I'm not an Adcom so these are just one man's opinions, but I felt bad that there were so many questions going unanswered! I'll try to get to some of the ones that I think I can help with.
Please feel free to yell if this has been explained in some fashion, but can I put "0" hours for a leadership position I held throughout college and just write "Averaged 3 hours per week" at the end of the explanation? I held two leadership positions: one for only a year, and the other for all four years of undergrad. I figured rather than counting up all the hours I can just let them know how much time I put in each week. Any suggestions?
I think it'd be better to put the total number and count it up. It's not that bad, it'll probably take up 5 minutes of your time. For what it's worth, I also provided the hrs/week in my descriptions.
Hi all,
I worked as a wrestling coach for a number of years at my former high school, I was just wondering whether I list this as paid employment (if you can call the scraps I made payment), or leadership. I only have one other definite leadership experience, so can I add this one to the category too?
Yes you could probably list this as either, and if you're lacking in leadership this may be a good place to fit some in.
Is it ok to mention something in ONE meaningful experience that I discussed in ANOTHER? I'm assuming that they read them in chronological order, and the one I'm referencing is discussed first.
Is this OK or should each meaningful experience stand completely alone?
I think it's understandable that there will be some synergy between some of your meaningful experiences. However, I think each should be understandable on their own if each is to be considered it's own separate meaningful experience rather than one experience you're attempting to split into two. If you're only lightly referencing previous work, that seems fine (for example, one experience explaining a startup company that was also inspired from the meaningful research experience that you had on toothpaste recycling).
How common is it to put research as a most meaningful experience? I don't do medically related research and it didn't directly influence my choice to pursue medicine :/
I imagine it's common but not a requirement in any way. I think research can be meaningful to you even if it doesn't "directly" influence your choice to pursue medicine. Are you suggesting that this non medical research is actually very meaningful for you or that you simply don't consider your research one of your meaningful experiences?
Either way, don't feel pressured to do it just for appearance. It's fine to have other experiences as your most meaningful.
Has this been answered? What if I want to list 7 separate but similar experiences under one "total experience"? if I can make it fit, am I breaking a rule?
I don't think so. Feel free to list 7 experiences under one group, though you'll have to provide a coherent way to indicate the time and hours that you spent on them. In my case, I provided hours/week in the description and just used one large AMCAS time range/total for the whole thing rather than try to separate out the four occurrences when I had more than four activities under one heading.
For the meaningful experiences section, can we talk about how a high school experience led to the current university experience? Specifically, does the high school experience have to be also separately listed as one of the15 as well?
For example:
For the meaningful section, I wrote about how receiving a prize at a high school science fair led me to pursue the research project I worked on in university. Should I have a separate entry as part of the 15 for the high school activity?
It just seems redundant to me, and people on this forum have been saying not to include high school activities. Can someone advise me?
I would very much avoid using a high school activity for it's own section. Feel free to include it with the subsequent college-activity that it led to all in one heading. It's the latter bit that gives the HS bit any "importance."
Would you guys list academic rank? Let's say you're in a graduate program where your rank is X out of 200+ and you're really high. I want to list it under honors with my deans list etc. but not sure if this is something that's generally listed. It doesn't show up on my transcript, only on my schools portal when I login.
I can't see why it would be that useful to list. These schools can already see your GPA and putting this into perspective is often the role of the committee letter. If you feel your GPA is not plainly indicative of your relative performance (i.e. you went to a severely grade deflating school) you could try to wiggle in the rank somehow, but otherwise I would leave it out.
If you have multiple doctors you shadowed, or multiple jobs, how do we enter the contact info? Are we supposed to list the contact info for the other jobs/doctors in the description? seems like a waste of space to me...
I would just list the contact info for one of the doctors and be done with it. Or, I would list the contact info for someone else (even if it's not one of the doctors) that could verify that I did indeed shadow all of them. I wouldn't waste description space with all of their contact info.
Hi everybody, quick question:
Let's say that I worked in my research lab only during the school year (Sept 2010- May 2011) during my freshman year, and school year + summer during my sophomore year (Sept 2011- July 2012) and just the first semester during my junior year (Sept 2012-Dec 2012).
Do I have to add this information in separately using the "Repeated?" option or can I just clump it all together and say I worked from Sept 2010-Dec 2012?
Edit: I have an additional question: If I just started my volunteer 2 months ago, but made a 1 year commitment. Should I write my hours and end date assuming I will complete the 1 year commitment?
Thanks!
To your first question, I would add the information separately using the "Repeated" option.
To your second question, yes write your hours and end date assuming you fulfill your commitment.
Hi guys,
So in one of my activities, i did more than 4000 hrs. what am i supposed to do since max is 999 X 4??
You can indicate 999 X 4 and then explain further in the activity description if you think it's important for them to understand (sounds like a substantial activity).
do people use all 15 slots? i used only like 5
Most people probably don't use all 15. Use as many as is practical given your application. Be sure that you've given yourself credit for all the different activities you've been engaged in. If that's 5, just roll with it.
I founded my own web/graphic design business in 2011 and have designed for a few national organizations as well as some local ones, should this go under Artistic Endeavors or Non-Medical Paid Employment?
Probably depends on how you want to sell it. To me, that seems like a great example of self-employment and I may list it as such. However, being "artsy" can also be really sexy so that's a great option too.
I've been playing & competing heavily in a sport since 2002 continuously till my senior year at college and to be honest, I do not know how many hours I've been on it. Should I just list like 999? Or Should I break up the period (repeating) into 4 equal time periods and put like 999 each?
I would do the latter option (break into 4) and perhaps briefly explain the extent of the commitment more specifically in the description.
