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Just drafted my answer to #4. You won't have space to go into detail regarding each competency so you'll just have to briefly summarize/pay lip service tying each competency to one of your ECs or coursework (without going into too much detail). It's a pretty pointless exercise which is barely doable in 2000 chars. The best formula may be "X competency is demonstrated through x activity/X course @ x organization/school , by allowing me to XYZ". Rinse and repeat for all of them. To avoid running out of space you may have to pool some of the competencies together.
 
tinyhandsbob said:
Just drafted my answer to #4. You won't have space to go into detail regarding each competency so you'll just have to briefly summarize/pay lip service tying each competency to one of your ECs or coursework (without going into too much detail). It's a pretty pointless exercise which is barely doable in 2000 chars. The best formula may be "X competency is demonstrated through x activity/X course @ x organization/school , by allowing me to XYZ". Rinse and repeat for all of them. To avoid running out of space you may have to pool some of the competencies together.
Click to expand...
Did you literally do this for all 15 or whatever competencies? Seems excessive. I tried to just tackle the three general categories and was having a hard time.
 
oregonian19 said:
Did you literally do this for all 15 or whatever competencies? Seems excessive. I tried to just tackle the three general categories and was having a hard time.
Click to expand...

I used the 3 main categories and under each I tried to touch on as many of the individual competencies as possible.
 
No wonder it takes OHSU longer than almost any school to make cycle decisions lol
 
I'm way more irritated than I should be considering we have to re-enter our Activities section from the primary. What advantages does this honestly bring the ad committee?
 
UnknownObi said:
Can you link what you are referencing?
Click to expand...
I can't find it anymore, they must have updated their page since they sent out the secondaries. But all I know is that since they're not particularly OOS friendly I am not competitive enough.
 
tinyhandsbob said:
Just drafted my answer to #4. You won't have space to go into detail regarding each competency so you'll just have to briefly summarize/pay lip service tying each competency to one of your ECs or coursework (without going into too much detail). It's a pretty pointless exercise which is barely doable in 2000 chars. The best formula may be "X competency is demonstrated through x activity/X course @ x organization/school , by allowing me to XYZ". Rinse and repeat for all of them. To avoid running out of space you may have to pool some of the competencies together.
Click to expand...

For this, did you talk about things which weren't on your application?

For the science competencies , I just mentioned the main classes that they require and I took through my major.
For the thinking and reasoning competencies, I talked about my research lab and thesis project (in my application already).
For the pre-professional competencies, I takjed about my health education job and how that required me to work with a team and educate a lot of different people from different backgrounds (again, in my application).

I obviously made it more flowery. Does that seem sufficient?
 
UnknownObi said:
Can you link what you are referencing?
Click to expand...
Minimum MCAT is 497, not sure what GPA is. But I went to their PreMed Day and they said if you’re OOS and not part of their mission based groups, don’t bother applying because you won’t get in. It was brutal but honest.
 
oregonian19 said:
For this, did you talk about things which weren't on your application?

For the science competencies , I just mentioned the main classes that they require and I took through my major.
For the thinking and reasoning competencies, I talked about my research lab and thesis project (in my application already).
For the pre-professional competencies, I takjed about my health education job and how that required me to work with a team and educate a lot of different people from different backgrounds (again, in my application).

I obviously made it more flowery. Does that seem sufficient?
Click to expand...
Looks fine to me. This is how I'm gonna write mine in the next few days, just briefly highlighting how experiences connect with that competency. I wouldn't advise anyone do a bullet point list as some asked about above, maybe I'm wrong, but just feels like that comes off as uninspired. This is a dumb question IMO, but whatever, I'll answer whatever they want me to for an II, lol.
 
Jake M said:
Looks fine to me. This is how I'm gonna write mine in the next few days, just briefly highlighting how experiences connect with that competency. I wouldn't advise anyone do a bullet point list as some asked about above, maybe I'm wrong, but just feels like that comes off as uninspired. This is a dumb question IMO, but whatever, I'll answer whatever they want me to for an II, lol.
Click to expand...

Okay, cool. It kind of sounds forced and crappy, so it must be a bad question overall. I haven’t heard anyone say anything nice about that question. I think this is kind of a tester and they will show mercy.
 
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oregonian19 said:
For this, did you talk about things which weren't on your application?

For the science competencies , I just mentioned the main classes that they require and I took through my major.
For the thinking and reasoning competencies, I talked about my research lab and thesis project (in my application already).
For the pre-professional competencies, I takjed about my health education job and how that required me to work with a team and educate a lot of different people from different backgrounds (again, in my application).

