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Sorry, I have no idea. Maybe someone else will chime in here, or alternatively, you might ask in the PreMedOsteo forum.
*~*~*~*Official AMCAS "Work/Activities" Tips Thread 2015-2016*~*~*~*
Started by Ismet
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Hello Catalystik! This is my first post ever...so bare with me! 🙂 I had a few concerns with my works/activities
1). I participated in a student-led program twice (2014 & 2015) once as a participant, once as the team leader of participants. The program was a 4 days of full time shadowing (~40 hrs at clinics) different physicians, plus insight of physician/resident life outside of clinic (we stayed with them), and 1 day doing a volunteer activity (2014: presentation to students on undergraduate studies; 2015: Habitat for Humanity 6hrs of building houses). On both I had a type of leadership role (2014: being the eldest and driver I took care of our schedule 2015: I was the actual leader and did a lot more planning/organizing as well as scheduling etc). I was considering entering this as two seperate experiences making one an MM, both under physician shadowing since I have no other shadowing experience. But what do I do about the volunteer portion? Should I include a separate entry for Short-Term Volunteer Positions?
1B). I can include the names of all physicians/healthcare staff I shadowed, but should I make the contact someone from the student organization? I was thinking of making my Team Leader a contact for 2014 and maybe someone higher up on the organization for the 2015 role.
2). I have different research experiences and will be doing two entries. Entry 1 is from my ongoing work which started out as a thesis project back in 2008/2009 but had to stop since I relocated states (they then offered me a job and did a poster presentation with them, been author on other posters as well as won an award). I am now head of the transcribers division for the lab. Entry 2 would be the senior honors thesis I did at the new school where I submitted a hypothesis, ran subjects, collected data, wrote a proposal & thesis, presented a poster, etc. Do I put under those entries and talk about the posters etc. AND then mention the posters in a separate Posters/Pub entry (same for the award from Entry 1: mention it there and place under award/recogni. entry)?
2B). What do I place as hours of work? For both projects I have not kept up a journal of the hours exactly.
3). Do I need to place an entry under leadership if they fall under other things (ie. the physician shadowing from the organization I was a team leader, or the research entry 1 that I've had a leadership role since 2010 but is under research experience)?
Thanks again! Sorry for so many questions I want to be thorough before the turning this in in June! 🙂
1). I participated in a student-led program twice (2014 & 2015) once as a participant, once as the team leader of participants. The program was a 4 days of full time shadowing (~40 hrs at clinics) different physicians, plus insight of physician/resident life outside of clinic (we stayed with them), and 1 day doing a volunteer activity (2014: presentation to students on undergraduate studies; 2015: Habitat for Humanity 6hrs of building houses). On both I had a type of leadership role (2014: being the eldest and driver I took care of our schedule 2015: I was the actual leader and did a lot more planning/organizing as well as scheduling etc). I was considering entering this as two seperate experiences making one an MM, both under physician shadowing since I have no other shadowing experience. But what do I do about the volunteer portion? Should I include a separate entry for Short-Term Volunteer Positions?
1B). I can include the names of all physicians/healthcare staff I shadowed, but should I make the contact someone from the student organization? I was thinking of making my Team Leader a contact for 2014 and maybe someone higher up on the organization for the 2015 role.
2). I have different research experiences and will be doing two entries. Entry 1 is from my ongoing work which started out as a thesis project back in 2008/2009 but had to stop since I relocated states (they then offered me a job and did a poster presentation with them, been author on other posters as well as won an award). I am now head of the transcribers division for the lab. Entry 2 would be the senior honors thesis I did at the new school where I submitted a hypothesis, ran subjects, collected data, wrote a proposal & thesis, presented a poster, etc. Do I put under those entries and talk about the posters etc. AND then mention the posters in a separate Posters/Pub entry (same for the award from Entry 1: mention it there and place under award/recogni. entry)?
