Help Choosing Meaningful activities for amcas?

[alwaysbehappy]

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Hi,
I would like advice on choosing my meaningful activity for my amcas app. Do you think it would be ok to choose an activity not directly related to medicine - ex. I worked with adults with developmental disabilty?
Also, if I chose to make my research internship as meaningful - what do you recommend I write about?

 

[Lamel]

You can make whatever you want a "most meaningful" activity; you just have to ask, was it meaningful to you?

I spoke about my clinical experiences in my PS a lot, so even though those were definitely more meaningful than anything else, I made my research and non-clinical volunteering "most meaningful" so I could talk more about them.

For research you can talk about your role (assistant vs. actually designing experiments), what the lab/topic is about, why you chose the lab/topic, what did you learn from it, do you plan on continuing it and why etc.

 

[Catalystik]

1) Do you think it would be ok to choose an activity not directly related to medicine - ex. I worked with adults with developmental disabilty?

Yes. It's not uncommon for applicants to do so.

 

[Ismet]

It is definitely okay. One of my most meaningful experiences was music, as I've played the same instrument for going on 17 years. It would raise eyebrows if NONE of your MME's are related to medicine or research, but it's perfectly fine that not all of the MME's relate to medicine.

 

[NickNaylor]

Just make sure that whatever you decide to label as meaningful as a clear tie-in with your decision to enter medicine. As mentioned above, it's not necessary for these activities to be medically related, but they absolutely must be related to your decision to become a physician.

 

[Ismet]

Just make sure that whatever you decide to label as meaningful as a clear tie-in with your decision to enter medicine. As mentioned above, it's not necessary for these activities to be medically related, but they absolutely must be related to your decision to become a physician.

I disagree. Maybe certain schools look for certain things, but in general I wouldn't say that ALL of your MME's have to relate to your desire to be a physician. Your whole life doesn't revolve around becoming a doctor, and your entire AMCAS doesn't have to either. 2/3 MMEs probably should, as you're applying to med school after all, but if you have an activity that is very meaningful to you and is completely unrelated to medicine, I don't think it's a problem that it doesn't tie to your desire to be a doctor. My involvement in music has nothing to do with medicine or my desire to be a physician, but it's a major part of my life and the most meaningful thing to me in all honesty. Yeah I could have BSed something to say how something I learned through my involvement with music ties to something in medicine, but it's really just a hobby and passion of mine that I've done continuously for the majority of my life. It shows commitment and creativity, which are definitely aspects that med schools like to see, but I didn't feel the need to spell it out for them.

I'd rather see someone speak very passionately about something unrelated to medicine than pick their 3 medical volunteering entries as MMEs (usually BS, or doing what they think adcoms want them to do) or making up some random connection to medicine.

 

[Catalystik]

I disagree.

I'm glad you didn't let him get away with that comment.