I obviously made it more flowery. Does that seem sufficient?
Click to expand...

Yeah that's how I did mine so hopefully that's good enough. They don't say not to talk about stuff on your application (that would make no sense), I think they don't want you to go into detail about the classes/grades from your transcript. But for some of the categories you'll have to mention the classes where they're the main way to demonstrate that competency. Honestly, this is a new question that replaced an equally bad question they had last year, so I don't know how serious they'll be grading it. The answers they will get will be all over the place.
 
For the Employment/ Activities section, did you all only put activities and jobs, and not awards, publications, and hobbies, like listed on my AMCAS? It only mentions 'brief chronological account of your major activities and employment, including volunteer and summer activities'.

Really the only advantage this can bring them is to see what we've been doing since we submitted primaries right? wish they'd just ask that instead of having everyone re-hash all this information.
 
Jake M said:
For the Employment/ Activities section, did you all only put activities and jobs, and not awards, publications, and hobbies, like listed on my AMCAS? It only mentions 'brief chronological account of your major activities and employment, including volunteer and summer activities'.

Really the only advantage this can bring them is to see what we've been doing since we submitted primaries right? wish they'd just ask that instead of having everyone re-hash all this information.
Click to expand...
I tried to closely follow the instructions. I pretty much put everything I had in my primary, except honors/awards. The only thing I added that wasn’t on my primary was two summer jobs I had.
 
One more...

What's the deal with the extra adversity question in the background section? I felt I dealt with adversity plenty in prompt 6, and this additional question has 4000 characters—double the space of any other prompt. Is this optional, or if you mark any adversity in any manner do you think they will be expecting an answer in that section?
 
Jake M said:
One more...

What's the deal with the extra adversity question in the background section? I felt I dealt with adversity plenty in prompt 6, and this additional question has 4000 characters—double the space of any other prompt. Is this optional, or if you mark any adversity in any manner do you think they will be expecting an answer in that section?
Click to expand...

Personally, I didn't answer it because I didn't feel like I faced any adversity in the four categories they listed. But, yes, they are being excessive with the adversity questions.
 
UnknownObi said:
I marked two of them and only explained in like 1200 characters why I marked them. Did not go too in depth at all
Click to expand...
Great, thats what I will do as well.

Also for the activities, you barely have any space so there's not a ton you can do. For example one of mine was 'XXX volunteer: talked with patients and escorted them to care'. I talked with an M1 enrolled at OHSU and that is what they did last year as well.
 
Is there a way we can ask them to fix the time-out issue with the secondary application? I had just finished typing the adversity essay and tried to save when it told me it had timed out and I had to log in again. Alas, when I did all my work was gone. I understand that I should be typing these into word docs and then simply copy and paste, but as the essay had sensitive information that I did not want my family to see, I decided to type directly into the application.

Now I'm just upset haha, and I need to completely retype the essay.
 
kli0165 said:
Minimum MCAT is 497, not sure what GPA is. But I went to their PreMed Day and they said if you’re OOS and not part of their mission based groups, don’t bother applying because you won’t get in. It was brutal but honest.
Click to expand...
"mission based groups" what do you mean by that?
 
Tilertee said:
"mission based groups" what do you mean by that?
Click to expand...
Directly from OHSU's website:


The School of Medicine gives strong preference to the following applicants:
  • Residents of Oregon.
  • Non-resident applicants with Oregon Heritage. The School of Medicine uses the Oregon Heritage Policy for student selection, but it is not used as a basis for determining residency, and therefore the tuition a student pays. Oregon Heritage is defined as 1) A student with one or both parents residing in Oregon at the time of application, 2) A student who graduated from high school in Oregon with at least two years of attendance at a high school in Oregon, or 3) A student who graduated from an Oregon institution of higher education with a bachelor’s or advanced degree with at least two years of attendance at an institution of higher education in Oregon.
  • Applicants who are WICHE-certified in Allopathic Medicine.
  • Applicants applying to the MD/PhD Combined Degree Program.
  • Applicants applying to the MD/MPH Combined Degree Program.
  • Non-resident applicants with superior achievements in academics and other related experiences. Superior achievements are defined as significant experiences in healthcare, leadership, extracurricular activities, and/or community service activities.
  • Applicants whose personal experience demonstrates the ability to overcome adversity and contributes to diversity in the provision of healthcare.
 
