2020-2021 UCLA (Geffen)

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I'm a bit at a loss for the question on the most important honor I've received as I can't really think back on ANY important honors I've received. I was thinking to maybe talk about some of the student evaluations I got after TAing a course and how some of the positive evaluations meant a lot to me. What do yall think of that?
 
MeddyMedicine said:
I'm a bit at a loss for the question on the most important honor I've received as I can't really think back on ANY important honors I've received. I was thinking to maybe talk about some of the student evaluations I got after TAing a course and how some of the positive evaluations meant a lot to me. What do yall think of that?
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You were honored that you left such an impact on other students and could leave a lasting impression and you were honored to have the chance to be a teacher. Elaborate. Does that make sense?
 
I have also not gotten a secondary and was verified way before July 10th. I’m international (Canadian) though. Hoping I get my secondary soon. Stats are 3.88 515

Edit: changed complete to verified lol
 
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go girl 08 said:
I have also not gotten a secondary and was complete way before July 10th. I’m international (Canadian) though. Hoping I get my secondary soon. Stats are 3.88 515
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I’m also hoping my location is the reason I’ve not received anything. Fingers crossed it arrives soon.
 
For "the most important honor" question, are people putting something they already included in the primary or something completely new?

I'm a little torn because I already wrote my "most important honor" in my "honors/awards" section on my primary activities section and don't know if this will be redundant, because sometimes adcoms don't have access to your primary when reviewing.
 
mrmystery112358 said:
During today's admissions virtual office hours they said that they will notify you if they decide not to send you a secondary. So, don't worry if you haven't heard! They apparently won't just ghost you haha
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Did they give any reasons why they might choose not to send someone one?
 
I received a secondary from UCLA and I'm thinking they probably made a mistake. My stats are low but still hoping for the best hahaha.
 
go girl 08 said:
I have also not gotten a secondary and was verified way before July 10th. I’m international (Canadian) though. Hoping I get my secondary soon. Stats are 3.88 515

Edit: changed complete to verified lol
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I was verified on July 24 and got UCLA's secondary on the 25th. I'm Canadian also with similar stats. Did you do school in the states? (I went to US undergrad) You'll probably get it soon!
 
vitgummies said:
I was verified on July 24 and got UCLA's secondary on the 25th. I'm Canadian also with similar stats. Did you do school in the states? (I went to US undergrad) You'll probably get it soon!
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Yeah I went to US undergrad too! On the East side though, so far from Cali lol. Idk if that makes a difference. Still waiting sadly
 
I received secondary on 7/21; transmitted on 7/10. I am an international applicant too, but been in Canada all my life. Non-trad; PhD candidate.
 
OMG I am so dumb... turns out I applied to the wrong UCLA!!! I decided to check AMCAS to make sure I added UCLA and then I saw I had added Drew and not Geffen :bang:
 
go girl 08 said:
OMG I am so dumb... turns out I applied to the wrong UCLA!!! I decided to check AMCAS to make sure I added UCLA and then I saw I had added Drew and not Geffen :bang:
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Was Drew even on AMCAS?

Edit: yes it is.
 
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go girl 08 said:
OMG I am so dumb... turns out I applied to the wrong UCLA!!! I decided to check AMCAS to make sure I added UCLA and then I saw I had added Drew and not Geffen :bang:
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Got my secondary today after submitting to the correct school yesterday!:banana:

If anyone else has been waiting forever I highly recommend checking to make sure you didn’t apply to Drew by accident like I did lol
 
Well, that's bizarre. I'm left to assume there's either been some technical glitch or I've been screened out, though I haven't received notification to that effect. 🙁
 
For the paid work experiences, how long should the descriptions be? Should they really be 4000 characters?
 
application2020 said:
For the paid work experiences, how long should the descriptions be? Should they really be 4000 characters?
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I was told to write it like a CV/resume so DEFINITELY not using all 4000 characters. If you were an adcom how would you like to read 4000 characters of fluff about every single job an applicant has had? I was told to keep it short and sweet, and if there's a very specific anecdote you haven't shared elsewhere, include that VERY briefly, but otherwise just describe what you did.
 
doobopshedoo said:
I was told to write it like a CV/resume so DEFINITELY not using all 4000 characters. If you were an adcom how would you like to read 4000 characters of fluff about every single job an applicant has had? I was told to keep it short and sweet, and if there's a very specific anecdote you haven't shared elsewhere, include that VERY briefly, but otherwise just describe what you did.
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I only have like 300 characters per description. Does this seem lazy? I just don't have much to add aside from what has been said already in AMCAS.
 
Highly doubt they're doing a holistic screen this year, at least the way other schools define holistic. My app transmitted yesterday afternoon and I received a secondary at 4 AM today, there's no way my app got a full reading in that time.

