2008-2009 Univ South FL Medical (USF) Secondary Application Thread

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smgfan

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Are you currently, or have you ever been, charged with or subject to disciplinary action for scholastic (such as plagiarism or cheating) or any other type of behavioral misconduct at any educational institution? Yes No If yes, please provide the details. 2.
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Have you ever been placed on probation at a college/professional school? Yes No If yes, please provide the details. 3. If you have experienced academic difficulties, please explain the situation(s) and how it was resolved. (Also explain all grades less than a "B" or any "withdrawal" on your transcripts). 4.
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Are there any criminal charges pending or expected to be brought against you? Yes No If yes, please provide the details. 5.
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Were you previously interviewed by USF? Yes No 6.
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If interviewed were you placed on the wait list? Yes No 7. If you applied previously, briefly describe how you have strengthened your candidacy. 8. If you do not intend to spend the academic year in school, please explain how you plan to spend your time before medical school starts next August. 9. Enter information about your extracurricular activities that were NOT already provided on your AMCAS application. A. Medical Volunteering. B. Community Service. C. Leadership Activity. D. Research. E. Employment.
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My gpa is fine, do I really have to explain one B-? How do I politely and professionally say "physics sucked and my professor didn't speak english?":p
 
Please describe how your family background and life's experiences have come together to shape the person you are today and how this will allow you to contribute to the life and diversity of the USF College of Medicine. (1.5 pages)
 
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shemarty said:
Please describe how your family background and life's experiences have come together to shape the person you are today and how this will allow you to contribute to the life and diversity of the USF College of Medicine. (1.5 pages)
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There is also a section that reads the following: Enter information about your extracurricular activities that were NOT already provided on your AMCAS application. There are boxes for each of the following categories: 1. Med Volunteering 2. Comm Service 3. Leadership 4. Research 5. Employment.

My question is, what exactly are they looking for? More specific detail about your responsibilities in each activity? A description of what you learned from the experience? More detail or more self-reflective responses, really not sure how to approach this section...and wondering if the 2,000 character limit need be even remotely approached.

Thanks so much guys for sharing your thoughts! :)
 
Did anyone not receive the secondary app for USF yet? Is it sent via e-mail? Thank you.
 
It was sent via e-mail about a week, maybe a week and a half, ago.
 
shemarty said:
Please describe how your family background and life's experiences have come together to shape the person you are today and how this will allow you to contribute to the life and diversity of the USF College of Medicine. (1.5 pages)
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The first part of this essay is essentially my PS. How should I approach this? 1) rewrite my ps as the answer to this question repeating what I have already told them
2) breifly mention general themes from my PS and refer to it
3) other
 
smgfan said:
How do I politely and professionally say "physics sucked and my professor didn't speak english?":p
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There is no way to do this either politely or professionally, so if you're smart, you don't do it at all. If anyone ever asks about the B-, you talk about what *you* could have done differently that you think could have helped you earn a higher grade (ex. go to TA hours, hire a tutor, etc.). Even if you're right that the prof was awful, blaming the prof just comes across like you are making excuses and makes you look bad. Seriously, don't go there, dude.
 
ignore this. am doing administrative stuff
 
C+ orgo 1, C- phys 1 , B- Cell Molec, D in orgo 2 first time then retook and got B-, B- Ecology.... Hope I don't exceed a character limit explaining these grades :oops:
 
umean2tellme said:
C+ orgo 1, C- phys 1 , B- Cell Molec, D in orgo 2 first time then retook and got B-, B- Ecology.... Hope I don't exceed a character limit explaining these grades :oops:
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I had bunch of Ws to explain and didn't exceed the character limit.

Is anyone in grad school? doesn't two letters seem a bit excessive for a place that you've not been at very long and take very few classes?
 
How are you guys sizing your picture to be 2 inches by 3 inches? My computer only sizes by pixels. Help please!
 
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Heathrow6 said:
How are you guys sizing your picture to be 2 inches by 3 inches? My computer only sizes by pixels. Help please!
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When i did mine i just went to edit menu and it said "resize" thats wut i used. Worst case scenario just send them a real passport pic.
 
redrumi said:
The first part of this essay is essentially my PS. How should I approach this? 1) rewrite my ps as the answer to this question repeating what I have already told them
2) breifly mention general themes from my PS and refer to it
3) other
Click to expand...

Last year there was 1 USF applicant who essentially copied his AMCAS essay for his secondary essay. We tanked his application because he couldn't even bother to make the effort to come up with an original secondary essay. My advice to you is to not copy any part of a previous essay. You can maybe use the same themes if you need to, but make it original.
 
QofQuimica said:
There is no way to do this either politely or professionally, so if you're smart, you don't do it at all. If anyone ever asks about the B-, you talk about what *you* could have done differently that you think could have helped you earn a higher grade (ex. go to TA hours, hire a tutor, etc.). Even if you're right that the prof was awful, blaming the prof just comes across like you are making excuses and makes you look bad. Seriously, don't go there, dude.
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I agree to not place blame on anyone other than yourself for any deficiencies in your application. On the same hand, saying what you could have done differently doesn't really help either because adcoms hear the same excuses over and over and over and over. Trust me. Unless you have some unusual circumstances like a serious health issue no excuse is going to make a poor grade look better.
 
just submitted -- can't wait to hear back!
 
smgfan said:
My gpa is fine, do I really have to explain one B-? How do I politely and professionally say "physics sucked and my professor didn't speak english?":p
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when i wrote this out, i made sure to include a sentence or two on the lesson that i learned from getting this grade. such as better time management in the future or whatever. this way they see that yeah you got a bad grade but you learned a lesson and are going to do better in the future.
 
i submitted my secondary on 8/24 and my letters were uploaded on virtualevals on 8/25. now im just waiting to hear back too. hopefully it will be soon-im SO impatient. :eek:
 
drelizabeth292 said:
i submitted my secondary on 8/24 and my letters were uploaded on virtualevals on 8/25. now im just waiting to hear back too. hopefully it will be soon-im SO impatient. :eek:
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I'm waiting to hear about the interview as well. I applied early decision. I called this morning and they said those notifications would be sent out tonight or early Wednesday morning. Dunno if that includes non-early decision people or not...
 
