One slot left- should I include my hobbies or Honors/awards?

[CalBear456]

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[907914]

What are the other 14?

I ask because it is very difficult to truly fill all 15 slots.

 

[deleted966164]

Out of these two choices I’d go with hobbies...

 

[Moko]

Of the two choices, I would go with hobbies as well. Most of your honors/awards will be apparent by your GPA and committee letters / LoRs. However, the best solution would be to consolidate some of your other activities to make room for both honors and hobbies.

 

[Catalystik]

Of the two choices, I would go with hobbies as well. Most of your honors/awards will be apparent by your GPA and committee letters / LoRs.

Agreed!

 

[907914]

However, the best solution would be to consolidate some of your other activities to make room for both honors and hobbies.

Seconded. Even after condensing my 40 something individual activities in to 15 spaces...I still found a way to combine two more to open up my hobbies section. Combining is difficult near the end, but it should almost always be possible.

 

[star-lily]

Seconded. Even after condensing my 40 something individual activities in to 15 spaces...I still found a way to combine two more to open up my hobbies section. Combining is difficult near the end, but it should almost always be possible.

Hey, sorry if it's a little intrusive, but would you be willing to share an example/paraphrase of how you decided to consolidate your activities (with any personal details omitted of course)? I won't be applying for a while, but I've made a rough version of the activities section which is, of course, an ongoing process. I want to think that I've done a fairly decent job so far with combining a lot of things, but you can never be sure.

 

[907914]

Hey, sorry if it's a little intrusive, but would you be willing to share an example/paraphrase of how you decided to consolidate your activities (with any personal details omitted of course)? I won't be applying for a while, but I've made a rough version of the activities section which is, of course, an ongoing process. I want to think that I've done a fairly decent job so far with combining a lot of things, but you can never be sure.

For example, I had two categories of “Army excercises/missions” and “Leadership/teaching experiences within the military.” One thing I did to combine these was by getting rid of the leadership/teaching category and weaving that as the central narrative of the “Army” most meaningful experience.

The same concept and idea came across, but without listing specific classes or leadership experiences. For instance, the MME said something like “Whether reteaching a soldier how to put on their gas mask or instructing a group of sergeants on proper phlebotomy technique, I always ensured to....” I did that with different examples (this one was made up) but you can see how I was able to take an entire experience section and integrate the basic concept into another section.

Another thing I did a lot of was not providing any descriptions that way I could just cram things together. If the thing is understandable to guess what it is by the name, a description is not needed. If clarification is needed, they will ask in the interview.

 

[CalBear456]

[/QUOTE]

Of the two choices, I would go with hobbies as well. Most of your honors/awards will be apparent by your GPA and committee letters / LoRs. However, the best solution would be to consolidate some of your other activities to make room for both honors and hobbies.

I really can’t consolidate further . I have 6 clinical activities. 2 leadership/ community service. 3 regular community service. 1 publication. 1 research internship. 1 long term research project w/ a presentation and an oral conference. All are different with significant involvement/hours.

I’m at a school that doesn’t do committee letters and so there wouldbe no mention of the honors program, departmental honors or the magna cum laude unless adcoms look directly at my transcript which I heard is unusually not for .
@Catalystik @Moko

 

[OfMiceAndWomen]

So looking at your past post history, if you used a separate slot for a publication, you can probably just include it within the slot of the clinical/research activity under which you published the paper? A publication can have its own slot, but if you don’t have enough slots, it’s also fine to list it under the actual research activity.

 

[Moko]

Consolidate two of your clinical activities and/or regular community service activities.

 

[907914]

1 research internship. 1 long term research project w/ a presentation and an oral conference.

Combine these two, or a few of the clinical activities. You can combine activities, just don’t go on and on about them.

 

[OfMiceAndWomen]

Combine these two, or a few of the clinical activities. You can combine activities, just don’t go on and on about them.

It would make more sense to combine the publication with the associated research, no? It's harder to combine two research experiences if they were on different topics / different fields. However, @OP if the two research experiences were similar in terms of topics/fields, you could combine them.

 

[CalBear456]

It would make more sense to combine the publication with the associated research, no? It's harder to combine two research experiences if they were on different topics / different fields. However, @OP if the two research experiences were similar in terms of topics/fields, you could combine them.

The publication was not from the research project I will be including as a space. The publication is from a separate research project that I won’t mention; I will speak about the publication and what I did for that research in the same space.

 

[OfMiceAndWomen]

The publication was not from the research project I will be including as a space. The publication is from a separate research project that I won’t mention; I will speak about the publication and what I did for that research in the same space.

What are your various clinical experiences? This is getting into the really nitty-gritty. If you really don't want to consolidate any further, then other people here have answered your original question (hobbies vs. honors/awards)

 

[star-lily]

It would make more sense to combine the publication with the associated research, no? It's harder to combine two research experiences if they were on different topics / different fields. However, @OP if the two research experiences were similar in terms of topics/fields, you could combine them.

Like if both were in neuroscience, that would work, right?

 

[OfMiceAndWomen]

Like if both were in neuroscience, that would work, right?

Yes, I think it's OK if you're pressed for space. I feel like consolidation isn't necessarily that much of a game changer, because all the same information is still present, right? It's just a matter of what you want to emphasize and what you want your application to convey.

 

[CalBear456]

Consolidate two of your clinical activities and/or regular community service activities.

I think I can consolidate two community service activities into one section but as they are a part of two different organizations...
1.) what should I put for the overall name of the activity?
2.) what about for the Contact info? Should I just list one contact?
3.) I’m guessing I can combine my hours for both activities and list them as my total.

How does this sound? @Catalystik @LizzyM @Moko
@ofmiceandwomen
@Mr. Dr. Prof. Patrick
@gonnif @Goro

 

[907914]

I think I can consolidate two community service activities into one section but as they are a part of two different organizations...
1.) what should I put for the overall name of the activity?
2.) what about for the Contact info? Should I just list one contact?
3.) I’m guessing I can combine my hours for both activities and list them as my total.

How does this sound? @Catalystik @LizzyM @Moko
@ofmiceandwomen
@Mr. Dr. Prof. Patrick

Combine the activities, make the title “Local *big city area* community service” or some generic name like that,

make the hours total the combined total of each one, list

the contact and location for the one that has the most hours.

In the block, list it as such:

1) *most hours activity* Role - organization; date range; total hours
One/two sentence description

2) *subsequent activities* Role - Organization; date range; total hours; contact name and number/email
One/two sentence description if needed (include location)

 

[CalBear456]

I need to also talk about what I learned from the experiences right?
I was thinking for the block, I would just describe what I did with the first experience and continue on saying “ In addition, with X organization, I furthered my initiative through .............”. After this I cna go on to say what I got from both of the experiences. For example, “both of these experiences served to..........”

what do you think?

 

[907914]

need to also talk about what I learned from the experiences right

No, you don’t really need to talk about what you learned in detail. They know it is all fluff. Two sentences of description for 2 activities should be around the 700 characters. Make each sentence “This is what I did (if not already self explanatory by the name), this is what I saw (if not already self explanatory by your role), and this is what I learned (if it is genuinely contributory and not just fluff).” That should be one or two sentences.

 

[LizzyM]

Honors:
-Graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Gpa of 3.838 from UCLA.

- I graduated from the College honors program, which is the highest honor bestowed onto undergraduate students by the college of Letters and Science.

-I graduated with departmental honors.

No one on an adcom really cares about these honors. They can see your GPA and every course you ever took. Don't waste a precious space on this information.