2016-2017 Albany Medical College Application Thread

[WedgeDawg]

Space reserved for prompt.

Please post the essays or lack thereof (in addition to word or character counts) in this thread and tag me and/or @Ismet and we'll update the OP.

Good luck to everyone applying!

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[ChrisMack390]

"Describe yourself"

Sheesh.

 

[ChrisMack390]

"Any inconsistencies in gpa, mcat, etc" Would an unbalanced MCAT score be the place to explain this - for example: 129, 123, 128, 129

"Please explain any gaps in your post graduate history" - Does this include applicants that just graduated within the past year?

I would think yes to both, especially the latter.

 

[aelms1525]

I haven't received the application yet (waiting on my MCAT) but I'm prewriting from the prompts last year. For this question "Tell us one thing about yourself that would help the Admissions Committee determine if you should be admitted to our program. (1000 char)" would it make more sense to write about my ties to upstate ny and why I'm interested in serving that population, or to write about the special masters program I completed last year?

Thanks!

 

[partypantss]

I haven't received the application yet (waiting on my MCAT) but I'm prewriting from the prompts last year. For this question "Tell us one thing about yourself that would help the Admissions Committee determine if you should be admitted to our program. (1000 char)" would it make more sense to write about my ties to upstate ny and why I'm interested in serving that population, or to write about the special masters program I completed last year?

Thanks!

The first one sounds like a good answer IMO. Although I wouldn't really emphasize that they should take you because of "ties." More the "interested in serving that population" part.

 

[aelms1525]

Okay thanks for the tip!

 

[nathetallycat]

Do they screen applicants to decide who gets a secondary? Or does everyone get one? Their website doesn't really specify..

 

[sdhere1234]

Where are you guys finding secondaries? From last year's school thread?

 

[partypantss]

Where are you guys finding secondaries? From last year's school thread?

Yes.

 

[baratheonfire]

I have a 3.47 GPA and 520 MCAT (130,130,130,130)
I really think I should address my GPA but the problem is that I have no explanation besides "I tried to do well in this class, I didn't"

 

[yellowbottlesippin]

I have a 3.47 GPA and 520 MCAT (130,130,130,130)
I really think I should address my GPA but the problem is that I have no explanation besides "I tried to do well in this class, I didn't"

Are you at an elite school? Or were your courses challenging? It is okay to point out a few courses that you did especially bad in. OR maybe freshman year was rough, so you took time to get adjusted to college. Do you have an upward trend that you can talk about (got more and more adjusted to college)?

Just some ideas.

 

[Andante12]

If your struggles were mainly at the beginning of your college career and you have an upward trend, you might talk about having to adjust your study habits to the bigger volume of material or the difficulty of your exams, and then explain how this helped you become more responsible for your own learning/more independent. On the other hand, a downward trend in my understanding might make some schools a bit more wary, but if the courses you took later really did challenge you more than your earlier ones (i.e. the courses themselves were more advanced) and you did fairly well in the early ones, you might be able to use the same kind of explanation above, and even if you didn't do very well in them, hopefully you can say your grade improved over the semester and mention that. But if your GPA is consistently like that throughout, I'm not sure what to advise you, but think back to why you performed the way you did, without assigning blame to outside causes or wording it to make it sound like that. I think med schools would like it if they saw you can own up to your shortcomings honestly and address ways you can improve yourself.

 

[LabTech12]

Secondary received!

 

[herrgray]

Secondary received!

Congrats! Mind posting prompts for those of us still waiting?

 

[yellowbottlesippin]

Congrats! Mind posting prompts for those of us still waiting?

Please, please, be the same questions.

 

[LabTech12]

No screen, last year's secondaries started arriving July 16th



1. If you have previously applied to medical school, but were unsuccessful, how have you spent your time since then? (1,000 characters)

2. Describe yourself: (1,000 characters)

3. Please explain any inconsistencies in your university, graduate, or professional school academic performance and/or MCAT scores. (1,000 characters)

4. Has your college or university, graduate or professional school attendance been interrupted for any reason? If yes, please explain. Also, please explain any gaps in your post-graduate history. (1,000 characters)

5. Tell us one thing about yourself that would help the Admissions Committee determine if you should be admitted to our program. (1,000 characters)

6. In the "Work and Activities" section on your AMCAS application, you provided the following list of experiences. Please select the experience that you feel has been the most meaningful in influencing your desire to pursue a career in medicine, explain why, and also describe what aspect of that experience best equips you to make an impact in the medical profession. (1,000 characters)

Same as last year

 

[yellowbottlesippin]

Same as last year

Yay! Pre-wrote these! Guess I will til Monday for the secondary now.

