AAMCAS Research Essay

[blazinfury]

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I have heard that some paste their abstracts into their research essays, but I wonder if that is appropriate and if abstracts truly do the job of outlining what the project is about. I am not sure if this would be proper, but I was thinking of giving some brief background and then in layman's terms describing the overview of the project (what we wanted to accomplish and our rationale behind doing this) and then presenting the results. But is the key of such an essay, in the long term, what we got out of the project, how it made us a better scientist, and how this experience will ultimately help in our career goals (if it is in the same field that one wants to pursue their PhD) or if lets say it was an earlier experience, how that knowledge gave one the confidence, technical skill, and better understanding for the subsequent research labs and projects where one performed research.

Is it ok or should we include research accolades from that lab experience (ie presenting at X# research conferences, receiving this and that award (and should we explain what the awards mean or just list them), and pubs)?

I get the impression that this essay will not be as eloquently written as the other two due to the technical aspect that may be included.

Should we include summer research experiences (SURPs) as a contribution to our evolution as a scientist? I ask because during my SURP experience, I did not get a lot of data since it was in embryology and genotyping and such experiments are more of a waiting game. But would it be ok to focus more on how that experience contributed to my research knowledge and provided me with new skills and a new perspective which ultimately was one of the reasons for what I joined my current lab?

I do know that we briefly highlight our research experiences in the EC section of the app. In that section, should we just briefly summarize the goal of the project and our contribution/results and any awards that we may have received during that experience? Also, if a person had multiple research experiences (which will be highlighted in the research essay), should we just list all of the experiences under 1 heading of research in that section?

Thank you and sorry for the long post.

 

[SBR249]

Ok to break down your post into component questions:

1) AMCAS research essay: this topic has been covered before on this forum and you should do a search because there are very good advice from others on those threads.

However, an abstract is not appropriate here. If the adcoms want to see your abstract, they can find it on the internet and read that. What you should do however, is to describe each research experience, what exactly your roles were, what were our contributions, how did the project proceed, what were the results and how are they significant. You are usually expected to do that for each of your major research experiences (perhaps chronologically) and to describe how those experiences shaped your development as a scientist. However, I have seen people who choose to stick with one experience to provide more details. You are allowed a maximum of 10,000 characters for this essay.

One does not usually include accolades in the research essay as they are generally listed in the extracurricular experiences section.

You may include minor experiences such as SURP if they have had a big impact on your development as a scientist.

2) For the EC section of the app, you should list each individual research experience separately (unless you have to consolidate because there are only 15 spaces for all activities I think) but you may choose to list awards/presentations/papers, etc either in the description of the corresponding experience or altogether under a listing for Honors/Awards, etc. Be aware that you'll be asked to choose 3 significant experiences of the 15 possible that you can list and to write an extra (500chars I think) blurb describing why that's significant. If you choose a research activity, be prepared to write that but focus on what you got out of it and what it meant for you.

 

[K31]

However, an abstract is not appropriate here. If the adcoms want to see your abstract, they can find it on the internet and read that. What you should do however, is to describe each research experience, what exactly your roles were, what were our contributions, how did the project proceed, what were the results and how are they significant. You are usually expected to do that for each of your major research experiences (perhaps chronologically) and to describe how those experiences shaped your development as a scientist. However, I have seen people who choose to stick with one experience to provide more details. You are allowed a maximum of 10,000 characters for this essay.

This is correct. You want to emphasize your contribution to the research. Including parts that you weren't involved in could lead to you being questioned about those as well. Good rule for grad school--if you include something in your presentation (background, data, a technique), you need to be prepared to field questions about it.

As a student interviewer, I'd also like to stress brevity in this essay--if we see something we are interested in in the essay, we'll ask about it. I doubt that the essay plays much of a role in the interview decision--our program has one person reviewing all applications and making interview decisions, so you know he isn't reading all the essays in depth.

10,000 characters is way too long--I've submitted papers with shorter results sections (seriously, I just checked the results section of a paper I submitted a month ago and the final draft was 9240 characters). For the sake of interviewers everywhere, please don't use the entire allotment--we'll just not read most of it. 1000-1500 characters (about one double-spaced page) is probably about right per significant research experience. Think of it as training for the future--most journals will limit the abstract for a paper to 200 words, which is about 1500 characters.

 

[Maebea]

10,000 characters is way too long For the sake of interviewers everywhere, please don't use the entire allotment.

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