AMCAS App Advice for Non-Trad

[double_doc_in_progress]

Hello all! I'm sure a lot of folks are as excited as I am that the AMCAS application is open.
I'm interested in some advice on a few sections as I am a super non-trad who graduated in 2012 with a BA in biology, worked in an unrelated industry role for several years, completed a PhD in Biomedical Engineering in 2020, postdoced, and is now a tenure track faculty member. I'm in my mid-30s, F, white. High MCAT score (100th percentile). Bad UG sGPA but over 3.0, and I graduated with honors and won an award for my senior thesis. cGPA was 3.7 ish. 4.0 in grad school. All sorts of relevant and irrelevant activities to add since I'm old as dirt compared to your average med student.

1. I started filling out the app today and was curious about the "unique experiences" paragraph. I clicked on the "who should fill this out" part and it mentioned financial instability growing up. I grew up in a low-income household that affected my undergrad GPA because I had to work so darn much in college to pay for things, despite receiving generous need-based financial aid that covered tuition, but not things like rent and food in a high cost of living area. I am also a US citizen (dual national with another country that is in the EU but not one of the richer members) who grew up poor outside the US. I had to work to help my single mom out and keep working after I moved to the US for college. Now that I'm in my 30s I make 6 figures so I'm not sure if I should talk about how it was growing up. Thoughts?

2. In the work/activities section, one of the options is "publications." As a PI I have quite a few, both as first and as corresponding author. Does each one get it's own entry? And I have no idea how to quantify the "hours" put into each one, but it's a lot. Also for my corresponding author pubs the supervisor is ME so not sure how to navigate that.

3. For the "course work" section do I really need to list every undergrad and grad course I ever took? Or just the ones that fulfill premed requirements?

4. Is a postdoc considered a research experience or a job? Same with grad school. I had NIH funding for both that supported me.

Thank you in advance for your help! Feeling extra old with how far down I need to scroll to enter things like graduation year LOL

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[anon2]

I didn't grow up disadvantaged, but I put down my high-6 figure career and retiring from it as a core part of my PS. I'd say your early lived experiences matter.

I collapsed all 20 of my pubs into one entry, not putting down hours (9999/whatever makes it clear it's not a number), just total citation count. I did put my top paper (>250 citations, major news reports) into a separate entry, as well as my first pub, single authored with a paper award. My PhD advisor is listed as contact.

I asked a few schools what to do with pubs where I am the senior/corresponding/sole author, and they basically said "we'll contact you if we care for further verification". I doubt they will; I gave DOIs and my entire Google Scholar profile. Another bonus of not listing pubs in single entries.

Section 4 of the AMCAS® Application: Coursework
When entering coursework, you must include information and corresponding grades for every course in which you have ever enrolled at any U.S., U.S. Territorial, or Canadian post-secondary institution, regardless of whether you earned credit.

With 350 credits to my name (and counting), I feel your pain. I also have almost 20 transcripts, which was mostly self-inflicted.

My hospital postdoc went into work experience for me, doubt the categorization matters. Grad school is so far away it's not worth one of my slots. They know I have a PhD; my advisor's letter is one we sat down for 5 hours co-writing.

I lumped everything below my elected professional society fellowships (top entrance scholarship, graduation award, NSF fellowship, postdoc fellowship) into miscellaneous academic awards.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

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[wysdoc]

Hello all! I'm sure a lot of folks are as excited as I am that the AMCAS application is open.
I'm interested in some advice on a few sections as I am a super non-trad who graduated in 2012 with a BA in biology, worked in an unrelated industry role for several years, completed a PhD in Biomedical Engineering in 2020, postdoced, and is now a tenure track faculty member. I'm in my mid-30s, F, white. High MCAT score (100th percentile). Bad UG sGPA but over 3.0, and I graduated with honors and won an award for my senior thesis. cGPA was 3.7 ish. 4.0 in grad school. All sorts of relevant and irrelevant activities to add since I'm old as dirt compared to your average med student.

