Official AMCAS 2003 Questions Page

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•••quote:•••Originally posted by Sweet Tea:
•Okay, here's a silly question...

We can use contractions in the personal statement, right? i.e., "I can't get over my writer's block" vs. "I cannot get over my writer's block".

opinions... answers... anyone...•••••Typically, the use of contractions is considered improper in academic/professional writing (check with MLA or APA). However, since this is a personal statement, it might be Ok to use contractions sparingly. Definitely do not use the more obscure ones such as could've or shouldn't.
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Ah-- Tweetie disagrees. I think I will shy away from contractions, just b/c the whole establishment seems to be rather conservative. I do not (no contraction :D ) want to be offensive.
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by Tweetie_bird:
• •••quote:•••Originally posted by Tweetie_bird:
•my post-bac classes do not seem to be having any AMCAS conversion to them? I do'nt think they are being configured into my total GPA. Anybody having the same prob?

Tweetie•••••Do we actually have people answering these?? I always seem to be waiting for days to get my reply. :( Anybody??•••••Perhaps you are getting no response because of the way you worded your question. If you ask 'Anybody having the same prob?' and get no response it is logical to assume that nobody is having the same problem.
 
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i used "wasn't" and "couldn't" in my statement, and of the 7 or so people who have read my personal statement, no one has suggested i change them. i agree you shouldn't use ones like could've, but "wasn't" really isn't that much less formal than "was not". was not sounds a little too formal in my opinion --- especially since the part i'm using the contractions in is my opening paragraph which is telling a story.

oh yeah, and i used "i've" once. if i used "i have" instead it would have sounded a little funny b/c i used "have" in the sentence already. go with what sounds best to you. if you think it doesn't sound formal/serious enough, use 2 words instead of a contraction.
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by mpp:
• •••quote:•••Originally posted by Tweetie_bird:
• •••quote:•••Originally posted by Tweetie_bird:
•my post-bac classes do not seem to be having any AMCAS conversion to them? I do'nt think they are being configured into my total GPA. Anybody having the same prob?

Tweetie•••••Do we actually have people answering these?? I always seem to be waiting for days to get my reply. :( Anybody??•••••Perhaps you are getting no response because of the way you worded your question. If you ask 'Anybody having the same prob?' and get no response it is logical to assume that nobody is having the same problem.•••••aahhhhhh!! LOL... :mad: how could i have missed that? :confused: Sorry for the blatant misunderstanding. <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" />
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by saimabean5:
•For the post-secondary part....
1)should i include the summer after highschool?
2)in the descriptions, should I say what I did or more about why I liked or why its significant?•••••can someone help me w/ what I should put in the descriptions? what did everyone else put, is this part a big deal?
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by saimabean5:
• •••quote:•••Originally posted by saimabean5:
•For the post-secondary part....
1)should i include the summer after highschool?
2)in the descriptions, should I say what I did or more about why I liked or why its significant?•••••can someone help me w/ what I should put in the descriptions? what did everyone else put, is this part a big deal?•••••1) I would say the summer after high school is definitely post-secondary
2) Just describe the experience and save the rest for your PS, secondaries or interviews. I don't think it's a big deal, you just want them to know exactly what it is you did (or won, etc.)
3) (although you didn't ask) you can delete double posts by clicking on the little pencil icon above one of them.
 
for the description i just said what i did. anyone else?

e.g.

General Chemistry Laboratory Teaching Assistant

? Answered students? questions regarding procedures, concepts, and calculations.
? Assisted the instructor with operation of instruments.
? Corrected labs and homework.
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by saimabean5:
•For the post-secondary part....
1)should i include the summer after highschool?
2)in the descriptions, should I say what I did or more about why I liked or why its significant?•••••1) Yes
2) a little of both
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by Sweet Tea:
•Okay, here's a silly question...

We can use contractions in the personal statement, right? i.e., "I can't get over my writer's block" vs. "I cannot get over my writer's block".

opinions... answers... anyone...•••••I would say go ahead and use contractions. This is a personal statement, not a thesis! You want them to get an idea of your personality. I even joked in mine, and my pre-med advisor loved it. She said adcoms were probably as tired as she was of reading stuffy and cliched but "proper" writing! I got 14 interviews out of 23 applications, and a number of interviewers commented favorably on my PS.
 
