amcas essay tips

• Medical School Application

AMCAS Personal Statement: My Best Tips for Writing It

Featured Expert: Dr. Christian Cuevas, MD

Your AMCAS personal statement is one of the most important components of your AMCAS application . It can be the tipping point for whether you get an interview. But your AMCAS personal statement won’t write itself, and synthesizing all your ideas, experience, and background into about 5,300 characters is no easy feat. For me, the personal statement was one of the most difficult portions of the AMCAS application, so I'll share with you everything I learned through writing it.

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Article Contents 11 min read

Amcas personal statement example #1.

916 words (5,181 of the maximum 5,300 characters with spaces)

My mother grew up as one of 14 children in a very poor home in rural Ontario, where both parents, while loving and warm, suffered from alcoholism. She and her siblings experienced significant childhood adversity, the legacy of which still looms large. Later, as the matriarch of her own family, she ran a small business, supported my aunts, uncles, and cousins, and provided stability for all of us. She modelled, and I internalized, compassion for my loved ones as they lived through uncertainty, conflict, illness, and loss.

You might wonder why I tell my mother’s story, rather than my own. I could say that my mother inspired me to go into medicine and leave it at that. However, to call it inspiration would be a discredit to the profound influence my mother has had on my life and the lives of everyone around us.

They say, “it takes a village,” but my family basically made up half the village where I lived. I’m exaggerating, but it’s almost true. In such an isolated place, the few families that existed formed a close, interdependent community. When someone fell ill, it was often the family who stepped in, since the nearest clinic was 40 minutes away.

 On how to stand out in your personal statement :

“The personal statement is an opportunity for you to shine and really impress the committee to invite you for an interview. In order to stand out, it is important to answer the main questions well: a bit about yourself and what led you to medicine, why you would make an ideal medical student and future physician, what attracts you to this particular institution, and what sets you apart from the other candidates.” - Dr. Neel Mistry, MD

“what i did was start with a story. like any good novel, the stories first lines are meant to hook the reader. this can be about anything if you can bring it back and relate it to your application... it is important that the story be real... while in my opinion it is ok to slightly embellish some details of story to make it more interesting, straight lying or overly unrealistic situations should be avoided.” - dr. jamie cazes, md, “i focused on my journey to medicine and opportunities that i sought out along the way. everyone’s path and validation is unique, so walking the reader through your growth to the point of application will naturally be different.” - dr. monica taneja, md, tip #1: get an early start.

I went the “last minute route” which I DO NOT recommend. I took my MCAT in early May, and in the process of waiting for my score to be released, I began writing my personal statement. About 2-3 weeks sounds like it would be plenty of time to write but taking into consideration writing your AMCAS activities section while also requesting transcripts and letters of recommendation , due dates can come up quick! I highly DO NOT recommend going this route unless you enjoy unnecessary stress and potentially decreasing the quality of your personal statement.

A realistic timeline for writing your AMCAS personal statement will look like this:

• 6 months prior to the AMCAS opening date, start brainstorming and reflecting on your experiences to get an idea of what you want your AMCAS personal statement to look like and pinpoint experiences that are truly convincing and authentic.
• 5-6 months prior to the opening date, begin an outline/rough draft of the ideas comprised and start piecing everything together. Decide what will go in your introduction, body, and conclusion paragraphs. At this point, start having someone look over your paper, either a trusted friend or mentor or a professional such as a med school admissions advisor.
• 1 month prior to the opening date, have a final draft ready to allow time to complete other aspects of your application.  

Tip #2: The Essay Is a Story, not a Resume

You want to captivate your reader’s attention from the beginning to keep them engaged throughout the rest of your personal statement. When writing my personal statement, I described falling backwards and having glass shatter on my face, requiring a trip to the emergency department and my first encounter with a physician. I used this story to give my reader an example of what my first memory was when interacting with the medical system and begin giving them a glimpse of my story in medicine. 

