AMCAS statement on Word Document

[MyEyesMesmerize]

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Does anyone have any idea on the max length the statement would be on a word document and in what font size?

 

[Yogi Bear]

i'm not 100% sure, but it's 5300 characters. You can find that info clicking on Tool-->Word Count. Then # of characters (including spaces) should not exceed 5300.

 

[Barton]

if you're going to cut and paste, make sure you use HTML formatting, especially for paragraphs. Otherwise, med schools will have to read your essay as one giant paragraph, and that is annoying enough to reject you right off the bat.

 

[spacecadet]

Also, definitely re-read it thoroughly after you paste it in AMCAS. Last year people had problems with the AMCAS application making small changes after they pasted (there was something with apostrophes).

Still, doing it in Word is the way to go.

 

[Green912]

Also remember not to use Microsoft Word. You need to use wordpad instead.

 

[Doctora Foxy]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by Barton:
•if you're going to cut and paste, make sure you use HTML formatting, especially for paragraphs. Otherwise, med schools will have to read your essay as one giant paragraph, and that is annoying enough to reject you right off the bat.•••••WTH?!?! I thought it said it would just look weird to us, but when it was transmitted it would be fine. That's what the help window said! How embarassing! 😳 😡 Are you sure?

Also, I remember they don't support accents.

 

[analu]

I used MS Word last year...it worked pretty well, EXCEPT that AMCAS refused to fit the last half sentence in, even though the character count was fine. Bottom line: if cutting and pasting, make sure to re-edit to check if the pasting took (mine didn't...ended up rewriting my concluding paragraph).

aloha

 

[dr. momo]

definitely only cut and paste ONCE. the repeated cutting and pasting seems to screw something up. even though the limit was 5300 characters, everytime i clicked save and then came back to the page i only had 5210 characters left. i got so annoyed that finally i just decided to edit my essay and make it shorter...then it started deleting more characters!! in the end i was only allowed to have 5193 characters...i'm not kidding, exactly 5193. i think on my practice vision i lost the last 80 characters as well. stupid amcas. 😡 😡

btw, if you like using ms word, you can just type your essay in word and then paste it into wordpad before pasting it into the web browser....that will remove all the non-text formatting. 🙂

 

[Doctora Foxy]

So am I the only one who had one long paragraph? I am so mad. You people are lucky to have SDN! I probably made so many other mistakes; I'm scared to find out! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> 😡 <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="frown.gif" />

 

[Tweetie_bird]

silly questions but somebody's gotta ask em!!

1. What is the formatting needed for the essay? B/w every paragraph, do you double space?? And then TAB at the beginning of each paragraph?? Also, I heard that you shouldn't double space b/w two paragraphs b/c each ENTER counts as two character spaces. I also heard that you don't space twice after each full stop. You only space ONCE, to save more space. Any of you did this stuff???

HELP! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="frown.gif" />

 

[spacecadet]

I did mine in Word last year and the printout shows paragraphs. Well, I put a blank line between each paragraph, so maybe that's why?

Sorry Dra Foxy. Those AMCAS people are like used car salesmen - you can't believe anything they say!

P.S. My apologies to any used car salesmen on the board who are offended by being compared to AMCAS.