Hyper-Brevity in Primary App: Utilitarian?

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BadNewsBears2016

I’m getting prepared to reapply and I’m reevaluating the overall presentation of my primary application. As a nontraditional student with a lot of life experience, it’s incredibly difficult to squeeze complete and cogent narratives into the small spaces that are permitted in AMCAS (PS and Work Experiences). So my current thought is this: Why try?? Why muddle the waters?

There are some past topics on short personal statements, but they are mostly speculative and I’m hoping adcom members or students with success with this method can speak to the success and utility of brevity. I’ll elaborate with details of my own current rendition:

For my personal statement, I’ve put together a draft that is 2400 characters and 425 words. While I think it’s strong and decisive, it’s not a story more so than a declaration of one facet of what I believe I am (with a few telling, one sentence examples), why I value medicine and how that has determined the character of doctor I believe I’ll be.

For my experiences, I could easily fill many more than 15. But using the brevity rationale, I’ve lumped them into 7 slots: 2 unrelated activities and 5 activity theme slots (pre-hospital work experience, hospital work experience, mentoring experience, research experience, awards/honors/presentations). The theme slots have from 3 to 5 sub-activities and I’ll be using three of the themes as most importance experiences to expand on the overall impact of the themes.



So, can I get some opinions on this? Can hyper-brevity be mistaken for a negative? (laziness? blandness? arrogance?) Can it be taken as a positive? ("thanks for saving me time,” says the adcom) Will it be received with indifference?

What say you all?
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BadNewsBears2016 said:
As a nontraditional student with a lot of life experience, it’s incredibly difficult to squeeze complete and cogent narratives into the small spaces that are permitted in AMCAS (PS and Work Experiences).

So, can I get some opinions on this? Can hyper-brevity be mistaken for a negative? (laziness? blandness? arrogance?) Can it be taken as a positive? ("thanks for saving me time,” says the adcom) Will it be received with indifference?
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Risky in my opinion. Length is not necessarily that important, but what is important is that you convey your message clearly. You need to identify (1) where you're coming from/what experiences you've had - with enough description so adcoms aren't questioning what exactly you did and (2) what you learned from the experience, especially in terms of how it will benefit you as a future medical student/physician/member of your community. If you don't hit both of these, you'll be missing the mark. If one (or both) are too brief, it might be perceived that you didn't really pay attention to your experiences and didn't extract much meaning from them.

The best advice I would give is: elaborate when necessary (see 1 and 2 above) but don't fluff, and don't be too excessive when something more concise can get your point across. I doubt an adcom member will be "thankful" for less reading if it diminishes the clarity of your PS/experiences, or isn't descriptive enough for them to understand what you're getting at. Good luck friend!
 
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DrHart said:
Risky in my opinion. Length is not necessarily that important, but what is important is that you convey your message clearly. You need to identify (1) where you're coming from/what experiences you've had - with enough description so adcoms aren't questioning what exactly you did and (2) what you learned from the experience, especially in terms of how it will benefit you as a future medical student/physician/member of your community. If you don't hit both of these, you'll be missing the mark. If one (or both) are too brief, it might be perceived that you didn't really pay attention to your experiences and didn't extract much meaning from them.

The best advice I would give is: elaborate when necessary (see 1 and 2 above) but don't fluff, and don't be too excessive when something more concise can get your point across. I doubt an adcom member will be "thankful" for less reading if it diminishes the clarity of your PS/experiences, or isn't descriptive enough for them to understand what you're getting at. Good luck friend!
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Thanks for the response!

I don't want to turn this into a thread about my case per se, I'm more interested in the general idea of aiming to be brief and concise (there's surprisingly little SDN discussion on this), but I guess I'll need to contextualize (I hope we can turn it into a more general discussion though).