Heathrow6 said:
How are you guys sizing your picture to be 2 inches by 3 inches? My computer only sizes by pixels. Help please!
Click to expand...

I spent a few hours trying to figure that out. I would resize it on my computer, email it to a few of my other computers to see the size it came out as in the email, and it was different on all 3 of them. It seems like the amount of definition in the monitor viewing the pic results in changes in the size. I ended up just sending them a pic in the mail. Dam computer easily outsmarted me.
 
NoMoreAMCAS said:
I spent a few hours trying to figure that out. I would resize it on my computer, email it to a few of my other computers to see the size it came out as in the email, and it was different on all 3 of them. It seems like the amount of definition in the monitor viewing the pic results in changes in the size. I ended up just sending them a pic in the mail. Dam computer easily outsmarted me.
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i was having the same problems! it was so frustrating. each time i tried to rescale it, it kept cutting off half my face. yeah-thats totally the impression i was shooting for! :laugh:
 
drelizabeth292 said:
i was having the same problems! it was so frustrating. each time i tried to rescale it, it kept cutting off half my face. yeah-thats totally the impression i was shooting for! :laugh:
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Haha, yeah, there is no 2x3 option. I was searching the internet, doing everything I could. But there was just no size that came out as 2x3 on every computer. And I didn't want to have them opening a pic that fills their screen, might come off as a little vain lol.
 
interview: check!

woohoo!

now what...?
 
wait you got an interview invite today? When were you complete?
 
For those of you trying to make your picture into the proper dimensions, I know it's like totally 1995, but just use MS Paint. Open your picture with Paint and go to "Image-->Attributes." You can then click on the "inches" option and see where you currently stand. Then you can just go to "image-->stretch/skew" and adjust the percentages until you get it down to size. It will probably take a little playing around with but you'll eventually get it down to where it needs to be (or at least close). I know it's a tad archaic and there's probably a better way to do it, but at least it does the trick.
 
Waht is the character limit on the essay?
 
BeastyM said:
Waht is the character limit on the essay?
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2000 characters on the first two short answer ones. and the long essay doesnt have a character limit . it says 1-1.5 pages long.
 
ugh!!! im still awaiting to get the email saying that says im complete. maybe if they didnt want papers mailed to different addresses this process would be a little faster. im so impatient :laugh:
 
So I was wondering what everyone put for this? Extra details about their EC's or did anyone leave it blank (taboo I know...)? I'm not sure if I could really elaborate any more since there was a decent amount of space on the AMCAS to explain everything...Thanks!
 
Crb717 said:
So I was wondering what everyone put for this? Extra details about their EC's or did anyone leave it blank (taboo I know...)? I'm not sure if I could really elaborate any more since there was a decent amount of space on the AMCAS to explain everything...Thanks!
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i didnt have anything else to add since i had already included everything in my AMCAS. they dont want you to repeat anything, so if you have other activities then i would just list them.
 
Any news from USF?!?!? When are Florida schools (aside from UF) going to start giving out invites?
 
Do you think they'll frown upon my essay being a half to three-quarters of a page instead of 1-1.5 pages long? I wrote a great essay, but it's not at least a page long. Does anyone know if that truly matters? :confused:
 
Gators239 said:
Any news from USF?!?!? When are Florida schools (aside from UF) going to start giving out invites?
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Most of the MD schools are still in the EDP phase right now. In a week or two you'll probably see the boards get lit up with interviews.
 
smartypants85 said:
do you think they'll frown upon my essay being a half to three-quarters of a page instead of 1-1.5 pages long? I wrote a great essay, but it's not at least a page long. Does anyone know if that truly matters? :confused:
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quality> quantity
 
have there been a lot of interview invites and acceptances? i've only seen a few people with acceptances.
 
they only interview on mondays and they interview a good chunk of ppl each day. I dont know if they accepted any other ppl.
 
I interviewed on the first day. There were probably around 15 to 18 people in my group that day. They interview every monday, the committee meets the tuesday of the next week and generally they will give you a decision right after that; so probably a nine day turnaround, the fastest that I've heard of so far.

Good luck to those applying there, USF is a fantastic school with a lot to offer to its students.
 
I got an e-mail asking me to call their office about my app...has anyone else gotten one? i'm wondering what to expect when I call...


Thanks
 
that is quite exciting. thanks for the reply.
 
Go bulls!!!!!!

Interview coming up, USF is my #1 choice for sure! I can't wait! Moffitt is wonderful, the med school is amazing and I absolutely love Tampa. Crossing my fingers :)
 
So I received a phone call from the admissions office today asking me to call them back. I did not receive any emails or other communication from them. I have been complete there for a little while now and am OOS. Does anyone have an idea what this is about? I was thinking that if it were bad news that they wouldnt bother calling me and would just shoot me an email or snail mail letter.
 
rockydoc said:
So I received a phone call from the admissions office today asking me to call them back. I did not receive any emails or other communication from them. I have been complete there for a little while now and am OOS. Does anyone have an idea what this is about? I was thinking that if it were bad news that they wouldnt bother calling me and would just shoot me an email or snail mail letter.
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I think this is an interview invite, I got an email saying "please call"
 
Thanks for the replies. :)

I called today and was invited for an interview. This was actually totally unexpected since I am OOS. But I'll take it!
 
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