The AMCAS Work and Activities section is where you will share all your research, clinical experiences, paid employment, publications, leadership, extracurricular activities, awards, memberships, volunteer work, and advocacy and social justice efforts. The types of activities that you include, the length of time you participated in them, and your description of these events all have…
Writing Compelling Activity Descriptions to Boost Your Med School Application
Having worked in admissions for over two decades, I have read thousands of activity descriptions for medical school and related healthcare 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. Other applicants fill out only a few of their…
How to Prepare for Medical School: Four Important Things to Know Before Applying
Before he was Joshua Wienczkowski, MD, a prevention and addiction medicine specialist, he was a premed juggling coursework and extracurriculars and trying to make the right choices for his best shot at medical school. During his first year of medical school, he looked back on these choices with a critical eye. “When you burn through…
Should I Take a Gap Year Before Medical School?
Most students (44.8%) who took gap years did so for one to two years, 15.2% did so for three to four years, and 8.5% did so for five or more years. Clearly, the takeaway from this study is that more medical students who were accepted for 2021 admission took gap years than those who did…
Teamwork in Medical School Admissions: How to Show You’ve Got It
In this post: Why do medical schools value teamwork? When the Institute of Medicine Committee on Quality of Health Care in America published its 2000 report “To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System,” the authors attributed most medical errors to two key deficits: (1) a lack of communication and (2) dysfunctional teamwork. It…
Premed Confidential: The Wisdom of Journaling
In a minute, I’m going to provide some rock-solid advice that, if experience is any guide, you’ll ignore. You’ll ignore it even though, on some level, you suspect it’s sound advice that would boost the odds of your being admitted to medical school, if only you would act on it. So I’m going to begin…
How to Shadow a Doctor
When looking for activities to include on your AMCAS application, shadowing is a powerful way to demonstrate your interest in and realistic knowledge of the field of medicine. Shadowing as many different kinds of doctors as you can is helpful; the only way to know whether you will enjoy a career in a particular area…
Applying to Medical School: Selecting Extracurricular Activities
When considering your goal of attending medical school, you need to choose extracurricular activities that you will enjoy and that will also help you highlight the characteristics that med schools are seeking. 3 strategies for choosing the right extracurriculars Below we will provide you with strategies for finding and selecting activities that will set your…
How to Write Essays That Will Get You Into Medical School: An Expert’s Take [Episode 472]
All you need to know about med school admissions [Show Summary] Madison Searle, a published writer, graduate application advisor, and former director of an undergraduate Honors Center at a leading Public Ivy, shares his tips and strategies for medical school applications that lead to acceptance. Madison Searle, Accepted medical school consultant, talks about how to…
Five Ways to Stand Out in the AACOMAS Experience and 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…
How to Improve Your Experiences for Your Med School Reapplication
In this section of our Medical School Reapplicant Advice: 6 Tips for Success series, we’ll discuss how reapplicants can improve their service experiences. Another factor that can seriously hurt your chances is a lack of substantive, ongoing service experiences, both clinical and non-clinical. Medical schools want students who are passionate and committed – to the…
5 Tips for Writing About Extracurricular Activities You Started at the Last Minute
You are this close to finishing your application, but in the section that asks you about your extracurricular activities, you freeze up. I don’t really have any extracurricular activities, you think. What should I do now? How will I be able to stand out from the competition? We’re glad you asked. Team Accepted has worked…
Predoc & Premed Summer Undergraduate Research Programs
Often, top medical schools in the U.S. offer predoc and premed summer undergraduate research programs. We’ve compiled an all-you-need-to-know chart that includes school name, deadlines, and links to the specific predoc/premed programs for more information. Why do these undergraduate research programs exist? The purpose of these programs is to expose ambitious, talented college students to…
How Can I Continue Volunteering in the Age of COVID-19?
Many of our Accepted clients are asking how they can continue their volunteering given that many of their previous positions now only allow essential personnel in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. We’ve put together the table below to help in your efforts to find new volunteering positions. If you know of other helpful…
Encore: Writing for Medical School: Personal Statements, Activities, and Secondaries [Episode 327]
I am taking a week off for family time this week. As a result I decided to air an encore of our most popular med podcast so far in 2019, and it is: Writing for Med School, which I presented at the end of January. It’s an excellent time for this podcast. Many of you…
Writing for Medical School: Personal Statements, Activities, and Secondaries [Episode 296]
Accepted Founder Linda Abraham Talks Med School Admissions [Show Summary] Are you planning to apply to medical school this year? Worried about the personal statement, most meaningful experiences, activity descriptions, and secondary essays? They can be challenging! Let’s learn about the who, what, when, where, and why of impressive, engaging writing that will get you…
How Important is Volunteering for Medical School Admissions?
Volunteering is crucial for medical school applicants. Here’s why: Med schools aren’t just looking for science geeks who’ve never stepped outside the lab. They’re looking for students who will not just succeed in the classroom, but who have also had rich and varied experiences that will make them stand out as interesting and passionate individuals…
How to Show that YOU Want to be a Doctor
“My mom is a doctor, my dad is a doctor. How can I prove to the med school admissions committees that I really want to be a doctor?” Concerned that your application doesn’t demonstrate the extent of your personal commitment to medicine? An experienced admissions consultant can guide you as you craft an application…
How to Choose the Best Experiences for Your AMCAS Application
It’s that time of year when premeds across the world are gathering everything they need to put on their AMCAS application. In this article, I’ll walk through one facet (one of the largest) of this dainty little application, the experiences section. I will outline what makes a good experience to write about, which ones should be deemed…
What NOT to Do in the Activities Section of Your Medical School Application
Don’t underestimate the importance of the activities section! Let’s take a look at some of the biggest mistakes to avoid in your activities section so you can make sure that you’re doing it right: Mistake #1: Providing less than 15 activities Simply submitting an application with less than the required 15 activities can lead to…