How to interpret diversity?

[narutoverse13]

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How does one tackle the question if you can provide diversity to the study body of a medical school? Does it just mean how different your life experiences are compared to the rest of the study body? I was gonna go the route how volunteering (2000+ hours) shaped my whole being, and now I'm more open-minded and love interacting with others. Or is that too cheesy?

 

[UBLI-EINSTEIN]

Quoting some adcom's idea here: "Diversity essay"= "what makes you cool?" (please punch my face if I'm wrong)
I think it's not enough just talking about liking interacting with others. This traits are just commonplace to all students, who might be doctors in the end.

 

[narutoverse13]

Quoting some adcom's idea here: "Diversity essay"= "what makes you cool?" (please punch my face if I'm wrong)
I think it's not enough just talking about liking interacting with others. This traits are just commonplace to all students, who might be doctors in the end.

I've been volunteering at this one slum in India for about 10 years now, but I already mentioned that as one of my ECs.

 

[UBLI-EINSTEIN]

I've been volunteering at this one slum in India for about 10 years now, but I already mentioned that as one of my ECs.

ehh, you can definitely mention it again.
I've just heard someone said that, secondary essays sometimes will be used as an adcom's note during the interview.
This helps adcom to interview you without any bias according to your stats.
Also, you might elaborate more of your experience in India.
In a word, state whatever answer you think "that makes you cool/unique", such as your experience or your hobbies...

 

[narutoverse13]

ehh, you can definitely mention it again.
I've just heard someone said that, secondary essays sometimes will be used as an adcom's note during the interview.
This helps adcom to interview you without any bias according to your stats.
Also, you might elaborate more of your experience in India.
In a word, state whatever answer you think "that makes you cool/unique", such as your experience or your hobbies...

So contributing to the diversity of the student body doesn't mean how you'd interact with others. It just means what experiences do you have that adds to all the other experiences of the student body? So you can just say what hella cool experience you had? How do you relate it back to the student body though or back to the school?

 

[UBLI-EINSTEIN]

So contributing to the diversity of the student body doesn't mean how you'd interact with others. It just means what experiences do you have that adds to all the other experiences of the student body? So you can just say what hella cool experience you had? How do you relate it back to the student body though or back to the school?

I think the reason that school ask these kind of question because they don't want robots.
If 170 students had the same face, same personality, same skills, and similar experience throughout the lives...then it would not be a school/hospital, but rather a boring hell.
How to relate interesting experience to school? Just by sharing them is fun enough to start a conversation with students there.

BTW, this is also an opportunity for you to stand out from applicants pool.
Unique skills or experience is critical for you to be yourself rather a replicate from others.

 

[Goro]

How does one tackle the question if you can provide diversity to the study body of a medical school? Does it just mean how different your life experiences are compared to the rest of the study body? I was gonna go the route how volunteering (2000+ hours) shaped my whole being, and now I'm more open-minded and love interacting with others. Or is that too cheesy?

So contributing to the diversity of the student body doesn't mean how you'd interact with others. It just means what experiences do you have that adds to all the other experiences of the student body? So you can just say what hella cool experience you had? How do you relate it back to the student body though or back to the school?

It's more "what do you bring to the Class?"

Your 2000 hrs of volunteering is highly admirable, but we already expect evidence of altruism.

 

[Endoxifen]

It's more "what do you bring to the Class?"

Your 2000 hrs of volunteering is highly admirable, but we already expect evidence of altruism.

What's the prevailing wisdom about the topic. Is it a good idea to go more in depth about an EC that you already listed (music for instance) or would you want to talk about something else?

 

[narutoverse13]

It's more "what do you bring to the Class?"

Your 2000 hrs of volunteering is highly admirable, but we already expect evidence of altruism.

I don't know if this is boring or not, but as a Hindu, my grandma was a huge part of my life because I learned so much about the Hindu culture from her, and interacting with her made me get along with the geriatric really well! Around 10, I was weird in that I became VERY interested in computer viruses, spyware, and riskware. I did lots of research to see how people fall for these scams and how can prevention be done to prevent many of the geriatric from falling prey to these scams. Additionally, the town I grew up in has a large geriatric population. So at my local library in HS and college, I created powerpoint presentation and 30 minute lectures where I educated the geriatric (and whoever else wanted to come) about these online scams and viruses and offered to "clean" their computers for free (which could take anywhere from 1-8 hours depending on how many computers they brought) as their computers often had tons of adware and spyware. It's not really anything related with altruism or anything, but it is just something I enjoyed doing on the side. I'm not an expert or anything on this, but I really enjoyed doing this (spent 4 hours yesterday on seven computers!! XD). @Goro @LizzyM Would this be considered diverse?

