Formatting the AMCAS essay

[Falconclaw]

Did you guys indent when typing your personal statement into AMCAS? Or did you just press enter every time it was a new paragraph? Thanks.

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[gettheleadout]

Did you guys indent when typing your personal statement into AMCAS? Or did you just press enter every time it was a new paragraph? Thanks.

From the 2015 AMCAS Instruction Manual (which is required reading as noted in the certification statement you sign when submitting your application):

Medical schools receive your essay as plain text, so the use of formatting options such as bulleted lists, indented paragraphs, and bold/italic fonts are of no advantage and therefore are not available.

The formatting of this section does not allow indentation; therefore extra spaces can be included between paragraphs. Spaces are counted as characters.

 

[Heplayer92]

Also, if you want to see what your application actually looks like, click the "print a PDF copy" option.

 

[Falconclaw]

From the 2015 AMCAS Instruction Manual (which is required reading as noted in the certification statement you sign when submitting your application):

Okay, so what I did was skip a line between each paragraph. It's a little costly in terms of character, since each time you press "enter" it counts as two characters, but I think that makes it look better.

 

[gettheleadout]

Okay, so what I did was skip a line between each paragraph. It's a little costly in terms of character, since each time you press "enter" it counts as two characters, but I think that makes it look better.

Yes, that is the stylistic formatting that is intended.

 

[hoihaie]

if you're really in need of space that you cant afford hitting enter, then you need to be more concise with your ps

 

[infinitessimal]

I skipped a line for the PS, but for the "most meaningful" activities I felt it was more suited to indent each paragraph with two spaces. Whatever you prefer, really.