Introduction

The introduction is arguably the most important aspect of your paper, so use it to immerse your reader into your story right away:

Unconscious and confused, I woke up and registered my surroundings. My parents, with pale, frantic expressions, stared back at me in disbelief. I simply wanted to help my mother tidy the kitchen shelves flooded with decorative, glass knick-knacks. It was spring cleaning time in our household. Instead, my face was lacerated by falling glassware. The warmth of my blood running down my face startled me as my parents picked me up and carried me to the car. When we got in the car, I felt lightheaded and eventually lost consciousness. I woke up a second time in my father\u2019s arms as he rushed me towards the emergency room where hordes of people crowded us. Still unsure of what was happening, I recall being placed on a bed and greeted by a man in a white coat. When he spoke, a sense of peace and hope came upon my family. We knew everything would be alright. ","label":"AMCAS Personal Statement Introduction","title":"AMCAS Personal Statement Introduction"}]" code="tab1" template="BlogArticle">

Body Paragraphs

In your body paragraphs, you want to give your reader a “roadmap” as to what you are going to discuss in the body of your personal statement (essentially, the topics you are to discuss in the body paragraphs). This is done to give your reader a clear idea of what they are about to read.

The body of your personal statement is where you discuss 2-3 personal experiences that have helped drive you to pursue medicine. For example, my 2 experiences consisted of talking about a family member who suffered from cancer and my time in Haiti providing care for the rural Haitian people. When describing these experiences, you want to paint a specific story (a patient interaction, for example) to make it more personable and “show” instead of “telling” what you did. Additionally, you want to make sure you discuss what you learned from the experience and how it convinced you to pursue medicine.

I had the privilege to go with a group of missionaries to provide health care to the people of Haiti. Once we arrived, we immediately noticed the damage done by the earthquake, even years after the tragedy. The brokenness and anguish from that event were etched into the people\u2019s faces and culture. Traveling from village to village, our hearts ached from seeing people covered with filth, dirt and bugs. Many were infected with diseases that a simple antibiotic could treat, yet their malnourished bodies could not fight them off. Once we established a good rapport among the villages by providing health care, such as simple physical exams or procedures such as hysterectomies, we saw their attitudes shift from despair to radiant hope. Adults would run to different doctors on our team, repeatedly thanking them with gifts of fresh produce. The joy on the faces of the Haitian children whenever they would hear our four-wheeler coming up the mountain is an image I will never forget. This pivotal experience shaped my attitude towards helping marginalized groups of people; I learned to be more patient, understanding, and welcoming to all walks of life. Understanding that not all are privileged to have easy access to simple healthcare. Additionally, I learned to be able to adapt to my surroundings and provide quality care, even in a setting where there may be a lack of resources. ","label":"AMCAS Personal Statement Body","title":"AMCAS Personal Statement Body"}]" code="tab2" template="BlogArticle">

Lastly, you want to wrap up your paper by bringing up all of your experiences and briefly touching upon their learning points and how you will use those experiences to be a good physician in the future. You can also call back to the experience/topic you brought up in your introduction to make the conclusion connect to your introduction. This will help wrap up your paper nicely and bring everything together for your reader.

A physician has many responsibilities: diagnosing illnesses, offering treatments, prescribing medications. However, I believe the most important one is being a beacon of hope to the hopeless, a light illuminating the path for those who fear their debilitating ailments. Sensing peace overcome my parents during my first chaotic visit to the hospital ER, seeing \u201cJaimie\u201d have hope in physicians knowing she could potentially die, and hearing the Haitian people yell with joy when they received necessary treatment are the kinds of emotional experiences I wish to bring to others, experiences which will make every ounce of hard work more than worth it. Regardless of what mentally strenuous and physically taxing trials this career brings, I want to one day be that hope for many. ","label":"AMCAS Personal Statement Conclusion","title":"AMCAS Personal Statement Conclusion"}]" code="tab3" template="BlogArticle">

It’s always easier to write an essay if someone assigns you the topic. For instance, maybe you had to research diversity and inclusion in medical education at some point and think you know the “secret” to writing an excellent diversity secondary essay . But what do you do when there is no prompt – or the topic is you? Where do you start? How do you choose? What do medical schools want to hear? How do you come across as unique when the purpose of the essay is so generic?