 

[UBLI-EINSTEIN]

I don't know if this is boring or not, but as a Hindu, my grandma was a huge part of my life because I learned so much about the Hindu culture from her, and interacting with her made me get along with the geriatric really well! Around 10, I was weird in that I became VERY interested in computer viruses, spyware, and riskware. I did lots of research to see how people fall for these scams and how can prevention be done to prevent many of the geriatric from falling prey to these scams. Additionally, the town I grew up in has a large geriatric population. So at my local library in HS and college, I created powerpoint presentation and 30 minute lectures where I educated the geriatric (and whoever else wanted to come) about these online scams and viruses and offered to "clean" their computers for free (which could take anywhere from 1-8 hours depending on how many computers they brought) as their computers often had tons of adware and spyware. It's not really anything related with altruism or anything, but it is just something I enjoyed doing on the side. @Goro @LizzyM Would this be considered diverse?

OMG, that's interesting (I mean the part about scams & spyware). You don't necessarily illustrate your altruism in this question. This questions asks totally different things.

 

[narutoverse13]

OMG, that's interesting (I mean the part about scams & spyware). You don't necessarily illustrate your altruism in this question. This questions asks totally different things.

I actually started doing these powerpoint presentations because I helped the library director with a problem like this, and she actually brought the idea up. Should I elaborate more on how I did my research? I wasn't even thinking about helping the geriatric in this case as being altruistic XD! I just did it because it is a TON of fun for me 🙂. I don't know how many other people like doing what I do, so would this be considered diverse do you think? And @Goro and @LizzyM

 

[LizzyM]

I actually started doing these powerpoint presentations because I helped the library director with a problem like this, and she actually brought the idea up. Should I elaborate more on how I did my research? I wasn't even thinking about helping the geriatric in this case as being altruistic XD! I just did it because it is a TON of fun for me 🙂. I don't know how many other people like doing what I do, so would this be considered diverse do you think? And @Goro and @LizzyM

Does your interest in the aged (please don't use the word geriatric which is an adjective as a noun describing people, use "older adults" or "seniors") add to the diversity of the class?? Does your interest in computer viruses and the like add to the diversity of expertise and experience in the class?? If you think so, then this might be an interesting response to the prompt but you need not get into community service in the prompt... doing community service in and of itself does not make you stand out in the class -- everyone is doing something along those lines.

 

[Goro]

What's the prevailing wisdom about the topic. Is it a good idea to go more in depth about an EC that you already listed (music for instance) or would you want to talk about something else?

I don't know if this is boring or not, but as a Hindu, my grandma was a huge part of my life because I learned so much about the Hindu culture from her, and interacting with her made me get along with the geriatric really well! Around 10, I was weird in that I became VERY interested in computer viruses, spyware, and riskware. I did lots of research to see how people fall for these scams and how can prevention be done to prevent many of the geriatric from falling prey to these scams. Additionally, the town I grew up in has a large geriatric population. So at my local library in HS and college, I created powerpoint presentation and 30 minute lectures where I educated the geriatric (and whoever else wanted to come) about these online scams and viruses and offered to "clean" their computers for free (which could take anywhere from 1-8 hours depending on how many computers they brought) as their computers often had tons of adware and spyware. It's not really anything related with altruism or anything, but it is just something I enjoyed doing on the side. I'm not an expert or anything on this, but I really enjoyed doing this (spent 4 hours yesterday on seven computers!! XD). @Goro @LizzyM Would this be considered diverse?

Again, what do you bring to the Class? What's cool about you?

STOP thinking about "diverse = different".

Introspection is an important thing for doctors to have.

 

[narutoverse13]

Does your interest in the aged (please don't use the word geriatric which is an adjective as a noun describing people, use "older adults" or "seniors") add to the diversity of the class?? Does your interest in computer viruses and the like add to the diversity of expertise and experience in the class?? If you think so, then this might be an interesting response to the prompt but you need not get into community service in the prompt... doing community service in and of itself does not make you stand out in the class -- everyone is doing something along those lines.

I think I got it now! Thank you!

 

[Endoxifen]

Again, what do you bring to the Class? What's cool about you?

STOP thinking about "diverse = different".

Introspection is an important thing for doctors to have.

So this is more about our personality than our goals, what we've done, or what's happened to us? Sounds like an interesting essay to write. What're they like for your to read?

 

[Goro]

So this is more about our personality than our goals, what we've done, or what's happened to us? Sounds like an interesting essay to write. What're they like for your to read?

We don't have a specific diversity essay.

 

[Endoxifen]

We don't have a specific diversity essay.

Oh really? Sorry about that! I'm not apply till next year and I just assumed that this was going to be a "What would you contribute to this class" type of essay questions. Whoops!

 

[vellez]

What is something unique about you? What makes you different from the hoards of pre-meds? If nothing, then you'll have to fluff up something, but ideally, theres something unique about you.

Volunteering isn't really a great example. Lots of people were moved by their volunteering, lots of people went to foreign countries to volunteer.

The Hindu thing is...okay...still not terribly impressed by that unless you went on like a Hindu mission or whatever. It seems like the easy thing for an Indian pre med to pick, and being Indian is certainly not diverse in the medical world.