AMCAS Bullet-Like Formatting: Personal Statement and Activities Section

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

skifast25

Full Member
7+ Year Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2015
Messages
31
Reaction score
8
Anyone else having trouble formatting the personal statement or activities section on AMCAS? For example, when I "print" my application in HTML, there are no lines between the paragraphs of my personal statement. Also, I described some of my activities in bullet point-like hyphens, like:

-abc
-xyz
-123

Then in either the "show details" view or in the HTML view, it looks like:

-abc -xyz -123

Members don't see this ad.
 
For the PS, I put spaces between the paragraphs. It looked nice on the website but is a jumbled mess when printed out. I hope they don't judge on that.
 
I think the PS and the ECs just look bad when printed and that's just inevitable.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
I don't think you should worry about the HTML view. I did a bunch of activities bullet pointed and it ended up fine.
 
So does it appear as in the PDF or in the HMTL to adcoms?
 
Dont format it, period. Write and save as a TXT file format in Word, Notepad are whatever else. It will be printed via a pure text-based "spooler" when it goes thru the AMCAS system at the schools.

So that means we should NOT use bulleting? I don't see how people recommend resume style, which does not use complete sentences, if the text just comes out as a big blur.
 
So that means we should NOT use bulleting? I don't see how people recommend resume style, which does not use complete sentences, if the text just comes out as a big blur.
Semi-colons are useful.

I don't see why you don't just write it in paragraph format anyway. Tell a story instead of listing actions. I did that; I'm happy with my life choice.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
I used a "double-enter" between lines, it comes out as a paragraph break in the print view.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
So that means we should NOT use bulleting? I don't see how people recommend resume style, which does not use complete sentences, if the text just comes out as a big blur.
Definitely don't use bulletin for a PS if that is what you are asking.
 
Applications using our portal system did not honor carriage returns, bullet points, etc.. This caused the text to look like a big blob if you tried to use one of these formats. I would recommend avoiding any kind of formatting (including carriage returns) just to be on the safe side. Figure out to format your text in a way that does not require carriage returns. It's acceptable to use brief and incomplete but still understandable sentences.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Applications using our portal system did not honor carriage returns, bullet points, etc.. This caused the text to look like a big blob if you tried to use one of these formats. I would recommend avoiding any kind of formatting (including carriage returns) just to be on the safe side. Figure out to format your text in a way that does not require carriage returns. It's acceptable to use brief and incomplete but still understandable sentences.
Does this include the formatting on the personal statement? If carriage returns are not honored, then do most personal statements look like one big paragraph?

Would an acceptable way to format it, knowing that some systems do not honor carriage returns, be to use 5-6 spaces between the last period of a paragraph and the first letter of the next paragraph? That way someone reading it could infer that those are paragraph breaks?
 
@NickNaylor So do you think the format suggested in the 15/16 Work/Activities Thread is acceptable?

For example, typing

XXXXX
1/12-1/15
-XXX
-ZZ
-YY

Would become in HTML print

XXXX 1/12-1/15 -XXX -ZZ -YY

In essence, it doesn't look like it would make reading difficult since the dashes still serve their purpose and separate each point.

Thanks for the input!
 
Does this include the formatting on the personal statement? If carriage returns are not honored, then do most personal statements look like one big paragraph?

Would an acceptable way to format it, knowing that some systems do not honor carriage returns, be to use 5-6 spaces between the last period of a paragraph and the first letter of the next paragraph? That way someone reading it could infer that those are paragraph breaks?

The personal statement is formatted correctly, though sometimes characters are transposed incorrectly.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
@NickNaylor So do you think the format suggested in the 15/16 Work/Activities Thread is acceptable?

For example, typing

XXXXX
1/12-1/15
-XXX
-ZZ
-YY

Would become in HTML print

XXXX 1/12-1/15 -XXX -ZZ -YY

In essence, it doesn't look like it would make reading difficult since the dashes still serve their purpose and separate each point.

Thanks for the input!

Do whatever you want - it's your application. I would just avoid making it look wonky and figure out a way to do formatting that won't looked screwy. It's not like bullet points offer some critically needed information.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Top