filling out the secondaries by hand?

Started by wendywellesley
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wendywellesley

wendywellesley

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do you fill out those forms by hand? is there a way to convert pdf files to a word doc in order to type in our information? or is it okay to fill it out by hand?

thanks 🙂
 
Hmm... somebody must know the answer to this. If we buy Acrobat or something, can we then just edit directly onto the PDF and then print a nice pretty looking (typed) form? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

(great question)
 
there are a number of ways you can go about typing it up and avoiding the "doing the secondaries by hand" bit.

1.) the best possible way: if you happen to have Adobe Professional, you can create and *edit* pdf's. The computers in my school's computing labs have this software so I bet I will be using this approach. It will be as easy as simply making textboxes in the required fields and filling it out.

2.) if you don't have that software, never fear; print out the secondary, and use a good ol' fashioned typewriter.

3.) if the typewriter is too old-school for you, you can still do some creative things. open the secondary in pdf form and copy each pages as an image; then, in an image editting program (such as MS Paint or Photoshop) you can type in your responses; then print the pages.

4.) if all else fails, then don't worry and just do the thing out by hand. Use neat hand-writing! It can't possibly hurt you if your hand-written responses are really neat; in fact it might help! 😀

anyway, yeah, so secondaries dont even come out for a while so just relax for a little while...
 
thanks!!

i tried converting a pdf to a word doc but the form got all screwed up. i think i'll just do it by hand. some secondaries are out already!
 
Last year, I did a couple of secondaries (GWU, Drexel (from what I can remember) by hand. I figure if the school is so low-tech that they aren't able to create an electronic secondary into which we can directly input our answers, I can be low-tech, too!
 
dhoonlee said:
I scanned the secondary forms into my computer, loaded the image into a Word document and made it into a "background" type image so that I could write on top of it. You could also photoshop it (come to think of it, might be easier that way).
Click to expand...

That is a good idea. Another route to go if you don't have a scanner is just to edit the PDF in photshop and just output a high res image from there, then import that into word like dhoonlee said (ie. floating text box in word should helpout greatly in possitioning the text). That would save you time and bypass the scanner.
 
Buy a copy of Adobe acrobat (not the acrobat reader mind you).

Adobe acrobat has a "forms" tool that lets you create boxes on PDFs where text can be entered.

This is time consuming -- but will make the form look nice and neat.
 
There are only a few schools who don't have electronic secondaries. I remember having to write my essay out by hand for VCU, but that was the only one.
 
wendywellesley said:
do you fill out those forms by hand? is there a way to convert pdf files to a word doc in order to type in our information? or is it okay to fill it out by hand?

thanks 🙂
Click to expand...

You could fill it out by hand. Some libraries still have "typing rooms" buried somehwhere in them. Ask around.
 
For my college essays, I typed it into a word document and then printed it out... ("measuring" using their side rulers), cut & pasted onto the application form, xerox'd and sent in the xerox'd form. It looks the same.

I think that's the most cost-efficient way to do it when you don't have access to fancy software.
 
samenewme said:
You could fill it out by hand. Some libraries still have "typing rooms" buried somehwhere in them. Ask around.
Click to expand...

Only fill it out by hand if you have absolutely no choice -- it looks rather unprofessional. It's not just the secretary who sees the application -- the whole adcom gets a copy, as do all your interviewers. You can rent a typewriter for a few days if you have enough apps to make it worth your while.

Then again, red crayon makes more of a statement... 🙄
 
Abe said:
so why cant they gives the 2ndary in word form?? Is Acrobat Reader in cahoots (if thats how you spell it) with the medical schools!!
Click to expand...

Well with word, each computer has different type of font or missing the type of font that the medical school wants. Acrobat bypass all of these different fonts on different computer problem. In short, their application will look the same on everybody computer thanks to Acrobat.
 
AHHHH!!! this upstate secondary is driving me INSANE!!! i tried opening it in illustrator (i'm on a mac) and others have worked beautifully using this method. but this damn upstate seconday gets reformated in illustrator and everything gets jumbled!!! i tried opening it in photoshop but the resolution is REALLY bad. and forget about word! anyone have any other ideas before I go find a typewriter?
 
I have opened most of my PDF secondaries in Adobe Acrobat Pro and they will allow me to type in the info into the blanks, but Upstate wont for some reason! I can't figure out how to turn them into format-able blanks! Any suggestions?
 
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