disadvantaged applicant

[adesua]

Hello y'all.
Its been a while. Well I still haven't turned in my AMCAS and I was hoping you could give me some perspective on something.

This is about the question on the AMCAS form that asks us to explain why we believe we should be considered a disadvantage applicant.

Is it a big deal? Should the response be in essay format or just point format is fine? As an international student there are a number of things I can write about. But with only 1325 characters at my disposal I don't know if I should resort to listing at the expense of explanation or if I should just choose 1 or 2 points and explain it in depth.

Thought will be appreciated.

Thanks

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[peterockduke]

OK... this is simply my personal opinion but i think that being disadvantaged will help you less than being an international student will hurt you. Does that make sense?

 

[Arista.MD]

Don't mention disadvantaged in connection with international student. If you really had a disadvantaged background it will surface in your essays. Just my advice.

 

[Spacekat]

This is one of the many topics regarding which we will never know what they really think, but I did get a small amount of insight during my first interview (applying to an MD program as a backup plan, but got heavily into discussing MD/PhD stuff anyway).

My interviewer happened to have been a disadvantaged student himself, and we spent a lot of time discussing the commonalities in the impact that situation had on our educations. Would a different interviewer have cared so much? I dunno.

I can tell you one thing, though, you'd bettter be prepared to fully back up any statements you make on this topic. This is one of those cases where you will really want to read your essays/app before you go in there, and keep your own words fresh in your head. Our discussion started with an open-ended question with which, I can see in retrospect, he was trying to trip me up and find out if maybe I wasn't so very disadvantaged after all. They want details, numbers, names to back up whatever you may be claiming.

Hope this helps.

 

[Neuronix]

I was a disadvantaged applicant and I completely agree with what you said Spacekat. I can tell you that some schools and interviewers won't notice or care about your disadvantaged status and some schools and interviewers will be very interested in your disadvantaged status. I think MD/PhD focuses less on life experience than MD admissions, but that's not always true.

I'd be happy to talk to you about this more if you want a heads up. AIM me at Neuronix2.