Experience Description - short or narrative?

[mariambaby3]

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In the the 700 character Experience Description box of the AMCAS, should we describe our experiences in a succinct, resume-like format and say only what we did? Or should we talk about how it has changed us and what we learned from the activity?

Is resume-type language acceptable? ie. "Observed physicians doing so and so..." or do I need pronouns?

 

[Geebeejay]

In the the 700 character Experience Description box of the AMCAS, should we describe our experiences in a succinct, resume-like format and say only what we did? Or should we talk about how it has changed us and what we learned from the activity?
Is resume-type language acceptable? ie. "Observed physicians doing so and so..." or do I need pronouns?

Whatever you did in college, admissions has seen it thousands if not hundreds of thousands of times. They know what a lab tech, assistant, researcher, EMT, hospital volunteer, tutor, missionary, butcher, teach for america etc. does. Focus on what you learned, not what you did.

 

[scarlett14]

well if its research, theres not much new you can say about what you learned doing research...id focus on talking about what kind of project you were working on/what the research was exactly.

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

I would focus on what you accomplished. Save what you learned from the experience for the most meaningful essays and/or your PS and secondaries.

 

[Ismet]

Depends on what kind of entry. I approached a research description differently than I did the description for volunteering. But overall, I usually wrote 1-2 sentences about what the activity entailed (if it wasn't obvious from the title) and the rest of it was what I got out of it.

Write your descriptions in narrative format, like you would write a one-paragraph essay. I think the only exceptions to this would be if you have an entry where you just need to list several things and there's really no description. I used a numbered list for my Honors/Awards and Hobbies entries.