Question froma Non-trad novice!

[Lydiafaith]

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Hey all! I'm getting so very close to submitting the amcas...scary! but I'm wondering...as a nontrad student, how far back in my "work/activities/awards" section should I go? It seems ages since I was interning as and undergrad...on the dean's list...all of it feels a bit silly! Should I go back as far as I can, as I would on a resume? I just don't know! !

 

[fireflygirl]

Hey all! I'm getting so very close to submitting the amcas...scary! but I'm wondering...as a nontrad student, how far back in my "work/activities/awards" section should I go? It seems ages since I was interning as and undergrad...on the dean's list...all of it feels a bit silly! Should I go back as far as I can, as I would on a resume? I just don't know! !

I am not sure how far out of school you are but I was 5 years out of school when I applied and so I went out as far into my UG as I had to so that I could make note of any relevant activity that was worth putting on AMCAS. I certainly did not include everything but for me that went as far back as my sophomore year since that is when I got involved with my most relevant and important leadership experiences. I think you should make note of anything that is particularly relevant to your med school application no matter how far back it takes you. I needed one more activity so I did put down that I graduated with honors but didn't mark down what semesters I was on dean's list since that is already marked on my transcript.

 

[Weoh]

you have a limited amount of space for the work/activities/extracurricular section. With that in mind, choose the most significant activities to fill it out if you have more than there is space for. With regard to the academic stuff (dean's list, honor society stuff, leadership positions, etc.) definitely throw those in there even if it has been a while.

And yes, some of it does seem silly if you've been out in the real world for some time, but it the stuff paints a better picture of you for the adcoms to see- so be it. Go for it.

Good luck.

 

[Lydiafaith]

thanks so much for the replies, guys! I suppose now the task is to remember who the heck i worked for! What's funny (kind of!) is that alot of my undergrad time was spent working at record labels...but there's been such a shake up in the music business...none of my original employers are still there! oh well...just need to go with it, like you both said...even if it feels silly! Is there somewhere to mention the fact that I've worked fulltime to support my husband and myself while he's in law school?? and yet was still in school and volunteering? do they award medals for that? not likely... 😛

thanks so much for the advice!

 

[nontrdgsbuiucmd]

Hi, some feedback I rec'd from schools on this topic -- what I'd done last year is list accomplishments and the like, basically straight off my resume. Did this job, accomplished these things, listing each position separately. What schools said was: that's great you did this thing at this company and saved this amount of money for the firm, what does that have to do with medicine and why you're a good candidate?

For this year, I'm going instead with separately listing: clinical experience A, clinical experience B, medical research A, medical research B, community volunteer A...D, Academic awards (listing all of them under this single category), experience leading people (as one category). Instead of going from my perspective, I'm trying to emphasize the areas important to med schools. This approach will separate out my experience in 15 different area, it won't touch on most of what I've done since graduaton 10+ years ago. (as most of the last 10 years' experience really had nothing to do directly with medicine)