Need Help: is it okay to include activities I did from college even though I graduated 5 years ago?

[lemonxlime]

I will be a non-traditional applicant, applying to MD schools. I graduated from undergrad 5 years ago and I was told recently I should only include 2 activities from college and focus on what I do now. I was told our activities can’t be more than 2-3 years old. Is this true?

The thing is I’ve been working full-time since graduating in a non-medical related field. I’m not as active as I used to be. I have 5 activities I can share about myself that are post-college, but a lot of my college activities include research and leadership. I think it would work in my favor to include these.

Has anyone heard of this? Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks!

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[lumya]

Hi! I actually asked the same question in the official activities thread (I also graduated 5 years ago). The answer I got was I could do a general one title “significant collegiate experiences” and I just listed it all in one. I ended up making two, one dedicated to the publications/posters I did in undergrad and one with activities like being the president of my club and all of the non research activities. Hope this helps.

 

[lemonxlime]

Hey thanks for responding!

So did you use all 13 other sections to talk about more recent activities?

Hi! I actually asked the same question in the official activities thread (I also graduated 5 years ago). The answer I got was I could do a general one title “significant collegiate experiences” and I just listed it all in one. I ended up making two, one dedicated to the publications/posters I did in undergrad and one with activities like being the president of my club and all of the non research activities. Hope this helps.

Hi! I actually asked the same question in the official activities thread (I also graduated 5 years ago). The answer I got was I could do a general one title “significant collegiate experiences” and I just listed it all in one. I ended up making two, one dedicated to the publications/posters I did in undergrad and one with activities like being the president of my club and all of the non research activities. Hope this helps.

 

[lumya]

I actually only used 14 of the 15 since I didn't really have anything I wanted to talk about for the last one. Other than one for collegiate research and one for collegiate clubs,I also had one for collegiate awards like being on deans list or getting grants. The other ones were all either my employment (I actually lumped a couple internships I did in grad school together into one entry), volunteering, and shadowing. I also had three papers and they each took their own slot.

 

[GreenDuck12]

Yes, you should include experiences from college. Your academic record is being scrutinized from college. It is important to include activities that you did in order to round out that time of your life. With that being said, you can afford to be discerning. Mentoring, volunteering, employment, clubs, sports, music are all fine to include. Being recruitment chair of a fraternity? Maybe not.

 

[hamiltonnyc]

Anything after HS is fair game!

 

[clouds9]

n = 1: I had 15 activities, and 10 were more than 2-3 years old. I'm happy with how my cycle turned out.