2022-2023 Oakland (Beaumont)

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Thank you to @blueviolin21 for sharing this year's questions!

2022-2023 Oakland (William Beaumont) Secondary Essay Prompts

1. How have your experiences serving others contributed to your personal growth, and how would your experiences contribute to diversity, equity, and inclusiveness in our community? (400 words)

2. Describe your motivation to attend OUWB. (250 words)

3. (Optional): Is there anything you want the admissions committee to know about your qualifications for medical school that are not already represented in your application materials? For example, if you have already graduated, briefly summarize your activities since graduation. Note: This space is provided for new information only, not to promote qualifications already highlighted in your other materials. (400 words)

4. (Optional): If you are a re-applicant to OUWB, please describe improvements you have made to your current application from previous cycles (please include academics, experiences, and/or personal characteristics). (400 words)

Good luck to everyone applying!

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Last edited:
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The same as last year!

1. How have your experiences serving others contributed to your personal growth, and how would your experiences contribute to diversity, equity, and inclusiveness in our community? (400 words)
2. Describe your motivation to attend OUWB. (250 words)
3. (Optional): Is there anything you want the admissions committee to know about your qualifications for medical school that are not already represented in your application materials? For example, if you have already graduated, briefly summarize your activities since graduation. Note: This space is provided for new information only, not to promote qualifications already highlighted in your other materials. (400 words)

CookieMonsta said:
Awesome! What are the secondaries?
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OOS didn't receive the secondary but got that acknowledgement thingy
 
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Interesting that OUWB got rid of their COVID essay. I saw a few other schools also made this decision.
 
jenkinss said:
What do you mean by "acknowledgement thingy"? Did you get an email?
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I got an email stating that they have received my application and they will be sending me a secondary if I meet their minimum requirements
 
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Received acknowledgment of app submission at 10:04 PM PST. OOS.
 
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Confused about the optional essay. Do they want us to put post-graduation activities or is it just a suggestion?
 
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CookieMonsta said:
Confused about the optional essay. Do they want us to put post-graduation activities or is it just a suggestion?
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My interpretation would be:
1) the prompt is entirely optional per the "(Optional)" tag and
2) you could put your post-graduation activities only if they are "not already represented in your application materials."

The command form of the verb "summarize" does cause some confusion when put into perspective with these two points.
 
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Last year they had a COVID essay and an essay about reapplicants. Guess those gone now
 
drewmighty said:
Last year they had a COVID essay and an essay about reapplicants. Guess those gone now
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They still have the reapplicant question:
  • (Optional): If you are a re-applicant to OUWB, please describe improvements you have made to your current application from previous cycles (please include academics, experiences, and/or personal characteristics). (400 words)
 
futuremdpls said:
They still have the reapplicant question:
  • (Optional): If you are a re-applicant to OUWB, please describe improvements you have made to your current application from previous cycles (please include academics, experiences, and/or personal characteristics). (400 words)
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oh excellent thank you, I will add it to my pre writing. Still waiting on aamc verification T.T
 
I was wondering if someone could clear up some confusion about recommendation letters. I only have a committee letter uploaded on AMCAS, which includes four seperate recommendation letters. Does this not fully satisfy the rec letter requirements for OUWB?
 
Premedstudent149 said:
I was wondering if someone could clear up some confusion about recommendation letters. I only have a committee letter uploaded on AMCAS, which includes four seperate recommendation letters. Does this not fully satisfy the rec letter requirements for OUWB?
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I think if you have a committee letter and 4 letters included in the packet, then you have 6 LoRs according to OUWB’s policy.
 
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Hmm was wondering if I should use my COVID essay for the 3rd optional prompt or if that would not qualify? I am a non-trad and do not just want to repeat my works/activities. I also do not want to leave an optional essay blank as I feel that would hinder my application. What are people using this space for? Would it be ok to mention my post bac if I didn't talk about it in my PS even though it is shown in my transcripts?
 
drewmighty said:
Hmm was wondering if I should use my COVID essay for the 3rd optional prompt or if that would not qualify? I am a non-trad and do not just want to repeat my works/activities. I also do not want to leave an optional essay blank as I feel that would hinder my application. What are people using this space for? Would it be ok to mention my post bac if I didn't talk about it in my PS even though it is shown in my transcripts?
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It’s not going to hinder your appointment bc it’s optional, but I personally don’t see any problem with you mentioning post bac given that it hasn’t been discussed anywhere else on your app. I don’t think a typical COVID essay will fly here because it’s going to sound forced, but if it’s super significant and important to your journey to becoming a doc then why not.
 
