Unique EC's needed for top schools?

[PhaCha]

Hello! I am applying this cycle with decently high stats (3.97 cGPA, 520 mcat) and am having trouble making a balanced school list. Initially, I planned to apply to many top 10s and 20s. Thinking about my extracurriculars, I have a good amount of shadowing, research, clinical volunteering, and non-clinical volunteering, and I believe I can write well about them. Though, I don't know if any of my experiences themselves necessarily stand out or are unique enough to differentiate me from other applicants, and one of my advisors even told me that I will have a hard time applying to top schools because my app isn't "unique". Can something like this deem me uncompetitive for the best schools, or does it matter more how I write about these activites and my secondaries? Overall trying to figure out if it is even worth applying to these types of schools (I will still apply to many mid tiers). Thanks!

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[mmchick]

You are the one who has to do the deep soul searching to figure out what makes you unique amongst your peers. Surely, there is something about your background that is different from your friends, colleagues, journey into medicine that you should underscore and make central to your application. All successful applications should have a central theme which is, "I've done these things XYZ like many other applicants, but here is what I can bring to my community + your school". It could be familial/ethnic background, marginalized identities, failures turned successes, personal illness (tentatively), a unique experience or life changing event, travel history, etc.

Whatever it is, it may not seem exciting or unique to you at first thought, but these types of things do make you unique against others because they are experiences or aspects of you that others wouldn't know about had they not met you. Pick your thing and run with it. You'll be fine applying to T10-20s as you should.

 

[Goro]

Hello! I am applying this cycle with decently high stats (3.97 cGPA, 520 mcat) and am having trouble making a balanced school list. Initially, I planned to apply to many top 10s and 20s. Thinking about my extracurriculars, I have a good amount of shadowing, research, clinical volunteering, and non-clinical volunteering, and I believe I can write well about them. Though, I don't know if any of my experiences themselves necessarily stand out or are unique enough to differentiate me from other applicants, and one of my advisors even told me that I will have a hard time applying to top schools because my app isn't "unique". Can something like this deem me uncompetitive for the best schools, or does it matter more how I write about these activites and my secondaries? Overall trying to figure out if it is even worth applying to these types of schools (I will still apply to many mid tiers). Thanks!

Unique? No. Lots of volunteering? Yes. Being passionate about it also helps.

 

[GoSpursGo]

I agree with above--the differentiating factor really isn't the activities themselves as everyone more or less checks the same boxes as everyone else. It's the passion that you're able to convey and how you're able to connect what you have done to your eventual career goals.

And at the end of the day, when you're a highly competitive applicant duking it out with other highly competitive applicants, it can come down to dumb luck. Your app lands on a hard reviewer's desk rather than an easy one's, or your reviewer is having a bad day when they pick up your app. So make sure you apply to a good range of schools and not only T10-20s, and be happy with wherever you get accepted.

 

[sarcasmrules]

You are the one who has to do the deep soul searching to figure out what makes you unique amongst your peers. Surely, there is something about your background that is different from your friends, colleagues, journey into medicine that you should underscore and make central to your application. All successful applications should have a central theme which is, "I've done these things XYZ like many other applicants, but here is what I can bring to my community + your school". It could be familial/ethnic background, marginalized identities, failures turned successes, personal illness (tentatively), a unique experience or life changing event, travel history, etc.

Adding onto this, it's not about the uniqueness of the experience, it's about the unique impact any experience, even a generic one has on you: how it helped to shape your goals in medicine, what issues the experience made you want to address as a physician, and/or if the experience has a personal impact on you.

Volunteering with cancer patients is likely to have a bigger impact on an application who had cancer or knows someone who has had cancer. Likewise, volunteering with fostered children is likely to have a bigger impact on someone who was in foster care.

You don't necessarily need a personal connection. These are just examples of how it's more about the unique impact an experience has on you than how unique it is. As @Goro said, their BS detectors are good and I have some idea, but out of respect for his wishes, I won't disclose them. Just be genuine.

TL;DR, stop looking at your ECs as checkboxes and look at them as a means to show what you're passionate about. This is how unique essays are born.

 

[EdgeTrimmer]

You need to be passionate about one or two things (research, service or leadership) and show that with good essays and strong LORs, not necessarily lot of hours as some suggest.

 

[Moko]

Hello! I am applying this cycle with decently high stats (3.97 cGPA, 520 mcat) and am having trouble making a balanced school list. Initially, I planned to apply to many top 10s and 20s. Thinking about my extracurriculars, I have a good amount of shadowing, research, clinical volunteering, and non-clinical volunteering, and I believe I can write well about them. Though, I don't know if any of my experiences themselves necessarily stand out or are unique enough to differentiate me from other applicants, and one of my advisors even told me that I will have a hard time applying to top schools because my app isn't "unique". Can something like this deem me uncompetitive for the best schools, or does it matter more how I write about these activites and my secondaries? Overall trying to figure out if it is even worth applying to these types of schools (I will still apply to many mid tiers). Thanks!

You do not need to be unique, but you do need to demonstrate sustained excellence and passion for *something*. It is the rare applicant who truly has something "unique" in their application. Just my thoughts.

