2018-2019 University of California - Los Angeles (Geffen)

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Anyone know from past cycles if UCLA sends secondaries out in waves or is it safe to assume that I am screened out since I did not receive one today?
 
Is anyone else having trouble opening the "UCLA Competencies" page? It's under the Scholastic Achievements tab and keeps leading me to an error page...
 
stargirl37 said:
Is anyone else having trouble opening the "UCLA Competencies" page? It's under the Scholastic Achievements tab and keeps leading me to an error page...
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Yeah, I just navigated to the competencies page from the med school homepage.
 
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How long are you guys making your "Work Experiences" Descriptions? 4000 chars is so much in comparison to all of the other prompts....Do they really want us to write that much more about work?
 
For the work experiences question, it has a 4000 character limit but due to the other shorter character limits I doubt they want me to write that much. Are you guys just giving a short description of your job, responsibilities etc.?
 
bball0718 said:
For the work experiences question, it has a 4000 character limit but due to the other shorter character limits I doubt they want me to write that much. Are you guys just giving a short description of your job, responsibilities etc.?
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I wrote 1000 char
 
First post here! I got a secondary today but after the 4000 character mishap in previous years, does anyone think that the 300 character thing is a mishap or do you all think that it's the actual character limit?
 
Incoming MS1 here! idk how much I can help but happy to do what I can!

Rag1Rag2 said:
Anyone know from past cycles if UCLA sends secondaries out in waves or is it safe to assume that I am screened out since I did not receive one today?
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Just wanted to share that I got my secondary on August 11 last year, it was my last secondary I received.

globalhealthjunky said:
First post here! I got a secondary today but after the 4000 character mishap in previous years, does anyone think that the 300 character thing is a mishap or do you all think that it's the actual character limit?
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Checked my app from last year and definitely had two 300 character questions
 
globalhealthjunky said:
First post here! I got a secondary today but after the 4000 character mishap in previous years, does anyone think that the 300 character thing is a mishap or do you all think that it's the actual character limit?
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That's the actual, if I remember right the 4000 was a mishap last yr
 
HortonHearsAWho said:
Incoming MS1 here! idk how much I can help but happy to do what I can!



Just wanted to share that I got my secondary on August 11 last year, it was my last secondary I received.



Checked my app from last year and definitely had two 300 character questions
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thanks!!
 
How are you guys going about writing descriptions of your activities without being redundant of the primary? Or are you just being redundant...
 
Secondary received at 2:07 p.m. ET. OOS.

(Also, this is the 21st one that I have received in the last 48 hours since verification so... heavy sigh)
 
leahorgana said:
How did you approach the job description prompt? Did you just rewrite what you had already included in your primary?
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Don't think I can help much here 🙁 I applied straight through, so I really didn't have any major work experiences. I always felt like the prompts that had a huge character limit were an opportunity to talk as much as you wanted (let's say there was one thing that you barely got to touch on, but wanted to expand) but ultimately didn't have to fill up. If you have nothing to add, give a quick summary of what you've already said and take the time to point out a few things you really want them to take away from those experiences; if you have more to touch on, use those characters!
 
Does anyone know if we can use high school work, or AP credit that doesn't show up on our university transcript, to fulfill the Spanish competency?
 
mattjup said:
Does anyone know if we can use high school work, or AP credit that doesn't show up on our university transcript, to fulfill the Spanish competency?
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I figured it would since it’s competency-based.
 
QuarterBose said:
How are yall talking about your most scholarly work in just 300 characters. Are you guys just stating what it is/was and tagging in hours, dates and advisor? I can't go more than like 2/3 sentences before running out of space.
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Thats what I did, no matter how I phrased it it was always 3 sentences max. The problem I have is deciding which one is my most scholarly work. Is it the one with the most hours? The one that was closest to publication? The one that was published? The one that had a poster presentation? Or the one that was most meaningful, medium amount of hours, and was not published. Someone please help, this 300 char prompt is driving me cray.
 
Anyone knows if the "Hours worked" for the employment question means hours/week or total hours? How do I put my hours for current employment?
 
there-goes-my-sanity said:
Thats what I did, no matter how I phrased it it was always 3 sentences max. The problem I have is deciding which one is my most scholarly work. Is it the one with the most hours? The one that was closest to publication? The one that was published? The one that had a poster presentation? Or the one that was most meaningful, medium amount of hours, and was not published. Someone please help, this 300 char prompt is driving me cray.
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I'd say pick the most meaningful one just because you'll be able to explain it more genuinely if asked during the interview
 
For the question asking about the most important non-academic activity in your life, could I talk about travelling or do you think it has to be something related to medicine?
 
still having a hard time understanding the school's intention for giving 4000 characters for employment. Do you guys think they ask to rephrase the actual description of the work + detail example/what I have learned from it? Idk if I am doing it correctly by doing that.
 
AmyDell said:
still having a hard time understanding the school's intention for giving 4000 characters for employment. Do you guys think they ask to rephrase the actual description of the work + detail example/what I have learned from it? Idk if I am doing it correctly by doing that.
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To add onto that, are they straight up looking for a job you've held before? Or, for example, would salaried research during the summer or scribing fit this description.

Just a little thrown off because of how official sounding the "Company Name" heading is.
 
I can't believe they're actually asking us to repeat our work experiences, especially since I have 5. Why did I spend so much time perfecting my AMCAS descriptions???
 
For those of you who have gotten secondaries, did you ever get an email before that saying that your primary application was received? I got one of those from Davis (no secondary yet). Ive gotten secondary invites from UCSF, UCSD, and UCR, but absolutely nothing from LA.
 
I know this is still hella early, but has anyone who has more time than me spent long enough looking at the previous UCLA Threads to have any idea whether getting an early secondary (and then early II, if I would be so lucky!) correlates with the likelihood of getting a geffen scholarship? I love this school and finances are a huge concern for me so I was super excited to get the secondary right away!
 
