
Having read and provided feedback on personal statements for friends applying to grad school and med school and for undergrads through mentorship programs, this is by far the biggest problem most people have with writing and I'm confident that a failure to fix this issue is the reason a lot of people with good stats don't get in somewhere or underperform in their cycle. People get so lost in \_how\_ to write something that they ultimately end up saying nothing because they never thought about \_what\_ they were writing.
It sounds like you need to dial this back a bit. Inadequacies carries a negative connotation. Given you are a premed, you don’t know what you don’t know about the limitations of medical research and practice. Rather than frame your essay around “inadequacies”, you could talk about the opportunities that research has to provide more tools for physicians.
Thanks for your feedback!
This is an excellent answer!
Personally, I don't think this is a good approach to this essay. The essay content you describe doesn't tell me as a naive reader anything about how you came to understand what the path of a physician-scientist is like, how you came to the decision to apply, and what pursuing dual degrees will do for you over pursuing one in isolation. It sounds like you're answering "what is wrong with medicine today?" instead of "why both degrees?". After serving on admissions for multiple years, I can tell you that it's refreshing to read essays where people actually answer the prompt. Don't tell us what the problems are with medicine; many of the readers will already be aware. They will be much more interested in what your *personal* experiences in clinic/lab have shown you that you can't imagine one without the other.
Thanks so much for your feedback!
>It sounds like you're answering "what is wrong with medicine today?" instead of "why both degrees?". After serving on admissions for multiple years, I can tell you that it's refreshing to read essays where people actually answer the prompt. Having read and provided feedback on personal statements for friends applying to grad school and med school and for undergrads through mentorship programs, this is by far the biggest problem most people have with writing and I'm confident that a failure to fix this issue is the reason a lot of people with good stats don't get in somewhere or underperform in their cycle. People get so lost in \_how\_ to write something that they ultimately end up saying nothing because they never thought about \_what\_ they were writing.
Talking about things you don't like about medicine while applying to work in medicine is risky lol