A Critical Analysis of Personal Statements Submitted by Radiology Residency Applicants 1

Abstract

Each year, radiology residency program directors and selection committees receive hundreds of applications for a limited number of residency positions in the field. Selection committees are often forced to make difficult decisions in order to rank academically similar applicants based solely on their application materials. With the advent of the Electronic Residency Application System (ERAS), the application has become standardized, making it even more difficult for applicants to distinguish their applications. To this end, the personal statement is considered a critical part of any radiology residency application, being one of the few chances applicants have to express their personality to a residency selection committee (1–5). Applicants often agonize for weeks over what should or should not be included. A brief search of the internet using a common search engine (www.google.com; Google, Mountain View, CA) and the key words “personal statement” and “residency” revealed multiple websites advertising personal statement writing, editing, and “assistance” services to applicants for significant fees. The fact that these services exist implies that, from an applicant’s perspective, the personal statement is a vital component of the application. The personal statement remains, however, a very subjective measure of an applicant’s value. There is no standardized measure of what defines an effective personal statement versus an ineffective one. Although those who read personal statements for an admissions committee seem to have an abstract sense of “good” personal statements and “bad” per-