How do I get accepted to medical school? This is the question at the forefront of every premedical student’s mind. As the competitiveness of each medical school application cycle increases and it feels like all those applying have cured cancer, dedicated their entire lives to some amazing community service effort, achieved a perfect MCAT score, and found time to invent a time machine, the importance of good writing and weaving your experiences into a compelling narrative becomes ever more crucial.

Step one: Collect stories. Some of the best advice that I was given during my premedical journey was to not only track the hours I spent at community service events but also to write down a memorable moment from the experience. Everyone who has ever volunteered in a hospice setting could write a nice short essay about how the experience was meaningful and gave them a new appreciation for life. The problem is that many of these essays would sound quite similar. The essays I wrote about my experiences as a hospice volunteer focused on the people I served and the specific wisdom they imparted to me. Here is a short excerpt from an essay about an interaction with a hospice patient:

“When I meet a hospice patient, I aim to build rapport and trust quickly, never knowing how long we will have to cultivate our relationship. Maria suffers from advanced dementia, but over a few visits, listening attentively to her stories, which weave tales from her childhood with her current wants and needs in a mix of English and Spanish, I have learned that we have much in common. We both live with our families, sharing the joys and frustrations of multigenerational households. We both love word games. I am a Bananagrams champion, and despite her cognitive decline, Maria still enjoys word searches. We both love blueberry pancakes. To cultivate meaningful relationships, I look past obvious differences to find the shared humanity that is always present.”

Using specific examples made for a more interesting read and gave those reviewing my essays greater insight into why this experience was important and formative to my journey.

Step two: Decide what you want to say. To keep your essays focused and your overall narrative clear, consider creating a theme for your application. Think about three things that you want your application reviewer to remember about you if they don’t remember anything else. For me, my theme was human connection. I felt that my strongest experiences and best skills all dealt with interacting with people. I wanted my reviewers to remember me as someone who forges strong interpersonal relationships, is a good problem solver, and is a leader. Focusing on these themes and circling back to them throughout my primary and secondary applications allowed me to highlight my communication skills, empathy, critical thinking, and other characteristics while keeping my application cohesive. Medical school application reviewers read hundreds, if not thousands, of essays. Some things may get skimmed, so it is important to keep your writing focused on the most important things you want to say.

Step three: Practice, practice, practice. Writing is a skill that needs to be practiced and honed like any other. If you have the opportunity to take writing classes during undergrad, do it! Your practice will pay off later. You can also practice your writing by blogging or writing for a site like KevinMD, as I did. You should go through multiple iterations of your personal statement, and it should get better every time. Don’t be afraid to scrap a section that is not working, but try to save it somewhere so that you can come back to it. I found it extremely helpful to keep one document where I saved everything I wrote while working on a more organized draft in a separate document. This way, if I ever cut something that I wanted to rework, I had it easily available. You may find that something you cut from your personal statement works perfectly in one of your activity descriptions or secondary essays.

Step four: Cater your application to the school you are applying to. When working on your essays, particularly for secondary applications, read as much as you can about the school’s mission statement and goals. You can subtly—or not so subtly—tailor your application to align with what they are looking for. If a school has a strong focus on community service, use your essays to highlight your community involvement and how it has shaped your journey. If a school is more research-oriented, use your essays to emphasize your research experience and what you have learned about conducting scientific research. You want to present yourself as a well-rounded candidate, but reflecting the language and ideals of a school’s mission statement back to them can help make you appear like the perfect fit for that institution.

Step five: Don’t reinvent the wheel. Recycling your supplemental essays is an art form that you will ideally perfect by the end of your application cycle. The practice of adjusting an essay to fit a slightly different prompt or word count will help save you time and will likely improve your essays. Each time I rewrote the same narrative and reworked an essay, it got better. I sometimes wished that I could go back and revise the essays I had already submitted because, over the next few iterations, they improved dramatically.

Step six: Seek feedback from a variety of people. Have multiple people read your essays. While it may feel like there are too many cooks in the kitchen, you do not have to take all of the advice you receive. However, it is always valuable to get diverse perspectives and feedback on your writing. Someone who has been through the application process before can be especially helpful in providing pointed feedback.

Step seven: Tedious, boring editing. Once you have re-read your essays until your eyes are burning and you’re questioning your life choices, read them one more time. Your essays should have zero spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors. Nothing will take your application reviewer out of your carefully crafted narrative faster than a misspelled word or an overly complicated sentence. Use spell check, free online grammar checkers, and carefully review your writing.

Since the next application cycle does not start until May, you might feel like medical school application essays are far off in the future. However, the more time you save now by drafting your personal statement and practicing your writing, the better off you will be in the summer when you are overwhelmed with supplemental essays. As an applicant who had low-to-mid-level stats (let’s just say I did not cure cancer in undergrad, and I certainly did not have a perfect MCAT score), I feel like my writing was a strength and one of the reasons I received multiple acceptances to MD programs.

Natalie Enyedi is a premedical student.