*~*~*~*Official AMCAS Work/Activities Tips Thread 2016-2017*~*~*~*

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If I am listing Phi Beta Kappa for Honors/Awards, do I need to include a description? I have a lesser known honors society I could list in this category as well. Should I include the selectivity/requirements for invitation?
PBK Chapters each have their own criteria, so better to touch on that.

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1a) Can I group all of my main hobbies into one category called "Hobbies"? Would be comprised of my major hobbies only, such as fishing, reading, exercising

1b) Who should I list as the contact for the hobbies? Never did them in a formal organization. Should the contact me myself, parent? What would the contact title be in that case?

2) I'm an unpaid writer for my college's anthropology website, and want to know which category this would fall under? Extracurricular activities, nonclinical volunteering, something else?
 
1a) Can I group all of my main hobbies into one category called "Hobbies"? Would be comprised of my major hobbies only, such as fishing, reading, exercising

1b) Who should I list as the contact for the hobbies? Never did them in a formal organization. Should the contact me myself, parent? What would the contact title be in that case?

2) I'm an unpaid writer for my college's anthropology website, and want to know which category this would fall under? Extracurricular activities, nonclinical volunteering, something else?
1a) Absolutely.
1b) Hobbies doesn't have a Contact requirement.

2) Artistic Endeavor (writing shared with a wider public audience) vs maybe Teaching, depending on your focus, would be other potential tags.
 
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Hi!

I am hoping for some guidance on the best way to enter information for multiple publications and posters/presentations if you only want to use one entry for each. I am planning to create a generic title such as "co-authored publications" and "co-authored posters/presentations" use the most recent example for each as the main filler and then list additional publications and posters/presentations in the experience description. However, I am unsure of the best way to list these. Would it be best to use a citation, such as:

Name 1, Name 2, Name 3 (2016). Title of paper/poster/presentation. Journal/Conference. Whether it is in print, submitted, in draft phase.

Or, should I just list the title of paper/poster/presentation, date, conference, etc. and then what # author I am?

Thanks!
 
I am hoping for some guidance on the best way to enter information for multiple publications and posters/presentations if you only want to use one entry for each. I am planning to create a generic title such as "co-authored publications" and "co-authored posters/presentations" use the most recent example for each as the main filler and then list additional publications and posters/presentations in the experience description. However, I am unsure of the best way to list these. Would it be best to use a citation, such as:

Name 1, Name 2, Name 3 (2016). Title of paper/poster/presentation. Journal/Conference. Whether it is in print, submitted, in draft phase.

Or, should I just list the title of paper/poster/presentation, date, conference, etc. and then what # author I am?

Thanks!
If the full formal citations all fit, than do that. It will save space to omit submitted and in-draft manuscripts, which won't impact your application. (Instead, you might mention them after appropriate Secondary prompts and in future update letters, when they get accepted.)

If the full citation don't fit, it's OK to take shortcuts, even to the point of saying your authorship placement, truncated title, and PubMed ID#.

See post #3 for guidelines about listing Research entries.
 
If the full formal citations all fit, than do that. It will save space to omit submitted and in-draft manuscripts, which won't impact your application. (Instead, you might mention them after appropriate Secondary prompts and in future update letters, when they get accepted.)

If the full citation don't fit, it's OK to take shortcuts, even to the point of saying your authorship placement, truncated title, and PubMed ID#.

See post #3 for guidelines about listing Research entries.

Great, thanks!
 
-If an activity hasn't yet started, the program won't allow you to enter a future month.

-If you want to include the hours of a future activity that you are already engaged in, but keeping in mind that you won't be judged by future plans that could fall through, you can consider these options:

1) Use the Repeated feature to separate the Completed vs Future hours. This works if May 2016 is both your End Date for the Completed Hours and your Start Date for the future hours (you won't be permitted to enter and save a future start date that hasn't happened yet). Put the appropriate total in each Total Hours box. If you are graduating, say, May 2017, that is a reasonable end date to enter if you are sure you will stay involved with the activity for another year. August 2017 is the latest month you'd be allowed to enter. Include a conservative, in-good-faith guess on future hours for the second Total Hours box.

**Note that on June 1 you'll be able to enter June 2016 as the End Date for date range #1 and Start Date for date range #2, if you prefer.

2) Or, only list the Completed Hours in the Total Hours box using the appropriate Start and End Dates, then in the narrative box state that you plan to continue this activity from June 2016-May 2017 (or whatever) with a probable additional ?00 hours.

3) Or, do the same as in #2, but don't state anticipated Future hours, especially if there is any possibility they might not be completed. Just make a statement that you intend to continue with the activity for another X months.

