How should I go about making my personal statement stand out from the piles of med school applications?

Many students become fixated on making their statement different and unique, often to the extent that they run the risk of seeming disingenuous or detracting from the core messages they wish to convey. This is something I struggled with at first, and spent hours sitting in the bath or on the way to school trying to come up with some witty and unusual entry. However, I came to realise (and this has been confirmed during my time at medical school) that simplicity, honesty and a direct approach is much better. The reason certain things might seem cliched is often because they are important, and although I wouldn't recommend blatently writing 'I want to help people', don't worry about saying things that seem quite obvious.

The key to writing a good personal statement lies in its content rather than the waffle. If you've done something exceptional, or something that taught you a lot, write it and explain how it will help you be a good doctor. A key theme in medical school is self-reflection, so an insightful and succinct personal statement will demonstrate maturity and let admissions know that you've taken a step back to think about things.