97premed97 said:
Is there a way we can ask them to fix the time-out issue with the secondary application? I had just finished typing the adversity essay and tried to save when it told me it had timed out and I had to log in again. Alas, when I did all my work was gone. I understand that I should be typing these into word docs and then simply copy and paste, but as the essay had sensitive information that I did not want my family to see, I decided to type directly into the application.

Now I'm just upset haha, and I need to completely retype the essay.
Click to expand...
Just submitted finally. Today was extra worse for the timing out problem, I couldn't even review my essays on the portal because it would time out after less than 60 seconds. My only advice would be to copy your text NO MATTER WHAT before hitting save. I had the same issue you did, but luckily only lost a few sentences of text.
 
Do I need to input the work & activities section chronologically, or will it sort it for me?
 
oregonian19 said:
To be honest, this is one of the worst questions I have some across.

What am I supposed to do? List things? It's kind of hard to write a paragraph without shoehorning these competencies in.

What are other people planning on doing?
Click to expand...
Thank you! I totally agree. I have been trying to display my activities (outside of classwork mostly) that display these qualities specifically. Even if this means repeating activities found in the primary application, I just explain them in a little bit of a different light to meet what they are looking for.
 
Jake M said:
Just submitted finally. Today was extra worse for the timing out problem, I couldn't even review my essays on the portal because it would time out after less than 60 seconds. My only advice would be to copy your text NO MATTER WHAT before hitting save. I had the same issue you did, but luckily only lost a few sentences of text.
Click to expand...

lol do people really type their responses directly into the portal? Why would you not write in google docs / microsoft words / anywhere else lol how do you access it to reuse it for other schools? Sorry don't mean to roast but I'm just v surprised
 
So I've been debating for a while on this secondary, maybe I could get some input. I'm a Washington resident, and as far as I can tell, I don't fall into any of the Heritage categories. I live in Vancouver, Washington which is just a stone's throw away from Portland, and I've spent all my life in the Portland area. My parents work in Portland and my Mom even works at the VA hospital which is connected to OHSU. She even has a coworker who is married to one of the deans of admission who she connected me with. I asked her if I should even apply because I technically don't expect to receive any consideration based on the requirements. She replied with basically just a copied and pasted response straight from the website, about the heritage groups.

So I'm really unsure. I would LOVE to go to OHSU as it is only about 20 minutes drive from my house (without traffic haha). I love the area and plan on spending the rest of my life here. Looking toward the future, I imagine practicing and even living in the Portland area, so I feel like I fall into their target demographic. But, I don't want to waste the $100 secondary fee if I really have no chance. My GPA/MCAT stats are good, but not amazing. If I were an Oregon resident they would probably be considered competitive. My extracurricular activities are above average, with a couple thousand volunteer hours with disadvantaged populations (including clinical), over a thousand paid clinical hours, and several thousand leadership hours.

What do you all think?
 
filthy_premed said:
lol do people really type their responses directly into the portal? Why would you not write in google docs / microsoft words / anywhere else lol how do you access it to reuse it for other schools? Sorry don't mean to roast but I'm just v surprised
Click to expand...

No, but I review them in the portal because I don't want something to go wrong from a paste followed by submission. And to be honest, a 60 second timeout is annoying, even if you don't type your essays in the portal.

The day I submitted I couldn't even read through my answer and hit continue or save without it timing out, so this is an issue for everyone doing this secondary, not just the people who type in the portal, at least on the day I submitted, it wasn't as bad before. Plus, the guy who typed in the portal gave his reason why he did it..
 
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Save button is your best friend for those working on their secondaries!!

Jake M said:
And to be honest, a 60 second timeout is annoying, even if you don't type your essays in the portal.
Click to expand...
 
Vincero said:
Save button is your best friend for those working on their secondaries!!
Click to expand...

..But that's the entire issue, its a timeout. Hitting the save or continue button and the portal taking you to the login screen without saving your data, lol. So yes its your best friend but the timeframe the portal gives you to actually allow the save button to work is far too short.
 
AdductorMagnus said:
So I've been debating for a while on this secondary, maybe I could get some input. I'm a Washington resident, and as far as I can tell, I don't fall into any of the Heritage categories. I live in Vancouver, Washington which is just a stone's throw away from Portland, and I've spent all my life in the Portland area. My parents work in Portland and my Mom even works at the VA hospital which is connected to OHSU. She even has a coworker who is married to one of the deans of admission who she connected me with. I asked her if I should even apply because I technically don't expect to receive any consideration based on the requirements. She replied with basically just a copied and pasted response straight from the website, about the heritage groups.