1. I started filling out the app today and was curious about the "unique experiences" paragraph. I clicked on the "who should fill this out" part and it mentioned financial instability growing up. I grew up in a low-income household that affected my undergrad GPA because I had to work so darn much in college to pay for things, despite receiving generous need-based financial aid that covered tuition, but not things like rent and food in a high cost of living area. I am also a US citizen (dual national with another country that is in the EU but not one of the richer members) who grew up poor outside the US. I had to work to help my single mom out and keep working after I moved to the US for college. Now that I'm in my 30s I make 6 figures so I'm not sure if I should talk about how it was growing up. Thoughts?

2. In the work/activities section, one of the options is "publications." As a PI I have quite a few, both as first and as corresponding author. Does each one get it's own entry? And I have no idea how to quantify the "hours" put into each one, but it's a lot. Also for my corresponding author pubs the supervisor is ME so not sure how to navigate that.

3. For the "course work" section do I really need to list every undergrad and grad course I ever took? Or just the ones that fulfill premed requirements?

4. Is a postdoc considered a research experience or a job? Same with grad school. I had NIH funding for both that supported me.

Thank you in advance for your help! Feeling extra old with how far down I need to scroll to enter things like graduation year LOL

Yes, you really do need to enter every course you ever took at accredited colleges.
AMCAS will insist on an official transcript from each of these as well to process your application.
Don't let yourself get annoyed, this is a paperwork hassle nothing more.
As you contact your schools to ask for an official transcript to be sent to AMCAS, have an extra copy of each sent to yourself so you can accurately enter the information on AMCAS.

 

[double_doc_in_progress]

I didn't grow up disadvantaged, but I put down my high-6 figure career and retiring from it as a core part of my PS. I'd say your early lived experiences matter.

I collapsed all 20 of my pubs into one entry, not putting down hours (9999/whatever makes it clear it's not a number), just total citation count. I did put my top paper (>250 citations, major news reports) into a separate entry, as well as my first pub, single authored with a paper award. My PhD advisor is listed as contact.

I asked a few schools what to do with pubs where I am the senior/corresponding/sole author, and they basically said "we'll contact you if we care for further verification". I doubt they will; I gave DOIs and my entire Google Scholar profile. Another bonus of not listing pubs in single entries.


With 350 credits to my name (and counting), I feel your pain. I also have almost 20 transcripts, which was mostly self-inflicted.

My hospital postdoc went into work experience for me, doubt the categorization matters. Grad school is so far away it's not worth one of my slots. They know I have a PhD; my advisor's letter is one we sat down for 5 hours co-writing.

I lumped everything below my elected professional society fellowships (top entrance scholarship, graduation award, NSF fellowship, postdoc fellowship) into miscellaneous academic awards.

This is very helpful, thank you! Sounds like you are/were in a similar boat. May I ask how the overall app/admissions process went? Did you have to spend a lot of time justifying your career change? Were you also TT/tenured, or in industry? Happy to have made the switch? Sorry to bombard you with questions, it's just not that common to find someone going from a committed academic route back to the MD.
Also I noticed you mentioned a letter from your PhD advisor. Did you have one from your postdoc advisor? I probalby won't as we had a fine working relationship but nothing more, and the lab they ran was kind of a postdoc mill at an Ivy.

 

[double_doc_in_progress]

Yes, you really do need to enter every course you ever took at accredited colleges.
AMCAS will insist on an official transcript from each of these as well to process your application.
Don't let yourself get annoyed, this is a paperwork hassle nothing more.
As you contact your schools to ask for an official transcript to be sent to AMCAS, have an extra copy of each sent to yourself so you can accurately enter the information on AMCAS.

Thank you for the insight! That's a great tip on the transcripts. I will commit to entering every course It was more that I didn't want to annoy the schools by listing my "art 101." Appreciate the advice!

 

[anon2]

This is very helpful, thank you! Sounds like you are/were in a similar boat. May I ask how the overall app/admissions process went? Did you have to spend a lot of time justifying your career change? Were you also TT/tenured, or in industry? Happy to have made the switch? Sorry to bombard you with questions, it's just not that common to find someone going from a committed academic route back to the MD.
Also I noticed you mentioned a letter from your PhD advisor. Did you have one from your postdoc advisor? I probalby won't as we had a fine working relationship but nothing more, and the lab they ran was kind of a postdoc mill at an Ivy.