 

[LizzyM]

An activity beyond what everyone else lists and one that has no relationship to medicine/research/community service can be the hook. Partly it is how you write about it (I still remember a "drama queen" who was responsible for curating the films and snacks for movie nights in her dorm). I've seen people who have described jewelry making, repairing and selling vintage audio equipment on eBay, home carpentry projects, and so forth. Did you learn to bake sourdough bread or soemething else during the pandemic year? (who didn't?) Do you have an unusual hobby or play an instrument that is not very common?

 

[PhaCha]

An activity beyond what everyone else lists and one that has no relationship to medicine/research/community service can be the hook. Partly it is how you write about it (I still remember a "drama queen" who was responsible for curating the films and snacks for movie nights in her dorm). I've seen people who have described jewelry making, repairing and selling vintage audio equipment on eBay, home carpentry projects, and so forth. Did you learn to bake sourdough bread or soemething else during the pandemic year? (who didn't?) Do you have an unusual hobby or play an instrument that is not very common?

Thanks for the advice! I don't have anything extraordinary like that to be honest, but one thing I love is teaching and I have done tons of tutoring just for fun beyond what my extracurriculars show. For example, ever since middle school, especially in college, I would take a few hours out of my week to tutor a friend, acquaintance, or even strangers through a session on campus or through hosting group sessions for classes I have taken before. Do you think something like this would be worth emphasizing as an activity or in the personal statement and would perhaps stand out if presented correctly?

 

[LizzyM]

Thanks for the advice! I don't have anything extraordinary like that to be honest, but one thing I love is teaching and I have done tons of tutoring just for fun beyond what my extracurriculars show. For example, ever since middle school, especially in college, I would take a few hours out of my week to tutor a friend, acquaintance, or even strangers through a session on campus or through hosting group sessions for classes I have taken before. Do you think something like this would be worth emphasizing as an activity or in the personal statement and would perhaps stand out if presented correctly?

You want someone to say, "this sounds like someone I'd like to meet, that I'd like to have lunch with, that I'd like to hang out with." Tutoring people for fun doesn't quite do that for me, YMMV depending on who reads your application.

Show us that you have a life outside of academics and that might be a shared interest with someone on the committee or at least something we'd like to hear more about.

 

[PhaCha]

You want someone to say, "this sounds like someone I'd like to meet, that I'd like to have lunch with, that I'd like to hang out with." Tutoring people for fun doesn't quite do that for me, YMMV depending on who reads your application.

Show us that you have a life outside of academics and that might be a shared interest with someone on the committee or at least something we'd like to hear more about.

Makes a lot of sense, thank you so much!

 

[Osteosaur]

Even at my midtier school interviews I saw people who started businesses, charities, had published as a first author...

This is just me editorializing, but:

Like at that level, where everyone has big numbers, they want a menagerie. They want the kid whose a research star. The girl who won an equestrian competition. The D-list youtube star. Maybe its intentional or maybe its just the fact that once numbers hit a certain point its just a matter of being extraordinary that differentiates you.

This isn't the kind of thing you can fabricate. You need to live a cool life.

 

[theendisnigh]

Thanks for the advice! I don't have anything extraordinary like that to be honest, but one thing I love is teaching and I have done tons of tutoring just for fun beyond what my extracurriculars show. For example, ever since middle school, especially in college, I would take a few hours out of my week to tutor a friend, acquaintance, or even strangers through a session on campus or through hosting group sessions for classes I have taken before. Do you think something like this would be worth emphasizing as an activity or in the personal statement and would perhaps stand out if presented correctly?

If you do want to go this route, I would emphasize the fact that healthcare providers have a constant teacher-student relationship. Everyone is always learning from someone: providers to nurses, nurses to techs, medics to EMTs, colleagues to colleagues, heck providers to patients on their health, you gotta be a good teacher to educate people on their health and educate others throughout your life. The fact that you intrinsically love to do that is very admirable. I am always amazed by the amount of EMTs and medics I run across who are so happy and eager to teach others.

 

[PhaCha]

If you do want to go this route, I would emphasize the fact that healthcare providers have a constant teacher-student relationship. Everyone is always learning from someone: providers to nurses, nurses to techs, medics to EMTs, colleagues to colleagues, heck providers to patients on their health, you gotta be a good teacher to educate people on their health and educate others throughout your life. The fact that you intrinsically love to do that is very admirable. I am always amazed by the amount of EMTs and medics I run across who are so happy and eager to teach others.

Absolutely! This is along the lines I was thinking but you put it into words really well. I was thinking about putting this in the personal statement but honestly think it is not exciting enough in that context. Do you think putting it as an activity and elaborating using most significant remarks makes the most sense? Thanks!

 

[LizzyM]

Absolutely! This is along the lines I was thinking but you put it into words really well. I was thinking about putting this in the personal statement but honestly think it is not exciting enough in that context. Do you think putting it as an activity and elaborating using most significant remarks makes the most sense? Thanks!

Have you done any formal teaching, tutoring or TA'ing? There is a slot for that. You could add in the description that you have also done this informally beginning back in middle school because you enjoy helping others understand the material you have mastered.

This isn't a subsitute for listing a hobby or two but don't misunderstand me and thing that it is not a valuable activity of interest to the adcoms.

 

[sarcasmrules]

Rather than focus on finding a unique activity, find what you are passionate about and go about it in a unique manner. This will make you stand out much better than doing something unique that doesn't really fit into your application's overall narrative.