I came into this topic to ask if you have any preference or advice regarding choosing option 1 or 2. On one hand, I know schools mostly only care about what you have done already, not what you will do. On the other hand, entering a # of hours directly into the form rather than the narrative increases the total # of hours you are reporting, which may assist with very preliminary screens (especially because I am 100% certain I will be doing research 40 hours/week and volunteering at least 8 hours/month up until med school matriculation).
 
I came into this topic to ask if you have any preference or advice regarding choosing option 1 or 2. On one hand, I know schools mostly only care about what you have done already, not what you will do. On the other hand, entering a # of hours directly into the form rather than the narrative increases the total # of hours you are reporting, which may assist with very preliminary screens (especially because I am 100% certain I will be doing research 40 hours/week and volunteering at least 8 hours/month up until med school matriculation).
Choice #1 expresses absolute certainty that those hours will be completed. Choice #2 acknowledges that "life happens" and prediction can be uncertain, (broken leg, mononucleosis, accidents, emergency surgery, parental or child issues, getting fired, desire to travel, are all events I've seen), but you sincerely hope to complete the planned hours. Go with what you think best.
 
1. If I have two distinct research labs that I have worked in should they be entered as two entries or would that look weird? I don't anticipate meeting the 15 entry limit so space is not really a concern.

2. Should I enter the job I secured for my gap year if I haven't started it yet? It will go from June 2016 to 2017. People have said to save this for secondaries. Does part of the
 
Do I have to write an explanation for my shadowing? Such as what I learned?
 
1. If I have two distinct research labs that I have worked in should they be entered as two entries or would that look weird? I don't anticipate meeting the 15 entry limit so space is not really a concern.

2. Should I enter the job I secured for my gap year if I haven't started it yet? It will go from June 2016 to 2017. People have said to save this for secondaries.
1) Each lab deserves its own entry.

2) If it hasn't started, don't enter it. If you start before the day you submit, and work for a brief period, entering it won't impact your application except to let schools know your tentative plan for employment.
 
I suggest you divide the two experiences by location, then blend the mix of experiences from before and after the promotion in MN, emphasizing the more interesting stab experience.

I followed your direction on how to describe this. Now, I'm unsure of how to enter the hours, as I have both my run of the mill ED volunteer hours (80), my stab room hours (60, ongoing), and future hours. Should I do this as a repeated activity and separate the normal ED hours, then the Stab hours, and the future hours? Or would I be better off combining the prior-to-stab and stab hours into one?
 
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So, I have a question. I did more than >100 of shadowing, and I feel like I learned a lot. I shadowed a palliative care physician, and it surprised me as to what people go through near the end of their life. I also shadowed endocrinologists, and am set on being a pediatric endocrinologist. So, can I split up the shadowing? I want to add a short explanation for both to give me 700 characters.
 
I followed your direction on how to describe this. Now, I'm unsure of how to enter the hours, as I have both my run of the mill ED volunteer hours (80), my stab room hours (60, ongoing), and future hours. Should I do this as a repeated activity and separate the normal ED hours, then the Stab hours, and the future hours? Or would I be better off combining the prior-to-stab and stab hours into one?
I think the Repeated use for ED plus Stab hours, then future hours in the second date span, would be fine.
 
So, I have a question. I did more than >100 of shadowing, and I feel like I learned a lot. I shadowed a palliative care physician, and it surprised me as to what people go through near the end of their life. I also shadowed endocrinologists, and am set on being a pediatric endocrinologist. So, can I split up the shadowing? I want to add a short explanation for both to give me 700 characters.
If you mean to use one space, give separate descriptions of each experience, with the separate hours. Total the hours in the Total Hours box. If you prefer to use two slots, that's fine too.
 
If you mean to use one space, give separate descriptions of each experience, with the separate hours. Total the hours in the Total Hours box. If you prefer to use two slots, that's fine too.

Thank you for your response. I was wondering what is your take on taking care of a relative? Many times, I had to babysit my sister, who has type one diabetes. I think that did take huge amount of time through all seven years. Is that worth mentioning as an activity? I did mention it as an interest to going into medicine in my PS.
 
I have one group of extracurriculars that I will be adding to my Work/Activities, and it's basically for all the RSO involvement I had on campus during UG. I plan to write a few sentences describing each one. Should I add contacts for each group? (There's 6 of them).
Also, for the total amount of hours, should I calculate hours for ALL of them as a total, and then maybe put after the descriptions, how many hours specifically was allocated towards this group?
 
