By Carleen Eaton, M.D.

After four years as a premedical student, you have racked up quite a list of academic awards, community service hours, club memberships and even a publication for which you proudly received seventeenth author credit. Then there are the various part time jobs you held during college and your participation in the intramural curling team, jujitsu training and trombone playing. The work/activities section of the AMCAS application is just the place for you to tout these endeavors and show the committee that your life is not comprised entirely of memorizing flashcards and regurgitating formulas (even if it feels that way sometimes).

Other than the personal statement, the Work/Activities Summary is the section of the primary application that requires the most writing. Your first mission is to determine which activities to include, and how many. Start by making a list of all of the jobs, volunteer work, honors, awards, extracurricular activities, clubs and hobbies that you have been involved in post high school. The limit is fifteen entries, so, if you are a “joiner” may need to pare the list down. Note, however, that not filling all of the spaces is perfectly okay. After all, two years in one research lab will only take up one entry, but is much more impressive than four months each in five different labs.

On the application, you will be asked to categorize each entry into an experience type, such as “Research/Lab” or “Paid Employment.” Use these categories as a guide for what to include on your list. If you have more than fifteen activities, keep in mind that clinical and research experience should take priority; however, aim for a mix of activities. The purpose of this section is to get to know you beyond your MCAT score and GPA. If you have spent years doing sculpture or sports, for example, include those interests. The fact that one of the classifications is “Extracurricular/Hobbies/Avocations” indicates that the committee wants to know what it is you do in your spare time. Make sure you include paid employment even if it is unrelated to medicine. After all, spending hours of your time each week as a food server or retail worker means less time for you to devote to your studies and volunteering, which is important for the committee to know.

The next step is to compose a clear, concise description of each activity. You have up to 1325 characters to use for each entry but you do not need be to fill up all that space for every description. Some activities will take only a sentence or so to describe, while others will be difficult to summarize within the length limit. Give enough context so that the committee understands the nature of the activity. How large was the club of which you were president?  What were your duties within this role? Significant accomplishments?

While you shouldn’t turn these descriptions into mini-personal statements, some reflection on what you learned/gained from your experience for certain entries, particularly those related to medicine, is appropriate. As with every part of the application, good writing and meticulous proofreading are essential.

With this section complete and the personal statement done, you are well on your way to finishing the AMCAS application. The rest of the application is primarily data entry and not as taxing as composing sharp prose and deciding which activity to use for that fifteenth spot.

By Carleen Eaton, M.D.

If the 2010 cycle will be your second (or third) application to med school, then you need to take a different approach than a first time applicant. Your goal is to differentiate your current application from the last one as much as possible, and to convince the committee that you are now deserving of a spot in the class. This means scrutinizing each section of the application and determining what is new or improved and making sure that those features stand out.

In terms of timing, applying for back-to-back cycles may not be the best strategy if you have a major deficiency in your application, such as a very low GPA. Before you reapply, you need to determine the reasons for the unsuccessful application and then address them. Otherwise, you are likely to “use up” an application cycle without any real chance of admission. The result will be that you may end up applying a third time, which is less than ideal since some schools discourage a third application. This is not to say that a third time applicant will never be admitted, but it is more difficult. Instead, position yourself as strongly as possible before you reapply. Check out my November blog for ideas about how to use a year between applications most effectively.

Once you have bumped up your MCAT score, improved your GPA or gained the clinical or research experiences lacking from your application, you will be ready to go forward. Here are some points to focus on as you fill out your application:

1. Personal Statement – Do not submit exactly the same personal statement as last time, especially if you are applying to some of the same schools again. Certain elements of the personal statement may remain the same, since, after all, your initial reasons for choosing medicine as a career have not changed. However, incorporate new elements such as achievements, adventures and activities from the past year and reword topics that you are retaining from the previous personal statement. Make sure that the opening and closing are new since these sections are essential in defining a piece of writing. Starting out with the same sentence or paragraph sets up the expectation that what follows will also be the same as last year. The personal statement needs to be well written, engaging and focused. Read your previous personal statement critically, or better yet, have an advisor or friend do so and get an honest assessment about the impact it made so that you can submit your best work this time around.