jinjames0 said:
It’s not going to hinder your appointment bc it’s optional, but I personally don’t see any problem with you mentioning post bac given that it hasn’t been discussed anywhere else on your app. I don’t think a typical COVID essay will fly here because it’s going to sound forced, but if it’s super significant and important to your journey to becoming a doc then why not.
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Ya I know it says optional but a committee will for sure look favorably towards someone who took the time to do 4 essays over 2 (since 2 are optional?)
 
I was thinking of using the optional prompt to talk about a specific skill and how I’ve developed this skill throughout my life and how it will help me be a good physician. I would be talking about some activities that are in my primary but I didn’t use this specific reflection/talk about this skill anywhere within the descriptions. Do you guys think this would be good?
 
does anyone know if OUWB considers secondary submission time. do they care how fast you return them?
 
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So for the prompt:
Is there anything you want the admissions committee to know about your qualifications for medical school that are not already represented in your application materials? For example, if you have already graduated, briefly summarize your activities since graduation. Note: This space is provided for new information only, not to promote qualifications already highlighted in your other materials. (400 words)

Based on the prompt I should not mention what I have already covered in my activities section, but I did some of the activities during my gap year. How should I approach this?
 
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Timeless:) said:
So for the prompt:
Is there anything you want the admissions committee to know about your qualifications for medical school that are not already represented in your application materials? For example, if you have already graduated, briefly summarize your activities since graduation. Note: This space is provided for new information only, not to promote qualifications already highlighted in your other materials. (400 words)

Based on the prompt I should not mention what I have already covered in my activities section, but I did some of the activities during my gap year. How should I approach this?
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Currently tackling this one myself, and it seems to me that it would be a bad idea to mention gap year activities that are already listed on AMCAS, especially given that they went out of their way to specify not once but twice that they only want you to talk about new activities that aren't mentioned anywhere.

I was thinking of using this section to mention new activities that I am considering starting alongside my gap year job, but not sure if even this is worth it and I should just go ahead and leave it blank.
 
wsh said:
Is anyone having trouble copying and pasting from text-edit to the app?
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YES! This was so weird for me. I had to copy and paste a few sentences at a time instead of all sentences at once.
 
freshdoe said:
Currently tackling this one myself, and it seems to me that it would be a bad idea to mention gap year activities that are already listed on AMCAS, especially given that they went out of their way to specify not once but twice that they only want you to talk about new activities that aren't mentioned anywhere.

I was thinking of using this section to mention new activities that I am considering starting alongside my gap year job, but not sure if even this is worth it and I should just go ahead and leave it blank.
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This space may also be useful to mention any ties to Michigan for OOS applicants.
 
purrrxoxo said:
This space may also be useful to mention any ties to Michigan for OOS applicants.
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Damn, I was going to put that in my why Oakland essay. Do you think it would just be better to mention connections in this space instead to talk about more important reasons in the why Oakland essay?
 
freshdoe said:
Damn, I was going to put that in my why Oakland essay. Do you think it would just be better to mention connections in this space instead to talk about more important reasons in the why Oakland essay?
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There's no one right way of going about this, but I'd focus more on "why Oakland" in the required prompt since it only allows for 250 words. Take your leftover thoughts/connections to OUWB and put them in the optional section.
 
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OOS, secondary received 7/6. Submitted 6/6 and processed 7/5.
 
momoli said:
“1. How have your experiences serving others contributed to your personal growth, and how would your experiences contribute to diversity, equity, and inclusiveness in our community?”

Any advice for going about this prompt? Are these two separate questions or are they specifically asking how our service experiences add diversity?
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I think there's two ways to approach it. First way is as you said: pick a service experience, describe how you grew from it, and then go into how what you've learned from that specific experience can contribute to the diversity of OUWB.

Second way I think you could approach it is using the first half of the essay to pick a service experience and explain how you grew from it and then using the second half as its own standalone diversity essay.

Both could work but if you choose to go the second route, you just have to make sure that you transition smoothly between the first and second half so it doesn't break the flow.
 
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