How far back should I go on ERAS in terms of listing employment, volunteer, research, awards? I was thinking college, but is that a stretch?
how far back to go on ERAS
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There are no "rules". My recommendation is to keep it relevant. A longer application is not a better application. I have no need to hear about your job in pizza delivery unless it is germain to your application.
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answering calls at all hours of the night and dealing with drunk/high customers at 3 am sounds fairly germain to parts of intern year, actually.
another question: how long are your descriptions for the Experiences section. I know they give you like 1000 characters but I'm assuming you shouldn't fill up that space unless you absolutely need to. What's an acceptable length? I've been doing maybe 1-2 sentences but i don't know if that's too short
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I was actually wondering about this myself. I have relevant experiences, but some were in my early college years or after graduation... However, I wonder if it looks odd to have experiences from 2002 or 2006, for example (without filling in the gaps from 2003-2005 or 2007 to 2010 etc, due to non-relevant stuff in between). I was wondering if the residency selection committee wouldn't wonder where was all the stuff in between those years.... Or if they'd realize that we are only trying to put in relevant details.
I know in a normal CV for job applications, it looks bad to have gaps in time... so it's better to have some sort of continuity of work/volunteer experience, even if it's not relevant to the particular job. I just wonder if such discontinuity would be an issue here or not.
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If you think the experience strengthens your application, then I would include it. I don't think anyone is going to question an otherwise relevant experience just because you didn't do something equally as notable between it and medical school.
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Actually, this changes my advice to some extent.
You should include all work history from college graduation onwards. You don't want to have gaps where we don't know what you did.
Work history before college is totally optional.
Volunteer / Research / etc, you can pick and choose.
You should include all work history from college graduation onwards. You don't want to have gaps where we don't know what you did.
Work history before college is totally optional.
Volunteer / Research / etc, you can pick and choose.
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As usual, agree with aPD 🙂 Definitely make it clear what you did with your life between college and med school, leaving no gaps. That said, keep it relevant--employment and school history, or whatever was the main focus of your life, definitely include, but they probably don't need to know about the 20 hours per week you volunteered in the hospital buffing your app for med school.
To expound on what to include from college and before, again, I'd keep it relevant to the story you're trying to tell with your app. If you plan on having a research-heavy career and were heavily involved in research in med school, I'd definitely include any research/pubs/presentations/etc from college. If you're passionate about international health, then that summer mission project you did to Africa between junior and senior year of college might be relevant. But don't include things just to include things, as including anything and everything will distract from the real highlights of your application; interviewers use what's on your application to figure out what to ask you in an interview situation, and the worst feeling is when someone asks you about a research project from 5 years ago when you really want to talk about something else.
To answer the question about the length of the explanation, 2-3 sentences max. "This is what this experience is. This is what I personally did to contribute. This was the result."
To expound on what to include from college and before, again, I'd keep it relevant to the story you're trying to tell with your app. If you plan on having a research-heavy career and were heavily involved in research in med school, I'd definitely include any research/pubs/presentations/etc from college. If you're passionate about international health, then that summer mission project you did to Africa between junior and senior year of college might be relevant. But don't include things just to include things, as including anything and everything will distract from the real highlights of your application; interviewers use what's on your application to figure out what to ask you in an interview situation, and the worst feeling is when someone asks you about a research project from 5 years ago when you really want to talk about something else.
To answer the question about the length of the explanation, 2-3 sentences max. "This is what this experience is. This is what I personally did to contribute. This was the result."
