The 2025 ERAS (Electronic Residency Application Service) application follows on last year’s restructured application, with a few changes. As in the 2024 ERAS, rather than including every relevant experience you’ve had, as you might on a CV, you must choose ten experience entries that communicate who you are and what’s most important to you. And again, you’re asked to highlight three of those experiences as “most meaningful” and to submit an essay on impactful experiences.
That’s a lot to accomplish, and it’s easy to get bogged down. This article will help! Let’s begin with a brief look at what’s required in the Experience section, and then we’ll break it down to help you have the greatest impact with your application.
Ten Primary Experiences
ERAS asks you to present ten experiences and categorize each one according to an Experience Type. The provides the following descriptions and guidelines for each category:
- Education/training (includes clinical training such as clerkships, away rotations, subinternships, structured observerships)
- Military service
- Professional organization (includes societies, associations, etc., at the local, regional, national, or international levels)
- Other extracurricular activity, club, hobby (includes sports, music, theater, student government, etc.)
- Research
- Teaching/mentoring (includes paid teaching positions such as high school teacher as well as teaching assistant, tutor)
- Volunteer/service/advocacy (includes unpaid experiences)
- Work (includes paid clinical, nonclinical, business, or entrepreneurial experiences)
Next, you’re asked to identify a Primary Focus Area and a Key Characteristic for each experience. Unlike the required Experience Type, these sections are optional, and if no areas or characteristics apply, you can technically leave this field blank. Avoid doing this as much as possible, however. Although categorizing each experience might feel tedious, an ERAS survey of the restructured application discovered that approximately 80% of program directors found this information useful in evaluating applicant experiences.
The AAMC site describes the various Primary Focus Areas as follows:
- Basic science (e.g., scientific disciplines such as biology, chemistry, physics, and also behavioral and social sciences such as psychology, cognitive science, economics, or political science)
- Clinical/translational science (e.g., diagnostic and therapeutic interventions, development of drugs)
- Community involvement/outreach (e.g., clothing or food drives, fundraising for public education, K-12 outreach, providing tutoring to youths experiencing homelessness, and social work)
- Customer service (e.g., positions in retail, restaurant, sales, hospitality, and technical support)
- Health care administration (e.g., hospital administrators, clinical managers, financial managers, and patient advocates)
- Improving access to health care (e.g., clinic work in underserved communities, organizing vaccination or health screening for a community with limited access, providing medical or health care resources to people experiencing homelessness)
- Medical education (e.g., formal instruction to others, tutoring medical students, developing health-related curriculum, conducting research in admissions, student affairs, or educational interventions)
- Music/athletics/art (e.g., long-term commitments in playing musical instruments or singing, sports, theater/acting, painting or drawing, and computer graphics)
- Promoting wellness (e.g., developing a wellness program, formal coaching, or mentoring others to promote well-being)
- Public health (e.g., biostatistics, epidemiology, global health, and nutrition)
- Quality improvement (e.g., patient safety, such as implementing a plan to reduce secondary infections in patients)
- Social justice/advocacy (e.g., diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] work; worker unions; combating biased beliefs or discriminatory policies; and increasing access to educational opportunities)
- Technology (e.g., engineering or software innovations, biomedical devices, electronic health records [EHRs], and mobile or other software applications)
The AAMC site describes the various Key Characteristics as follows:
- Communication
- Critical thinking and problem solving
- Cultural humility and awareness
- Empathy and compassion
- Ethical responsibility
- Ingenuity and innovation
- Reliability and dependability
- Resilience and adaptability
- Self-Reflection and improvement
- Teamwork and leadership
This year, you are limited to 750 characters for each description. That’s not a lot of room, so rather than offering a straightforward, CV-style write-up of the position, focus on what you specifically brought to the role – how you made it your own – and (implicitly, if not explicitly) explain what the experience means for you in your chosen specialty.
Which experiences should you include?
Most applicants will have more than ten experiences, and it’s easy to get bogged down in them. Rather than trying to figure out which ones are the most “important,” you might want to look at the different qualities they demonstrate. In other words, think first about the qualities or skills you need to have in your specialty, and then choose and prioritize the experiences that offer evidence that you possess those qualities and skills. In doing this, some applicants find clusters of relevant experiences – multiple activities that reflect their advocacy skills, for instance, or tutoring abilities – that they can group together in a single entry.
