Your Work & Activities Section: Non-Clinical Experiences to Highlight (Part 7)

While medical schools need to see clinical experiences in your W&A section, they’re also looking to see non-clinical experiences that highlight your abilities in critical thinking and innovation, teamwork and collaboration, leadership, and empathy. The roles that we highlight throughout this week will demonstrate the wide-ranging experiences and qualities that you have to offer to your medical school community.

Hobbies: Hobbies are not superficial. Yes, your medical experiences, volunteer work, noteworthy club positions, and academic accolades are going to outrank this in the W&A. But, you have fifteen unique entries to fill, and you want to show different dimensions of yourself. We believe a hobby is a must in a W&A.

Your Work & Activities Section: Non-Clinical Experiences to Highlight (Part 6)

While medical schools need to see clinical experiences in your W&A section, they’re also looking to see non-clinical experiences that highlight your abilities in critical thinking and innovation, teamwork and collaboration, leadership, and empathy. The roles that we highlight throughout this week will demonstrate the wide-ranging experiences and qualities that you have to offer to your medical school community.

Campus Organizations: If you've dedicated years to the same organization, highlight your biggest accomplishments. What did you change as part of this organization, or what important tradition did you carry on? Did you bring anything medical into the mix? For example, when your sorority did charity work, was it for a medicine-related cause? If you have some control over your organization's next event, see if you can swing things in that direction. Incidentally, if your school has a pre-med club and you're not in it, join it now.

Your Work & Activities Section: Non-Clinical Experiences to Highlight (Part 5)

While medical schools need to see clinical experiences in your W&A section, they’re also looking to see non-clinical experiences that highlight your abilities in critical thinking and innovation, teamwork and collaboration, leadership, and empathy. The roles that we highlight throughout this week will demonstrate the wide-ranging experiences and qualities that you have to offer to your medical school community.

Conferences: Attending a conference is typically only a one-day time commitment, but it shows an interest in learning about the current state and future of medicine. Conferences can be very inspiring. These speakers were selected for a reason. Networking with doctors is great, and talking to any patients in attendance is even better. When you're writing this entry, don't just list what you did or heard at the conference, tell us how it affected you after that one day.

Outside of the W&A, having attended a conference can come in handy during an interview. You might be asked if there are any new developments in healthcare that you find riveting. If you attended a conference and subsequently read more about the topics discussed, you're going to have a lot of thoughts to share.

Your Work & Activities Section: Non-Clinical Experiences to Highlight (Part 4)

While medical schools need to see clinical experiences in your W&A section, they’re also looking to see non-clinical experiences that highlight your abilities in critical thinking and innovation, teamwork and collaboration, leadership, and empathy. The roles that we highlight throughout this week will demonstrate the wide-ranging experiences and qualities that you have to offer to your medical school community.

Science-Related Anything: A science-related club or volunteering experience will be attractive to schools because it shows a passion for scientific study. Tutoring and mentoring looks especially good because teaching is a big part of medicine. We had a client who spent a year's worth of Tuesday afternoons helping high school students learn about physiology. It improved his ability to break down information. You'll be teaching med students as a resident, residents as a fellow, fellows as an attending, and you'll be translating complexities for a layman patient daily.

Your Work & Activities Section: Non-Clinical Experiences to Highlight (Part 3)

While medical schools need to see clinical experiences in your W&A section, they’re also looking to see non-clinical experiences that highlight your abilities in critical thinking and innovation, teamwork and collaboration, leadership, and empathy. The roles that we highlight throughout this week will demonstrate the wide-ranging experiences and qualities that you have to offer to your medical school community.

Big Academic Wins: To include awards and accolades in the W&A, you must go beyond listing them. Give some background about what you had to achieve to be recognized. If you did a thesis as part of your school's Honors College program, share the process, skills you learned, and how you felt upon accomplishing this goal. If you had any help reaching your goal, say so. Did a mentor work with you during office hours? Did a librarian help you track down a rare manuscript? Medical schools love it when a candidate seeks, accepts, and appreciates help.