I mostly went to 3, 4 specialty conferences to network, and everyone there was highly supportive and liked my different background. Mind, not that many adcoms there, but quite a few residency and fellowship PDs.

I quit trying for academia when a university sent me a polite R (better than many) saying they had difficulty picking from the >700 qualified applicants. One TT line at a generic midranking department. I instead had a 10 year career in industry as a research engineer.

Similar story with my postdoc PI - MD-PhD with a big lab. I actually left after 6 months for my first real job in industry, >2x pay. Left on good terms, but it's 10 years out. I'd send in postbacc profs before that one.

PMed you in case you want to connect.

 

[double_doc_in_progress]

I mostly went to 3, 4 specialty conferences to network, and everyone there was highly supportive and liked my different background. Mind, not that many adcoms there, but quite a few residency and fellowship PDs.

I quit trying for academia when a university sent me a polite R (better than many) saying they had difficulty picking from the >700 qualified applicants. One TT line at a generic midranking department. I instead had a 10 year career in industry as a research engineer.

Similar story with my postdoc PI - MD-PhD with a big lab. I actually left after 6 months for my first real job in industry, >2x pay. Left on good terms, but it's 10 years out. I'd send in postbacc profs before that one.

PMed you in case you want to connect.

Ha weirdly similar trajectories except I got a biomedical engineering dept to hire me. FWIW, I'd say you made the right choice. And at least where I'm at, also generic midranking, academia is getting worse by the month (oddly that's not contributing to my decision to leave, as I am fine and have plenty of funding and am "safe"). Will respond to your DM!

 

[chssoccer7]

1. I started filling out the app today and was curious about the "unique experiences" paragraph. I clicked on the "who should fill this out" part and it mentioned financial instability growing up. I grew up in a low-income household that affected my undergrad GPA because I had to work so darn much in college to pay for things, despite receiving generous need-based financial aid that covered tuition, but not things like rent and food in a high cost of living area. I am also a US citizen (dual national with another country that is in the EU but not one of the richer members) who grew up poor outside the US. I had to work to help my single mom out and keep working after I moved to the US for college. Now that I'm in my 30s I make 6 figures so I'm not sure if I should talk about how it was growing up. Thoughts?

I was in a relatively similar position last cycle. I did indeed fill it out for several reasons.

1- I grew up extremely poor in a very rural area. My first attempt at college was bad. Hopefully this gave an additional reason for that other than just "I had not grown out of being an idiot by 18".
2- By 30 I had overcome those challenges and was doing well in life. I hoped that by highlighting everything i'd overcome, it would make me more of a comeback story/root for the underdog for someone following along in my story.
3- It's the reality of how I lived for the majority of my formative years. I don't struggle now, but I sure as hell did for a long time and I think i deserve to at least be able to say "I overcame X Y Z" even if I did eventually succeed.

I think it's ultimately up to you, but it can't really hurt you either way. If the ADCOM member doesn't care about it they'll just ignore it anyways, but they might actually care about it and it could help.

 

[double_doc_in_progress]

I was in a relatively similar position last cycle. I did indeed fill it out for several reasons.

1- I grew up extremely poor in a very rural area. My first attempt at college was bad. Hopefully this gave an additional reason for that other than just "I had not grown out of being an idiot by 18".
2- By 30 I had overcome those challenges and was doing well in life. I hoped that by highlighting everything i'd overcome, it would make me more of a comeback story/root for the underdog for someone following along in my story.
3- It's the reality of how I lived for the majority of my formative years. I don't struggle now, but I sure as hell did for a long time and I think i deserve to at least be able to say "I overcame X Y Z" even if I did eventually succeed.

I think it's ultimately up to you, but it can't really hurt you either way. If the ADCOM member doesn't care about it they'll just ignore it anyways, but they might actually care about it and it could help.

This is helpful, thank you! Props to you for overcoming all that. Growing up poor definitely impacted my GPA in college as I was working to send money home to my single mom alongside paying my own bills. I think you're right in that it's important to say "I overcame this struggle, look at me now." Thanks again for the insight!