2017-2018 Case Western Reserve University

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Space reserved for prompt.

Please post the essays or lack thereof (in addition to word or character counts) in this thread and tag one of the pre-allo mods (WedgeDawg, Ismet, Lucca, or gyngyn) so we can update the OP.

Good luck to everyone applying!

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If anyone has questions about Case, M2 here -- feel free and I can try to answer.
 
If anyone has questions about Case, M2 here -- feel free and I can try to answer.

Hi, I already submitted but I'm just wondering how strong you think my chances are without any research.

OOS from CA, ORM. 3.96 cgpa, 3.93 sgpa. 517 MCAT

I have decent ECs (300 hours clinical experience, recently hired part time medical assistant, some other nonclinical volunteering), but not research experience at all. I have been in contact with a training hospital and it sounds like they are on board with letting me do some clinical research there, but that won't start until August. For what its worth, i am actually pretty interested in what they're doing and would be putting in close to 20 hours a week once i start there. Appreciate it!
 
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Hi, I already submitted but I'm just wondering how strong you think my chances are without any research.

OOS from CA, ORM. 3.96 cgpa, 3.93 sgpa. 517 MCAT

I have decent ECs (300 hours clinical experience, recently hired part time medical assistant, some other nonclinical volunteering), but not research experience at all. I have been in contact with a training hospital and it sounds like they are on board with letting me do some clinical research there, but that won't start until August. For what its worth, i am actually pretty interested in what they're doing and would be putting in close to 20 hours a week once i start there. Appreciate it!

While Case appreciates research and it is indeed required during the curriculum, you do not have to have research to be accepted (at least that is what the administration says). I have classmates that have never done research before. I think, overall, Case is looking for (1) people who can academically succeed, and (2) people who fit in with the school's culture, which emphasizes working well with others and self-directed learning. So, I don't think the research part will affect you. If you get an interview you can always say that you are interested in it and you're trying to line up some research for august.
 
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Anyone else feeling weird explaining their research in detail especially results that have not been published?
 
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Can any successful applicants provide some guidance as to what they wrote about for the optional prompt?

"Is there any further information that you wish to share with the Admissions Committee? This optional response will only be considered by the University Program. OPTIONAL"

Does anyone know the character limit? Should I write about diversity, or about why I chose CWRU?
 
Hey all,

I'm the developer for the CWRU secondary application. While I do read this thread, I don't answer direct messages. Send any tech support problems to [email protected].

I also want to point out how important it is that you add [email protected] to your email's contact list or white-list it from a spam filter. Last year, Hotmail in particular was excessively aggressive about blocking emails from our secondary, and there's little we can do to get an automated spam filter to stop blocking us from our side.
 
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Just received the secondary! So excited!

@Lucca Here are the essays for the University Track:
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Required Essay: Greatest Challenge
The admissions committee is interested in gaining more insight into you as a person. Please describe a significant personal challenge you have faced, one which you feel has helped to shape you as a person. Examples may include a moral or ethical dilemma, a situation of personal adversity, or a hurdle in your life that you worked hard to overcome. Please include how you got through the experience and what you learned about yourself as a result.
Please limit your response to 1 page (about 3,500 characters), and leave a blank line between paragraphs. If the 3,500 character recommendation is exceeded, your essay WILL still be saved in its entirety.

Required Essay: Research
Please describe the hypothesis of your research, why the methods were selected to answer that hypothesis, your results and interpretation of your results with respect to future findings. If you have not participated in research or scholarly work, please indicate so in the text area below.
Please limit your response to 1 page (about 3,500 characters), and leave a blank line between paragraphs. If the 3,500 character recommendation is exceeded, your essay WILL still be saved in its entirety.

Required Essay: Small Group Essay
If you were working on a small group project and you thought that another student wasn't carrying his/her load, how would you handle it?Please limit your response to 300-1000 characters, and leave a blank line between paragraphs. If the 1000 character recommendation is exceeded your essay WILL still be saved in its entirety.

Optional: Additional Information Essay (University Program Only)
Is there any further information that you wish to share with the Admissions Committee? This optional response will only be considered by the University Program.

