How To Write About Someone Who Died in Your Personal Statement
In a previous article, I recommended that you shouldn’t mention that someone you know died in the introductory paragraph of your personal statement. In an overwhelming majority of cases, when an applicant relies on this theme, it isn’t done in an effective way. However, it is possible to include the death of someone close to you in your essay in a way that evaluators will be receptive to. As an example, here are the first few sentences of the opening paragraph of my own personal statement:
“Reindeer and rainbows!” my dad chimed in, contributing his opinion on what our family should have for dessert that night. It was the first time I had heard word salad, one of the signs of the nodular malignant melanoma that had metastasized to my dad’s brain. I was fifteen when this phenomenon piqued my curiosity about the inner workings of the human body and influenced my decision to major in Biology. After college…
Note that I never explicitly said my dad died. However, every evaluator will understand that since my dad’s malignant melanoma had metastasized to his brain, it was a terminal condition. In this way, I was able to tell the admissions committee about this essential component of my motivation to become a PA without ever explicitly saying my dad died. Sharing this experience was a meaningful way to start my essay, but I didn’t dwell on it. Three sentences in, I was already explaining how this experience was directly relevant to the path I took to becoming a PA. It was part of my story, not my whole story.
It can be tough when applicants are advised not to write about the death of someone they love in their personal statement. Being told you’re supposed to leave something out of your essay that was so instrumental to your decision to become a PA can feel incredibly inauthentic. It can feel like a betrayal. You might even feel like it’s impossible to write about anything else.
The advice to avoid this theme is coming from a good place — we all want you to get into PA school! However, as someone who did my best to navigate this subject myself, I have a different perspective. If it’s really important to you to include the death of someone you love in your personal statement, it’s possible to do this in a way that won’t hurt your chances of getting an invitation to interview.