Application

Primary Application

1. Identifying Information

-contact information and biographic information: name, address, DOB, birthplace, citizenship, racial self-identification, gender self-identification, military service, dependents, designated pronouns

-language information

-childhood information: address, family income level, number in household, paid employment before 18, paid for post-secondary education, siblings

-academic record: send transcripts to AAMC and fill out courses and grades manually in the application (GPA will auto-compute by AAMC on final application)

-MCAT: will auto-send to AAMC if you wish your MCAT to be scored

2. Activities Section

-essentially an annotated or expanded resume

-up to 15 activities

-700 character limit for each activity, but you designate 3 activities as "most-meaningful", in which you are allotted an additional 1,325 characters to expand on this activity

-types of activities (18): Artistic Endeavors, Community Service/Volunteer - Medical/Clinical, Community Service/Volunteer - Not Medical/Clinical, Conferences Attended, Extracurricular Activities, Hobbies, Honors/Awards/Recognitions, Intercollegiate Athletics, Leadership - Not Listed Elsewhere, Military Service, Other, Paid Employment - Medical/Clinical, Paid Employment - Not Medical/Clinical, Physician Shadowing/Clinical Observation, Presentations/Posters, Publications, Research/Lab, Teaching/Tutoring/Teaching Assistant

-High-Yield Resources:

Shemmassian Consulting:

https://www.shemmassianconsulting.com/blog/amcas-work-and-activities

Bemo Advising:

https://bemoacademicconsulting.com/blog/amcas-work-activities-definitive-guide

Medical School Headquarters:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-IDlvkYSSw

3. Personal Statement

-5,300 character maximum

-considered to be one of the most significant components of the application

-the chance to showcase your personal story, your path to medicine, and why you would be a great medical student and future physician

-it is essential to identify the do's and the don't of writing the personal statement because while it is a chance to showcase yourself, it is also a chance to potentially introduce some red-flags

-High-Yield Resources:

Medical School Headquarters:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWwo90Vy9fA

Medical School Insiders:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttjemf6cipM

Do's and Don'ts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEAkI7QVKu8

*There are many videos of students sharing their personal statements on YouTube as examples. While these are great to view to garner some personal inspiration, it is important not to copy these examples and vital to use your best judgement on which examples may be good examples and which are not.

Secondary Application

-By far and away the best resource for the accessing past secondary application essay questions is the Medical School Insiders database: https://medschoolinsiders.com/medical-school-secondary-prompts-database/

-Most schools will have secondaries, but some schools will not require secondaries.

-It is best to "pre-write" these secondaries--aka the practice of pre-writing answers to historical essay questions for respective schools--before schools send you their secondary essay invitation so as to have ample time to write drafts and revise final essays. There are some things to be wary of "pre-writing":

***Historical essays on the database must be taken with a grain of salt, as in they may not be the essays the school uses for a given upcoming year. Make sure you don't put too much effort and attention into pre-writing essays when the essay questions may not even be used in your application.