When brainstorming through all of your previous experiences, there are the straightforward ones that make sense, such as shadowing, clinical and volunteer work, and research. When I began brainstorming for my AMCAS personal statement, I used my running document of all of the undergraduate medicine or science related experiences I had since starting college . But I also did some self-reflection on any medically related experiences I had growing up in terms of my own run-ins with medicine, as well as family medical experiences that I thought were worth mentioning.

In my AMCAS personal statement, I highlighted my experience as a patient, what my immigrant parents experienced in the healthcare system, and my involvement in translating for a free clinic focused on Spanish-speaking patients. I chose these experiences as they were the easiest to explain and talk about; they truly were part of my passion in trying to improve healthcare for people with a similar background to me.

My number one recommendation for choosing topics to discuss in your personal statement is to choose stories that show your passion. The main purpose of the AMCAS personal statement is to convince the admissions committee that there is nothing else you would rather do then to study medicine. 

Do you need inspiration for your AMCAS personal statement? Check out this video with examples:

Tip #4: Remember that Writing Is a Craft

The challenges I had with writing my personal statement are likely similar to the challenges you will face when writing yours. My drafting experience was a bit rough as I am not the strongest writer. I had a lot of help from friends, family, and professors who I trusted. Writing your AMCAS personal statement may take more than 2-3 drafts (mine took about 10 drafts), so be patient with yourself! It is completely okay to re-write a paragraph or even your whole personal statement to get it to where you want it to be (this is why I recommend starting your rough draft six months to a year before your application is due).

Usually, I made one small edit, sent it out to people, and received 10+ recommendations for change. At times, it was hard to keep track of all of the recommendations as at times I would receive conflicting recommendations. Looking back, I wish I had services to help with narrowing down what aspects of my personal statement truly needed to be changed and which are okay to keep.

Become a good – even great – writer in the process of applying to medical school, and you can rest easy that you’ve given this particular part of your application your best shot.

Getting behind the idea of creative writing may not appeal to science majors, but believe me, it’s a skill that will serve you in medicine in more ways than you can imagine. However, it may seem like just another chore to get out of the way. If that’s your mindset, you should change it – because your AMCAS personal statement is a real opportunity to reflect on and distill your passion for medicine.

And why not take advantage of our free offer to acquire BeMo’s Ultimate Guide to Medical School Personal Statements & Secondary Essays? This 300-page guide with tips, strategies, and sample successful personal statements promises to “help you learn to write captivating essays, even if you are not a natural writer.”

Tip #5: Get Expert Feedback

Like I described above, getting recommendations from multiple people that were conflicting made it difficult to focus on the aspects of my personal statement that truly needed revising as I would spend too much time focusing on the minor details that may or may not improve my paper. Get an expert second set of eyes to look at your AMCAS personal statement draft and provide you with objective feedback.

The reality is that every great writer has an editor, and you will need one. Given the importance of the AMCAS personal statement, there’s really no reason not to consider medical school personal statement editing services to help you out. There’s no question that a medical school application tutor is worth it to radically improve your personal statement and other components that can highly influence your admission chances.

AMCAS stands for American Medical College Application Service. Most medical schools in the US use this centralized application service.

You have 5,300 characters, including spaces, to work with.

You would not discuss your MCAT score or academics in your personal statement, but if you have used an MCAT score calculator and found that you fall short or have had to retake the MCAT , you may want to address the issue in your personal statement to explain how your grades and/or other achievements offset your lower score and why you remain an excellent candidate for medical school.

We recommend giving yourself a minimum of 2 months to brainstorm, draft, polish, and revise. Don’t hesitate to get medical school admissions consulting help if you are struggling with any aspect of admissions.

If you’re applying to medical schools in Texas, you will use TDMSAS , and if you are applying to medical schools in Canada, you might use OMSAS . Moreover, certain medical schools may have their own distinct application procedures, so be sure to research the specific medical school requirements for the schools to which you are applying. 

Yes, we recommend a standard academic essay structure with an eye-catching introduction, three body paragraphs, and compelling conclusion.

Writing skills are a big part of producing any application essay, but what you include and why are just as important. Admissions advisors can guide you with their advanced knowledge of medical school application processes.

No, your AMCAS personal statement will be sent to all the schools you apply to, so it should focus on you and your interest in pursuing medicine, not the specific schools that interest you.

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Have a question ask our admissions experts below and we'll answer your questions.