I agree with SMW Sweet Tea! I used one (didnt)and thought about changing it but left it in since it went with the flow of things in my statement. Good luck!!!
 
I agree with SMW Sweet Tea! I used one (didnt)and thought about changing it but left it in since it went with the flow of things in my statement. Good luck :clap: !!!
 
Did anyone list things like "Dean's List" on their post-secondary experiences, and if so, how much did you comment on it? It is pretty straight forward, so did you write much?
 
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A similar question... are you guys listing things like dorm officer? I left that off but am wondering if I should add it. I already have 14 so it seems kind of like filler since my other activities are more important.
 
The most significant experiences are the ones to put down. If you already have 14, I wouldn't bother putting down dorm officer unless it some way helped you with your decision to become a physician or you learned some signficant life values from the experience.

As far as the dean's list, I think it is reasonable to put it down as one activity and then in the description list all the semesters (or whatever) in which you earned that distinction. If you know of the statistics for earning dean's list honors (e.g., less than 2 percent of the class or for achieving a 3.5 GPA, etc.) you might add that to the description.
 
Hi Everyone,
I am working on the Activities Section now, and I have a question!

I've been out of school for 5 years, and I have held 8 (that's right - 8!) different full time engineering jobs since I graduated. When I was in college, worked at 3 restaurants and a research job. Can I lump all of the college non-research work activities into 1 activity? I don't want to use up 12 of my 15 spaces on work, but I do want to make sure the admin people know I was working my butt off.

Any thoughts?

Let me say, once again - this process is a pain!!!

:wink:
u2ecila
 
If I was on the adcom, I would not care that you worked in a restaurant in college. I have been out for 5 years too. I am leaving off all irrelavent employment in college. I am also skipping some of my post undergrad work experiences. I want to make my application experiences as relevant as possible.
 
question : my personal statement will only allow 5294 characters ... and since my essay is exactly 5300 (oddly enough) i'm getting gyped (sorry for the racial slur). is anyone else having this problem? i can type it in fine, but when i save it truncates it down to 5294.
 
I thought I read opinions on this somewhere a few weeks ago, but I cannot find it. In the experiences section, what should your description look like: bullet points like a resume or a written description? Also if it should look like a small paragraph description, should I do it in the first person (I, me, us) or third person?
 
JBJ-- I used a resume style to do the descriptions, mostly in an attempt to save space, and because that's what I would rather see if I had to sort through stacks of applications.

Thanks to everyone who offered opinions on my contractions question!! :)
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by JMD:
•Did anyone list things like "Dean's List" on their post-secondary experiences, and if so, how much did you comment on it? It is pretty straight forward, so did you write much?•••••I put Dean's List under honors. I wrote the number of times I was on it and what GPA I had each quarter that I made it to the list.
 
jot,
have you looked at yesterday's thread about this? there are ways to reduce the characters in your ps such as by only having one space after a period or by not indenting. have you tried these?
 
yeah i have lola, i took your suggestions, and with that i exactly fit the 5300 limit! i can probably weed out 6 characters from somewhere, but i shouldn't need to. just checking. thanks thouhg.
 
maybe you could add lots of contractions :D just kidding. good luck.
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by jot:
•yeah i have lola, i took your suggestions, and with that i exactly fit the 5300 limit! i can probably weed out 6 characters from somewhere, but i shouldn't need to. just checking. thanks thouhg.•••••Jot,
Hitting return and starting a new paragraph counts as two spaces. Is that the problem?
Isid
 
Tweetie,

My Post Bac is coming out fine. When I hit list all GPA I get a GPA for all years including post bac. Then there is a cummulative GPA excluding graduate work.

Make sure you have checked post bac when listing the course.

If a post bac class was taken at the same school as an undergradtuate class I don't think that AMCAS allows you to specify it as post bac. I listed a school twice to overcome this.
 
sigh, it's still not working.
I might have to call the rabid AMCAS monkey to get this fixed. :rolleyes: another one hour wasted on the phone listening to elevator music. :rolleyes:
 
Tweetie,
I did the same thing as conure, and it worked out fine. I earned my degree in 2001, but continued to take my pre-reqs afterward. I had to list my school twice, once for my degree, once for postbac. Hope it works for you.
 
