I read the entire thread and have some questions. Apologies for any redundancies.
1. I saw you mention the following:
If you are a strong candidate for highly-selective, stats driven med schools, then having a dedicated Leadership space is important. I have 15 activities and no dedicated leadership slot, but am not sure if I should force to create one. I multiple entries with leadership aspects embedded, here are the ones that could possibly be re-labeled/separated out:
- 2 entries where I have been a mentor
- Major related mentor
- Mentor to young black men
- Entry for non-medical/clinical job (2 year duration
- Currently in my first year and have helped in training new employees. Will spend a significantly greater portion of my second year training/leading new recruits
- Led research projects within the job (responsible for delegating work and managing vendors)
2. Should either of these entries be listed as honor/award (currently don’t have any listed)?
- accepted into a support organization for promising STEM undergrads. The process required an application/interviews. We received tutoring, faculty mentorship and research stipends.
- applied for/got a summer research program that paid two stipends, one for my lab and one for me. I received research training/mentoring and gave a poster presentation at the end (within university symposium).
3. I have 3 research entries, being a main one to describe 3 years in lab, one detailing the summer research program, and one for a journal publication (4th author).
- Is it worth mentioning any of the following in the main "3 years in lab" post:
- completed thesis with lab research ( transcript says that I graduated with distinction)
- completed multiple semesters of independent study research within lab (shown on transcript for credit)
- summer fellowship with the lab (has dedicated post already)
4. Given that I am tight for entry space, can I add 2 posters (from publications at my current job) to the undergrad publication entry? How would you suggest titling this?
5. I have ~10 in-person shadowing hours (cut due to COVID). Following this, I started virtual shadowing (~20 hours) and reached out to >40 physicians via my alumni network [most of whom I had lengthy phone calls (30 min-hour) discussing their path to medicine, specialty and more]. I currently have this all as one entry. Do you think this is okay and is there anything I should watch out for in naming/describing this?