Information I just recieved.

[becca10]

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Hi Everyone. A few minutes ago I took part in an online free Med school event by Kaplan (professionals such as doctors and adcoms were present). I took some notes on some areas, and am sharing it. Hope it helps!!🙂

· Volunteer Experience/clinical experience
.o .What did you took from the experience.
.o .Show a commitment
.o .Not #wise accredited
· Research
.o .VERY IMPORTANT!!!
.o .Whatever you want (cleaning plates, hypothesis like…)
.o .What did you learn/ or what did you experience from it. What was the result.
§ Have to explain!!!
· Letters of Recomandation
.o .Minimum (3).
.o .Maximum (5-6)
· Personal Statement
.o .Who you are
.o .Where you’re going.
.o .What’s your passion?
.o .What was your “a-ha” moment.
.o .Grammar is important.
.o .Spelling is important. )must show professional writing)
.o .Not-anything you don’t want to discuss at the interview.
.o .Not-grades.
.o .Don’t resume (listing your accomplishments)
· Interview
.o .Give the interviewer a complete picture of who you are
.o .Must be excellence in
§ Communication (No, uh-huh, like. SPEAK CLEARLY!)
§ Personality (empathetic-concerned, kind, caring, gentle)
§ Sense of humor (easy to talk to!!)
§ Motivation
§ Extra-curricular activity (example of a situation, and what you learn from it)
§ Suitability
§ How much you know about the school you are applying to.
ü Ask questions
Ø Curriculum
Ø Campus
Ø Statistics
Ø Not- ask questions that can be answered online.
§ Schedule your interviews early as possible (as fast as you can)
§ Interview starts within the exchange of e-mail and phone that you share with the med school
§ Come on time
§ Dress appropriately
§ Shake hands (must have eye contact)
§ Answer the questions with animations
§ Don’t be the only one speaking
§ Go to each of the interview to which you have been selected.
§ Talk to the students (as much as you can)

 

[dazedanconfused]

Great post! I had a final and forgot this was today, so thanks for the notes from it. 👍👍

 

[becca10]

you're welcome. Happy to be of assistance 🙂

 

[docelh]

Can you elaborate on what you meant by "Not #wise accredited" under volunteer/clinical?

 

[becca10]

They said that, It is not really base on a certain # of hours you put down. for example; 300 hrs, 400hrs..etc. What they really want to know is what did you get from the experience. Because you must be willing to discuss it in the interview. Did that help? 😕

 

[docelh]

They said that, It is not really base on a certain # of hours you put down. for example; 300 hrs, 400hrs..etc. What they really want to know is what did you get from the experience. Because you must be willing to discuss it in the interview. Did that help? 😕

👍. Thx.

 

[Jrsharp70]

I completely blew my personal statement to AMCAS, and got it much better for AACOMAS. I only applied to 4 MD schools, but I know I could have applied to 1,000 with the same results. I am thrilled with the outcome, but if I had to give the same statement to AACOMAS, I would be sitting on nothing.

Really good advice on the statement.

 

[muhali3]

I took some notes too, mostly the same as the OP's, just worded differently. I wrote this as advice to myself, so it is sort of sloppily-worded:

Definitely need research and possibly attain an LOR from PI. Doesn't matter what type of research you do, it can even be in economics or ecology. Don't embellish what you did, if all you did was clean petri dishes, then write that, adcoms recognize when you're fibbing and understand that undergrads can't really do much in the lab. What is important is that you understood what the goal of the research was, and be able to explain it in an interview.

Clinical experience is most important (shadowing, ER volunteering, etc)
Non-medical volunteering almost of equal importance

Need to be able to answer: "What did I learn from these experiences that would make me a better physician?"

Use NIH website to look for research opportunities.

Need health professions committee letter. Will look bad if your school has one and you don't use it.

Make sure LORs are confidential. Do not allow writer to show you LOR.

PS: why do I want to become a doctor? where did my passion stem from? what has brought me here?

don't write something in your PS that you won't want to discuss in the interview.

don't summarize your ECs and academic accomplishments in your PS. Rather, write what you've learned from them, what obstacles you've overcome, what ignited your passion towards medicine, have self-reflection on your personal growth.

Interviews measure: communication skills, personality (empathy, sense of humor), motivation for medicine, value of extracurricular activities, suitability for the specific medical school (ask questions about curriculum, etc.)

Also have a firm handshake, make eye contact, be passionate and animated when talking and not monotone/boring, be humble not arrogant, give succinct answers (don't ramble, give interviewer time to ask you other things)

Have to prepare with mock interviews. Schedule interview as early as possible. Being on time and dressing properly is super important.

 

[getright]

Good posts

 

[Squeal]

good posts

+1

 

[Food]

Or you could read a ton of the SDN stickys and learn all this, haha. Just kidding, it's good to post stuff you learn from those admissions seminars. While 90% of the info are things you already know or can easily find yourself, you might hear something pretty important from someone, you never know.

 

[justinbaily]

Non-medical volunteering almost of equal importance .

This is something that needs to be emphasized. It is extremely important to go after meaningful, long-term non-clinical volunteering opportunities.

Otherwise, everything on the list matches up well with SDN conventional wisdom, so that's good to see.

 

[Elpenor]

 

[lalaland123]

Pi=?

 

[muhali3]

Pi=?

Principal Investigator. Leader of the research project. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_investigator

 

[Bleg]

§ Answer the questions with animations

Time to practice my flipbook skills...

 

[becca10]

Time to practice my flipbook skills...

lol. I meant with facial expression. Like be lively!

 

[Hope0913]

Adding some of my notes...

• Career in medicine background helps - ER scribe/CNA etc
• check out joint admission medical program (for those in Texas)
• highest score on the MCAT = 45 😛 and some people actually get it
  
• Something to add to the interview -- how you overcame barriers (first to graduate college/attend med school etc)
• community service -- passion is internal, commitment is external
  
• its all about quality not quantity (X amount of numbers don't really matter)
• Research can be outside of medicine
• Ask people to write you a "supportive" LOR instead of any letter. Also the person writing the letter should know you and how you progressed/matured over time.
• Some LOR can be non-science based
• check out MSAR 2010
• Personal Statement (should reflect your life/growth/enlightenment), it should make the person want to meet you in person because it is your introduction to your interviewer
• it should reflect on your life and also look forward to your future
  

 

[MasonPrehealth]

As a panelist, I'm hoping to hear from Kaplan about when they may post an archived, edited version of the presentation. Hopefully you'll get a chance to take notes from what you might have missed.

The NIH site for some training opportunities was among the resources I know we would like to have mentioned, but if you have never gone to the training.nih.gov website (http://www.training.nih.gov/student/), you should look at a number of programs from their summer research program, their NIH Academy program, the postbac IRTA, and the Undergraduate Research Scholarship Program. Other programs such as SMDEP are also emphasized, but I also have my own wiki page on a number of other enrichment program or research opportunities at http://masonwiki.wetpaint.com/page/Summer+Research+Opportunities .

And no one noted the American Idol analogy I used??? 🙁

 

[Hope0913]

That would be awesome because I missed about 30 mins and your american idol analogy 🙁 but i do remember this quote:

"To be early, is to be on time. To be on time, is to be late. And to be late is unacceptable."

👍