Edit: For reference, Dell Medical School in Texas actually does a full primary reading and it took me about two weeks after primary submission to receive a secondary invitation there.
 
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For the work experiences under "hours worked" is that referring to hours worked per week or total at the company?

Also, I know the months and years that I started/ended at these places, but I do not remember the exact days, so hopefully, that's not a problem.
 
rustymuffin said:
Highly doubt they're doing a holistic screen this year, at least the way other schools define holistic. My app transmitted yesterday afternoon and I received a secondary at 4 AM today, there's no way my app got a full reading in that time.

Edit: For reference, Dell Medical School in Texas actually does a full primary reading and it took me about two weeks after primary submission to receive a secondary invitation there.
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Then I have no idea why I haven’t received a secondary. I even called to confirm. GPA: 3.96, MCAT: 524 composite. No institutional actions or anything of the sort.

I got a secondary from Dell.
 
Havelock Vetinari said:
Then I have no idea why I haven’t received a secondary. I even called to confirm. GPA: 3.96, MCAT: 524 composite. No institutional actions or anything of the sort.

I got a secondary from Dell.
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If you don’t mind me asking, what did they tell you when you called?
 
premonist said:
If you don’t mind me asking, what did they tell you when you called?
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The representative with whom I spoke was very friendly. She checked into the status of my application, said it was “currently in review” and that I could call her again next week to follow up if I had not heard anything by then. She said different readers proceed at different paces, but I was transmitted 10 July, so, as you can imagine, I’m a bit out of sorts. She couldn’t confirm if I’d been looked at yet or not, though I fear the worst.

Maybe it was my lack of non-medical community service? But I’ve 1200 hours of research, hundreds of hours of health policy-related learning and work and hundreds of hours TAing and on Student Assembly, etc, so you’d think I’d still get a secondary.
 
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application2020 said:
For the paid work experiences, how long should the descriptions be? Should they really be 4000 characters?
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I attended the office hours and they said that it was up to you. If you have something you want to write about the experience that will add to your application then you should do so but if not it is better to just keep it short instead of filling it with fluff.
 
Havelock Vetinari said:
The representative with whom I spoke was very friendly. She checked into the status of my application, said it was “currently in review” and that I could call her again next week to follow up if I had not heard anything by then. She said different readers proceed at different paces, but I was transmitted 10 July, so, as you can imagine, I’m a bit out of sorts. She couldn’t confirm if I’d been looked at yet or not, though I fear the worst.

Maybe it was my lack of non-medical community service? But I’ve 1200 hours of research, hundreds of hours of health policy-related learning and work and hundreds of hours TAing and on Student Assembly, etc, so you’d think I’d still get a secondary.
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I’m pretty sure UCLA does a mix of both automatic screens and actually having people who read/skim apps before secondaries go out. I had low stats and received what seemed like an automatic secondary at 2am while some of my classmates waited a while before receiving a secondary. How you get placed into which pile is a mystery so don’t worry too much about it. Someone is looking at your app and I’m sure the secondary will come. In the meantime, try to start thinking about how you’ll answer the secondary essay questions so you’ll be ready when it arrives. A quick turn around time is important, especially for a school like UCLA that receives over 10,000 applications each year. These essays play a big role in receiving the interview so make sure they’re quality! 🙂

*edit for typos*
 
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Havelock Vetinari said:
The representative with whom I spoke was very friendly. She checked into the status of my application, said it was “currently in review” and that I could call her again next week to follow up if I had not heard anything by then. She said different readers proceed at different paces, but I was transmitted 10 July, so, as you can imagine, I’m a bit out of sorts. She couldn’t confirm if I’d been looked at yet or not, though I fear the worst.

Maybe it was my lack of non-medical community service? But I’ve 1200 hours of research, hundreds of hours of health policy-related learning and work and hundreds of hours TAing and on Student Assembly, etc, so you’d think I’d still get a secondary.
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I am in the same boat... MCAT 520+, GPA 3.90+. I also transmitted on July 10th. I have plenty of hours in research, community service, etc. so I don't think I would be screened out. This is one of my top choices so it's really frustrating 🙁 Thank you for calling the office and confirming that some of the applications are read before secondaries.
 
docb2 said:
I pretty much copy and pasted what I wrote from my activities section descriptions on my primary. I figured that if they were asking for the same info on the secondaries, they probably didn't really look at it on the primary lol I added a few additional experiences that I had during the summer that weren't present on my initial activities list, but other than that, it was pretty much the same as the primary for me!
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Hey there! Did you really straight up copy and paste from the primary to the secondary? I'm really considering doing that for the "most important non-academic activity" prompt, but I don't want it to be a negative against me if I do.
 