2B). What do I place as hours of work? For both projects I have not kept up a journal of the hours exactly.
3). Do I need to place an entry under leadership if they fall under other things (ie. the physician shadowing from the organization I was a team leader, or the research entry 1 that I've had a leadership role since 2010 but is under research experience)?
Thanks again! Sorry for so many questions I want to be thorough before the turning this in in June! 🙂
1) a. Unless you have other short-term volunteering to add to the same group, I don't think 12 hours or so is worth giving a space to.
b. Yes. That will save you a lot of characters.
2) a. It should be mentioned in just one place. If the poster was at a campus venue, keep it with the research. If off-campus, give it a Posters/Presentations space. The award could also go with the activity that led to it, or be in an Awards/Honors space. But only one location of the two.
b. Make a best-faith guess. Be sure your contact agrees with it.
3) No. Just make the leadership role clear in the title of the activity and in your description of your role.
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deleted671237
I know this section isn't meant for future activities, but I know for a fact I am doing some activities next semester. For ones I have already done, I put in just the hours I have done so far, but for dates I included up to 2016. For activities I have not started yet, but will next semester is it acceptable to put 0 hours down and just give the dates? It seems easier to include it here than provide an update letter.
Also, do they actually contact your contacts? Or only so if it seems really sketchy? Thanks!
Also, do they actually contact your contacts? Or only so if it seems really sketchy? Thanks!
1) If you enter a future Start Date, the AMCAS program will give you an error message when you try to save the entry. One way to sneak it in would be to tack mention of it onto the end of a related activity. You'd be surprised about how many "in the bag" activities never get done, due to illness, broken bones, dismissal, etc.
2) Some schools check them rigorously, even after you have already started med school, since it takes time to get around to it. Others check rarely, saving it, eg, if an activity is too good to be true, if you look too busy to get any sleep, or if your interview didn't accord with listed experience.
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deleted671237
Thanks for the advice. If I already started an event though, I can put end date later on still without an error message correct? Is that the correct thing to do too?
1) Yes, correct.
2) It's a good idea to distinguish the hours already completed in some way vs those yet to come. You can break down the hours in the narrative, or do it more elegantly using the Repeated button by using the current month as the End Date for the first date span and then again as the Start Date for the future hours. Each will then have its own Total Hours box.
project description should be in the Research entry then?
also, how many hours should i put in the publication entry?
how many hours did you put for publications
I only have one
1. Where would clubs: such as a christian fellowship that I was not an officer, but just a member be placed.
2. If I speak another language, where would that be placed?
3. What does Repeated? mean on the application?
4. I am having trouble understanding the instructions for meaningful experience. How many meaningful experiences can we input? 1 or 3?
5. Lastly, could anyone show me an example of what to put for Organization Name:
2. If I speak another language, where would that be placed?
3. What does Repeated? mean on the application?
4. I am having trouble understanding the instructions for meaningful experience. How many meaningful experiences can we input? 1 or 3?
5. Lastly, could anyone show me an example of what to put for Organization Name:
Should I list an academic scholarship that I received from my undergraduate institution in the work/activities section?
Also, should I list that I had an art piece from class selected for the Student Showcase at my undergraduate institution?
Also, should I list that I had an art piece from class selected for the Student Showcase at my undergraduate institution?
1) Extracurricular, if it was a college sponsored activity.
2) There is another part of the AMCAS application that will ask you about languages spoken and level of fluency. It doesn't belong in Work/Activities unless you use it in an activity.
3) See post #3 of this thread for an explanation of its use.
4) You are required to enter at least one MM. Three is the maximum you can choose.
5) For which activity? This could be the name of a club, an office or department in the college, the university, the name of a business, a house of worship, the name of a journal, etc.
You might consider reading the FAQ starting in post #2 and continuing from there for some basic background material on entering your activities.
1) You may enter it under Awards and Honors.
2) You may. Consider tagging it with Artistic Endeavors and discussing other related interests, not just the award.