 

[yellowbottlesippin]

Secondary received just now.

 

[Phoodie]

Secondary received!


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[Inept]

Secondary received just now.

Same

 

[mdfuture1]

Secondary received

 

[Inspector JacquesClouseau]

Secondary received

+1!

 

[greaterwing]

Tell us one thing about yourself that would help the Admissions Committee determine if you should be admitted to our program. (1,000 characters)
What a strange question, how did you guys approach this question?

 

[Iwannaknow]

Tell us one thing about yourself that would help the Admissions Committee determine if you should be admitted to our program. (1,000 characters)
What a strange question, how did you guys approach this question?

I think the describe yourself is harder -___-

 

[meddesire]

Hey guys, do they wait for the MCAT to send out secondary prompts?
And is there a deadline for the secondaries?

 

[Ayy_MadScientist]

Submit this secondary today...

Hardest essay prompts yet...

 

[narvik2016]

Submit this secondary today...

Hardest essay prompts yet...

I have seriously put this off because of "Describe yourself".... seriously!? Save that for interview day please, AMC.

 

[neurobio23]

I have seriously put this off because of "Describe yourself".... seriously!? Save that for interview day please, AMC.

Mine ended up sounding like a Bio for an online dating site...

 

[littledreamer]

How unbalanced does your MCAT have to be before you explain it? I'm pretty unbalanced but my lowest section score is still a 125.....

Also, perhaps this is dumb question but for the "select the most meaningful experience that influenced you to pursue medicine," I'm gravitating towards picking an experience that I *didn't* select as most meaningful on AMCAS. ......is that acceptable?

It's an experience that occurred between high school and college, and as such, I didn't want to mark it on AMCAS as most meaningful and opted to spotlight some things I did in college that I felt were most meaningful *overall*......but in my decision to *start* pursuing medicine? That's a bit different for me.....thoughts anyone?

 

[Iwannaknow]

How unbalanced does your MCAT have to be before you explain it? I'm pretty unbalanced but my lowest section score is still a 125.....

Also, perhaps this is dumb question but for the "select the most meaningful experience that influenced you to pursue medicine," I'm gravitating towards picking an experience that I *didn't* select as most meaningful on AMCAS. ......is that acceptable?

It's an experience that occurred between high school and college, and as such, I didn't want to mark it on AMCAS as most meaningful and opted to spotlight some things I did in college that I felt were most meaningful *overall*......but in my decision to *start* pursuing medicine? That's a bit different for me.....thoughts anyone?

I think they literally want those three. They just want to see how the hours add up and then make it easier to match up letters.

 

[littledreamer]

I think they literally want those three. They just want to see how the hours add up and then make it easier to match up letters.

Wait, I thought it was only one we were supposed to be writing about? Also, one of my most meaningful experiences doesn't have a letter so there's that......I placed a brief line about it in my AMCAS app. I did research in a lab in a foreign country & language barriers are a fun, fun thing. Sorry if I'm being a nuisance, I'm just a bit confused!

 

[yellowbottlesippin]

Wait, I thought it was only one we were supposed to be writing about? Also, one of my most meaningful experiences doesn't have a letter so there's that......I placed a brief line about it in my AMCAS app. I did research in a lab in a foreign country & language barriers are a fun, fun thing. Sorry if I'm being a nuisance, I'm just a bit confused!

Hey,

So I actually talked about an activity that was not my most meaningful on my AMCAS app. Reason being I just started. I had called them, and they said that would be COMPLETELY fine and some cases even more preferred. You want to interest them and the best way to that is to avoid repeating yourself. I would totally go for it. I put a disclaimer before my essay similar to this:

"My most meaningful clinical experience:"

Good luck!