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I'm applying to the College Track too, so I'll put those over in the CCLCM thread :)
 
We have started sending out invites to our secondary. We send --Bootsandspooky is wasting no time beating me to my own post.

We send them out in batches to help avoid getting caught by spam filters. Everyone that we've received the primary AMCAS application from should get their secondary invite within a week.

New this year is the "Secondary Invite Status" tab on the front page. If you think that you should have received an invite and have not yet gotten one, enter your AMCAS email there and it will tell you your invite's status. This will let you know if we are still waiting on AMCAS data to send you the invite, or if we already did and a spam filter likely blocked it.
 
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We have started sending out invites to our secondary. We send --Bootsandspooky is wasting no time beating me to my own post.

We send them out in batches to help avoid getting caught by spam filters. Everyone that we've received the primary AMCAS application from should get their secondary invite within a week.

New this year is the "Secondary Invite Status" tab on the front page. If you think that you should have received an invite and have not yet gotten one, enter your AMCAS email there and it will tell you your invite's status. This will let you know if we are still waiting on AMCAS data to send you the invite, or if we already did and a spam filter likely blocked it.
I get really excited; it's like Christmas morning each time I get a secondary :D Thank you for your work on the secondary portal and for providing helpful information here! The Secondary Invite Status is a nice touch.
 
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What's the opinion on the "optional essay"? Am I screwed if I don't complete it?
 
Anyone know how strict they are on the one page limit? As in do we have to hit one page or do they just simply want us to get close?
 
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Anyone else feeling weird explaining their research in detail especially results that have not been published?
Asking this same question myself... I think I'm going to ask my research mentor about it. Also, can anyone post the secondary link here so we can check the "Secondary Invite Status" tab?
 
Asking this same question myself... I think I'm going to ask my research mentor about it. Also, can anyone post the secondary link here so we can check the "Secondary Invite Status" tab?
Gotchu iApply CWRU School of Medicine
There's a tab where you enter your email and they tell you if you've gotten the invite yet.
For research, I'm describing a previous project that's been accepted for an abstract. Otherwise I think your plan to talk to your research mentor is best.

Anyone know how strict they are on the one page limit? As in do we have to hit one page or do they just simply want us to get close?
Personally I think it will be easiest to just stick to the 3500char limit; it's more objective. It looks like they're flexible anyway as it says you can still save your work if you exceed this limit.
 
Wow I'm really impressed with the secondary invite status program! I checked on a whim and it said I was queued up to be sent but that they'd send it immediately and then I got it! Very cool.
 
Gotchu iApply CWRU School of Medicine
There's a tab where you enter your email and they tell you if you've gotten the invite yet.
For research, I'm describing a previous project that's been accepted for an abstract. Otherwise I think your plan to talk to your research mentor is best.


Personally I think it will be easiest to just stick to the 3500char limit; it's more objective. It looks like they're flexible anyway as it says you can still save your work if you exceed this limit.
So I talked to my mentor, and she was also super hesitant to disclose that much detail about my project... a whole page on the hypothesis, methods, results, analysis? That's basically everything, and my data hasn't been published. On the other hand, there's an option to say you don't have research experience. I could instead say I'm not able to go too in detail, but I think this would come off in a bad way. :bang:
 
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So I talked to my mentor, and she was also super hesitant to disclose that much detail about my project... a whole page on the hypothesis, methods, results, analysis? That's basically everything, and my data hasn't been published. On the other hand, there's an option to say you don't have research experience. I could instead say I'm not able to go too in detail, but I think this would come off in a bad way. :bang:

I ended up just focusing on data that has been published and elaborated on how my project stems from those results in some detail.
 
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When discussing our research projects, if we provide background information, does anyone know if it's conventional to include external sources at the bottom of our response?
 
Also curious about the research project question - I have a few projects I have worked on that I could definitely discuss, but I assume that for the sake of this question it is best for me to go into detail on one of them from start to finish? Should I still mention some general details of the other projects I worked on or would it be better to just isolate it to that one?

