Stanford MSTP and Scholarly Concentrations

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JustForPretend

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Does anyone know for sure if MSTP students do a scholarly concentration? Clearly, a PhD would supersede it to a certain extent, but I could see MSTP students participating in some of the SC activities and talks and classes during the med school years.

What did people write for the SC essay?

Thanks!

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Would you mind posting the Stanford secondary questions?
 
 The Committee on Admissions regards the diversity of an entering class as an important factor in serving the educational mission of the school. The Committee on Admissions strongly encourages you to share unique, personally important, and/or challenging factors in your background, such as the quality of your early educational environment, socioeconomic status, culture, race, ethnicity, or life or work experiences. Please discuss how such factors have influenced your goals and preparation for a career in medicine. Please limit your answer to 2,000 characters including spaces.  [Pick a type of practice - private, academics, etc.] Why do you feel you are particularly suited for this practice scenario? What knowledge, skills and attitudes have you developed that have prepared you for this career path? Please limit your answer to 1,000 characters including spaces.  How will the Stanford curriculum, and specifically the requirement for a scholarly concentration, help your personal career goals? Please limit your answer to 1,000 characters including spaces.  If you have publications resulting from scholarly endeavors, please complete a citation for each of your publications in the space below using the following format: Author, Title, Journal, Volume, Pages, and Date of Publication. This section applies for papers that have been published or been accepted for publication. Please do not include abstracts or unpublished conference papers.  Describe your most significant research experience. Include the rationale, results, and conclusions, and the role you played in each of these components. Please be very specific, including the dates and amount of time you were so engaged. For publications or presentations that resulted or will result from this work, include a complete citation with the names of all authors and the status (e.g. submitted, in preparation). Please limit your answer to 2,500 characters including spaces.  Please describe in a short paragraph your educational and family background (e.g. I grew up in New York City, as the 3rd child of a high school principal and homemaker. I attended Mann High School where my major interests were boxing and drama. Please limit your answer to 500 characters including spaces).  Describe your reasons for pursuing medical scientist training in relation to your long-term career goals? Why are you applying to a combined degree program rather than graduate or medical school only? Please limit your answer to 800 characters including spaces.  Describe your current lab affiliation and the weekly time commitment required. (e.g. I am working in the Griffin lab where I performed research in the summer following junior year for 20 hours per week) Please limit your answer to 800 characters including spaces.  Describe any other research experiences you think would be relevant to the MSTP admissions committee decision. Please limit your answer to 800 characters including spaces.  Describe any patient-related, teaching, and service-oriented activities relevant to the MSTP admissions committee decision. Please limit your answer to 600 characters including spaces.  Describe any other aspect of your background you think would be relevant to the MSTP admissions committee decision. Please limit your answer to 800 characters including spaces.
 
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  • The Committee on Admissions regards the diversity of an entering class as an important factor in serving the educational mission of the school. The Committee on Admissions strongly encourages you to share unique, personally important, and/or challenging factors in your background, such as the quality of your early educational environment, socioeconomic status, culture, race, ethnicity, or life or work experiences. Please discuss how such factors have influenced your goals and preparation for a career in medicine. Please limit your answer to 2,000 characters including spaces.
  • [Pick a type of practice - private, academics, etc.] Why do you feel you are particularly suited for this practice scenario? What knowledge, skills and attitudes have you developed that have prepared you for this career path? Please limit your answer to 1,000 characters including spaces.
  • How will the Stanford curriculum, and specifically the requirement for a scholarly concentration, help your personal career goals? Please limit your answer to 1,000 characters including spaces.
  • If you have publications resulting from scholarly endeavors, please complete a citation for each of your publications in the space below using the following format: Author, Title, Journal, Volume, Pages, and Date of Publication. This section applies for papers that have been published or been accepted for publication. Please do not include abstracts or unpublished conference papers.
  • Describe your most significant research experience. Include the rationale, results, and conclusions, and the role you played in each of these components. Please be very specific, including the dates and amount of time you were so engaged. For publications or presentations that resulted or will result from this work, include a complete citation with the names of all authors and the status (e.g. submitted, in preparation). Please limit your answer to 2,500 characters including spaces.
  • Please describe in a short paragraph your educational and family background (e.g. I grew up in New York City, as the 3rd child of a high school principal and homemaker. I attended Mann High School where my major interests were boxing and drama. Please limit your answer to 500 characters including spaces).
  • Describe your reasons for pursuing medical scientist training in relation to your long-term career goals? Why are you applying to a combined degree program rather than graduate or medical school only? Please limit your answer to 800 characters including spaces.
  • Describe your current lab affiliation and the weekly time commitment required. (e.g. I am working in the Griffin lab where I performed research in the summer following junior year for 20 hours per week) Please limit your answer to 800 characters including spaces.
  • Describe any other research experiences you think would be relevant to the MSTP admissions committee decision. Please limit your answer to 800 characters including spaces.
  • Describe any patient-related, teaching, and service-oriented activities relevant to the MSTP admissions committee decision. Please limit your answer to 600 characters including spaces.
  • Describe any other aspect of your background you think would be relevant to the MSTP admissions committee decision. Please limit your answer to 800 characters including spaces.
 
Thanks guys! I was look at the SC part on their site and it's really tough to say. Especially if you plan on doing the PhD in one of the SC areas, as I do (Bioengineering). I'd guess that they cut out the SC for MD/PhDs though...my understanding is that Stanford has a pretty fast grad time, and that might be one of the ways that they do it.
 
Is that length typical for MSTP secondaries? They're very thorough :p

From what I've seen it's pretty comparable to most others. Some are pretty short (WashU just had you input your info, upload a photo, and pay the fee) and others have actual essays (Yale has 500 words on why you want to go there). There are a lot of questions here, but they're pretty short and general, which is easier than writing another essay.
 
Almost all are shorter. Stanford's is the longest I've encountered, though I didn't mind because I thought the prompts were quite fair. UCLA's also was very lengthy.
 
Almost all are shorter. Stanford's is the longest I've encountered, though I didn't mind because I thought the prompts were quite fair. UCLA's also was very lengthy.

Which other ones are you talking about?

Yale's is a bitch—500 words on why yale, and then a page-long MSTP essay. Columbia and UWash also have 1 page MSTP essays. The good thing is that you can recycle at least half of the AMCAS MD/PhD essay, but it's still a pain.
 
Stanford's was a lot of questions, but they were all reasonable topics and word lengths.

I found Yale and Northwestern to be much more difficult...
 
OK, OK, OK, enough hijacking my post! :)

Any current Stanford students have a thought on the original question?

I may cross-post to the general discussion -- I don't know how much traffic this board gets.
 
I did like their clinical questionnaire thing. My answers gravitated between House-ish and idealized patient interactions hehe.
 
Anyone have any new insights about this? Also, do you know what they do with the Health Beliefs and Attitudes Survey?
 
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