Your Work & Activities Section: Non-Clinical Experiences to Highlight (Part 2)

While medical schools need to see clinical experiences in your W&A section, they’re also looking to see non-clinical experiences that highlight your abilities in critical thinking and innovation, teamwork and collaboration, leadership, and empathy. The roles that we highlight throughout this week will demonstrate the wide-ranging experiences and qualities that you have to offer to your medical school community.

Non-Clinical Volunteering: Service is a huge part of medicine—but not all your service has to be medical. Schools like Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine that emphasize caring for the whole person will especially value roles in which you interacted with your community. Volunteering shows compassion and often builds communication and collaboration skills. Share a story where you connected with another person or collaborated with a team of other volunteers.

Such a position can also prove ingenuity. One of our clients volunteered at a non-profit that helped families register for SNAP benefits. After a couple of weeks on the job, she suggested changes to the organization's method for approaching people at family court hearings. She was able to connect with more caregivers who needed help as a result.

Your Work & Activities Section: Non-Clinical Experiences to Highlight (Part 1)

While medical schools need to see clinical experiences in your W&A section, they’re also looking to see non-clinical experiences that highlight your abilities in critical thinking and innovation, teamwork and collaboration, leadership, and empathy. The roles that we highlight throughout this week will demonstrate the wide-ranging experiences and qualities that you have to offer to your medical school community.

Research and/or Lab Work: Spotlight on Johns Hopkins: AMCAS matriculation data for the 2018 entering class stated that 96% had research or lab experience. If you want to attend a school famous for its research, you need more than one of these gigs. Even schools that aren't explicitly known for research love seeing multiple research positions in your W&A.

There's so much critical thinking involved in research. And there's the opportunity to be published—a slam dunk. In research work, you will collaborate with a team to accomplish a measurable and valuable task. The cooperation and diligence you need to be a part of such projects are exactly the qualities you want to highlight in your W&A and Personal Statement. You also want to include these qualities in the "game plan" that you send to a supervisor who you'd like to be one of your recommenders. Even being a small part of something can make a huge impact. We had a client who essentially did data entry for a research project, but her careful work caught two mistakes that would have ruined the data set. Her team credited her on a scientific paper for her contributions, an unexpected peacock-sized feather in her cap.

Your Work & Activities Section: Clinical Gigs that Medical Schools Love (Part 4)

Perhaps the most important W&A entries are about clinical experiences. Admissions committees need to know: Does this candidate have enough clinical experience to know what they're getting into? The roles that we highlight throughout this week will demonstrate that you have seen medical care in action and gained experience with patients.

Shadowing: Shadowing is great introductory clinical exposure and prevalent among applicants—88% of Johns Hopkins' 2018 accepted students had shadowing experience. But to med schools, shadowing weighs less than volunteering at free clinics, doing clinical research, or working as a medical scribe, etc. That's because it typically doesn't lead to significant patient interactions. Still, shadowing someone in a field you're very interested in is informative, and you can have poignant experiences. We had one client who shadowed an infectious disease doctor abroad and learned that potential life-altering treatments regularly can't cross international lines.

Since patient interaction isn't common in these scenarios, you want to emphasize how else a shadowing experience helped you build clinical skills or expanded your knowledge of a medical specialty, preferably one you're interested in pursuing after medical school. If these things don't apply to your shadowing experience, here are some other things to consider: What did you see—and how did it affect you? Did a doctor calmly handle an angry patient? Did you seek more information on any condition a physician diagnosed in front of you? Did you learn something about a doctor's day-to-day life that you didn't know before? Unless you had one incredible experience or really need to fill up your W&A, grouping your shadowing experiences in one entry is a great idea.

Connect Your Shadowing to Your Future. If you know what area of medicine you'd like to study, having multiple shadowing experiences with different physicians practicing the same specialty shows the depth of that interest. That makes for a powerful shadowing entry. Who you shadow should be relevant to your goals. If you're interested in congenital heart disease because you worked on a clinical research study related to it or your dad survived a heart attack, try to shadow multiple cardiologists. Shadowing a broad range of specialties is exciting and may indeed be a part of your deciding what field you're most interested in—that makes for a strong entry. But there's something sturdy and assuring about a med school candidate who has pursued one area in depth. A consistent interest is compelling.