So I'm really unsure. I would LOVE to go to OHSU as it is only about 20 minutes drive from my house (without traffic haha). I love the area and plan on spending the rest of my life here. Looking toward the future, I imagine practicing and even living in the Portland area, so I feel like I fall into their target demographic. But, I don't want to waste the $100 secondary fee if I really have no chance. My GPA/MCAT stats are good, but not amazing. If I were an Oregon resident they would probably be considered competitive. My extracurricular activities are above average, with a couple thousand volunteer hours with disadvantaged populations (including clinical), over a thousand paid clinical hours, and several thousand leadership hours.

What do you all think?
Click to expand...

That is tough.... I feel like I remember reading somewhere that consideration is given to Vancouverites because they are part of the Portland-area. Honestly, I have grown tired of how Vancouver is disregarded in the eyes of Portlanders/Oregonians. I mean, y'all single-handedly keep all those big box stores at Jantzen Beach open lol.

If I were you, I would shoot your shot. I know $100 is a lot of money, but you make a convincing case. You want to live in the metro area, you want to serve the people of Portland/Vancouver/Oregon/SW Washington. I believe you have a good chance. I know I'm not an adcom, but I would definitely consider a Vancouverite based on proximity alone.
 
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Does anyone know how strict they are on their letters of recommendation: "Recommendations from three college or university teaching faculty from any department. (It is recommended that at least one be from a science department teaching faculty member.)"?

I have 2 from professors and 3 from a dr and two bosses because I had to work a ton during undergrad so my bosses typically know me a lot more than my professors. I rather not spend the $100 if this would be an immediate rejection.
 
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akjr98 said:
Does anyone know how strict they are on their letters of recommendation: "Recommendations from three college or university teaching faculty from any department. (It is recommended that at least one be from a science department teaching faculty member.)"?

I have 2 from professors and 3 from a dr and two bosses because I had to work a ton during undergrad so my bosses typically know me a lot more than my professors. I rather not spend the $100 if this would be an immediate rejection.
Click to expand...
Well....I do know that they are lenient for the non-trad applicants who have been out of college for a while. For traditional applicants? Not sure.
 
akjr98 said:
Does anyone know how strict they are on their letters of recommendation: "Recommendations from three college or university teaching faculty from any department. (It is recommended that at least one be from a science department teaching faculty member.)"?

I have 2 from professors and 3 from a dr and two bosses because I had to work a ton during undergrad so my bosses typically know me a lot more than my professors. I rather not spend the $100 if this would be an immediate rejection.
Click to expand...

I would call them and ask on Monday! It's the only way to get a definitive answer and the worst they can tell you is no and you save the $100
 
akjr98 said:
Does anyone know how strict they are on their letters of recommendation: "Recommendations from three college or university teaching faculty from any department. (It is recommended that at least one be from a science department teaching faculty member.)"?

I have 2 from professors and 3 from a dr and two bosses because I had to work a ton during undergrad so my bosses typically know me a lot more than my professors. I rather not spend the $100 if this would be an immediate rejection.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't be too worried, the LOR are often the least important part of the application. I have never heard, "this student has a low MCAT, low GPA, no experience....but those letters of recommendation are fantastic!" lol. You should be fine.
 
MD/PhD applicants:
Please review graduate programs available to OHSU MD/PhD students and list the graduate program(s) at OHSU that you are most interested in.
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Are you literally just listing the programs or also explaining why?
 
Oh my gosh, finally submitted this beast. I feel so much better now.
Also, my feeling every time I drive by the RLSB on I-5:
272820
 
I just remembered something that might be of interest to anyone who interviews here.

I'm not gonna say how I know this, but I know for a fact that last year interviewees actually spent maybe 30-45 minutes rounding with the general medicine teams during their rounds. It was just part of interview day. It was like shadowing. Not sure if some interviewees went with general med and others went to some other dept or specialty....but be prepared for that.
 
UnknownObi said:
Just submitted. Did not get a confirmation email or anything though. Just says submitted on portal
Click to expand...
I submitted on 07/13 and still haven't gotten anything from them. It just takes time!

Edit: I just checked and my application was marked as completed on 07/22.
 
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Is anyone having any problems submitting their secondary? Whenever I try to input the background information along with my adversity essay and hit save, it simply blanks out the whole page and keeps the page marked as incomplete.
 
Jalexc97 said:
Is anyone having any problems submitting their secondary? Whenever I try to input the background information along with my adversity essay and hit save, it simply blanks out the whole page and keeps the page marked as incomplete.
Click to expand...
Hmm. Is this a timing out issue? If not, I would try a different browser. If that doesn't work, I'd contact them.
 
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