Hawkenthesky said:
I know this is still hella early, but has anyone who has more time than me spent long enough looking at the previous UCLA Threads to have any idea whether getting an early secondary (and then early II, if I would be so lucky!) correlates with the likelihood of getting a geffen scholarship? I love this school and finances are a huge concern for me so I was super excited to get the secondary right away!
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did you ever get an email before that saying that your primary application was received?
 
there-goes-my-sanity said:
thank you <3
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Worth noting that, unlike traditional interview schools with open files, it's extremely unlikely (but not impossible) that you will be asked about your research during our interviews. Sometimes the interviewer will get a memo to ask an applicant about a particular part of the app that the (sub)committee will want to know more about, but they are unlikely to request more info on bread-and-butter research unless there really is something that deserves further explanation (say, a Nobel prize, or egregious ethical misconduct).


chikki587 said:
For the question asking about the most important non-academic activity in your life, could I talk about travelling or do you think it has to be something related to medicine?
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It never has to be related to medicine. That goes for other schools too. Most interviewees at open file schools will be asked about whatever unique hobby/interest they mentioned in their app. Even at closed file schools like us, it will give the committee member presenting you an identifying tidbit to help them and everyone around the table remember you 5 minutes from now. Think of it as part of your relevant PMH in the ID/one-liner. "This is John Smith, a 23 yo M w/Hx of recent travel to Ohio for spelunking 2 wk ago, and scribing x 1 yr s/p graduating from UCLA w/B.S. in psychobio in 2017, who p/w a CC of wanting to get into UCLA." It becomes a lot less memorable and a lot easier to confuse you with the other 20 files in the pile who also scribed and were UCLA psychobio majors if you didn't tell us about your textbook risk factor for histoplasmosis.


AmyDell said:
still having a hard time understanding the school's intention for giving 4000 characters for employment. Do you guys think they ask to rephrase the actual description of the work + detail example/what I have learned from it? Idk if I am doing it correctly by doing that.
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Don't use all the characters provided if you don't need to--holds true for any essay, any school. You don't need to repeat anything that was already in the primary app. Think of this as optional space to elaborate on anything that you need to, but don't bore your busy readers with unnecessary info; they already have several other files in their pile standing between them and bedtime tonight. Personally, I generally scoff and roll my eyes at the sentences that attempt to explicitly lay out how someone's experience as an XYZ opened their eyes and will make them such a better doctor because of blahdeblahblah, and tell people to leave that sort of fluff out. Unless it's a truly extraordinary revelation that the reader wouldn't have been able to understand otherwise...but I have yet to see an example of that in app the apps I've read.


Shaggy99 said:
To add onto that, are they straight up looking for a job you've held before? Or, for example, would salaried research during the summer or scribing fit this description.

Just a little thrown off because of how official sounding the "Company Name" heading is.
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Not entirely sure what your question is, but I don't see anything wrong with including any paid position. After including it, just don't wax poetic about it if it's standard summer research or scribing--we'd practically know what the job description for those looks like even if you left it blank.


teriyakibeef said:
I can't believe they're actually asking us to repeat our work experiences, especially since I have 5. Why did I spend so much time perfecting my AMCAS descriptions???
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As above, you don't need to use the space if you don't need to use it. If you ran out of space on the AMCAS character counts, then great here's some extra room to type. But no reviewer is going to mark you down for being concise, avoiding repetition, and letting them get back to seeing their family/charting/sleeping a few minutes earlier. A common complaint among residents and attendings is that med student are not concise, and they dread the 20-30 minute long student presentations.


Hawkenthesky said:
I know this is still hella early, but has anyone who has more time than me spent long enough looking at the previous UCLA Threads to have any idea whether getting an early secondary (and then early II, if I would be so lucky!) correlates with the likelihood of getting a geffen scholarship? I love this school and finances are a huge concern for me so I was super excited to get the secondary right away!
Click to expand...
There is a weak correlation, I don't know the R^2 off the top of my head but it is going to be pretty small. Early interview dates have a little better predictive value. That said, receiving secondaries earlier does have a fairly strong correlation with early interview dates...assuming you complete the secondary in a timely manner. Try not to read too much into it though, med school admissions in general can seem extremely random, and the scholarship committee reader may not be as impressed as the screeners/(sub)committee readers by your 3 gold medals in ballroom tango, because they just finished talking about a file with 30.
 
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Is it a deal breaker if I haven't taken any Spanish? I had no idea this was a competency, and I don't know how to speak the language. Should I still submit?
 
billybean said:
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Spanish is "highly recommended," not required per DGSOM's website.
Medical School Requirements at DGSOM - David Geffen School of Medicine - Los Angeles, CA
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Ya I think its more of a "soft" requirement. Do-able to get in without it but definitely more difficult. Obviously it would be a huge bonus to be clinically fluent in LA and there's enough quality applicants with spanish that it's not too difficult to prioritize them without losing quality of the matriculating class
 
epluribusunum said:
Is it a deal breaker if I haven't taken any Spanish? I had no idea this was a competency, and I don't know how to speak the language. Should I still submit?
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I didn't check the Spanish competency box on my secondary and nobody seemed to mind. And the admissions requirements overall have relaxed since my cycle. Just means I have to use the translator phone more often than some of my classmates. But there are plentyyyyy of us here who speak none/nearly no Spanish.
 
epluribusunum said:
Is it a deal breaker if I haven't taken any Spanish? I had no idea this was a competency, and I don't know how to speak the language. Should I still submit?
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I emailed them about this and they told me "this will not affect your application one way or the other." I'm not sure how true this is, but they said mark yes if you feel competent
 
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