I used "text-only" format to type up my essay, and then cut-and-pasted it into the online app. When I did this, my indentions were lost, so I typed 5 spaces in front of each paragraph. Then, to make sure everything looked OK, I clicked on "print your application", and the essay appeared :confused: as one big paragraph with no indentions. It seems that a lot of people are having this problem. Any ideas?
 
yeah, this has been a problem. i think it was a problem last year too. i put the indents and hit a return after each paragraph just to make sure it wouldn't look like all one paragraph.
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by u2ecila:
•Hi Everyone,
I am working on the Activities Section now, and I have a question!

I've been out of school for 5 years, and I have held 8 (that's right - 8!) different full time engineering jobs since I graduated. When I was in college, worked at 3 restaurants and a research job. Can I lump all of the college non-research work activities into 1 activity? I don't want to use up 12 of my 15 spaces on work, but I do want to make sure the admin people know I was working my butt off.

Any thoughts?

Let me say, once again - this process is a pain!!!

:wink:
u2ecila•••••I put my restaurant work in. I worked more than 30 hrs/wk while in school at that place, and I want to make sure that ADCOM's know that the reason my grades aren't top notch is not because I was out partying every night. Anyway, maybe you could lump during school work and then after graduation work into two categories? If you were doing essentially the same thing at your engineering jobs, I don't think it would be a big deal to put them all together.

:)
 
hhmmmmm. . .
I already have 14 post sec exp, and now I'm wondering if I should add my "student office assitant" positions i held while I was in school to pay my way through college. Well, I paid more like 65 percent of the stuff. Definitely, my life would have been easier if I wasn't working 25 hours a week....what do you think? do I put it down?
 
ok, so in regard to the Post Bac problem I am having--here it is. Please help me....
I took an 8 credit EMT class at a local community college in which I got a 3.8. For the school "program type" I am putting in "postbac undergrad." I type in the info for the school, I type in the info for my class. When I type in my GRADE from transcript, the AMCAS grade conversion should show up. It's not.

When I type in my credits, the 8 credits get converted to 5.3 supplementary AMCAS credits.

So why is the grade not converting? Is there some such clause in the AMCAS application that you need to have a specific amount of credits as post back, in order to have the grade count??? When I go into the GRADES section of my AMCAS for that specific post back school, even that does not show up..it's blank!!! Under ALL GRADES--same problem. It does not show up.

I am seriously out of ideas....and it's too late to call AAMC today, and I was hoping to have this resolved by the weekend. :( any thoughts?
 
I know this is a dopey question, but I just want to make 100% *sure* of this...aargh...

On my transcript, classes are listed as such:

BIOL 350 Intro Biochemistry 3.00 A

Yes, let's pretend I got an A in Biochem. :wink: Anyway, putting grades into AMCAS, is this how it's done?

Course Number: 350
Course Name: Introduction to Biochemistry
Course Classification: Biology

???

Or are both the Course Name AND course classification "Biology"? Is the "AMCAS course name" supposed to be what the transcript lists as the *name*/description of the course, or just the Biol in Biol 350, or the Math in Math 120, instead of the description "Calculus." ???

I hope this makes sense. And yes, I'm a dork. But look at my post count, and take pity on me! :)

Thanks guys!
 
What you had written is correct:

Course Number: 350
Course Name: Introduction to Biochemistry
Course Classification: Biology

It will then show up on your AMCAS summary that school's receive as

BIOL 350 Introduction to Biochemistry

with your grade and the number of credits.
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by Tweetie_bird:
•hhmmmmm. . .
I already have 14 post sec exp, and now I'm wondering if I should add my "student office assitant" positions i held while I was in school to pay my way through college. Well, I paid more like 65 percent of the stuff. Definitely, my life would have been easier if I wasn't working 25 hours a week....what do you think? do I put it down?•••••Put it down if you feel it has some significance to your life. If you haven't mentioned it elsewhere and you feel it is something the admissions committees should know, then include it.
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by mpp:
•What you had written is correct:

Course Number: 350
Course Name: Introduction to Biochemistry
Course Classification: Biology

It will then show up on your AMCAS summary that school's receive as

BIOL 350 Introduction to Biochemistry

with your grade and the number of credits.•••••Thanks so much!