Nadia mourtada

Thanks for providing us with some good ideas on how to write a good statement. That helped with my personal statement, however, I have a question: Do they really read our personal statement? Please let me. Thanks

BeMo Academic Consulting

Hello Nadia! Thanks for your comment. Yes, admissions committees do read your personal statements. After your grades and MCAT score meet the requirements, your personal statement is usually one of the most influential components of the application. It can really help you get the interview invite, so we strongly recommend spending time and effort on it!

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• March 30, 2024

6 Important Tips for the AMCAS (2024-2025) Personal Statement (AMCAS PS)

AcceptedTogether Consultants

We are admissions consultants dedicated to helping you get into your dream school

• Medical School

Recent Posts

Redefining access: the rise of online medical school prerequisites and their impact on diversity in medicine, leveraging the canmeds framework to strengthen your medical school application, how many medical schools to apply to: a strategic guide for future doctors, age is just a number: why it’s never too late to pursue medical school, taking a gap year: unlocking opportunities for premed students.

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Introduction

Understanding the amcas personal statement.

Explanation of what the AMCAS Personal Statement is.

Discussion of the character limit and its implications for content.

Crafting a Compelling Narrative

Importance of storytelling in the personal statement.

Tips for selecting experiences that highlight unique qualities.

Show, Don’t Tell: Demonstrating Your Qualities

Strategies for illustrating personal attributes through specific examples.

Avoiding the trap of simply listing achievements.

Addressing Challenges and Setbacks

How to effectively discuss obstacles without dwelling on them.

Balancing honesty with positivity.

Making Your Statement Stand Out

Techniques for creating a memorable and distinctive personal statement.

The role of reflection and personal growth in the narrative.

The Role of Feedback and Revision

Importance of seeking constructive criticism from trusted sources.

The iterative process of refining the personal statement.

The pivotal milestones in your medical school application path is crafting an exceptional AMCAS Personal Statement. This crucial component of your application is more than just a formality; it’s a canvas for your narrative, a platform to showcase your passion for medicine, and a chance to stand out the thousands of aspiring physicians. The AMCAS Personal Statement is your opportunity to go beyond the numbers and give the admissions committee a glimpse into your character, your motivations, and your vision for your future in healthcare.

Navigating the 5,300-character limit can feel like a tightrope walk, balancing between being concise and expressive. It’s about finding that sweet spot where your experiences, aspirations, and the essence of who you are come together to form a compelling story. This narrative is your ticket to capturing the attention of medical school admissions officers and making them see not just an applicant, but a future doctor with a unique perspective and a heart full of determination. Let’s dive into how you can make your personal statement a memorable and impactful part of your medical school application.

Explanation of what the AMCAS Personal Statement is

At its core, the AMCAS Personal Statement is your chance to transcend beyond grades and scores. It’s about telling your story in a way that highlights your passion for medicine, your empathy, your resilience, and your commitment to the field. Through this narrative, you’re given the freedom to illustrate the experiences that have shaped you, the challenges you’ve overcome, and the moments that solidified your decision to pursue medicine. Unlike the quantitative data that fills the rest of your application, this qualitative aspect allows you to connect on a more personal level with those deciding your fate in the medical field.

Crafting a statement that leaves a lasting impression requires introspection and a deep understanding of what drives you. This isn’t about reiterating your resume; it’s about peeling back the layers to reveal the real you. The AMCAS application facilitates this conversation between you and the admissions committee, providing a platform for you to articulate your personal journey towards medicine.

Discussion of the character limit and its implications for content

Navigating the 5,300-character limit of the AMCAS Personal Statement might seem daunting at first. This restriction places a premium on your ability to communicate efficiently and effectively, challenging you to distill your experiences and aspirations into a concise yet powerful narrative. Every word counts, pushing you to think critically about what details are truly essential to your story and which ones can be left unsaid.

This character limit encourages precision. It forces you to prioritize the experiences that best represent your journey, highlighting the resilience, empathy, and dedication that have propelled you toward a career in medicine. In this space, you must strike a balance between depth and brevity, ensuring that each sentence contributes to the overarching narrative you wish to convey. The constraint isn’t just a limit; it’s an opportunity to fine-tune your message, ensuring that your personal statement is both compelling and focused.