Your Work & Activities Section: Clinical Gigs that Medical Schools Love (Part 3)

Perhaps the most important W&A entries are about clinical experiences. Admissions committees need to know: Does this candidate have enough clinical experience to know what they're getting into? The roles that we highlight throughout this week will demonstrate that you have seen medical care in action and gained experience with patients.

Research Jobs with Clinical Exposure: A twofer! You'll learn about one area of medicine in-depth and get to know patients. As a hospital research coordinator, one client became a passionate advocate for sickle cell disease (SCD) patients' health and dignity. Through surveying patients at every appointment, he developed strong bonds with them and their families. He learned about the daily trials of the disease and the stigma surrounding its most common treatment: opioids. Hospital staff often treated patients in extreme pain as drug-seekers. One 19-year-old told our client: "I just want to be respected." It affected our client deeply. His involvement in this clinical research project spurred him to join two studies investigating new SCD drug treatments.

Your Work & Activities Section: Clinical Gigs that Medical Schools Love (Part 2)

Perhaps the most important W&A entries are about clinical experiences. Admissions committees need to know: Does this candidate have enough clinical experience to know what they're getting into? The roles that we highlight throughout this week will demonstrate that you have seen medical care in action and gained experience with patients.

Free Clinic Volunteer: You'll interact with patients, doctors, and other medical professionals while providing care essential to your community. You'll meet patients with a variety of medical needs, and your entry about working at the free clinic should be about direct patient interaction. (You need at least one patient-interaction in your W&A.) Runner up for the best entry focus is a learning experience you had with a staff member. Showing yourself as a problem-solver is great.

We had a client in charge of patient intake at a neighborhood free clinic. He spoke to many patients and observed a wide variety of minor ailments that sharpened his focus on becoming a general practitioner. We had another shy client who volunteered at a local college clinic administering COVID-19 tests, meeting with the same student athletes weekly, and developing her communication skills and personal relationships. She also took it upon herself to hop on the clinic's phone and assist parents and students in finding COVID-19 testing information on the university's confusing website. What she did in those instances was not medical but showed that she was a patient and caring person. It also allowed her to express in a Most Meaningful entry how having the testing information available only on the website, and in a hidden place at that, was a barrier to student care that is emblematic of a greater problem in the healthcare space. Her bottom line: Patients need easy access to accurate, understandable information regarding their own care.

Your Work & Activities Section: Clinical Gigs that Medical Schools Love (Part 1)

Perhaps the most important W&A entries are about clinical experiences. Admissions committees need to know: Does this candidate have enough clinical experience to know what they're getting into? The roles that we highlight throughout this week will demonstrate that you have seen medical care in action and gained experience with patients.

Medical Scribe: This is one of our favorite types of clinical experience. Working as a scribe allows you to see doctor patient interactions up close; you'll expand your medical vocabulary, read about things touched on in appointments (there's that intellectual curiosity!), and be a valuable part of a medical team. You can scribe at a top hospital or a CityMD clinic. What matters is exposure. Don't just describe the job to the school (they know what it is); share a meaningful story. One client, a head scribe, witnessed a death in the ER. It threw him—and he decided to create a guide for scribing in traumatic situations for the scribes he supervised. We've also had several clients discover a new field of interest through scribe work.

EMT: You'll learn basic life support (BLS) and work in high-pressure scenarios. We had a client who worked as an EMT, and on his second day, he arrived at the home of his third-grade teacher, who had taken a bad fall. He kept her calm while his superiors carefully moved her. What he did was not medical, but it prepared her to receive medical attention. Another client performed CPR on a patient, tag teaming with an experienced colleague so neither would become too fatigued and lag in compressions. Their persistence paid off; their patient survived. As an EMT, you'll have opportunities to help people and maybe even save lives. You can learn a lot from your colleagues, too. They've seen it all.

Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA): This job will require a 4-to-16-week state-approved training program at a local community college or through the Red Cross. It will also involve major grunt work. And guess what you need to get used to? You'll be responsible for multiple patients, taking their vitals, making sure they're moving, eating, and drinking water. You'll work closely with a medical team. You don't have to work full-time, and the hours are flexible. It's also a paid gig, and actual clinical jobs can look more impressive than volunteering. We've never had a client who was a CNA. And it's no wonder—it involves taking a test, it's low-paying, and it's hard. But that's why we'd like to see an applicant write about this role.