And thanks to JZZZZZZZs for starting this thread!
 
tweetie,
i was having a similar problem with a course i took at a community college. for some reason, the amcas grade or credit conversion doesn't work. it's empty, and none of it goes into the post bac gpa. i don't know what the solution is, but i'm having the same problem!
 
I have been out of college for 6 years. In that time I have worked at several professional jobs. Do anyone think that I need to include all of them, or only the ones that pertain to my application? I worked at one job for 1 1/2 years as a recruiter for chemists and software professionals. I don't think that the adcoms could care less, but do they evaluate gaps in employment? If I leave this irrelavent activity off of my application, I have a 1 1/2 year gap.
 
I apologize if someone has addressed this already...I did my junior year in Spain, but I did not participate in any exchange program and recieved a lump of credits by my home institution. I have a transfer exemption, I believe. AMCAS would, nevertheless, like to know which classes I took abroad, even if I do not have grades for them. My question is this: should I enter them in Spanish or translate them into English??? I figure that it is better to leave them in Spanish - they aren't that hard to figure out, even if you don't speak Spanish. P.S. All courses are "AO" - none are required sciences. Thank you!
 
I would leave them in Spanish as they are in your transcripts. Makes for a more interesting application...
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by lola:
•tweetie,
i was having a similar problem with a course i took at a community college. for some reason, the amcas grade or credit conversion doesn't work. it's empty, and none of it goes into the post bac gpa. i don't know what the solution is, but i'm having the same problem!•••••I'm having the same problem with a community college! Does anyone know how to fix this?
 
Hey,
I've volunteered at the ucla medical center, and have volunteered in three different departments. would I enter these as three different experiences, since all of them were very different?
If so, what would i put for the organization name?
Thanks :confused:
 
BruinKid- I don't think that three different Dept's is the equivalent as three different post-bac experiences though I am sure that you came across different experiences in each Dept.
I volunteered in a couple of different Depts at OHSU and just put down my title and how long I was with OHSU as an institution. Feel free to post another Q if there is any ambiguity.
Jameson
 
Jameson-
Thanks for responding. I guess my question was a little vague. At ucla medical center, I volunteered in 3 different departments meaning a clinical laboratory which was off of campus, a cancer center, and the children's center. All of my tasks were different in each of these departments. All of these are 3 entirely different centers unlike just one hospital in which you could volunteer at the ER, ICU, etc. What do you think I should do?
Thanks.
 
I personally feel that they should be fair game - sounds like they are all three equally unique and meaningful experiences - enter those bad boys! :D
Jameson
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by bruinkid:
•Hey,
I've volunteered at the ucla medical center, and have volunteered in three different departments. would I enter these as three different experiences, since all of them were very different?
If so, what would i put for the organization name?
Thanks :confused: •••••Definitely include them as three different experiences.. and tweek the names so that they don't all say "UCLA Medical Center." Like if the ER is called "The Albert Jones Emergency Medicine Center" or something like that... put that down as the title... then mention it's part of UCLA in the comments. But leave one saying "UCLA medical center"... cause that sounds cool :cool:
 
Lola and Tweetie,
I had the same problem with the post-bac grade conversion earlier on but recently, I went back and re-entered the classes, and for some reason unbekownst to me, it worked! :confused: It finally allowed me to enter a grade which was then converted to the appropriate units. Before, my units were automatically transformed into supplemental units. Sorry if I can't pinpoint exactly what I did to correct the problem but maybe the two of you can go back, erase your present entries and then re-enter them. Knowing AMCAS, it's probably just a bug in the system. :rolleyes:
PersephoneInSneakers, you're welcome. I'm glad this thread is helping. :)
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by bruinkid:
•Jameson-
Thanks for responding. I guess my question was a little vague. At ucla medical center, I volunteered in 3 different departments meaning a clinical laboratory which was off of campus, a cancer center, and the children's center. All of my tasks were different in each of these departments. All of these are 3 entirely different centers unlike just one hospital in which you could volunteer at the ER, ICU, etc. What do you think I should do?
Thanks.•••••Here's what I've done. Org Name = X and Y Department, ABC School of Medicine.
That way, they know you worked with different depts, in the same hospital. If your hosp is reputable, that will only look good on your app. :) good luck!
 
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