Moreover, the character limit underscores the importance of reflection in the application process. Deciding what to include and what to omit isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about understanding yourself and what defines you as a future medical professional. This introspective process can illuminate your path to medicine in ways you hadn’t considered, providing a clearer vision of who you are and the doctor you aspire to be.

In essence, the AMCAS Personal Statement is more than an essay; it’s a narrative mosaic of your journey to medicine. The character limit shapes this narrative, ensuring that each word serves a purpose, each sentence builds your case, and the final product paints a vivid picture of your passion for and commitment to the field of medicine.

The AMCAS Personal Statement is more than just an academic essay; it’s a storytelling opportunity that allows you to weave together the threads of your experiences, aspirations, and personal growth. Crafting a compelling narrative is crucial in making your application stand out in the competitive landscape of medical school admissions.

Importance of storytelling in the personal statement

Storytelling is a powerful tool in the AMCAS Personal Statement because it transforms your application from a mere collection of achievements into a memorable and engaging narrative. A well-crafted story can convey your passion for medicine, demonstrate your resilience, and provide insight into your character in ways that data and statistics cannot. It’s about showing the admissions committee who you are, not just telling them.

Through storytelling, you can connect emotionally with the reader, making your application more relatable and human. This emotional connection can be the difference between a forgettable essay and one that resonates long after it’s been read. A narrative approach allows you to highlight the journey that has led you to pursue a career in medicine, showcasing your growth, challenges overcome, and the moments that have defined your path.

Tips for selecting experiences that highlight unique qualities

When selecting experiences for your narrative, it’s essential to choose those that showcase your unique qualities and align with the values of the medical profession. Here are some tips to help you identify and highlight these experiences in your AMCAS Personal Statement:

1. Reflect on pivotal moments : Think about the experiences that have had a significant impact on your decision to pursue medicine. These could be clinical encounters, volunteer work, research projects, or personal challenges. Focus on moments that sparked your interest in healthcare or reinforced your commitment to the field.

2. Showcase your growth : Select experiences that demonstrate your personal and professional development. Admissions committees are interested in seeing how you’ve evolved over time and how your experiences have shaped your understanding of medicine.

3. Highlight your empathy and compassion : Medicine is a field that requires a deep sense of empathy and compassion. Include experiences that illustrate your ability to connect with others, understand their perspectives, and provide support during difficult times.

4. Demonstrate resilience and adaptability : The journey to and through medical school is challenging. Share experiences that showcase your resilience in the face of adversity and your ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

5. Emphasize teamwork and collaboration : Medicine is inherently collaborative. Highlight experiences that demonstrate your ability to work effectively in teams, communicate clearly, and contribute to shared goals.

6. Be authentic : Choose experiences that genuinely reflect who you are and what matters to you. Authenticity is key to creating a narrative that feels true to your character and resonates with the admissions committee.

By carefully selecting experiences that highlight your unique qualities and weaving them into a cohesive narrative, you can create an AMCAS Personal Statement that not only stands out but also provides a compelling glimpse into your journey to medicine.

In the AMCAS Personal Statement, the statement “show, don’t tell” is a guiding principle that can transform your essay from a mere recitation of accomplishments into a vivid portrayal of your character and potential as a future physician. This section explores strategies to bring your qualities to life and avoid the common pitfall of merely listing achievements.

Strategies for illustrating personal attributes through specific examples

To effectively demonstrate your qualities, you need to provide specific examples that showcase these attributes in action. Here are some strategies to help you do that:

1. Use vivid anecdotes : Share detailed stories from your experiences that highlight your qualities. For example, instead of stating that you are empathetic, describe a moment when you comforted a patient or connected with someone from a different background.

2. Focus on your actions and reactions : Illustrate your qualities through your actions and responses to various situations. Show how you solved a problem, overcame a challenge, or made a positive impact on others.

3. Provide context : Set the scene for your examples by providing enough background information. This helps the reader understand the significance of your actions and the qualities they demonstrate.

4. Reflect on your experiences : Don’t just describe what happened; reflect on what you learned and how it shaped your understanding of medicine or your personal growth. This reflection shows depth and self-awareness.

