UTSW personal statement?

[dermie1985]

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UTSW. Just was perusing program websites and noticed this:

In lieu of a personal statement, we require responses to these three questions:

1. What distinguishes you from the next applicant?
2. What will UT Southwestern Medical Center provide you that other dermatology programs will not?
3. At the end of your career, what do you want to be remembered for?
   
   
   Haven't written this yet. Just noticed it. Do we not even upload the normal personal statement? Or is this like a secondary?

 

[Dral]

I think Penn and a few other programs do that sort of thing as well. Always good to take the time to check info on all the programs one applies to instead of just pan applying.

 

[anondermapp]

I crossed UTSW and Boston University off my list because of these weird things with their apps. They weren't places I was excited about applying to anyways, but come on!

 

[dermie1985]

Right. Most definitely. I just didn't realize that some programs had different requirements (under the impression that residency was basically standardized). Anyone know of any other programs that do this?

(And Penn's is just a short supplemental application that looks like it takes 5 minutes to fill out, right?)

I think Penn and a few other programs do that sort of thing as well. Always good to take the time to check info on all the programs one applies to instead of just pan applying.

 

[Dral]

Ohio State has a letter writer fill out an additional form about the applicant. The form is on their site.

 

[Dermione Granger]

To add to the above, in the past Mayo, Umass, and Vandy also have additional requirements.

 

[Dral]

...and downstate has been all paper old school...don't know if they use ERAS now or not.

 

[DermViser]

...and downstate has been all paper old school...don't know if they use ERAS now or not.

Yes, I think they still do. Why they continue to do this is beyond me.

 

[DermViser]

Ohio State has a letter writer fill out an additional form about the applicant. The form is on their site.

It's quite ridiculous too: http://www.osuderm.org/AboutUs/Education/ResidencyApplicantInfo.aspx. As if getting letter writers to write letters isn't enough of a hassle.

 

[anondermapp]

It's quite ridiculous too: http://www.osuderm.org/AboutUs/Education/ResidencyApplicantInfo.aspx. As if getting letter writers to write letters isn't enough of a hassle.

I don't mind the Penn thing as that takes about 30 seconds and doesn't ask you to impose on your letter writers...but imagine if every program required your letter writers to fill out a different form like OSU. Yuck.

 

[DermViser]

I don't mind the Penn thing as that takes about 30 seconds and doesn't ask you to impose on your letter writers...but imagine if every program required your letter writers to fill out a different form like OSU. Yuck.

Apparently it's supposed to be a "standardized" letter: http://www.jaad.org/article/S0190-9622(14)01293-6/fulltext. Emergency Medicine has a similar type of letter.

I understand the reasoning behind it, from a faculty perspective (definitely not advantageous for the applicant), but it's just one more thing applicants have to obtain. So let's say you have a Derm faculty write you an LOR: they have to send it to ERAS, mail it to programs that don't use ERAS, and now fill out this standardardized LOR: http://osuderm.org/Portals/0/files/DERMATOLOGY_SLOR.pdf

 

[Anonymous007]

I wouldn't sweat it too much. I applied to a few of these programs last year, and will share a brief anecdote. For one program, I added one sentence to the end of my personal statement that basically said I have no reason to want to match there but thought it was a strong program. For another program, I spent a paragraph explaining why I really wanted to be at that program. I interviewed at the former, and heard nothing from the latter. Both programs were probably pretty equal in strength, if anything the former was probably considered more competitive.

There are 100+ programs. If you really are interested in one of these programs that ask you to jump through an extra hoop go for it, otherwise don't fret.

Just to add another perspective, imagine sorting through 450 applications and trying to pick out the 10% that actually want to go there and aren't just playing the numbers game that the dermatology match seems to have become. Its a tough position to be in for both applicant and program. Not to get off topic, but considering a cap in the number of programs an applicant can apply to might fix this problem without changing the match statistics much.