I was wondering what is your take on taking care of a relative? Many times, I had to babysit my sister, who has type one diabetes. I think that did take huge amount of time through all seven years. Is that worth mentioning as an activity? I did mention it as an interest to going into medicine in my PS.
You may list it, but don't use a Volunteer designation. Instead, use an Other tag.
 
1) I have 3 published papers and 4 others in prep or submitted but not accepted yet, I made a submission called
"List of Published Publications" BUT I can't fit three full citations in the 700 character limit. I am first author on one of them but mid-author on the others. Wut do?

2) In regards to the 4 other papers, is it worth it to make another entry called "List of In Preparation Publications" and list those? Some of them may well be published like very soon with the next couple months and I don't want to omit them entirely from my application

3) Next with presentations, I have 11 different posters/presentations. 3 of which were at national conferences and the other 8 were at internal school conferences. Should I make two separate entries, one for national conferences and one for internal? If so, I can't git the 8 presentations in the 700 character limit, wut do?

4) Finally, I volunteered at a refugee camp in the third world the summer before freshman year of college. Can I add that?
1) It's fine to abbreviate the accepted manuscripts, rather than using formal citations: Mention your place in the authorship list, truncate the title, but still a sense of the content, and use PMID#, at the least. For names of a publication space, see page 2, post #60.

2) Not-yet-accepted manuscripts, if you feel compelled to include them, fit best in the affiliated Research entry. NOT in a Publications space. You have enough going for you that you don't need to fluff up your application with might-happen-but who-knows-for-sure stuff. They would better be put forward after acceptance, in a Secondary essay or in update letters (where allowed).

3) Read the research entry guidelines in post #3. National conference presentations are worth listing, but if you already shared that data with the world in a more prestigious format, like a pub, then just mention it in the same space as the Publication. The one's at school conferences could be mentioned in that same sentence, or omitted. As they are typically not very selective in who they invite (and are often compulsory) they add little to your application. If you choose to list them the way you suggest, it won't be wrong, but if you are appealing to schools on the basis of prolific research output, you may as well list your accomplishments in a way that will be respected by research-strong institutions. JMO.

4) Anything after HS graduation is fine to include.
 
1) I have one group of extracurriculars that I will be adding to my Work/Activities, and it's basically for all the RSO involvement I had on campus during UG. I plan to write a few sentences describing each one. Should I add contacts for each group? (There's 6 of them).
2) Also, for the total amount of hours, should I calculate hours for ALL of them as a total, and then maybe put after the descriptions, how many hours specifically was allocated towards this group?
1) Ideally, a Contact will be provided for each, to legitimize it.

2) Yes, after each description, put a subtotal of hours for that item alone. Total Hours adds all the hours in that space.
 
Hey guys! Is it ok, do you think, to use two non-medical related activities as apart of my three most meaningful? One would be volunteering at a free clinic, but the other two are truly my two other most meaningful (captain of my south asian dance team and a student orientation job I had). Or, should I throw in another medical one like shadowing, even though it's not as meaningful to me as one of the others?
 
Hey guys! Is it ok, do you think, to use two non-medical related activities as apart of my three most meaningful? One would be volunteering at a free clinic, but the other two are truly my two other most meaningful (captain of my south asian dance team and a student orientation job I had). Or, should I throw in another medical one like shadowing, even though it's not as meaningful to me as one of the others?
One medical and two-nonmedical as MM entries is fine.
 
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For non-medical most meaningful descriptions, should we tie them in to medicine/being a physician in some way?
 
So I am having trouble deciding how to classify my paid employment as not medical/clinical OR medical/clinical. I work within in a health network in the community health department. I have developed and coordinate a program that addresses the social determinants of health. I've also helped established a medical-legal partnership. I know it is not clinical, but an argument can be made for "medical." Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
 
I've presented at 20 conferences, about half of which were national/international conferences and the other half regional/internal symposia. If I were to list them one-by-one, it would be about 6500 characters total-- well over the character limit for the activity slot. Even if I only list the national/international presentations (all 1st author), that's about 3500 characters. Do you have any suggestions for listing them in a more condensed manner? Some do have repeated titles and author lists, just with different conference names
 
Hi Catalystic! Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions.

1) By the time I apply, I will only have 20 hours of shadowing with an Ophthalmologist. I have had plenty of other clinical experiences though where I was able to observe physicians (not direct shadowing though). I also did about 30 hours of physician observing through a program called medical explorers while I was in high school. Is this fine? I was also planning on mentioning that I will be shadowing more doctors throughout the summer.

