Most meaningful activity clarification

[Skarl]

Resolved—thanks

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[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I stopped two of my MMEs prior to applying. One of them I stopped 7 years prior and the other a year prior. No one cared. Just because you aren’t still doing it doesn’t mean it didn’t have a huge impact on you.

 

[differentiating]

Are you planning to stay involved with the organization? If so, I think it should still be fine to put the experience as a whole as a “most important” experience, and just include the year of leadership in there. I think it could potentially raise questions if you quit the organization entirely, but I also don’t know how carefully readers will be analyzing your timeline, so it might be fine either way.

 

[Skarl]

Are you planning to stay involved with the organization? If so, I think it should still be fine to put the experience as a whole as a “most important” experience, and just include the year of leadership in there. I think it could potentially raise questions if you quit the organization entirely, but I also don’t know how carefully readers will be analyzing your timeline, so it might be fine either way.

Yes that is my question. I am essentially going to "quit" the organization as I was not re-elected to the leadership position while still including it as one of my most significant.

 

[differentiating]

Yes that is my question. I am essentially going to "quit" the organization as I was not re-elected to the leadership position while still including it as one of my most significant.

Why are you quitting the organization? Were you only in it to get the leadership position? That'd be my question if it came up in an interview - you're essentially contradicting yourself.

 

[Catalystik]

What is the impact of not continuing a leadership position into my senior year? For context, I have been involved with a major organization for 2 years, 1 year in a management position. It is listed as 1/3 of my "most significant activities." I thought I would continue this into my last year but recently discovered I was not re-elected for the position. I will still list the activity on my AMCAS as the decision was largely motivated by strong competition from other applicants and the organization is still significant to me, but wanted to know how adcoms will interpret a "most meaningful" activity which will conclude after 2 years and not extend into my last year, especially considering it is one of my 3 "most significant."

It's OK to let an activity go when you won't be able to dedicate the amount of time to it that you'd prefer, such as during an application season when you may need to travel a lot and still keep your grades high. Two years is a good amount of time to have given to an endeavor. It's also reasonable that the organization would want someone else to have a shot at a leadership position since there's not that many to go around.

 

[Isoval]

This is fine.

The event is supposed to be something that made a large impact on you.
- If you were with AmeriCorps and it changed your life, it's a year-long program. It comes and goes.
- If you shadowed with a physician during freshman year and that's the thing that made you want to be a doctor, great! But you weren't able to keep going with it because you/the physician had scheduling issues? That's fine too!

Just because you didn't continue the activity in no way means that it was not important or meaningful for you.

Hell, you could have a short 4-hour volunteer shift where you had a life-changing conversation with someone you were serving and that would also be a perfectly fine experience to talk about.

 

[Skarl]

Why are you quitting the organization? Were you only in it to get the leadership position? That'd be my question if it came up in an interview - you're essentially contradicting yourself.

See my op—I volunteered with the organization for a year before getting the leadership position. I was going to “advance” to another position but someone else was selected instead. Your reply is very off-base considering I am, in a sense, being forced to quit.

My question is more regarding how adcoms will view my discontinuation considering it is a big part of my app, being one of three most meaningful experiences.

 

[differentiating]

See my op—I volunteered with the organization for a year before getting the leadership position. I was going to “advance” to another position but someone else was selected instead. Your reply is very off-base considering I am, in a sense, being forced to quit.

My question is more regarding how adcoms will view my discontinuation considering it is a big part of my app, being one of three most meaningful experiences.

I'm afraid I don't understand - is there a reason you can't continue volunteering with the organization as a whole, despite not having the leadership position? I get that you don't still have the position, but that doesn't mean you can't stay a volunteer. That's what I think you'd need to have an answer to, if it comes up - why you quit the organization itself, not the leadership position (that's easily explained).

 

[Peter Pan.]

See my op—I volunteered with the organization for a year before getting the leadership position. I was going to “advance” to another position but someone else was selected instead. Your reply is very off-base considering I am, in a sense, being forced to quit.

My question is more regarding how adcoms will view my discontinuation considering it is a big part of my app, being one of three most meaningful experiences.

Don’t tell adcoms that you lost your position due to not being elected again. Just tell them you don’t have the time to dedicate to the leadership position. If your peers didn’t vote you back in that wouldn’t bode well.