Your Work & Activities Section: Before You Start

Before we make a case for the kinds of experiences you should include in your W&A and get into the deep details you should be sharing, we're going to give you three super-basic tips for writing these entries. Bookmark/screenshot this page and keep it accessible because you are going to want to check that you're doing these three things in each entry that you write.

1. Use complete sentences. This is not a resume. You might have done an activity log when presenting your candidacy to your pre-med committee. That will be an excellent resource, but it's probably not polished, and these entries must be.

2. Go beyond the "what." Don't just describe a job you did. Share details about how this experience challenged, changed, or motivated you. Through anecdotes, show the qualities that medical schools are looking for, which include leadership and critical thinking abilities, empathy, strong communication skills, resilience, intellectual curiosity, and maturity.

3. Utilize your space well. For general entries, you'll have 700 characters with spaces to tell your story. Aim to max out that character count. Each experience should warrant it—700 is not that many characters. For the Most Meaningful entries, you'll have 700 characters with spaces, followed by an additional 1,325 with spaces. If you come up short on either section of the Most Meaningful entries, don't worry about it, so long as you have something compelling in each section.

Getting Started on Your W&A Entries

If you’re feeling stuck or if you just want to improve your W&A writing experience and the quality of your entries, start here:

Raid your brainstorm. Your brainstorm serves every part of your application process. If you're having a hard time with W&A entries, copy and paste info directly from a brainstorm bucket or two and cut and sew together the first draft of an entry from that material.

Do a dirty draft—and re-read it later. You don't have to refine your first draft text right away. If it were us, we'd write all 15 first drafts (that doesn't have to happen in one sitting) and then go back to the entries with fresh eyes later. Sometimes when you're reading one entry repeatedly back to-back, you see what's in your head and not what is on the page. So, you might think a description isn't missing words or makes perfect sense. But later, you'll read it, discover issues, and ask, "Who wrote this?"

Start with the easy ones. Do you know what your takeaway was from shadowing a pediatrician? Did working on a poster presentation with a group help you learn to manage conflict? Have you been swimming competitively since you were a guppy? Instead of writing W&A entries in the order of their occurrence or importance, start with whatever comes naturally.

Craft your stories. You'll always share some basic duties and details; and they can be pretty cut and dry. For example, "At the free clinic, I checked in patients and learned how to take vitals. I interacted with approximately 20 patients during every four-hour shift." But you must also include what you got out of this experience, preferably using an engaging anecdote. "One patient, Linda…" If you don't think you have a specific story to tell, dig deep and find one. You'll be surprised at how much of a story you can fit into 700 characters. But don't worry about going over your character count in your first draft. You can always pare down later, if necessary.

Using Hobbies to Enhance Your AMCAS Work & Activities Section

Hobbies. They are not a make or break component of the medical school (and later, residency) application, but they are an opportunity to provide the admissions committee with a view of the person beyond the test scores. Hobbies are also an effective way to demonstrate how you will add to the diversity of the incoming class, showcase qualities you will need as a medical student/physician, and/or provide insight into how you may relieve stress during medical school. 

Within the AMCAS application, hobbies belong in the Work & Activities section under the extracurriculars category. Applicants can provide up to four experiences under each category type, with a 700 character (with spaces) count, unless the experience is designated “most meaningful” (requires an additional 1,325 characters with spaces). 

Below are our guidelines for adding hobbies to your AMCAS application:

• Be current. If you played the trumpet in the high school band, but haven’t picked it up since then, consider what hobbies are more relevant to your life now. What do you turn to for fun, and what do you see yourself doing for stress relief in medical school?

• Be specific in your description. Provide a sense of how often, and how long you have been pursuing the hobby, as well as what the hobby entails. It’s great that you love to read, do yoga, and travel, but so do many others. In what unique ways have you engaged with your interests? Did you launch a monthly book club for discussing the NYT best sellers? Write book reviews for the school paper? Did you gain a yoga teaching certification or take part in a unique yoga retreat? Do you travel to particular destinations or participate in medical experiences abroad?