2) For shadowing can I just list the doctors and their specialties? Or is it more commonplace to describe what you observed, and how that helped you understand the role of a physician better?

3) How do we site a poster presentation at a conference? Is it okay to just say that I presented this project at x conferences?

Many thanks! :)
 
So I am having trouble deciding how to classify my paid employment as not medical/clinical OR medical/clinical. I work within in a health network in the community health department. I have developed and coordinate a program that addresses the social determinants of health. I've also helped established a medical-legal partnership. I know it is not clinical, but an argument can be made for "medical." Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
For AMCAS purposes, if you are not interacting with current patients in a helpful way. It won't be looked on as Medical /Clinical.
 
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I've presented at 20 conferences, about half of which were national/international conferences and the other half regional/internal symposia. If I were to list them one-by-one, it would be about 6500 characters total-- well over the character limit for the activity slot. Even if I only list the national/international presentations (all 1st author), that's about 3500 characters. Do you have any suggestions for listing them in a more condensed manner? Some do have repeated titles and author lists, just with different conference names
An embarrassment of riches indeed. What if you concentrate on the ten, and group them so that similar title and author list are together, with a list of dates and conference names after each?

If any of the groupings had that data published, move the group to the Publications slot, not citing the title, just conference and date, saying "Same data presented at . . .".

Also, review post #425 above.
 
1) By the time I apply, I will only have 20 hours of shadowing with an Ophthalmologist. I have had plenty of other clinical experiences though where I was able to observe physicians (not direct shadowing though). I also did about 30 hours of physician observing through a program called medical explorers while I was in high school. Is this fine? I was also planning on mentioning that I will be shadowing more doctors throughout the summer.

2) For shadowing can I just list the doctors and their specialties? Or is it more commonplace to describe what you observed, and how that helped you understand the role of a physician better?

3) How do we site a poster presentation at a conference? Is it okay to just say that I presented this project at x conferences?
Thank you for numbering your questions:

1) My purpose here is not to critique your activities, as that is better left to WAMC threads. HS shadowing would be better discussed in the PS, as a part of your journey to medicine. I expect you to gain very different perspectives from shadowing in the adult years, compared to that done as a teen.

That said, is it possible for you to carve out the physician observation (and the hours, so they aren't double counted) from whatever other activity it was associated with, and list it as Shadowing?

2) Just list the shadowing, physician (or say, "Staff Physicians"), and date range. General description isn't necessary, but you could mention a highlight that excited you. You can mention insights gained if you like, but don't necessarily have to. See another example page 2, post #58.

3) Title of poster (or an approximation of it, if it's too long), author list (or your place on the list), conference(s) and date(s), who presented the poster. Give credit if it wasn't you. Put the most prestigious location first and use the header for some of that information for the first one.
 
So I have decided that my research experience has been one of the meaningful experiences. I have a publication under my name, and was thinking the research and publication should be in different entries. My question is which one would be better to have as the meaningful experience? The research itself or publication?
 
So I have decided that my research experience has been one of the meaningful experiences. I have a publication under my name, and was thinking the research and publication should be in different entries. My question is which one would be better to have as the meaningful experience? The research itself or publication?
I agree with using two entries, provided the publication was not in a college journal. The research itself should be the Most Meaningful.
 
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What would be an appropriate entry for the "total hours" box for a poster presentation? Should I just put 1 hour or estimate the total work that went in to getting the data for the poster? The time I spent in the lab contributing to the poster through experiments and making figures is included in a "research lab" entry so it kind of seems like double dipping to cite that time commitment in two different entries.
 
What would be an appropriate entry for the "total hours" box for a poster presentation? Should I just put 1 hour or estimate the total work that went in to getting the data for the poster? The time I spent in the lab contributing to the poster through experiments and making figures is included in a "research lab" entry so it kind of seems like double dipping to cite that time commitment in two different entries.
Put one hour, or the time you presented the poster. You are right that one should not double dip one's hours for AMCAS.
 
When adcoms get my app, they will see my ECs in the order of the dates they started, correct? So it makes no difference what order I enter them in?
 
When adcoms get my app, they will see my ECs in the order of the dates they started, correct? So it makes no difference what order I enter them in?
Schools can sort activities in various ways, which you have no control over. It's correct that it makes no difference how you order them.
 
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An embarrassment of riches indeed. What if you concentrate on the ten, and group them so that similar title and author list are together, with a list of dates and conference names after each?

If any of the groupings had that data published, move the group to the Publications slot, not citing the title, just conference and date, saying "Same data presented at . . .".

Also, review post #425 above.

So, would you recommend including one full poster citation and following that with "also presented at X,Y,Z conference" including the year in each conference title?

