The idea that large differences in medical school interview counts are primarily due to “better writing” is an oversimplification. The experiences you can write about are partly determined by luck. Your upbringing, opportunities, and circumstances shape the material available to you. And beyond a certain level of writing competence, there is no objectively “better” way to tell an applicant’s story. I’ve had my application reviewed by around 15 people, including doctors, PhDs, friends, mentors, and people with admissions experience, and the amount of contradictory advice I received about how to write it was striking.

Because of this, when applicants have similar stats and experiences, differences in interview numbers can often reflect the inherent luck and variability of the admissions cycle rather than writing ability. There definitely is bad writing, but past a certain threshold, the quality of writing is more dependent on the reviewer rather than the author. Writing matters, especially when it is objectively poor, but attributing a large difference in interviews to one applicant simply being a “better writer” is a major oversimplification. It places too much blame on the applicant for an outcome that is also heavily shaped by a subjective and unpredictable system.