Five steps to choose your ten best experiences
- Focus on experiences that demonstrate your interest in whatever field you’ve chosen. One way to approach this is to include an experience for each of the ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) core competencies in your field: Patient Care and Procedural Skills, Medical Knowledge, Practice-Based Learning and Improvement, Systems-Based Practice, Professionalism, and Interpersonal and Communication Skills. For instance, if you’re applying to pediatrics, include at least one experience that demonstrates your engagement in Patient Care, one that showcases your Medical Knowledge, another that highlights your commitment to Practice-Based Learning and Improvement, and so on.
- Strike a balance between recent events – those that occurred during med school, if possible – and continuity. If you’re choosing between a one-day screening event in med school and an extended volunteer experience as an undergrad, the experience as an undergrad will carry more weight. (I’ve heard some people advise a “one to two, tops” rule for premed activities. I don’t know whether I adhere to that, but out of ten experiences, aim for at least two or three to be more recent med school activities.)
- If you were involved in multiple one-day events, such as health fairs or screenings, try to combine them into one entry under an umbrella heading (e.g., advocacy in medical school) to show a deeper connection/impact. Briefly describe each one (with dates), but be sure to include a summary introduction and/or conclusion to pull them all together.
- Choose experiences that complement your personal statement and the Noteworthy Characteristics section of the MSPE (Medical Student Performance Evaluation). There will undoubtedly be some overlap in your experiences, but craft your descriptions from different angles to provide new insights into you and your journey to residency.
- Show your individuality by giving context to your passions and pastimes. Program directors aren’t looking for a solely focused individual but rather someone who will complement their team and residency program. Interests outside of medicine signal a more balanced lifestyle and offer even more opportunities to contribute to your training. (Also, keep in mind that you have an extra 300 characters with which to describe your hobbies.)
Three Most Meaningful Experiences
Of the ten experiences you select, you must highlight three as the most meaningful. This isn’t the place to reiterate or add to the description of your responsibilities in each of the three roles. Instead, you need to take the next step and build on the responsibilities you outlined in your initial descriptions of the experiences.
In approaching this section, think about your personal values, especially those that mesh with ones related to your specialty. For example, participating in a rural community-needs assessment might embody the kind of advocacy you believe in; sacrificing countless chicken breasts to practice laparoscopic techniques might exemplify your dedication to continued improvement. If you do this, then each 300-character meaningful experience description will show how you’ve understood and reflected on the impact of your work in the context of your specialty.
Impactful Experiences
This optional question allows applicants to share any major obstacles they faced before or during medical school. Many candidates will not need to answer this question. If your answer is flippant or shallow, it could do you more harm than good. On the other hand, the obstacles in your life might not be something you want to share. If this is the case, don’t feel obligated to write anything.
If you do respond to this question, you will need to write a short, 750-character essay describing your experiences. Do not repeat what you’ve already written about in your personal statement and activities. Instead, think of this as a separate but related piece of the puzzle, one that will provide a fuller understanding of who you are. You will need to reflect on your experiences to determine how life circumstances beyond your control – at any point in your life – have affected and/or limited you and your opportunities. These could relate to your family situation or financial background, the community in which you were raised, the educational opportunities you’ve had (or didn’t have), the impact of your religion on your life, or other such life experiences.
In writing this essay, lay out the objective facts – without blame or bitterness – and keep your tone positive. The best essays celebrate what has gone right or what an applicant has been able to accomplish despite the difficulties they have faced. Did you grow up in a restrictive community where you were expected to marry young, but you followed your dream of studying instead? Did you successfully balance college with raising a child with special needs? Did you experience a health issue that interrupted your medical studies but used your leave of absence to pursue research? Sharing how you’ve advocated for yourself and found ways to be successful despite obstacles reveals your resilience.
Using the ERAS Experience section wisely will help you demonstrate your multifaceted qualifications and the varied experiences you will bring to a well-rounded team.
Do you need help with ERAS or any other element of your residency or fellowship application? Explore , and work one-on-one with an Accepted advisor who will help you create a strong, successful, admission-worthy application.
Since 2001, Cydney Foote has advised hundreds of successful applicants for medical and dental education, residency and fellowship training, and other health-related degrees. Admissions consulting combines her many years of creating marketing content with five years on fellowship and research selection committees at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She’s also shared her strategy for impressing interviewers in a popular webinar and written three books and numerous articles on the admissions process. Want Cydney to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!
Related Resources:
- Premed Confidential: The Wisdom of Journaling
- Ace the AMCAS Essay, a free guide
- Sample Medical School Personal Statements, a free guide