To begin working on your personal statement, select the
"Personal Statements" tab in MyERAS. In this work area, you may
create personal statements for each specialty for which you
intend to apply. The personal statement is limited to 32,000
characters. You are not allowed to use bold, italics, or special
characters. Also, be descriptive in the title of your personal
statement. Since programs will not be able to see the titles of
your personal statements, use the title to help you identify the
personal statement version when you are assigning it to programs
later in the process. When you have completed the personal
statement, print copies for your own records.
While it is not necessary to create versions of the personal
statement for individual programs, the personal statement should
be specialty specific, so if you plan to apply to several fields,
it is wise to get started drafting the personal statements early
so that you will have plenty of time to make them flow well,
grammatically and typographically perfect, and ensure that they
make the strongest possible case for why you chose that specialty
and why you are well-suited to it. Personal statements that are
poorly written convey that you will likely be a careless resident
as well, so while the personal statement won't overcome low or
failing scores or mediocre letters of recommendation, one that is
poorly done can really hurt your chances. As with the CAF, many
applicants find it easier to draft the statement offline and then
cut and paste the final document into the appropriate space in
the ERAS workspace.
You will be able to edit any personal statement that has not
yet been transmitted to a program. Once you have transmitted a
personal statement to a program, that statement will become
locked. If it contains errors, you will need to create another
personal statement and assign the newly created personal
statement in its place.
