2015-2016 University of Colorado Application Thread

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JulianBashirMD said:
Yeah it's confusing for sure. I actually still have my secondary application from last year and here was the exact prompt that I had:

Part A: The School of Medicine regards the diversity of an entering class as an important factor in serving the educational mission of the school. Please write about things in your background that have been important to your development or that have been challenging to you on your path to a career in medicine. These could include your socioeconomic status, culture, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, sexualizing identity, and work or life experiences. Explain how these have influenced your goals and preparation for a career in medicine. Part B: Please write about the “fit” between your experiences and goals and the University of Colorado School of Medicine. If you are a reapplicant, please include information on how your application has changed. Please answer both parts in this single essay, limiting it to 2000 words.

And the prompt for the Colorado Springs branch was:

Please submit a short statement (400 words or less) regarding your interest in the Colorado Springs Branch. You may address characteristics of the Branch that would be a fit for your strengths, experiences, and/or career plans. You may also note your ties to or interest in Colorado Springs or other similar communities.

But the fact that there were so many answers to this question definitely indicates that they were messing about with it throughout the season and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it was different this year.
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When did you get that one last year?
 
I hope the prompt won't change this year. 2013-2014 cycle had a different essay apparently

2013 – 2014

The way in which medicine is practiced in this country has evolved over time. Significant societal and technological changes have occurred over the past 50 years, for example. Please comment on this phenomenon, what you think the near future holds and which values (or principles) the medical profession should retain. In your discussion, you may wish to explore ethics, economics, access to healthcare or any topic you consider relevant. (2500 char)

http://www.prospectivedoctor.com/university-of-colorado-school-of-medicine-secondary/
 
Just received the invitation for their secondary.

Required prompt:
Part A. The School of Medicine regards the diversity of an entering class as an important factor in serving the educational mission of the school. Please write about things in your background that have been important to your development or that have been challenging to you on your path to a career in medicine. These could include your socioeconomic status, culture, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, sexual identity, and work or life experiences. Explain how these have influenced your goals and preparation for a career in medicine.

Part B. Please write about the “fit” between your experiences and goals and the University of Colorado School of Medicine. If you are a reapplicant, please include information on how your application has changed.

Please answer both parts in this single essay. Limit the essay to 1500 characters, including spaces (approximately 300 words).




Optional:
Please submit a short statement regarding your interest in the Colorado Springs Branch. You may address characteristics of the Branch that would be a fit for your strengths, experiences, and/or career plans. You may also note your ties to or interest in Colorado Springs or other similar communities. Limit the essay to 1500 characters, including spaces (approximately 300 words).
 
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Secondary received. Not sure how OOS-friendly CU is, but here are the prompts.

Required Colorado Essay
Part A. The School of Medicine regards the diversity of an entering class as an important factor in serving the educational mission of the school. Please write about things in your background that have been important to your development or that have been challenging to you on your path to a career in medicine. These could include your socioeconomic status, culture, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, sexual identity, and work or life experiences. Explain how these have influenced your goals and preparation for a career in medicine.

Part B. Please write about the “fit” between your experiences and goals and the University of Colorado School of Medicine. If you are a reapplicant, please include information on how your application has changed.

Please answer both parts in this single essay. Limit the essay to 1500 characters, including spaces (approximately 300 words).


Also, if you express interest in the Colorado Springs campus, the following prompt appears:
Please submit a short statement regarding your interest in the Colorado Springs Branch. You may address characteristics of the Branch that would be a fit for your strengths, experiences, and/or career plans. You may also note your ties to or interest in Colorado Springs or other similar communities. Limit the essay to 1500 characters, including spaces (approximately 300 words).
 
Is it sad that I feel accomplished for receiving a secondary from a school that doesn't screen? NOPE +1, good luck everyone!
 
breezy16 said:
+1

The instructions on word counts are super ambiguous / confusing. The prompts look like they'll be fun, though!
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1500 characters with spaces is the hard rule it looks like-- they estimate that this is about ~300 words (ended up being 250 for me).

MicrogliaMan said:
Is it sad that I feel accomplished for receiving a secondary from a school that doesn't screen? NOPE +1, good luck everyone!
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Not at all 😀, plus a lot of screens from other schools are very basic number screens (<7 subscores, <3.0 gpa etc)
 
Mr Magpie said:
1500 characters with spaces is the hard rule it looks like-- they estimate that this is about ~300 words (ended up being 250 for me).
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Did you write for the CU-Unite? There's absolutely no way the entire prompt (all the parts) can be obtained in 300 words.
 
I just submitted the main required essay. I definitely agree with you there (I don't even think the main prompt is that easy to tackle under 1500 chars)-- I thought you weren't sure if they wanted 1500 chars vs 300 words.

Good luck!
 
Anyone else having issues with their website and/or submitting the fee?
 