EDIT: Also, how technical are we allowed to get? Normally I leave most of the details out but this question seems to be asking for the full picture
 
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does anyone know if I can apply to both the University and College Programs if I only picked the University program on the primary? I know there's an option to select which programs you want to apply to on the secondary, but I just want to confirm...
 
does anyone know if I can apply to both the University and College Programs if I only picked the University program on the primary? I know there's an option to select which programs you want to apply to on the secondary, but I just want to confirm...
I dont even remember there being an option on the primary app....I'd like to know this as well because i dont even remember clicking anything on the primary
 
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does anyone know if I can apply to both the University and College Programs if I only picked the University program on the primary? I know there's an option to select which programs you want to apply to on the secondary, but I just want to confirm...
I dont even remember there being an option on the primary app....I'd like to know this as well because i dont even remember clicking anything on the primary
There is no option to select it on the primary - everything is on the secondary. No worries!
 
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There is no option to select it on the primary - everything is on the secondary. No worries!
Perfect! I really couldn't remember the primary, but the PDF I saved says MD program, so that's why I was unsure. Thanks to both of you for clearing it up!
 
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anyone know if a "why Case Western" essay would be good for the additional info essay? A couple schools advised against it on SDN or twitter, but cant find anything on case...
 
For the research prompt, if you volunteered in a lab but did not actively participate in the research part of it, should we still discuss it?
 
Did y'all use up all 3000 char for your adversity essay?
 
I've had multiple research experiences on my application, however one of them has been for 2+ years, and I've discussed it pretty extensively in both my personal statement and experiences section (MM). Would it be better to use a different research project I've worked on, even though those were summer projects?
 
For the research prompt, if you volunteered in a lab but did not actively participate in the research part of it, should we still discuss it?
Same question, I'm just a volunteer and I'll be second author, but I feel like most of the decision making was not mine.
 
Posting to get on this thread. Particularly if they're strict about 2 weeks (which, judging by the posts here, they're not), I'll have to start this one very soon...
 
Anyone having trouble accessing the interview scheduling panel/calendar?
 
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You should be able to see the interview calendar for scheduling now.
 
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.
 
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For the research prompt, if you volunteered in a lab but did not actively participate in the research part of it, should we still discuss it?

Also interested to hear opinions on this. I can describe the bigger project but it is not done and my part in it is purely lab rat type


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
 
I've had multiple research experiences on my application, however one of them has been for 2+ years, and I've discussed it pretty extensively in both my personal statement and experiences section (MM). Would it be better to use a different research project I've worked on, even though those were summer projects?

I think that if you feel like you've said everything that needs to be said about the project, then talk about something else. But if there is more that you got out of it from the more technical research methods part of the project then I'd say it's fine to keep talking about it. I had multiple also but I didn't go in depth on any of them so I picked the one that I felt like I learned the most from.
 
I think that if you feel like you've said everything that needs to be said about the project, then talk about something else. But if there is more that you got out of it from the more technical research methods part of the project then I'd say it's fine to keep talking about it. I had multiple also but I didn't go in depth on any of them so I picked the one that I felt like I learned the most from.
so you only picked one to talk about for the research essay question??
 
I think that if you feel like you've said everything that needs to be said about the project, then talk about something else. But if there is more that you got out of it from the more technical research methods part of the project then I'd say it's fine to keep talking about it. I had multiple also but I didn't go in depth on any of them so I picked the one that I felt like I learned the most from.

Yeah I actually did the opposite on my PS and MM, I spent most of the time reflecting on the process, what it meant, and how I've grown from it. If I were to elaborate for Case Western, it would probably just be about the technical methods.

I think I'll just talk about my first research project!
 
so you only picked one to talk about for the research essay question??

Ya, I briefly mentioned the others in my intro basically just to serve as a reminder that I discuss them in my AMCAS activities, but the vast majority of my essay was in depth on one project.

Yeah I actually did the opposite on my PS and MM, I spent most of the time reflecting on the process, what it meant, and how I've grown from it. If I were to elaborate for Case Western, it would probably just be about the technical methods.

I think I'll just talk about my first research project!

Good call! Best of luck!
 
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Have they started sending out interviews already?
yep but no worries, an (very nice and helpful) admissions person told me this is the first batch and they didn't give out many yet.
 
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yep but no worries, a (very nice and helpful) admissions person told me this is the first batch and they didn't give out many yet.
Congrats, that's great! Time to update that signature ;)
 
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