I will do that. Thank you Catalystik. When I put more than one activity under something such as 'Awards and Honors' and use a line to space them apart, is that how Adcoms will see it? When I click on show details under work/activities the text is all placed together, without the line for spacing, and looks kind of confusing.
Yes, a double return will show up as a blank line. To see it as adcomms will, go to the Main Menu, Click Print, then choose PDF. (You don't have to print it to see your application.)
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Under work/activity, Should I put a research lab that I worked for from 2010 - 2013 for about 50 hours even though I did not get a letter of recommendation from this professor? I got a letter of recommendation for a professor who I worked for 1000+hours from 2013 to 2014.
@Catalystik I'm including my research position (3 years) as my most meaningful. So far in the description, I listed my PI (because for contact, I put the post doc I directly work with), explained that 2 of the years was part time and 1 year was full time, the techniques I've learned. Is that enough, too less, too much?
In the summary section, shall I just talk about specifically what I worked on? (i contributed to 3 projects, 1 published, 1 submitted manuscript, and 1 ongoing)
when I talk about research in the summary, I need to say what all the abbreviations are, right?
I'm afraid that'll take up a lot of space. Is it ok if I list all the abbreviations and what they stand for in the description?
thanks!
In the summary section, shall I just talk about specifically what I worked on? (i contributed to 3 projects, 1 published, 1 submitted manuscript, and 1 ongoing)
when I talk about research in the summary, I need to say what all the abbreviations are, right?
I'm afraid that'll take up a lot of space. Is it ok if I list all the abbreviations and what they stand for in the description?
thanks!
Thank you @Catalystik!!! A few more based on the first question set:
For the student led program,
A). I have a couple other volunteer experiences I can add to the two instances in the program (ie. hospital volunteer, notetaker volunteer, etc). Total hours would be less than 100 I believe but higher than 50 hrs. Can I make the separate entry to describe in detail the volunteering part and just briefly mention that I volunteered on the 5th day as part of the program description?
B). Should I describe the experience (4 days of shadowing different physicians and staff, then spending the evening dining and conversing with member from staff and physicians outside of work hours, then one day of volunteering, the leadership roles in the experience) and then list the physician names, or just describe the experience noting that I shadowed different physicians/staff (give examples like OBGYN, OR Nurse, etc) without listing individual names?
General question (my apologies if previously answered, I've read through the whole 11 pages and didn't run into the answer):
C). What does AAMC mean when saying you can have up to 4 occurrences for each experience? Is this the same as repeated or a separate entry with same title?
D). In which case, should I make the student led program experience a single repeated occurrence?
Thank you!!!!!!!!
It isn't a matter of "should" you include it. Think more of whether it enhances your application to include it. Unless you are aiming for top research-oriented schools, you aren't necessarily expected to have an LOR confirming the activity. Just be sure your Contact is reachable. If your real question was whether it's worth including despite having only 50 hours at that lab over three years, think about your role, the skills you used, and if the experience impacted you somehow. If you have something to say about those topics that will reflect positively on you, it's fine to include.
1) That's fine. You could use the PI's name in the Organization, as in "Smith Lab at Kraft Hall, University of XXX" if you like, so as to have those extra characters to use otherwise.
2) A brief summary of each project is good to include. If they were somewhat related and you are short on space, you could give an overview instead. This is the best place to mention a submitted manuscript, but the Publication belongs in it's own space, ideally. A amnuscript in progress preferably is left out, but some bring that up in this area also.
3) For each word you want to abbreviate later, put the abbreviation after the word in parentheses the first time you use it.
A) Yes. Take care not to double count the hours. You could say, "Related volunteering described elsewhere." in your narrative.
