Activity Discussion Paragraphs in Application

that's what I did...the point is to be as concise as possible without leaving out key details of your experience. Lizzy M suggested that you should really only write alot about your experience if it is unique (i.e. most premeds have never done anything like it)

 

Don't try to write mini essays to fill up space - adcoms won't have the patience to read it. Write it in as few sentences as possible without losing effect.

If its truly unique, then go for it.

 

I bulleted (put in "-"s before each new thing) things. Maybe an essay would be more flowing for readers, but I really wanted to be clear and concise. If you let me write paragraphs then I would end up writing the entire 1200ish characters. Using bullets I wrote what I needed to while keeping myself from verbosity. Maybe they won't like how I did it, but I felt that it was the clearest way to get everything across.

 

I also bulleted my points with a "-". Does anyone know if adcoms would prefer a certain way?

 

If I were an on an admissions committee there is no way I would want to read all of the narratives and paragraph descriptions of the work/activities section. I would much rather read a few "bullets" with the facts. Aren't an explanation of these activities what interviews are for? Still, if it is a genuinely unique activity, I could see it warranting a longer, more personal description.

 

* I went with bullets.
* It was much more readable in print form.
*

 

I think that there will be a pretty even split between using some sort of bullets and doing a more paragraph format. So just use whatever means you believe most accurately depicts what you are trying to say. I also used Hard Returns a lot since I had to do some creative grouping in my activities... lets just say that TAing for 3 seperate classes, diff departments, diff profs, diff semesters all ended up as the same activity.

 

I wrote all mine as two paragraphs: the first described what I did exactly, and the second how this activity reinforced my desire to become a doctor. It seems to have worked