AMCAS - Activites

From Student Doctor Network Wiki

The following message was posted by a member of an admissions committee to The Student Doctor Network regarding the activities section:

"We want both brevity and meaningful information. Brevity because we have to read too many applications and wish to be fair to all. Meaningful information because we can’t interview everyone who is “academically qualified” and so the depth and extent of extra-curricular activities are very important—as has been said before, the more we can find out, the better equipped we are to make decisions."

This is the sort of abbreviated “map” I give to the applicants who ask me how to tackle that section:

• Think carefully about which kind of experiences were really meaningful to you—don’t try to fill out space. We are very good at recognizing bs.
• High school activities are important only to underline continuity during college at increased levels of participation, leadership or responsibility (e.g., you’ve played a musical instrument, participated in the high school orchestra and are now in the college orchestra, etc.)
• Don’t repeat what’s obvious from answers to things like experience type, title description, contact name & title or organization name (e.g, don’t repeat in the description that you worked on research with Dr. So and So—that information is above the description of your experience).
• If the organization in which you participated is not well known, give a brief description followed by the role you played there, specially if it involved any type of responsibility.
• If you made Dean’s list (or any type of honor like that) for more than one semester, use the description area to list the other semesters.
• If you received any scholarship, fellowship or other honor that is not nationally recognizable, describe it briefly. Don’t waste paper on scholarships that are awarded to half the population at the school.
• If you were just a member of an organization, let us know how many meetings/week you attended and why you joined.
• If you list a publication, make sure it’s been accepted for publication and cite it properly. If the paper is just being “prepared for submission” or “submitted,” include this fact as part of the research description in the part where you listed the research activity.
• If listing a research experience that extends through the academic year as well as summer, use the description area to let us know the time invested during each of those periods (e.g., full time during the summer, 10 hrs/week in the fall/spring blah blah blah)
• Remember that each experience you list is “up for grabs” if you are invited to interview—you might be asked anything about it and it can make you or break you.

This is just a short list I made after being frustrated reading thousands of applications that didn’t give me the information I wanted or asking a question during an interview about an experience I found interesting on the application and learning that the participation had been so minimal or superficial as to make the experience worthless.