2. Work/Activities section – Adding clinical experiences and/or research to your list will enhance your application. Swap out less relevant activities to make room for at least a few activities that were not on your last application.

3.  Letters of Recommendation – Include at least one or two new letters that reflect your achievements since the last time you applied.  If you received a letter previously from someone with whom you still interact, such as a researcher whose lab you work in, then ask for an updated letter.

4.  List of Schools – Your application last time may have been competitive enough to get you into a med school, but just not competitive enough for the ones you had on your list. Reapplicants should have plenty of safety schools on their list (actually, all applicants should have plenty of safety schools on their lists). Use the MSAR (published by AMCAS)  to check out the schools’ statistics to formulate a list that will give you the best chance of admission somewhere.

Applicants who succeed on a second or subsequent application are those who take the time to find the weaknesses in their application, fix them, and make sure that the application reflects this.  There are many med students and doctors who didn’t get in the first time around, so remember, an unsuccessful first (or even second) try, doesn’t mean that you have to change your career plans - just delay them a bit.

By Carleen Eaton, M.D.

Determined to get your application in early, you take the MCAT in April, then immediately start work on your personal statement. You hit the “submit” button the day the admissions cycle opens and then figure you are set. Then comes a realization: one of your letters of recommendation is still not in. You try to contact your professor without success and eventually find out from the department secretary that she is doing fieldwork in Tibet for the entire summer. So much for being early.

Unlike the rest of the application, the letters of recommendation are not fully in your control. You are depending on professors, physicians and researchers who are often very busy and not amenable to a short deadline.  Putting together a strong set of letters and having them ready to go early should be a high priority.  To achieve this, you need to know who to ask for letter, and when, and how.

If your school offers a pre-health committee letter, then the process will be structured by your school and you need only to follow their requirements and deadlines.  Med schools often require that you obtain a committee letter if your school offers one.  If your school does not have a pre-health committee, you will need to obtain individual letters of recommendation. This is a frequent occurrence and will not put you at a disadvantage in terms of chances of admission. However, it means that you will have to manage the process yourself, making sure that you obtain the right mix of letters and get them submitted on time.

The letter requirements differ by school, so check with the schools you intend to apply to. AMCAS allows you to submit up to 10 letters to their letter service, and then to specify which letters you want sent to specific schools.  This way, you can send tailor the combination of letters to the requirements of the school.

You will need to obtain, at a minimum, letters from two science professors and one non-science professor to cover the requirements for a broad range of schools. You may also want to include letters from clinical or research experiences as well as letters from volunteer and paid work that are not directly related to medicine. If you are in a graduate program, obtain a letter from the program as well. Do not submit more than 6 to 7 letters to a single school, even if they don’t have an upper limit on letters.

Once you have decided on whom to ask, you need to actually do the asking.

If possible, ask the potential letter writer in person. If the person you are asking seems at all hesitant about writing the letter – do not get a letter from that person. A letter that is unenthusiastic, or outright negative, will reflect poorly on you.

Once someone agrees to write a letter on your behalf, follow up by providing him or her with a packet of information about you. This should include copies of your resume and personal statement (a draft is fine); a summary of your accomplishments in the relevant class, lab or other setting; and instructions for submitting the letter.

The summary of your accomplishments will provide the writer with easy access to details they can use in the letter. For example, if you took a course with the letter writer, state your grade in the course; list any projects or papers that you did well on; and remind the writer that you were a frequent visitor to office hours or the leader of a group project.

The instructions you supply to the writers about submitting the letters depend on the method you are using to submit the letters. AMCAS accepts letters from college pre-health offices or career center letter services as well as from Interfolio and Virtual Evals. Letter writers can also directly upload letters to AMCAS or send them via regular mail.

Asking for your letters early and following up with the writers to make sure that they have the information they need means that you can spend your spare time over summer break on the beach instead of scrambling to reach your professor in Peru.  Even better, you get to keep your “applying early” advantage and may end up finishing out the summer with an interview offer in hand.