Why ___ School Essay - Global Health Opportunities

[RhinB]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

Many schools I've looked at have global health programs, but some specific schools have amazing global opportunities.

I want to mention how excited I am about these potential experiences but seeing as I have no previous experience in these opportunities myself, I feel like I'm just highlighting a flaw in my application.

Or I'm worried they'll think something along the lines of "how do you know you'd want to do global health stuff if you've never done it before? You want to come to OUR school just to do a global health trip?"

Any thoughts on how to approach this? Or do people thing this reason for "Why ___ school" is too broad, overdone/useless.

Let me know! Thanks

 

[nwts]

As long as you talk about why that school's specific global health program is exciting to you. If your answer were along the lines of: "I want to go to a third world country and help people," they might view it as being overly generic because you can do that at nearly any medical school. However, if you highlight how their program in particular is interesting to you, they will probably be more interested in your application. As far as looking for something incredibly unique to say, you'll get gimmicky if you try to hard. You obviously don't want to say something really generic like: "I'm interested in your school because it has some service opportunities," (without elaborating at all), but if you are looking for something really incredibly different from all other medical schools, most schools don't have something like that. Sure, they have different aspects that set them apart, but they won't be wildly different. Just be honest, provided that your interest in that school does extend beyond: "I have a reasonable shot of getting an acceptance from you."

 

[vellez]

"Global health" and "underserved" are buzzwords and are likely to be used ad nauseum.

However, if you can characterize your interest in international medical learning opportunities (wtf is global health anyway...) in a way that does not sound like you are "checking off the boxes," it could be doable. I'm no adcom, but just reading on SDN, global health seems way overdone (and is anyone actually interested in it? Probably not nearly as many as say they are). Maybe I'm just pessimistic!