B) You can give a general overview, or you can break out the physician shadowing hours and list them on their own, as you will do with the volunteering. Post #359 has an example of listing shadowing, if you want to do it that way. Strategically, it is a good idea to have at least one Shadowing entry tagged as such. If you are giving a program overview, you could state "Physician Shadowing hours and experience specified elsewhere" in your narrative, but still mention other shadowing, like the OR nurse, in the overview of the program.
C) & D) This refers to using the Repeated feature. See post #3 for details on its use.
For multiple shadowing of different physicians, should I put it as repeated? Or just make 1 shadowing the main and put the rest in the narrative?
Catalystik - I saw your post #359. Did you mean to put it as repeated or all the dates go in the narrative? Also what does it mean when you say just clinical hours in the description. thanks
Catalystik - I saw your post #359. Did you mean to put it as repeated or all the dates go in the narrative? Also what does it mean when you say just clinical hours in the description. thanks
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1) b. But you could put a date span in the header that encompasses all the included shadowing.
2) Don't use Repeated. All date spans go in the narrative.
When I referred to clinical hours (meaning, in the office) for that physician, a surgeon, I was implying that the rest of the hours were observing surgery in the OR.
As another point of congruence, I see both of our (avatar) cats wear hats.
Hi, just for clarification, I have three questions:
1. I worked in a breast cancer research lab for 1.5 years before joining an internship that allows me to be paid (I continued working in the same lab), would it be appropriate to separate these activities to Research and Employment? The internship also had weekly lectures on how to talk about research, make a poster, and invited guest lecturers to present their work.
2. If I decide to split the two periods of my time in lab into research and employment, would it be appropriate to label work in a Breast Cancer lab as Medical/Clinical?
3. I also won a grant to research abroad this summer in Sweden for a collaborating lab -- is it appropriate to mention this in my Work/Activities? I wrote about the application process and what I will be working on and estimated the number of hours I'd be working.
Thanks in advance!
1. I worked in a breast cancer research lab for 1.5 years before joining an internship that allows me to be paid (I continued working in the same lab), would it be appropriate to separate these activities to Research and Employment? The internship also had weekly lectures on how to talk about research, make a poster, and invited guest lecturers to present their work.
2. If I decide to split the two periods of my time in lab into research and employment, would it be appropriate to label work in a Breast Cancer lab as Medical/Clinical?
3. I also won a grant to research abroad this summer in Sweden for a collaborating lab -- is it appropriate to mention this in my Work/Activities? I wrote about the application process and what I will be working on and estimated the number of hours I'd be working.
Thanks in advance!
1) That would be fine. Alternatively, you can mention it all under Research and use the narrative box to give the date you transitioned to the Internship. Are you sure it was salaried, as opposed to stipended (which doesn't have the same tax consequences and doesn't constitute Employment)?
2) If you personally interacted with current patients undergoing treatment, then using Employment - Medical/Clinical would be fine, if it "Employment." If it was not, then you can still indicate that the research was patient-based in the title of the activity and within your description, so that readers know it was indeed "Clinical."
3) If it hasn't started by the time you submit the application, it would be inappropriate to give it a Work/Activities slot under Research. But the grant, which you've already received, could be listed under Honors/Awards, with a description of its purpose.
Thanks again! Lastly, I'm planning on doing the following. If you could let me know that this is okay:
1. Separate entries for each HCASB (the student program) experience (2014: as extracurricular activities 2015: as leadership) will explain briefly what we did/I learned and mention physician shadowing and volunteering specified elsewhere. How many hours would I place, if it was a six day experience but part of it is from shadowing and volunteering? Also, we stayed with physicians outside the clinic hours, is that considered a type of shadowing?
2. Another entry for the physician shadowing. Place in contact the main HR people for the clinics, and list the different physicians in each clinic (so no individual physician contact). Total ~80 hours.
3. Another entry for Short term Volunteering which will include the different volunteer hours I've done probably a total of 60 hrs including the two HCASB volunteer things.
Looks OK.
