Many applicants face writer’s block when trying to draft the letter of intent for their University of Toronto (UofT) MHI application. After all, strong admission essay writing skills isn’t a determinant of a successful future health informatics professional.
That’s why I’m here to help.
In this blog, I’ll discuss what you need to include in your letter of intent and offer you a framework for writing this essay for UofT MHI admissions based on my successful admissions experience, my hundreds of hours of admissions research, and also my years of insight in the health informatics field at work.
The letter of intent offers you the opportunity to personalize your application by highlighting your uniqueness – your unique experience, achievements, skills, and professional interests. You want to seize this opportunity to convince the admissions committee to admit you. Explain to them why might you be a stronger candidate for graduate school, and be more successful and effective in the health informatics field. Take a moment to remember this, this is very important – everything you write in your letter of intent should support this goal in one way or another.
The UofT MHI admissions committee provides a short guideline for your letter of intent:
Letters of intent should demonstrate how you have developed a vision and understanding of health informatics through your own life and career experiences.
-- University of Toronto MHI admissions website
In your letter of intent, you are asked to discuss both your vision and understanding of health informatics. Your vision refers to your idea of how health informatics will be in the future. Your understanding refers to what you know about health informatics. Taken together, your understanding influences your vision.
Your understanding of health informatics evolves over time as you accumulate more and more experiences. Your vision will change too as you accrue in understanding. This is your personal growth. You want to describe to the admissions committee this growth process, explaining each step/milestone that affected your understanding and vision of health informatics – particularly if any has caused any shifts in your thinking.
In addition to simply describing your vision for health informatics, you want to also explain how you plan to contribute to making your vision of future of health informatics a reality. Write about your strong desire to do so. The combination of your motivation and skills is an indication of your suitability for a master's degree in health informatics (see Q&A in Figure 1). Of course, you don't want to just write "I strongly desire ..." you want to write in narrative form - substantiate your claims by giving past experience as examples.
The detailed guide below for UofT MHI letter of intent offers you a framework and a template to enable you to best portray yourself as a desirable candidate for the MHI degree at UofT. Remember, only the applicants who best portray themselves as best future health informatics professionals who are fit for UofT MHI are admitted, not necessarily those who actually are. Portraying yourself is a whole different skillset independent of health informatics.