ERAS: Include College Activities?

[Coastie]

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About to submit, my buddy tells me to include things from my undergrad days.

Seriously?

I think knowing about all my different jobs, my "research", and my "volunteering" wouldn't be that important, especially since I have plenty of all of the above in medical school.

Thoughts?

Thanks.

 

[Winged Scapula]

About to submit, my buddy tells me to include things from my undergrad days.

Seriously?

I think knowing about all my different jobs, my "research", and my "volunteering" wouldn't be that important, especially since I have plenty of all of the above in medical school.

Thoughts?

Thanks.

Unless it was a significant medically related experience (ie, resulted in a publication), I would not include stuff from undergrad.

Residency applications are, for the most part, different than medical school. We don't really care about your volunteering or "research" from before medical school.

 

[Pox in a box]

Unless it was a significant medically related experience (ie, resulted in a publication), I would not include stuff from undergrad.

Residency applications are, for the most part, different than medical school. We don't really care about your volunteering or "research" from before medical school.

Why?

 

[filter07]

My thinking was similar to what Dr. Cox posted. However, when I showed my CV to my Chairman, he suggested that include all things relevant to medicine, including research and volunteering. I think the best thing to do is to include things if you think they are significant enough for attention. The individual programs can decide if they want to look at it or not.

 

[fourthyearmed]

Most everyone I know included their college activities (volunteering, research, honors, etc.) because none of us had time for this stuff in med school but it showed what kind of things we liked to be involved when we had the time to do so.

 

[Rook16]

I threw in some college stuff. Could it really hurt? I figured worst case scenario they just skim by it. Best case scenario athletics/ volunteership/ research turns out to be fodder for interview discussion. I am I misguided on this point?

 

[randomedstudent]

Unless it was a significant medically related experience (ie, resulted in a publication), I would not include stuff from undergrad.

Residency applications are, for the most part, different than medical school. We don't really care about your volunteering or "research" from before medical school.

What if this seemingly insignificant "research" is the only research you have? It seems better to include it rather than leave the section blank. At least it shows some initiative and interest in future research. What do you think in this situation?

 

[future_MD_doc]

What if this seemingly insignificant "research" is the only research you have? It seems better to include it rather than leave the section blank. At least it shows some initiative and interest in future research. What do you think in this situation?

Completely agree...

 

[sophiejane]

Here's a thought: The activities and former jobs you put on your CV are pretty much at the bottom of the list as far as importance in matching goes. It's not going to tip you over the edge.

Research, of course, is different. But that has its own section.

If you have something really interesting in your past, in might stand out. Otherwise, it's small beans, people. Include college, don't include it. It hardly matters.

 

[raspberry swirl]

i also struggled with this ... what i ended up doing was including everything that was significant to me, whether it was from undergrad, or not related to medicine, i decided i didnt care. i didnt include every piddly little volunteer thing i did, but i figured that anything i put in my CV was something that i felt was important to me and that i could talk about in detail if asked about. like the other poster said, worst case scenario is they skim over it and pay no attention, or they ask me, why did you put all this in? to which i feel i have an adequate reply. my job in education for 2 years may not be relevant to medicine, but its relevant to working with people, and it was important to me. one of my volunteer activities i did during undergrad was for 10 hours a week for an entire year, and although it had nothing to do with medicine, it was very significant to me. so i put it in. IMHO, its just important to make sure your CV isn't full of overwhelming nonsense ... keep it concise and neat and only put in important things that you can discuss.

 

[48 hours]

I definitely included undergrad activities for all of the reasons mentioned above.

I didn't use everything I had on my med school app or anything. Just important stuff.

I decided that it was important based on time spent.... for instance, I did research for all 4 years in undergrad w/ the same person, so I thought this was significant, you know?

But if it was only for a few months or whatever, I left it off.

 

[ChocolateKiss]

Unless it was a significant medically related experience (ie, resulted in a publication), I would not include stuff from undergrad.

Residency applications are, for the most part, different than medical school. We don't really care about your volunteering or "research" from before medical school.

What if it was pure science (molecular biology) research that resulted in a first author publication in undergrad? How much less is a publication valued that was obtained in ugrad vs. med school?

 

[slim shanie]

This is an interesting topic... our school suggested ONLY putting medical school stuff on our application.

Then I went to the Resident/Student Family Practice conference in Kansas City and some program directors suggested putting in college stuff.

Dammit it's confusing! haha I decided I had enough from medical school so I didn't put any college activities.

 

[sophiejane]

This is an interesting topic... our school suggested ONLY putting medical school stuff on our application.

Then I went to the Resident/Student Family Practice conference in Kansas City and some program directors suggested putting in college stuff.

Dammit it's confusing! haha I decided I had enough from medical school so I didn't put any college activities.

If there is this much confusion, it can't be that important.

We aren't having these discussions about whether to send medical school transcripts or board scores, so that should tell us something about importance.

 

[filter07]

I'm not sure we can really assign a concrete value to these parts of the application. Each part contributes to a gestalt impression that the reviewer gets when looking at the application. My guess is that anything that contributes positively towards that overall impression should be in the application. For example if you only did research in medical school but had some volunteering activities in college that showed your altruistic side more, you should include that. On the other hand, if you went to various countries on humanitarian missions during medical school but didn't do any research, you should probably include your research from college.

Everything basically comes down to making a first impression to the reviewer, who likely spends very little time to come to a snap decision about your file. Although people do claim certain aspects are more or less important than the other, you have to impress people not just at the conscious/rational level but at the unconscious level as well. Never underestimate the value of the first impression.

This is not really an endorsement to include or not include, but a rule of thumb. Obviously, if one includes a lot of insignificant things, it will only serve to dilute the more important things the applicant wants to emphasize.