Socializing with physicians is not the same as shadowing them. Take care not to inflate the hours of what you call "shadowing." You will have to make your best-faith effort to honestly estimate the hours associated with each facet of the experience.
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Thank you for the information. I'm paid hourly, so is that considered stipend?
Thanks @Catalystik !!!
Unlikely to be a stipend. The clincher would be if taxes are taken out of the money paid to you. Then it's definitely salary.
Oh yeah, I do get taxes taken out of my check.
Thanks for the clarification though, very helpful 🙂
3. But i need all the characters in the Experience Summary. Is it not ok to list the abbreviations in the Experience Description?
Unless it's a common abbreviation, universally known, you need to define each abbreviation by spelling it out once. Exceptions might be made for "&, etc, eg, PCBs", and such, but those reading these essays don't necessarily have the same education background you do. It should be understandable by your non-science-background grandmother.
Many schools will look at LORs a while after the entire Primary has been reviewed. Some check them simultaneously. Every school does it their own way. Some don't read LORs until after the interview, believe it or not.
I am putting my research as one of the 3 significant activities. can i define the abbreviations in the description (700 characters) and proceed to use abbreviations in the summary (1325 characters)?
I read through the posts, but not sure if I can do as stated before. I will have a posters section for two posters presented at a total of three different conferences/symposiums. I also have presented a poster as part of a research class (literally collected data, analyzed data, and made a poster that I presented). Can I add that as part of the posters/conferences entry? Also, I have attended a lot of conferences/workshops/talks/research symposiums through the years of which I do not remember all. Do people put this in this section? Do I add some/all to the poster/conferences entry? I have learned quite a bit from some of these talks.
Yes. There is no distinction between the two sections other than a small note in the left margin. So it will all look like one essay.
1) I don't know what previous statement you are referring to, but while you could add that poster to your grouped Posters/Presentations entry, research presentations taking place at one's home campus don't generally add much to an application, thus the recommendation to mention it in the affiliated Research entry instead. Alternatively, you could safely omit it if you are short on spaces.
2) A conference you attend without doing a poster or presentation, taking on a leadership position of some sort, or having another extraordinary role is not worth mentioning. If one does a poster or presentation at a conference, it is clear from the Poster/Presentation entry and need not be reiterated in another space.
3) You have learned a lot from your college classes, Scrubs, and your parents, too, but that doesn't mean you're going to list them in the Experiences section. Are there one or two that were so spectacular they verged on a Most Meaningful experience that you feel would awe and delight adcomms reading the entry? Maybe then.
Your situation is common. Just put a note in the description about hiatus for work or academics (without specifying when) or if there were a lot of breaks, maybe add the word Sporadic or Intermittent to the title of the activity.
Thanks! This helps! I don't think I want to add anything that was just average experience. And no, I wouldn't be making these an MM.
I do have a couple poster presentations at an annual conference. Since it'll just be one or two I didn't know if, since the entry will be there, to place the two other on campus presentations there as well. All of them were the conclusion of independent research, but I wasn't planning on including those as entries since I already have a lot of that.
Is this really necessary now that AMCAS only requires one to report total hours? I do try my best to volunteer consistently but I will sometimes be gone for long periods of time when I have a lot of school work.
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I said "verged on most meaningful".
The issue of campus research/poster days/symposia is that there is little or no selection process. Presenting is often a requirement of the class.
Your entry should roughly match whatever report of your attendance is likely from the Contact listed.
Should I never put zero hours for any of the activity?
For example, If I add Dean's honor list, would I put zero hours?
For example, If I add Dean's honor list, would I put zero hours?
I am a co-author on a paper that is being reviewed by the journal of microbiology and ecology.
I did not help to write it, but I helped a ton with the research part and I understand what the research was looking for.
How would I write this up? I ask because it is not yet published, but is soon going to be.
I did not help to write it, but I helped a ton with the research part and I understand what the research was looking for.
How would I write this up? I ask because it is not yet published, but is soon going to be.
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