I'm trying to shove 3 or 4 distinct longitudinal threads (some a decade plus years long) and into a really small space. I don't believe I'm a bad writer, but I've written dozens of drafts that accounted for space and I've yet to have one that really encapsulates what I'd like to portray. The idea would be to rest my hat on the economy of priority and feel confident that the breadth of my experiences (and secondaries) will inherently portray complexity without the risk of being transparent (which I'm always paranoid about; over-transparency is kind of insulting to the reader).

I realize the risk involved (and to add to that, my advisor has pretty blatantly said to avoid risk taking), but I'm hoping to farm opinions about the hazard level of that risk and if it might be offset in some way. Because let's be honest, I'm a nontraditional and I clearly don't always do things the non-risky way.
 
I feel like you are making this way more complicated than it has to be. If you feel like you have a stronger narrative lumping activities together, do it.

But if you have the extra room to spread them out and it sounds better, that works too
 
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I also lumped my activities together, though in hindsight I probably should have fluffed everything up a bit because I realize that's what people do.

That's a pretty short PS though. I would have a few people read it and give you feedback. If it's all positive and you're confident, go with it.
 
JPmoleymole said:
I feel like you are making this way more complicated than it has to be. If you feel like you have a stronger narrative lumping activities together, do it.

But if you have the extra room to spread them out and it sounds better, that works too
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theonlytycrane said:
I also lumped my activities together, though in hindsight I probably should have fluffed everything up a bit because I realize that's what people do.

That's a pretty short PS though. I would have a few people read it and give you feedback. If it's all positive and you're confident, go with it.
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If I could just clarify, I'm not paranoid about my writing. I'm vetting (maybe fishing is a more appropriate verb) the idea with people who may have actually experienced it. If Adcom X generally associates very short essays with an insufficiency of diligence, that would be a problem. I'm looking to see if there have been successes doing with this approach and/or whether there is some generalizations made based on PS length/number of Experience slots filled.
 
BadNewsBears2016 said:
If I could just clarify, I'm not paranoid about my writing. I'm vetting (maybe fishing is a more appropriate verb) the idea with people who may have actually experienced it. If Adcom X generally associates very short essays with an insufficiency of diligence, that would be a problem. I'm looking to see if there have been successes doing with this approach and/or whether there is some generalizations made based on PS length/number of Experience slots filled.
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This isn't rocket science. It's a ******* application. I'm not trying to be rude but, seriously...perhaps this lends to the reasons why you are reapplying with such amazing experiences, etc.

Since you are reapplying, I would do whatever it takes (and perhaps, the opposite of what you did last time).

Note: I have no idea what you are saying half the time (starting with the thread title). Maybe I'm an idiot, or perhaps the effort you put into showing off your intelligence turns people off.
 
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Nietzsche's Barber said:
This isn't rocket science. It's a ******* application. I'm not trying to be rude but, seriously...perhaps this lends to the reasons why you are reapplying with such amazing experiences, etc.

Since you are reapplying, I would do whatever it takes (and perhaps, the opposite of what you did last time).

Note: I have no idea what you are saying half the time (starting with the thread title). Maybe I'm an idiot, or perhaps the effort you put into showing off your intelligence turns people off.
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Lol. Thanks, dude.
 
I'm of the opinion that everyone appreciates brevity, all else equal. The question is whether all else is really equal. If you can truly deliver a PS and account for your activities equally or more effectively in less space, then that's a positive.
 
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BadNewsBears2016 said:
Lol. Thanks, dude.
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There is something to be said for being relatable (and there are actually studies showing that people who talk like they're reading from a dictionary have lower IQ's, just like the guys who make big penis jokes past age 12 generally have small units...you are trying to prove something).

You won't be treating patients with PhD's and most won't even have a bachelors. Be relatable. Your grades and MCAT should show how smart you are, not your outstanding vocabulary that induces eyerolls.
 
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Nope. You need to have a hook. Think about the PS as the foundation of your app that expounds on your personal mission statement.you should be able to look at your app and the PS should provide context for any thing that comes up.
 
libertyyne said:
Nope. You need to have a hook. Think about the PS as the foundation of your app that expounds on your personal mission statement.you should be able to look at your app and the PS should provide context for any thing that comes up.
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Nope to what?
 
