Honest and insightful reflections
It would be useful to go through each experience mentioned in your personal statement and list some areas for expansion, consider using the STARR approach for this. Tutors don’t want you to exaggerate what you have learnt but want honest insights, you don’t need to have learnt to play the flute to improve your manual dexterity or fabricate your life experiences. Your ultimate aim is to come across as a well rounded applicant not a ready trained or “ideal” doctor. For work experience placements consider individual encounters you saw and refer back to any notes you made during your placements. You want to aim to explain the importance of experiences, your depth and breadth of interest and personal insights. Perhaps do some independent research on some topic areas linked to experiences you have had to show your proactive nature and desire to learn. If you have referenced any literature, journals or books in your personal statement make sure you have key points to make about them. What did you learn beyond what you may gain from GCSE or A – level Courses and what are your opinions on what you read.
Being ready to think on the spot
Within your 4,000 characters you may have covered lots of different experiences, you need to be experienced thinking on the spot as you cannot always predict what they are going to what to know about. Send your personal statement to friends and family and ask them to ask your questions on it, this will get you thinking on your feet. You want to prepare for a variety of different questions. It may be useful to split your personal statement into key areas and prepare questions for each of these. Motivation, work experience, volunteering, extracurricular and conclusions. Think about linking your ideas to NHS hot topics and ethics.