15 Work Activities (AMCAS): How to choose which (of many) to list & whether to group them together?

[Gauss44]

How did you choose which 15 work/activities to list on your application? When, in your opinion, should one group activities/work experiences together or leave them separate?

What are ADCOMs looking for in these 15 items?

#########Short version is above, long version below##########

Me: I've held several full time jobs while in college, founded a few small companies, organized many events, and had experiences like growing up in foster care and tutoring siblings, doing human rights activism, and changing local laws. Oh yeah, I was on the first diversity planning committee of a major corporation, once worked for a senator, train emergency department volunteers, and held offices in may school clubs while playing in band and sports too. Oh, and I made it into college on a scholarship at the age of 16 without ever graduating high school. I beat the odds as a poor, unadopted foster child in the middle of nowhere, being the first from my district to even make it to college. Naively double majored in my worst subjects as an uninformed freshman to become a more well-rounded person, and later realized the consequences on my grades (which are back in md range). Won competitions (in school and between schools) in math and science for my entire life beginning in elementary school. etc. I don't know which would look better to ADCOMs or when grouping stuff together is a good/bad idea. I suspect I'm not the only one wondering about this. I've read other threads but none that I could find (with more than a couple replies) ask specifically what I'm wondering about. How did you choose? Impact, time spent, most relevant to medicine, a show of skill/character, ???

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[KindofBlue]

Short answer: group them.

Long answer:
Choose those that you've spent the most time and give them separate entries. Or you could go with the ones that have the most significance to you. The rest, group. The back story could be used in your essay.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...ork-activities-tips-thread-2014-2015.1062704/

 

[Gauss44]

And what about experiences like being hospitalized yourself after a car accident (the experience of being a patient)? That's not an extracurricular, but it could be very meaningful and relevant to becoming doctor? Does something like that belong in the 15 work/activities section?

 

[reyrey777]

Anything with at least 100 hours usually deserves its own slot. If 2 activities are pretty similar, then I would group them regardless of how many hours, and then explain further in the description.

 

[reyrey777]

And what about experiences like being hospitalized yourself after a car accident (the experience of being a patient)? That's not an extracurricular, but it could be very meaningful and relevant to becoming doctor? Does something like that belong in the 15 work/activities section?

At best, it is fodder for your personal statement. But it definitely doesn't belong in your activities section. Who would you even put down for your reference? How many hours would you list?

 

[NickNaylor]

Do not overthink this. Already in this thread I see completely arbitrary suggestions based on nothing (100 hours deserves its own slot? says who?). Use common sense to highlight the things you think are strengths in your application and/or demonstrate your fitness to enter medical training and become a physician. A few suggestions:

-The point of including these activities in your app is two-fold. The first and, in my view, more important function is to give you an opportunity to demonstrate to admissions committees that you have some understanding of what medicine is. You also have the opportunity to talk about activities that you think have prepared you to embark on medical training and that you have the skills and abilities necessary to become a physician. I'm intentionally being broad here because there is no secret checklist of things to do, though browsing SDN for 10-15 minutes will give you a sense of what the most common activities are. The effectiveness of this also depends on how you present and discuss your activities. If you can demonstrate that you have seriously thought about what it means to be a physician and can tangibly point to ways in which you have developed the skills and abilities mentioned above, you'll do fine. This requires careful and thoughtful reflection. It's not something you just do in an afternoon and then submit your AMCAS. Apart from writing a bad PS, doing a crappy job of discussing your activities is one of the ways you can really shoot yourself in the foot. Think about why you did the things you're listing in your app, why they're important to you, and how they relate to your interest in medicine. You shouldn't necessarily discuss these things in your app, but it's important to think about these things so that you can come up with a way to discuss the activity in a way that will actually be helpful to you as an applicant.

-The second purpose of ECs is to allow admissions committees to learn more about "you." This doesn't mean that you should include pointless, tangential activities in your application. Instead, if there are things that you've done or experienced that may not be directly related to medicine but otherwise reveal something about your character, intrinsic motivation, etc. that shows that you have what it takes to be a physician, then it'd be worth it. You should not be including activities that attempt to portray some kind of life difficulty or disadvantage. That isn't what the activities are for - again, unless they directly relate to your decision to pursue medicine. Those activities are more appropriate for the disadvantaged essay if you choose to write one. I personally don't think something like a hospitalization - even if prolonged - is appropriate to list in your activities section. If that sort of thing is going to be mentioned at all, I'd do it in the PS.

-Group things together that aren't worthy of being discussed on their own and can be categorized in a way that makes sense. As an example, most people use an "honors/awards" activity to list achievements that they want mentioned in their app but aren't worthy of spending x characters discussing. If you have multiple short-term shadowing experiences, that might also be a good reason to group things together. Again, use common sense. If there are activities that can be categorized into something but which you feel are significant enough to discuss on their own, then feel free to do so. For example, you might have a clinical experience that was particularly meaningful to you but also use a general "clinical experiences" activity to discuss other less important clinical experiences.

-Recognize and understand that the people reading your app have no idea who you are. You are 1 packet of paper out of of thousands they will see over the course of 4-6 months. You must be explicit in your activity descriptions and spell things out very clearly. This can be both a blessing and a curse. Activities that you think aren't very impressive may come across as so on your app depending on how you present them. Likewise, important activities they were extremely formative for you may not come across that way if you do a crappy job of talking about them. Note that I'm not at all suggesting that you should lie or otherwise misconstrue what you did in your activities. However, you have the advantage of being able to present things in the way you want to, but you must be prepared to defend that presentation in the interview. This is why lying or otherwise being untruthful is a bad idea. You may not get found out on your app, but you run the risk of being "discovered" in the course of interviews.

-Unless the title of the activity makes it inherently clear what you did and what was involved, I would suggest providing a very quick (1-2 sentences) summary of what that activity involved and what exactly you did. In my view, the remainder of your characters should be spent linking that activity to your pursuit of medicine in some way or, as above, revealing something about yourself that you think is germane to becoming a physician.

There really are no hard and fast rules to completing this section apart from ensuring that everything you include has a clear relation to either 1) your decision to pursue medicine or 2) demonstrating skills medical schools are looking for prospective students to possess. I would be weary of any advice that offers clear black and white answers to things. Use the ECs section as an opportunity to "prove" what you discussed in your PS in a more in-depth fashion. Your PS will likely talk broadly about why you want to be a physician and perhaps provide some examples of situations or experiences that led to the decision. The activities section allows you to dive into those experiences and further expand on them. It's not the place to list every little thing that you did in the hopes of demonstrating that you "did stuff." That strategy will likely not lead to the success you're looking for.

Good luck.