• State how your hobby has impacted your personal growth. Did an experience within your hobby contribute to a change in your perspective or influence your decision to apply to medical school? What attributes have you developed through your hobby that will benefit you as a medical student and physician (resilience, effective communication and collaboration skills, empathy, the ability to thrive in a diverse environment, etc.)? 

• When possible, provide an experience or milestone that differentiates your involvement in the hobby. Many people play an instrument, but fewer start a quartet or play in the university band. Many people enjoy running or fitness, fewer run the NY marathon to support a favorite cause/organization or start a running club. Providing the specific way(s) that you’ve engaged with your hobby will demonstrate to the admissions committee what you may offer to your incoming class. 

You’ve Submitted Your Law School Application… Now What?

You’ve submitted your law school application, but your work is not quite complete. You still have the opportunity to make a positive impression on the admissions committee by demonstrating your enthusiasm for the program. 

Consider the following ways to showcase your interest.

• Follow the school on social media and set up Google alerts with key words so you can easily stay informed of current events, research, or news related to the program. Confirm that your social media presence is up to date and represents you well.

• Prepare for and participate in interviews, even if they are optional. Interviews are a great way for the admissions committee to get to know you as a person (beyond your application) and for you to learn more about the program’s student experience, experiential learning opportunities, and/or alumni network. 

• Set up an in-person visit to the school, if possible. Make appointments with professors or current students who share your interests. Prep by creating a brief elevator speech explaining, with specifics, how the school's programming aligns with your interests and why you would be a great addition to the student body.

• Attend any admissions events, webinars, or other programming facilitated by the school or the admissions committee. If appropriate, introduce yourself and ask a thoughtful question(s) on the content.

• Follow-up any interactions with faculty or students with a brief thank you note reiterating your excitement about the program. 

• Send an update letter to the school if you have a significant accomplishment or update, not previously covered in your application, to share. Examples include: a significant positive change to your GPA or LSAT/GRE score, publications, professional development (e.g., you presented at a national/regional conference or received a promotion with additional responsibility at work), awards/honors, and/or extracurricular achievements (you took on a leadership position in a club/organization, significantly expanded the scale or reach of a club/organization, or a club/organization you lead received an honor or award).

• In your update letter, don’t forget to express your continued interest in the program, noting specifics that are particularly compelling to you. If the school is your first choice, make the yield protection statement: If admitted, I will attend. 

• Do not excessively contact the admissions committee, particularly to ask questions with answers readily available online or to ask for feedback on your application or admissions likelihood. If you do reach out – make it strategic. 

Top Ten Tips. MBA Behavioral Interviews

If you’ve been invited to interview at any or all of the schools on your list, congratulations! Now, it is time to begin preparing. See below for a list of our top ten interview tips:

1. Upon receiving the invitation, schedule the interview as soon as possible. This will enable you to avoid scheduling conflicts and select the time of day when you have the most energy and the fewest distractions. 

2. Read all you can about the program, and follow them on social media to stay abreast of their latest announcements, research findings, and other content. If possible, schedule an in-person visit prior to the interview, which often will include a tour, class observation, and lunch with current students. Talk to current or former students already in your network to gain insight on the interview process and other aspects of their MBA experience. 

3. Review your application and think through how you will succinctly, yet cohesively, explain your path to this point. What have been some of your most meaningful experiences that reinforced your interest in the study of business? You will likely receive some introductory question(s), which will require a three-minute elevator-pitch response, as well as several others that will require you to back up claims you make about your abilities in the areas of innovation, leadership, and teamwork with specific examples from your professional life. 

4. Convince them that their program is at the perfect intersection of where you’ve been and where you want to go. Be sure you can speak about specific courses, professors, case competitions, experiential learning opportunities, etc. that interest you most.  And explain why, citing some of your past experiences and/or future goals.  Remember, depth is better than breadth.  We would rather you explain at length one or two specifics that really set the program apart for you, than briefly mention seven to ten.

5. Prepare to weave into your responses what you will be able to offer the school. Make it clear how your experiences and interests, personal and professional, will benefit the school and create a stronger, more diverse MBA class and alumni base.

