Personal story opening the research essay

[mdhouse]

Do you guys think a small personal story about how I was drawn to science at an early age, which then motivated me to seek my first lab position in high school, would be frowned upon? I realize it says, talk about your research experiences, so I'm just worried they are expecting me to launch immediately into research experiences. I didn't get a chance to incorporate this story into my other essays, and I wanted to include it somewhere.


Thoughts?

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[Remuneration]

I was going to say, it might be okay, but then I found myself adding a bunch of qualifiers. Maybe your high school research experience was exceptional, but I highly doubt it's along the lines of what they're looking for in the essay.

Rather than emotional first interest story, a description of your research experience better demonstrates you as a thoughtful, diligent, and motivated future researcher. It may have sparked your intial interest, but your high school experience probably doesn't not show the depth of knowledge and dedication they're looking for.

Maybe a single paragraph: First research exp was with Dr. So and So during high school studying yada yada. I got some hands on basic experience in these areas, it motivated me to do big kid research in college. End paragraph, get on with the meat of the essay.

 

[echod]

Do you guys think a small personal story about how I was drawn to science at an early age, which then motivated me to seek my first lab position in high school, would be frowned upon? I realize it says, talk about your research experiences, so I'm just worried they are expecting me to launch immediately into research experiences. I didn't get a chance to incorporate this story into my other essays, and I wanted to include it somewhere.


Thoughts?

I think it'll be fine. Just don't spend more than 1 paragraph or 5-7 sentences on it though.

 

[injunjoe]

if I were you, I'd write the research portion of the essay first, see how many characters you have left, and write the intro accordingly. As others have said, the main thing is to obviously focus on your specific research.

P.S why not include this in your MD/PhD essay?

 

[mdhouse]

I misrepresented what this story was I think, it's a personal story about how I got interested in science at an early age... it's true that this in turn motivated me to work in a lab in high school. (I actually I got a publication out of the high school work so I did talk about that in my research essay).

As far as including the personal story in the md phd essay, I just didn't have room for it, 3000 characters is so short, and I felt the space was better served by explaining why an md or phd alone would not suffice.

I spent a bunch of time perfecting that one paragraph (the personal story) only to discover I was way over the 3000 character limit, I guess a part of this is just me not wanting to have wasted the effort rofl. maybe I'll find a use for it in the secondaries.

Appreciate the input everyone.