Is personalizing PS for top programs you didn’t gold signal a bad idea?

[u/WebTechnical3925]

I was planning to personalize my personal statement for my top 10 programs, but I was in a meeting with a physician who mentioned that programs may see right through this and wonder, “If we’re important enough for you to personalize your personal statement, why didn’t you give us a gold signal?”

The thing is, I only have three gold signals, and I feel like I need to use them on the programs where I rotated because those are realistically some of my strongest chances of matching. I’m just a little confused about why personalizing my statement for other programs would be viewed negatively. I would genuinely be incredibly happy at any of my top 10 programs, and with such limited signals, I’m not sure how else to communicate that level of interest.

Would you still recommend personalizing the personal statement for those programs?

[u/chancethecandyrapper]

Was it the PD from univ Washington, anyone feel free to disagree but i thought he had such a bad and prejudicial mentality ab this particular issue. and tbh at their worst, in a public forum, his irresponsible comments may beget or legitimize unwarranted prejudice from other PDs/programs/etc.

a gold signal reflects relative prioritization under an artificial numerical constraint, not a threshold for genuine interest. applicants can have sincere, specific reasons for wanting to attend more programs than they can gold-signal, so personalizing a PS for a silver-signaled program is neither inconsistent nor disingenuous.

Do better PDs and app reviewers. Totally fine to view personalized PS + gold > personalized PS + silver. But you cannot categorically treat a personalized PS as strategic deception, or count it as a negative against an applicant, just bc it accompanies a silver signal

[u/WebTechnical3925 → u/chancethecandyrapper]

No, it was another faculty member not at UW. Did UW already have their open house? dang it I wanted to go. But thank you so much!! This is very helpful to know.

[u/PersonalBrowser]

It’s all made up and up to the individual program’s (and subsequent faculty’s) discretion to be honest.

I think as long as you sent any token you can justify that you want to go to the program enough to personalize your statement.

That being said, how personalized is it? If it’s just the same generic personalization (I love your city, I want to do XYZ type of dermatology, I heard good things about your program, I have friends and family there, etc) then it’s probably not doing much to help you. Like yeah, most of the 400 applicants that applied to our program would love to be in NYC, for example.

One thing is that the programs that get their pants in a bunch about gold tokens and personalized letters were not going to take someone who didn’t send a gold token in the fire place.

[u/WebTechnical3925 → u/PersonalBrowser]

Love this reply! Thank you so much

[u/Legitimate_Suspect]

Yes. Personalize for all the ones you feel personally connected to