I have been reviewing Ophthalmology Residency applications for many years and there are some serious recurring problems with many them. Herewith are some suggestions to avoid those blemishes.
1) Know how to spell your chosen specialty. I can sense many of your eyes rolling but believe it or not, at least one app to our program each year has it misspelled. Need I say how that gets interpreted by the reviewer?
2) Follow directions: when the app asks to list your education in chronological order with the most recent first, it means just that. Even though the reviewer will still get the necessary information, it lets him or her know that this applicant does not pay attention to detail, which is not becoming to a potential resident.
3) Don't leave any significant gaps. If you took some time off (for any reason) between or after schools, make sure it's accounted for in the employment history or at least somewhere else in the application. No, we don't have to hear about the post-graduate backpacking trip for two months to Europe, but you will lose "points" if the reviewer has to work to assure him or herself that you weren't a guest of the government in Leavenworth or somewhere like that.
4) Email accounts are cheap enough; if you have a real "cutie" for your everyday email address, get a more standard-sounding one for the application.
If I think of any others I'll re-post; best of luck to all of you!
1) Know how to spell your chosen specialty. I can sense many of your eyes rolling but believe it or not, at least one app to our program each year has it misspelled. Need I say how that gets interpreted by the reviewer?
2) Follow directions: when the app asks to list your education in chronological order with the most recent first, it means just that. Even though the reviewer will still get the necessary information, it lets him or her know that this applicant does not pay attention to detail, which is not becoming to a potential resident.
3) Don't leave any significant gaps. If you took some time off (for any reason) between or after schools, make sure it's accounted for in the employment history or at least somewhere else in the application. No, we don't have to hear about the post-graduate backpacking trip for two months to Europe, but you will lose "points" if the reviewer has to work to assure him or herself that you weren't a guest of the government in Leavenworth or somewhere like that.
4) Email accounts are cheap enough; if you have a real "cutie" for your everyday email address, get a more standard-sounding one for the application.
If I think of any others I'll re-post; best of luck to all of you!