Maybedoc1 said:
Hey there! Did you really straight up copy and paste from the primary to the secondary? I'm really considering doing that for the "most important non-academic activity" prompt, but I don't want it to be a negative against me if I do.
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Hi! I only did that for the question that asked about my work & activities (the 4000 character one). For all other secondary prompts, I wrote something unique. I definitely used most of the same activities that were listed on my primary, but I dove a bit deeper or approached them from a different angle. My goal was for the adcom to have a well rounded picture of me after they read all of my essays, so I tried to hone in on specific themes in each secondary essay. For example, my most important non academic activity essay highlighted my creativity (I created a board game lol) while my most important honor essay talked about my leadership (I wrote about being selected as captain of my club sports team). Let me know if that helps 🙂
 
docb2 said:
Hi! I only did that for the question that asked about my work & activities (the 4000 character one). For all other secondary prompts, I wrote something unique. I definitely used most of the same activities that were listed on my primary, but I dove a bit deeper or approached them from a different angle. My goal was for the adcom to have a well rounded picture of me after they read all of my essays, so I tried to hone in on specific themes in each secondary essay. For example, my most important non academic activity essay highlighted my creativity (I created a board game lol) while my most important honor essay talked about my leadership (I wrote about being selected as captain of my club sports team). Let me know if that helps 🙂
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Ah okay! I gotcha now. I was thinking you copy and pasted for the other prompts. For the work experience descriptions I'm really just thinking about copying from my resume into the box. It would only be about 100-200 characters per work experience, but I really don't think I need to use anywhere close to 4000 characters to describe the time I worked at a bagel place?
 
Maybedoc1 said:
Ah okay! I gotcha now. I was thinking you copy and pasted for the other prompts. For the work experience descriptions I'm really just thinking about copying from my resume into the box. It would only be about 100-200 characters per work experience, but I really don't think I need to use anywhere close to 4000 characters to describe the time I worked at a bagel place?
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I want to copy from my resume, but I'm wondering if my bullet point format will disappear after submitting the secondary. For those who submitted, did your formatting (like paragraphs etc) disappear for the work experiences section?
 
snoo17 said:
I attended the office hours and they said that it was up to you. If you have something you want to write about the experience that will add to your application then you should do so but if not it is better to just keep it short instead of filling it with fluff.
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@snoo17, did they comment at all on whether or not it's appropriate to copy and paste the same activity descriptions used for AMCAS activities? Hearing mixed things here.

Edit: I went ahead and did largely copy-and-paste from my AMCAS Work and Activities. It seemed to me that since they were asking for employers, date ranges, hours, and descriptions, they may very well not read the AMCAS activities section.
 
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Just submitted my secondary for MSTP. Unfortunately, because of Internet issues and the fact that I am a garbage person, I submitted it about 1 hour after the "15 days from the date and time of this email" deadline. Does anyone know if the application automatically locks after the deadline and prevents a submission? I want to know if my app will get automatically flagged by the system and thrown out. Kinda bummed about this 🙁--I worked hard on this secondary (and paid the fee!) but couldn't submit it for 2-3 hours (live in a rural area with bad Internet).
 
are people putting projected hours in the work experiences section? i projected hours for one of my jobs in amcas and don’t want them to think those hours just disappeared (i made it clear they were future hours though)
 
garbage2048 said:
are people putting projected hours in the work experiences section? i projected hours for one of my jobs in amcas and don’t want them to think those hours just disappeared (i made it clear they were future hours though)
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I used the same number I used in AMCAS, which included projected hours.
 
amethyst131 said:
Just submitted my secondary for MSTP. Unfortunately, because of Internet issues and the fact that I am a garbage person, I submitted it about 1 hour after the "15 days from the date and time of this email" deadline. Does anyone know if the application automatically locks after the deadline and prevents a submission? I want to know if my app will get automatically flagged by the system and thrown out. Kinda bummed about this 🙁--I worked hard on this secondary (and paid the fee!) but couldn't submit it for 2-3 hours (live in a rural area with bad Internet).
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You should be fine! Usually for schools where the deadline is hard, you’ll receive an email saying that you’re no longer being considered because the deadline to submit has passed!
 
Anyone know if UCLA counts writing-intensive courses for the English requirement? I only have one semester of English and it would stink to have to put "no" for that competency 🙁
 
Under "status" there is a checkmark next to Letter of References, but when I click on "document status," it is blank. Anyone else have this problem?
 
pennylane8991 said:
Under "status" there is a checkmark next to Letter of References, but when I click on "document status," it is blank. Anyone else have this problem?
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I have this and my transcripts are also blank even though it says my institutions' name.
 
Hi, is anyone having issues with the application portal? I'm getting a connection error when I try to open it up.
Screen Shot 2020-08-03 at 11.45.16 PM.png
 
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