Your Health Professions Advisory Committee application essay is a confidential, informal statement that provides insight into your motivations and how you assess your preparation for a health professions career.
This statement is for the HPAC’s use only; it is considerably longer than the official application essay you will submit to your health professions schools.
The statement should convey your passions, commitments, and rationale for a life dedicated to health care. It is designed to provide the HPAC with a better understanding of who you are, your experiences and background, and your goals, motivations, and passions.
What you write and how you write it will greatly assist the Committee’s endeavor to write a detailed, personalized letter on your behalf.
This is your personal statement. As such, the HPAC will not provide you with feedback on what you have written prior to your HPAC interview. Rather, the statement is used to understand your writing style, how you express yourself, and what you find important to share.
During your HPAC interview, you may request feedback on your statement and ask for advice regarding how you might modify it for your actual health professions school application essay.
Please note: Because admissions committees stress that they want to see how you write not how we write, we will not provide you with grammatical/typographical corrections nor a close editing of the application essay that you will eventually submit to your health professions schools.
Your HPAC essay should be informative and fulsome. It should be no more than four to six pages in length. Essays that are one to two pages long do not provide us with sufficient insight into your motivations or preparation for a health professions career. Think of this longish essay as your “paper interview.” The Committee will refer back to this essay when writing its Committee Letter of Evaluation.
A suggested length for the essay is 4-6 pages double-spaced, with 1 inch (not 1.25 inch) margins.
This personal statement is intended to provide you with an opportunity to review and reflect upon those unique or unusual abilities, experiences, or characteristics that you will bring to the health professions. You are expected to be reflective, and to provide perspective on how significant aspects of your life have shaped your values and your motivations.
Discuss those experiences that influenced your decision to pursue a health care career. (For example, describe and explain how experiences working or living with, and/or serving, “those with medical needs” have influenced your desire to pursue a health professional career).
Assess the strengths and weaknesses of your personal and academic preparation for a career in the health professions.