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Writing Compelling Activity Descriptions to Boost Your Med School Application

Writing Compelling Activity Descriptions to Boost Your Med School Application

Having worked in admissions for more than two decades, I have read thousands of experience and activity descriptions from applicants to medical schools and schools in healthcare-related fields. Some candidates seem to view this element of their application as less important than their personal statement, writing only cursory descriptions of their tasks. This “job description” …

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Five Tips for Completing AACOMAS Secondary Applications

Once you file the AACOMAS application and choose your schools, the process is not yet over. You will start to receive secondary essay prompts for each school, often with a two-week deadline. Although some prompts are common and expected (e.g., “Explain your biggest challenge” or “Tell us about significant volunteer experience with a vulnerable population”), …

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Mary Mahoney

Mary Mahoney  

Dr. Mary Mahoney earned her PhD from the University of Houston and her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is director of medical humanities at a liberal arts college in New York. With more than 20 years’ experience as a tenured English professor, she specializes in personal statements. She also teaches narrative medicine, empathy, health equity, disparity, bias, and social justice. She has a strong track record of helping applicants to medical, psychology, and humanities graduate programs achieve success.

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Retaking Classes For Med School: What Every Premed Needs to Know

If you have retaken classes in the past – or expect to need to retake a class in the future – this post will help you understand this element of your profile, in general, for the AMCAS application, and for the AACOMAS application, as needed. 1. All grades earned are calculated into the cumulative GPA. …

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Madison Searle

Madison Searle  

As a former director for three undergraduate honors programs at the College of Natural Sciences at UT Austin, Madison Searle read more than 5,000 applications while also advising students applying to graduate and professional programs. A freelance writer, he has taught writing seminars to premed students. He has helped hundreds of pre-health professional students prepare for and apply to medical, dental, veterinary, and pharmacy schools.

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Matching Your Values to a Medical School’s Mission Statement

We cannot stress enough how important it is to understand and think about a medical school’s mission statement when you are applying. Successful applicants not only demonstrate that they have the essential qualifications a particular school wants, but they also prove that their interests and values align closely with those of the school. Why are …

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Standing Out In Your AACOMAS Personal Statement and Experience and Achievements Section

5 Tips for Perfecting Your AACOMAS Personal Statement

The AACOMAS Personal Statement The AACOMAS requires one personal statement that is a maximum of 5,300 characters long. Below are five tips to help make your AACOMAS personal statement shine. The AACOMAS personal statement is the one place in the application where you speak in your own voice and give the admissions committee an idea …

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Mary Mahoney

Mary Mahoney  

Dr. Mary Mahoney earned her PhD from the University of Houston and her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is director of medical humanities at a liberal arts college in New York. With more than 20 years’ experience as a tenured English professor, she specializes in personal statements. She also teaches narrative medicine, empathy, health equity, disparity, bias, and social justice. She has a strong track record of helping applicants to medical, psychology, and humanities graduate programs achieve success.

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Five Ways to Stand Out in the AACOMAS Experience and Achievements Sections

aacomas experience achievements sections

The Experiences section in the AACOMAS application asks you to list your non-academic work, including healthcare-related work, non-healthcare work, volunteer work, and extracurricular activities. The Achievements section is the space for you to include academic honors, awards and scholarships. Below are five tips for completing this section of the AACOMAS. Categorize your activity by type.The …

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Mary Mahoney

Mary Mahoney  

Dr. Mary Mahoney earned her PhD from the University of Houston and her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is director of medical humanities at a liberal arts college in New York. With more than 20 years’ experience as a tenured English professor, she specializes in personal statements. She also teaches narrative medicine, empathy, health equity, disparity, bias, and social justice. She has a strong track record of helping applicants to medical, psychology, and humanities graduate programs achieve success.

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Five Tips for Requesting an AACOMAS Letter of Recommendation (Evaluation)

5 tips for requesting AACOMAS letters of reference

If you are planning to apply to osteopathic medical schools, the AACOMAS allows you to upload up to six letters of recommendation. You can’t upload different letters for different schools, so make sure that your recommenders know that they should write general letters of recommendation. You should request your letters through AACOMAS, which sends an …

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Mary Mahoney

Mary Mahoney  

Dr. Mary Mahoney earned her PhD from the University of Houston and her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is director of medical humanities at a liberal arts college in New York. With more than 20 years’ experience as a tenured English professor, she specializes in personal statements. She also teaches narrative medicine, empathy, health equity, disparity, bias, and social justice. She has a strong track record of helping applicants to medical, psychology, and humanities graduate programs achieve success.

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Reapplying to Med School: Your Primary Application

Reapp Med 5 Primary App

The previous posts have focused on identifying problem areas in your application and offering ideas to help you address them. You might be feeling a bit fragile after such a critical review – if so, then you’re doing it right. This exercise demands that you be ruthless and identify every potential flaw. Your ego might …

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5 Dont’s for Your Medical School Personal Statement

What not to do in your med school personal statement 1024x512

The personal statement is the only place in the AMCAS, AACOMAS and TMDSAS primary applications where you get to present yourself directly to the admissions committee. Here, you can persuade them to give you an interview, or – if you’re not careful – unknowingly reveal red flags that undermine your entire application. Since it plays …

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Accepted

Accepted  

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Ace Your Med School Application 2020 Webinar is Live

Ace Your Medical School Application

We had a wonderful turnout for our recent live session, Ace Your Med School Application: A Live Q&A with 3 Med School Experts. It was packed with important information, and the attendees asked our panel great questions.  If you couldn’t join us, you don’t have to miss out on all that valuable insight. The session …

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Accepted

Accepted  

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Med School Admissions Veteran Shares Her Experience: How to Get In [Episode 314]

Podcast interview with Cydney Foote

[powerpress] Accepted admissions consultant Cydney Foote sheds light on the medical school application process [Show Summary] Are you not quite ready to submit your AMCAS application? Don’t panic. We’ve got the advice you need to polish off your personal statement, MMEs, and activity descriptions. Listen to the podcast for answers to “How many schools should …

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Accepted

Accepted  

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