Mr Magpie said:
1500 characters with spaces is the hard rule it looks like-- they estimate that this is about ~300 words (ended up being 250 for me).
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Yeah, this seems like a joke trying to answer 2 prompts (3 if you are re-applicant) into 1500 characters, which is nowhere near 300 words unless you write like a 5 year old.
 
Mr Magpie said:
Yes, I had issues when using chrome and firefox for submitting the fee. Internet explorer worked though!
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Ah hah! Got it to work on Chrome! I tried IE earlier and it didn't help much. I think their site was just inundated with influx of traffic due to the secondary... >.<
 
GoGreen2014 said:
Chrome > FireFox > Opera > Safari > IE
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Haha, I'm no IE fan, but does seem to work well with government websites and finicky payment portals... at least in my anecdotal experience.
 
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so are people going with 300 words or 1500 characters? 300 words is doable. 1500 characters, not so much
 
GoGreen2014 said:
Sorry about that behemoth of a picture...
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Hahaha it's all good, but real talk, Chrome > Firefox?

Firefox is my baby. Ol'reliable

lemmonhead said:
so are people going with 300 words or 1500 characters? 300 words is doable. 1500 characters, not so much
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It's 1500 characters regardless, which they estimate is 300 words. It's definitely tough.
 
If I am a reapplicant in general but not to Colorado would you recommend including improvements to my application? They do not accept updates throughout the year and I recently started working as an ED scribe and as a peer mentor. However, neither of these items are on my AMCAS application and I didn't do as much as I would have liked this past year to improve my app. Suggestions appreciated.

I was leaning toward including reapplicant info because they seem to like persistence.
 
lemmonhead said:
If I am a reapplicant in general but not to Colorado would you recommend including improvements to my application? They do not accept updates throughout the year and I recently started working as an ED scribe and as a peer mentor. However, neither of these items are on my AMCAS application and I didn't do as much as I would have liked this past year to improve my app. Suggestions appreciated.

I was leaning toward including reapplicant info because they seem to like persistence.
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I would save the space. You really need it to address the main part of the essay.

As for your updates you can try and spin them into a dedication to education/clinical care motif, but that might be hard seeing as you just started these experiences.

GoGreen2014 said:
Ahhh.. Chrome is more polished , Firefox is more customizeable. Its really a crapshoot there.
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Agreed. I use chrome the majority of the time, but if I need more security (for third party websites--or really anything that's not gmail, sdn, amazon, news, social media etc) I hop on firefox. NoScript is a really great addon they have that pretty much shuts down anything fishy when browsing about.
 
Hey, does anyone know whether CU waives the fee for FAP applicants? I read that last year they waived it automatically after receiving the secondary app, but I don't see any clear instructions about that on their website.. ??
 
I think it noted something about it currently being processed.
fortheloveofbob said:
Hey, does anyone know whether CU waives the fee for FAP applicants? I read that last year they waived it automatically after receiving the secondary app, but I don't see any clear instructions about that on their website.. ??
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GoGreen2014 said:
I'm in the same boat as you, I didn't due to character restrictions. At 100$ this puppy comes down to 6.6 cents a letter.
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Okay that blew my mind!

I wonder why it's worth even applying to this school as an OOS applicant.
Out-of-state stats:
Verified Applications: 5,488
Interviewed: 376
Matriculated: 64

Then again there are a lot of similar statistics for OOS applicants at several schools.
 
They accept far more OOS than the matriculant number would seem to indicate but the tuition is very high.
 
Anyone else applying to UNITE? How are we supposed to answer that huge prompt (which is over 1500 characters, lol) in such a short space? In case you haven't seen it:
  • A. Describe the type of urban community health project that would be of greatest interest to you. Try to be as specific as possible regarding a particular culture or population of patients you are interested in and a topic you would like to study.
    • 1. Reasons for your interest in the CU-UNITE Urban Underserved track.
    • 2. If you have had a prior experience in an urban underserved community either volunteer, work-related, and/or personal, describe how this has impacted your decision to apply to this track.
  • B. Describe how you plan to incorporate urban underserved health care into your career following completion of your schooling.
  • C. You are a student spending your first summer working in an urban-underserved, uninsured community in Denver. You are on a field visit and notice a car that appears to be abandoned, but then on closer observation you notice that there are small children asleep in the back seat wearing dirty clothes with left over fast food on the floor boards. You notice a strong odor of urine and feces coming from the car. A woman is sitting under a tree nearby and is also poorly dressed and unkempt and appears to be in her last trimester of pregnancy. She has visible lesions on her legs and arms. Identify the needs that you see in this family from the perspective of a student working with urban underserved uninsured populations. Please describe how you would attempt to address the needs of this family both in context of their potential health issues and social situation.
 
