Statute of limitations on extracurriculars?

[brontehardyeliot]

I was looking over a secondary application from one the Texas schools and I noticed that the intructions specified that applicants should not list honors, activities, work experience, etc. from more than three years ago. I'm pretty new to this whole process (I've got a good two years before I'll even be ready to apply), and I was wondering if this is common practice. Are other schools' secondaries restrictive in a similar way? Even more importantly perhaps, are (gulp) AMCAS and the statewide Texas application service like this? I know I've got time to do more volunteer work and research and all those other things to help strengthen my application, but as a nontraditional applicant who did quite a bit in the community as an undergrad, it's rather disheartening to think that some medical schools won't even want to hear about it. Any feedback would be helpful. Thanks!

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[SMW]

Welcome to SDN!! You can always write about your "old" EC's in your essays. Apparently the new and revised AMCAS app for this year is going to limit the number of EC's. I forget what the limit will be, but apparently adcoms got tired of wading through very long lists. Many secondaries have you condense your list of EC's to about 6. I applied to 23 schools, and never saw a time restriction. In fact I put down a couple of high school things that were pretty big deals.

 

[Doctora Foxy]

Usually they want what you did in college and not high school. But on my last interview they wanted to know what I did every summer since my junior year in high school! I almost couldn't remember, so I brought up stuff I did during the year. So you can always find a way to work it in, but make sure you do LOTS of stuff during college just to be sure.

 

[brontehardyeliot]

Thanks for the info. That's fine if they don't want to know much or anything about high school years. I'm not sure I remember many specific details about that stuff anyway. I just didn't want admissions committees to spend all their time staring at my post-bacc stuff and ignore my undergraduate career, you know? After all, I worked hard, although I wasn't in "doctor mode" at the time. Thanks again.

 

[Yogi Bear]

Does "POST-SECONDARY" include the summer after high school? i.e. if you did research/volunteer the summer before college starts, where does that info go?