 

[Iwannaknow]

Wait, I thought it was only one we were supposed to be writing about? Also, one of my most meaningful experiences doesn't have a letter so there's that......I placed a brief line about it in my AMCAS app. I did research in a lab in a foreign country & language barriers are a fun, fun thing. Sorry if I'm being a nuisance, I'm just a bit confused!

Hey there. For some reason, I thought this was the UCSD thread. My bad! lol. Do what the poster above me says. Disregard haha.

 

[yellowbottlesippin]

Hey there. For some reason, I thought this was the UCSD thread. My bad! lol. Do what the poster above me says. Disregard haha.

It happens. Once I posted and pretty much argued that secondaries were coming out for University of Wisconsin School of Medicine thread, when I was talking about the Medical College of Wisconsin. I could swear I was about to get banned haha.

 

[coltsorbroncos]

Anyone know the maximum number of LORs that can be submitted?

 

[narvik2016]

Anyone know the maximum number of LORs that can be submitted?

I believe 4 is max.

 

[coltsorbroncos]

I believe 4 is max.

Thanks

 

[mdtobe1111]

Hey,

So I actually talked about an activity that was not my most meaningful on my AMCAS app. Reason being I just started. I had called them, and they said that would be COMPLETELY fine and some cases even more preferred. You want to interest them and the best way to that is to avoid repeating yourself. I would totally go for it. I put a disclaimer before my essay similar to this:

"My most meaningful clinical experience:"

Good luck!

thanks for this! was trying to figure out how to reword one of my 3 most meaningful .. without it sounding too similar!

 

[Procyonarc]

Any current medical students at Albany willing to read over my secondaries? Would really appreciate it

 

[sidskool]

Anyone submit the secondary awhile ago and still experiencing no change in letters of recommendation received by Albany on your application status? I submitted and assigned letters 7/8 but on the status from their portal it says "1 of 1 have been received" and that my application is incomplete. Anyone experiencing the same?

 

[medicalmayhem1]

Has your college or university, graduate or professional school attendance been interrupted for any reason? If yes, please explain. Also, please explain any gaps in your post-graduate history.

I would call the office about this but unfortunately its Sunday and I would really like to get this submitted. Would you guys say "gaps in your post-graduate history" would be like a gap year between college and med school? And by explain do you think they want to know why you took a gap year or more like what you did during it?

 

[yellowbottlesippin]

Has your college or university, graduate or professional school attendance been interrupted for any reason? If yes, please explain. Also, please explain any gaps in your post-graduate history.

I would call the office about this but unfortunately its Sunday and I would really like to get this submitted. Would you guys say "gaps in your post-graduate history" would be like a gap year between college and med school? And by explain do you think they want to know why you took a gap year or more like what you did during it?

Personally, I think there is never a wrong answer for these questions if you have had a non-traditional experience in college. That being said, I would talk about your gap year and in that, I would explain what you did and why you did both.

 

[SirCardiac]

For the prompt to address any inconsistencies with grades/MCAT, would it be wise to mention my C+ grade in biochem? This was the only grade I received below a B and it was due to extenuating circumstances (involved hospitalization).

 

[Andante12]

For the prompt to address any inconsistencies with grades/MCAT, would it be wise to mention my C+ grade in biochem? This was the only grade I received below a B and it was due to extenuating circumstances (involved hospitalization).

I would say so.

 

[AudreyShaw]

Primary submitted 6/7. Contacted the school today, and they said they sent out secondary on 7/11! Resend didn't work either, so have to switch to another email. Anybody has the same experience?

 

[narvik2016]

For people who are complete... does it just say 1 out of 1 received for LORs, even if you have more than one? Just making sure the 1 represents all LORs, not just one letter haha

 

[Mellophone5]

For people who are complete... does it just say 1 out of 1 received for LORs, even if you have more than one? Just making sure the 1 represents all LORs, not just one letter haha

mine says the same and i have more than one too. i'm assuming that means they have all of them

 

[narvik2016]

mine says the same and i have more than one too. i'm assuming that means they have all of them

Thank you!!

 

[mdfuture1]

For people who are complete... does it just say 1 out of 1 received for LORs, even if you have more than one? Just making sure the 1 represents all LORs, not just one letter haha

I sent all my letters and in the status says 1/1

 

[Espressso]

Character count for these prompts, anyone?