5. Use specific, concrete details : Rather than using general statements, use specific details to paint a vivid picture of your experiences and the qualities they reveal.

Avoiding the trap of simply listing achievements

While it’s important to highlight your accomplishments, your AMCAS Personal Statement should not read like a resume. Here’s how to avoid turning your essay into a mere list of achievements:

1. Prioritize quality over quantity : Instead of trying to include every achievement, focus on a few meaningful experiences that showcase your most relevant qualities.

2. Integrate achievements into your narrative : Incorporate your accomplishments naturally into your story, showing how they are a result of your qualities and how they have prepared you for a career in medicine.

3. Explain the significance : Don’t just mention an achievement; explain why it matters. Discuss the skills you developed, the challenges you overcame, and the impact it had on your journey to medicine.

4. Show the journey, not just the destination : Instead of just stating that you received an award or achieved a high grade, describe the effort, dedication, and growth that led to that accomplishment.

5. Balance humility with confidence: Be proud of your achievements, but maintain a tone of humility. Acknowledge the contributions of others and the opportunities that allowed you to succeed.

By focusing on illustrating your qualities through specific examples and integrating your achievements into a cohesive narrative, your AMCAS Personal Statement will provide a compelling and authentic portrayal of who you are and why you are destined for a career in medicine. Remember, the goal is to show the admissions committee the depth of your character, not just the breadth of your accomplishments.

The journey to medical school is often marked by hurdles and setbacks. In your AMCAS Personal Statement, discussing these obstacles is not just about showcasing resilience but also about revealing depth, growth, and a balanced perspective on your journey. Let’s explore how to approach this aspect of your narrative effectively.

How to effectively discuss obstacles without dwelling on them

Discussing challenges in your AMCAS Personal Statement requires a delicate balance. You want to acknowledge the difficulties you’ve faced without letting them overshadow your achievements or the positive aspects of your journey. Here’s how to strike that balance:

1. Focus on the learning experience : When mentioning an obstacle, quickly pivot to what it taught you or how it contributed to your personal or professional growth. This approach shifts the focus from the challenge itself to the positive outcomes of facing it.

2. Keep it relevant : Choose setbacks that have a direct relevance to your path to medicine or your personal development as a future healthcare provider. This ensures that every part of your story ties back to your central narrative of pursuing a medical career.

3. Be concise : While it’s important to provide context, avoid going into unnecessary detail about the obstacle itself. Instead, spend more time on your response to the challenge and the steps you took to overcome it.

4. Demonstrate resilience : Show how facing these challenges has prepared you for the rigorous path of medical education and the demands of a career in healthcare. Highlight qualities like perseverance, adaptability, and strength.

Balancing honesty with positivity

Your AMCAS Personal Statement is a reflection of your authentic self, including how you handle adversity. Here’s how to maintain a balance between being honest about your struggles and maintaining a positive tone:

1. Acknowledge without exaggeration: It’s important to be honest about the challenges you’ve faced, but avoid dramatizing them. A straightforward, factual approach shows maturity and self-awareness.

2. Highlight positive outcomes : For every challenge discussed, ensure there’s a corresponding positive takeaway or outcome. Whether it’s a lesson learned, a skill acquired, or a new perspective gained, make sure the reader sees the silver lining.

3. Maintain a forward-looking perspective : Emphasize how the obstacles you’ve encountered have equipped you for future challenges. This demonstrates optimism and a readiness to tackle the difficulties inherent in medical training and practice.

4. Show gratitude : If appropriate, express appreciation for the support and opportunities that helped you overcome challenges. This not only shows humility but also acknowledges the interconnectedness of your journey with others.

Addressing challenges and setbacks in your AMCAS Personal Statement is not just about recounting difficulties; it’s about illustrating your journey towards resilience, maturity, and a deeper understanding of the medical profession. By focusing on the lessons learned and maintaining a balance between honesty and positivity, you can craft a narrative that resonates with admissions committees and underscores your readiness for the challenges of medical school and beyond. Remember, the way you discuss obstacles can significantly impact how your overall application is perceived, turning potential weaknesses into demonstrations of character strength and determination.

