Trouble capping at 15 activities

[PsychStudent]

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Hey guys! I'm an older, non-traditional student and between my work experience, my undergraduate career, and my graduate career, I have well-over the 15-item limit that the AMCAS gives. I already cut out everything that doesn't directly relate to science and psychiatric research, clinical experience (I used to be a mental health clinician), teaching experience, leadership, awards, publications, conference presentations, or medical-related volunteering. That left me with about 22 things. I know I'm going to have to cut some, but I don't know what things! It seems crazy right, but that's over 10 years and I've always been a very involved person.

Anyway, I'm trying to figure out whether I can group similar experiences into the same entry. For example, all of my teaching experience is one entry and so are my conference presentations, but can I group hospital volunteering experience from two different hospitals into one entry? They were about 4 months each in duration and were both with kids.

I am very unsure about how to cut down! Thanks SO much!

 

[airca12]

Have you read through this longstanding thread yet? http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=202513

It's about tips for entering your activities/work into AMCAS. There might be some useful info on there that applies to you.

Also, I haven't applied yet, so I'm not 100% sure of this, but I think there's a free text section on the application. So maybe you can add more activities on that portion.

Good luck!

Edit: You should group your hospital volunteering experiences into one entry if they were each 4 months long.

 

[nontrdgsbuiucmd]

haven't read the thread referenced above yet..

but with many years' experience, the way that I consolidated was to group experiences:

Research (listed 3-4 major research things here)

Leadership (listed, explicitly, 3+ things here)

Clinical volunteer experience (all major ones here)

Non-clinical volunteer experience (multiple volunteer things here)

etc. etc. first time around I listed JOBS separately, feedback that I rec'd from schools indicated that this was not easy for them to understand, ergo my change to the format above.

 

[dragonfly99]

Agree with the comments above.
The people reading these apps get so many, they don't want to read all that crap (even if it seems super duper important to you).
Just make sure to emphasize the clinical stuff (work and volunteer) and try grouping some of your activities so they'll fit some way. You don't have to go into great detail...they can always ask you about the stuff in your interview.

Make sure you get a premed advisor or someone who is used to looking at these types of applications to look at yours for you.

 

[PsychStudent]

Thanks SO much! I was able to really condense things, and I got down to 13 items! I put my three hospital volunteering positions (from 2001-2007) into one, and all four of my undergraduate research experiences (each about 6 months) into one entry. Now I'm down to only 13, yay!

 

[Captain Fantastic]

Thanks SO much! I was able to really condense things, and I got down to 13 items! I put my three hospital volunteering positions (from 2001-2007) into one, and all four of my undergraduate research experiences (each about 6 months) into one entry. Now I'm down to only 13, yay!

This is exactly how you should do it.

BTW, why are you worried about this right now? The AMCAS part of the 2009 cycle is beyond over and 2010 won't open up until May. Just curious.

 

[PsychStudent]

Good question! I'm applying in 2010, but one of my recommenders wanted a CV. I figured that I might as put it in a format that makes it easy to add to AMCAS.