willdew said:
Anyone else applying to UNITE? How are we supposed to answer that huge prompt (which is over 1500 characters, lol) in such a short space? In case you haven't seen it:
  • A. Describe the type of urban community health project that would be of greatest interest to you. Try to be as specific as possible regarding a particular culture or population of patients you are interested in and a topic you would like to study.
    • 1. Reasons for your interest in the CU-UNITE Urban Underserved track.
    • 2. If you have had a prior experience in an urban underserved community either volunteer, work-related, and/or personal, describe how this has impacted your decision to apply to this track.
  • B. Describe how you plan to incorporate urban underserved health care into your career following completion of your schooling.
  • C. You are a student spending your first summer working in an urban-underserved, uninsured community in Denver. You are on a field visit and notice a car that appears to be abandoned, but then on closer observation you notice that there are small children asleep in the back seat wearing dirty clothes with left over fast food on the floor boards. You notice a strong odor of urine and feces coming from the car. A woman is sitting under a tree nearby and is also poorly dressed and unkempt and appears to be in her last trimester of pregnancy. She has visible lesions on her legs and arms. Identify the needs that you see in this family from the perspective of a student working with urban underserved uninsured populations. Please describe how you would attempt to address the needs of this family both in context of their potential health issues and social situation.
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I will be in the program next year and had the same prompts. Just try to evenly space it and be concise. It is very manageable if you avoid fluff.
 
claduva94 said:
I will be in the program next year and had the same prompts. Just try to evenly space it and be concise. It is very manageable if you avoid fluff.
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Can you be in more than one track? I want to do UNITE, but also want to do the research track. Unsure what to do.
 
willdew said:
Can you be in more than one track? I want to do UNITE, but also want to do the research track. Unsure what to do.
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If I recall correctly I don't think so but I could be wrong. Applying is by no means binding though so you could conceivably apply to both and see if you can swing it!
 
willdew said:
Can you be in more than one track? I want to do UNITE, but also want to do the research track. Unsure what to do.
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Like claduva I don't remember for sure but I vaguely remember during my interview presentations they said that you had to pick one. I did, however express interest in both the research and international medicine tracks in my secondary application and interviews so if you have an interest in two tracks and can explain that interest well why not express it.
 
willdew said:
Anyone else applying to UNITE? How are we supposed to answer that huge prompt (which is over 1500 characters, lol) in such a short space? In case you haven't seen it:
  • A. Describe the type of urban community health project that would be of greatest interest to you. Try to be as specific as possible regarding a particular culture or population of patients you are interested in and a topic you would like to study.
    • 1. Reasons for your interest in the CU-UNITE Urban Underserved track.
    • 2. If you have had a prior experience in an urban underserved community either volunteer, work-related, and/or personal, describe how this has impacted your decision to apply to this track.
  • B. Describe how you plan to incorporate urban underserved health care into your career following completion of your schooling.
  • C. You are a student spending your first summer working in an urban-underserved, uninsured community in Denver. You are on a field visit and notice a car that appears to be abandoned, but then on closer observation you notice that there are small children asleep in the back seat wearing dirty clothes with left over fast food on the floor boards. You notice a strong odor of urine and feces coming from the car. A woman is sitting under a tree nearby and is also poorly dressed and unkempt and appears to be in her last trimester of pregnancy. She has visible lesions on her legs and arms. Identify the needs that you see in this family from the perspective of a student working with urban underserved uninsured populations. Please describe how you would attempt to address the needs of this family both in context of their potential health issues and social situation.
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It's so impossible! And it's kinda stupid to answer everything separately like the ask? I answered 1,2, and B in the same paragraph. Do you think they will care?
 
Secondary received 7/29. Interesting that they shortened the essay questions down to 1500 characters. Going to make the broad prompts a little more difficult to answer. Good luck to all applying here.
 
As an Idaho resident I have no choice but OOS. I picked schools based on what they offer and how I would fit. Of course I took into consideration what I have to offer. Just turned in my primaries (little late) but I appreciate all the updates!
 
willdew said:
Can you be in more than one track? I want to do UNITE, but also want to do the research track. Unsure what to do.
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Hello! I'm an MS2 in the Research Track, you cannot be in more than one track. I would suggest applying for CU-UNITE and then letting the chips fall where they may. If you get into CU-UNITE and you would still like to do research there are plenty of opportunities to do research on campus without being in the research track. I'd say there are around 40 or so students in our class that are actively doing research and of that half are actually in the research track.

Hope that helps.
 
nellbot2000 said:
Hello! I'm an MS2 in the Research Track, you cannot be in more than one track. I would suggest applying for CU-UNITE and then letting the chips fall where they may. If you get into CU-UNITE and you would still like to do research there are plenty of opportunities to do research on campus without being in the research track. I'd say there are around 40 or so students in our class that are actively doing research and of that half are actually in the research track.

Hope that helps.
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Do you know if MSTP students can still be in one of the tracks? Like LEADS, Global Health, or Women's Care?
 
Anyone else still waiting for a secondary?
 
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C-Money said:
Do you know if MSTP students can still be in one of the tracks? Like LEADS, Global Health, or Women's Care?
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Unfortunately, I'm not sure if MSTP students can be in a track.
 
Verified 7/27, secondary received 7/29, submitted today OOS.
 
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