Creating a memorable and impactful AMCAS Personal Statement is crucial for standing out in the competitive medical school application process. Let’s look at techniques that can help you craft a distinctive narrative and the role of reflection and personal growth in your personal statement.

Techniques for creating a memorable and distinctive personal statement

1. Start with a captivating hook : Begin your AMCAS Personal Statement with an engaging story or anecdote that highlights a key aspect of your journey to medicine. This could be a pivotal moment, a challenging experience, or an inspiring encounter that shaped your decision to pursue a career in medicine.

2. Showcase your unique voice: Your personal statement should reflect your individuality. Use a conversational yet professional tone, and avoid overused phrases or clichés. Share your personal experiences, thoughts, and reflections in a way that only you can.

3. Focus on your strengths and passions : Highlight your strengths, achievements, and passions related to medicine. Emphasize what sets you apart from other applicants, whether it’s your dedication to community service, your research accomplishments, or your unique perspective on healthcare.

4. Be specific and concise : Use specific examples to illustrate your points rather than making general statements. This not only makes your personal statement more memorable but also demonstrates your ability to communicate effectively and concisely.

5. Connect your experiences to your future goals : Demonstrate how your past experiences have prepared you for a career in medicine and how they align with your future aspirations. This shows that you have a clear vision and are committed to your path.

The role of reflection and personal growth in the narrative

1. Highlight personal growth : Your AMCAS Personal Statement should showcase your journey of personal growth and development. Reflect on how your experiences have shaped your character, values, and aspirations.

2. Demonstrate self-awareness : Show that you have a deep understanding of yourself and your motivations for pursuing medicine. Discuss how your experiences have challenged you, what you’ve learned from them, and how they have influenced your decision to become a physician.

3. Emphasize resilience and adaptability : Medical school and a career in medicine are challenging. Highlight instances where you’ve overcome obstacles, adapted to change, or persevered through difficult situations. This demonstrates your resilience and readiness for the rigors of medical training.

4. Incorporate introspection : Use your personal statement to share insights gained from your experiences. Discuss how they have impacted your perspective on medicine, healthcare, and serving others.

5. Connect to your values and motivations : Tie your reflections and personal growth to your core values and motivations for entering the medical field. This creates a cohesive narrative that resonates with admissions committees and underscores your commitment to medicine.

By incorporating these techniques and emphasizing reflection and personal growth in your AMCAS Personal Statement, you can create a compelling narrative that stands out. Remember, your personal statement is an opportunity to showcase your unique journey, qualities, and dedication to a career in medicine. Make it count!

Feedback and revision play crucial roles in shaping a narrative for the AMCAS that truly reflects your journey to medicine. Let’s explore the importance of seeking constructive criticism and the iterative process of refining your personal statement.

Importance of seeking constructive criticism from trusted sources

1. Gaining fresh perspectives : Even the most self-aware individuals can benefit from an external viewpoint. Friends, mentors, or professionals who are familiar with the medical school application process can provide insights that you might have overlooked.

2. Identifying weaknesses : Constructive criticism helps pinpoint areas of your AMCAS Personal Statement that may be unclear, unconvincing, or irrelevant. Recognizing these weaknesses is the first step toward addressing them.

3. Enhancing clarity and coherence : Feedback can highlight sections of your personal statement that lack clarity or fail to convey your intended message effectively. This allows you to refine your narrative for better coherence.

4. Validating your strengths : Positive feedback on certain aspects of your personal statement reinforces your strengths. It’s essential to know what works well so you can maintain those elements during revisions.

5. Building confidence : Constructive criticism, when received from trusted sources, can boost your confidence in your personal statement. Knowing that your narrative has been vetted and approved by others can be reassuring.

The iterative process of refining the personal statement

1. Embracing revision : Accept that your first draft is just the starting point. Be open to making changes, reorganizing content, and rephrasing sentences to improve the overall impact of your AMCAS Personal Statement.

2. Focusing on one section at a time : Break down the revision process into manageable sections. Concentrate on refining one part of your personal statement before moving on to the next. This approach prevents feeling overwhelmed and ensures thorough revisions.

3. Seeking multiple rounds of feedback : Don’t settle for feedback from just one source. Approach different individuals at various stages of the revision process. Each round of feedback brings new perspectives and ideas for improvement.