In reading your responses to our comments, maybe it would be in your best interest to be as brief as possible...


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Nietzsche's Barber said:
This isn't rocket science. It's a ******* application. I'm not trying to be rude but, seriously...perhaps this lends to the reasons why you are reapplying with such amazing experiences, etc.

Since you are reapplying, I would do whatever it takes (and perhaps, the opposite of what you did last time).

Note: I have no idea what you are saying half the time (starting with the thread title). Maybe I'm an idiot, or perhaps the effort you put into showing off your intelligence turns people off.
Click to expand...
cactusman said:
He has four likes in 21 minutes. Clearly something in your writing is coming across poorly to multiple people.
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Nietzsche's Barber said:
There is something to be said for being relatable (and there are actually studies showing that people who talk like they're reading from a dictionary have lower IQ's, just like the guys who make big penis jokes past age 12 generally have small units...you are trying to prove something).

You won't be treating patients with PhD's and most won't even have a bachelors. Be relatable. Your grades and MCAT should show how smart you are, not your outstanding vocabulary that induces eyerolls.
Click to expand...
DrHart said:
In reading your responses to our comments, maybe it would be in your best interest to be as brief as possible...


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
Click to expand...

Listen, guys. You seem like a good dudes. Neitzche's Barber is certainly a witty fellow and has a pretty cool story, so I can respect that. CatusMan seems like a young buck, so I take that for it’s worth. DrHart answered my question once and it seems like he has had application woes of his own, so we can get on that same page. But what’s with the hate? You don’t know me. You don’t know how I interact with people. All you know of me is what you’ve seen on this forum, where we’re all trying to line our ducks up so we can get to where we want to be and maybe support each other in the process. I asked a question because it seems like it hadn’t been covered very well and it could contribute to the body of knowledge on this forum (which I’ve used a lot). Perhaps I specified my aims in a bombastic and esoteric way, but it was because I wanted to make sure that the question was being addressed in its specifics and not just me.

So maybe just chill a little bit on the hostilities, eh? The insults, characterizations and penis insinuations are really not necessary and it makes this place less approachable. If you think the question is dumb, just do what JPmoleymole does and tell me I’m being neurotic. No big deal. I can appreciate that.

I appreciate everyone's time anyway. Many points have been taken.
 
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Think of it this way. This is an unorthodox strategy with a high risk and unknown reward. Why take it? The traditional route on the other hand does not have the potential to hinder or hurt your app. Are you willing to take a gamble that less is more in this instance? Schools employ a variety of rubrics in their primary and secondary app evaluation, the brevity may leave off something that may have been worth some points, kinda like leaving questions on an exam blank when there is no penalty for answering incorrectly.
 
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libertyyne said:
Think of it this way. This is an unorthodox strategy with a high risk and unknown reward. Why take it? The traditional route on the other hand does not hinder or hurt your app. Are you willing to take a gamble that less is more in this instance? Schools employ a variety of rubrics in their primary and secondary app evaluation, the brevity may leave off something that may have been worth some points, kinda like leaving questions on an exam blank when there is no penalty for answering incorrectly.
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I'm for sure in agreement with you, but I'm in brainstorm mode and was curious if any adcoms or students who tried it had anecdotes/comments.
 
I see there is a bunch of negativity in this thread and I don't want to add to it, but here is my honest two cents:

I could see someone pulling off a Hemingway vibe successfully, but the way your first few posts are written make me wonder if that kind of approach is right for you. I'd probably try to stay safe and unremarkable in style/length. As described by med ed here and many others elsewhere, the goal is just to avoid joining the few percent of weird/bad statements.
 
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In general, if you use <50% of the characters permitted, you look like you aren't trying hard enough or you just don't care to make an effort.

Proceed at your own risk.
 
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LizzyM said:
In general, if you use <50% of the characters permitted, you look like you aren't trying hard enough or you just don't care to make an effort.

Proceed at your own risk.
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Thank you.
 
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