And thanks for the suggestion regarding publications! That's a great tip.
 
So, would you recommend including one full poster citation and following that with "also presented at X,Y,Z conference" including the year in each conference title?
That's what I had in mind. Since they are all first-authored, you might consider using that as part of the Name you give the space (which could save characters in the narrative).

One example of a full, formal poster citation format (others available on googling). (Note the decreasing order of prestige) :

Hsu, K. T., & Mendez, E. J. (2013, April). Suicidal ideation in incarcerated young adults. Poster session presented at the Annual Convention of the Southern Psychological Association, Savannah, GA. Also at Tennessee Downstate Psychology Soc (2012) and Memphis Medical Assoc (2011, Feb) with Abuhouli, C.B.

But this could be truncated, stripped of punctuation, expanded, or rearranged to suit your space needs. Play with it and see what you can squeeze in.
 
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For one of my EC groups I was involved with on campus, I worked as the conference committee chair, where I was in charge of setting up and all the oversight regarding our annual campus conferences we hosted. Should this be listed as EC or leadership-not listed elsewhere?

Thanks again, @Catalystik
 
For one of my EC groups I was involved with on campus, I worked as the conference committee chair, where I was in charge of setting up and all the oversight regarding our annual campus conferences we hosted. Should this be listed as EC or leadership-not listed elsewhere?[/USER]
If you want to carve out the leadership component because it's strong enough to stand alone, want/have more space to discuss it, and will list the date span of the leadership component alone (without the general membership time), then use Leadership. Otherwise, use Extracurricular, list the entire date span of your experience with that organization, and title the activity to show both components, eg maybe, Research Mentoring Group General Member and Conference Committee Chair.
 
Hey, I have a question about the work/activities section. Under the "Total Hours" if we did a presentation, do we include just the amount of hours we spent presenting on poster day, or all the hours leading up to the poster doing research (in which case may be redundant since I've listed that in another entry)?
 
Hey, I have a question about the work/activities section. Under the "Total Hours" if we did a presentation, do we include just the amount of hours we spent presenting on poster day, or all the hours leading up to the poster doing research (in which case may be redundant since I've listed that in another entry)?
Just list the time spent presenting. You do not want to double count the hours.
 
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Should I list reading scientific magazines as a hobby? I like to read about the politics of basic science and pretty much most controversial and editorial pieces, so much so that I have a personal subscription to Nature. I don't want to come off as a research robot, though research will be a big component of my application.
 
Should I list reading scientific magazines as a hobby? I like to read about the politics of basic science and pretty much most controversial and editorial pieces, so much so that I have a personal subscription to Nature. I don't want to come off as a research robot, though research will be a big component of my application.
It's fine to mention this as a hobby. If you list other hobbies in the same space with a different focus, you will appear to have more balanced interests.
 
I attended a national biology conference with my research advisor. Our lab presented a poster at the conference; I am the last (5th) author on the poster. The first author was presenting, but I was present at the presentation as well and answered a couple of questions. I currently have this listed under my involvement with the lab as 'Attended xxx conference; 5th author of poster presented at xxx conference; assisted with poster presentation'. Is this an appropriate way to list the experience? Or should I not even mention the presentation, since the first author was technically the presenter?
 
I grouped all 4 physician shadowing experiences into one entry and included relevant info for each in the narrative (just as the front page of this thread advised). I don't have enough room to describe each of the experiences, but two were fairly meaningful and I wanted to write 1-2 sentences about what I saw/learned from them. Would it be seen as strange if I didn't describe the other two (outside of titles, specialty, hours, etc.)?

Thank you!
 
I attended a national biology conference with my research advisor. Our lab presented a poster at the conference; I am the last (5th) author on the poster. The first author was presenting, but I was present at the presentation as well and answered a couple of questions. I currently have this listed under my involvement with the lab as 'Attended xxx conference; 5th author of poster presented at xxx conference; assisted with poster presentation'. Is this an appropriate way to list the experience? Or should I not even mention the presentation, since the first author was technically the presenter?
I think that your listing looks fine. If you have the space, you might consider moving it to a Posters/Publications space instead of keeping it (presumably) under a Research tab.
 
I grouped all 4 physician shadowing experiences into one entry and included relevant info for each in the narrative (just as the front page of this thread advised). I don't have enough room to describe each of the experiences, but two were fairly meaningful and I wanted to write 1-2 sentences about what I saw/learned from them. Would it be seen as strange if I didn't describe the other two (outside of titles, specialty, hours, etc.)?
Nope. What you've done sounds fine.
 
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