6. Think through your biggest career successes and failures, and consider what you learned from both. When answering a question about one of your failures, spend only 20 percent of the response on the situation and mistake. The rest of your response should be devoted to the actions you took to gain a better understanding and improve, and what you learned as a result.

7. Determine if there are any red flags in your application and, if so, craft a response that addresses the issue without making excuses. For example, if asked about the ‘C’ you received in Calculus your sophomore year, discuss what you have done to improve your quantitative ability since then, and make mention of those specific areas in your transcript and post-baccalaureate experience that are more indicative of your ability to compete in a rigorous academic environment.  

8. Stay current on domestic and international news. The Economist is wonderful, one of our favorite publications. You will also want to be aware of any news related to your current company, industry, and desired career path as these are great areas from which your interviewer may draw questions.  Setting up Google alerts for key phrases related to your company and industry will also help ensure you’re up to date.

9. Prepare three questions, which demonstrate your knowledge of and enthusiasm for the program, to ask the interviewer at the end of your session.

10. Compose a hand-written thank you note and snail mail it to your interviewer. In the note, thank them for their time, reiterate your interest in the school with specifics, make note of something memorable you spoke about during the interview, and, if applicable, make the yield protection statement (If admitted, I will attend.).

You Received a Medical School Acceptance... Now What? Part 5

In this series, we’ll prompt you on how to consider your medical school offers and make a decision. (If you got into only one school and therefore are going there, still do this because it will prepare you for attending that school.) Check back daily for insights.

Remember: You're Admitted, You're Not "Done"

You must continue to get clinical and research experience even after you're admitted to a school. This stuff has never been about having a great resume line or two—it's what prepares you for your future.

Celebrate! Take a moment to relish in this moment. Feel proud of yourself. Celebrate! We're so happy for you!

You Received a Medical School Acceptance... Now What? Part 4

In this series, we’ll prompt you on how to consider your medical school offers and make a decision. (If you got into only one school and therefore are going there, still do this because it will prepare you for attending that school.) Check back daily for insights.

Don't Forget About the Money

You should also be thinking about financial aid right now if that applies to you. (And get used to thinking about it— you'll have to reapply every year.)

Each school's financial aid application process is different. Their financial aid office should direct you to resources and keep you apprised of their deadlines. If something in their materials is unclear, call them before your head spins backward. Don't feel uncomfortable or dumb for reaching out—even the most academically impressive mind can be baffled by financial aid. Plus, helping you, a beloved, accepted applicant, is their job. They want to do it.

As for where we'd say you should start with financial aid: The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Next, we'd advise you to make an account with the AAMC and access their consumer and federal financial aid resources list. (You'll find a secondary link to that info and links to pages explaining potential cash sources, including the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Scholarship and Loan Repayment Programs, here.)

You Received a Medical School Acceptance... Now What? Part 3

In this series, we’ll prompt you on how to consider your medical school offers and make a decision. (If you got into only one school and therefore are going there, still do this because it will prepare you for attending that school.) Check back daily for insights.

Send More Thank You Notes

Your recommenders wrote you a letter, it's your turn to write them another one. (Ideally, you already sent them one right after they agreed to write you a recommendation letter.) Let them know that you were accepted into a program and that you appreciate the role that they played in getting you to this point. It's the classy thing to do, and it might foster longer-term relationships that will help you network.

You Received a Medical School Acceptance... Now What? Part 2

In this series, we’ll prompt you on how to consider your medical school offers and make a decision. (If you got into only one school and therefore are going there, still do this because it will prepare you for attending that school.) Check back daily for insights.

How to Withdraw

As mentioned yesterday, you can only hold three acceptances by April 15th and one by April 30th. You might even withdraw an application before you receive a rejection or acceptance, if you have already been accepted to your dream school. You can just send a "thanks but no thanks" email. Keep it short and formal. Here's an example:

“Dear Admissions Committee [Or Appropriate Dean],

I am withdrawing my application for Great-But-Not-For-Me School of Medicine. Thank you for your consideration.

Best regards,

Your Name”

OR

“Dear Admissions Committee [Or Appropriate Dean],

It means so much to me to have been accepted into your prestigious program. However, I am withdrawing my application for Great-But-Not-For-Me School of Medicine.

Best regards,

Your Name”