4. Balancing between revisions and originality : While it’s essential to incorporate feedback, ensure that your personal statement remains authentically yours. Strike a balance between making revisions and preserving your unique voice and experiences.

5. Setting aside time for reflection: After each round of revisions, take a step back and reflect on the changes you’ve made. Consider how each revision aligns with your overall goals and the message you want to convey in your AMCAS Personal Statement.

6. Finalizing with a critical eye : Before submitting your personal statement, review it critically one last time. Check for coherence, clarity, and conciseness. Ensure that your narrative effectively communicates your journey and aspirations in medicine.

The process of seeking feedback and revising your AMCAS Personal Statement is iterative and essential for crafting a narrative that resonates with admissions committees. Embrace constructive criticism, remain open to change, and refine your statement until it accurately reflects your journey and aspirations in medicine.

Check out our database of medical students/resident physicians who can help you achieve the 4th quartile by clicking below:

In crafting your AMCAS Personal Statement, remember that it’s not just an essay; it’s a reflection of your journey, aspirations, and dedication to medicine. By understanding its significance, weaving a compelling narrative, showcasing your unique qualities, addressing challenges with resilience, and ensuring your statement stands out, you set the stage for a successful application. Receiving feedback and embracing the revision process are integral to refining your story, ensuring it resonates with admissions committees. As you finalize your personal statement, keep in mind that it’s your opportunity to share your voice, your experiences, and your vision for your future in medicine. Make it count. 

1. What is the AMCAS Personal Statement?

   The AMCAS Personal Statement is a crucial component of your medical school application. It’s your opportunity to share your journey, aspirations, and dedication to medicine with admissions committees. This personal statement is your chance to highlight what makes you unique and why you are an ideal candidate for medical school.

2. How long should my AMCAS Personal Statement be?

   Your AMCAS Personal Statement should not exceed 5,300 characters, including spaces. This typically amounts to about one page of text. It’s important to use this space wisely to convey your experiences, qualities, and motivation for pursuing a career in medicine.

3. Can I discuss my MCAT score in my AMCAS Personal Statement?

   It’s not advisable to discuss your MCAT score in your AMCAS Personal Statement. This section is intended for you to share your personal journey and qualities, not academic metrics. Your MCAT score will already be visible to admissions committees elsewhere in your application.

4. How should I start writing my AMCAS Personal Statement?

   Begin by reflecting on your experiences and what led you to pursue medicine. Consider moments that defined your view of the medical field and your potential place in it. Choose a story or theme that can effectively illustrate your passion for medicine and your unique qualities.

5. Should I address setbacks or challenges in my AMCAS Personal Statement?

   Yes, addressing setbacks or challenges can showcase your resilience and growth. However, it’s important to discuss these obstacles without dwelling on them. Focus on how you overcame these challenges and what you learned from them, highlighting your strengths and positive attitude.

6. How can I make my AMCAS Personal Statement stand out?

   To make your AMCAS Personal Statement stand out, focus on crafting a compelling narrative that highlights your unique qualities and experiences. Use specific examples to demonstrate your attributes and show your personal growth. Reflect on your journey and how it has shaped your desire to pursue medicine.

7. What is the role of feedback and revision in crafting my AMCAS Personal Statement?

   Feedback and revision are essential in crafting an effective AMCAS Personal Statement. Seeking constructive criticism from trusted sources can provide valuable insights and help you refine your narrative. Embrace the iterative process of revising your statement to ensure it accurately reflects your experiences and aspirations.

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AMCAS Application for Med School: How to Write a Strong “Personal Comments” Essay

If you’re submitting an application to a Medical School through AMCAS (The American Medical College Application Service), you’ve likely already put a considerable amount of time and thought into your decision to do so.

The best way to reflect this high level of commitment is to write a memorable and succinct “Personal Comments” essay.

AMCAS recommends addressing the following three questions in your essay:

• Why have you selected the field of medicine?
• What motivates you to learn more about medicine?
• What do you want medical schools to know about you that has not been disclosed in other sections of the application?

We’ll go a step further and provide you with some additional launchpads for brainstorming :

• Who or what influenced you to pursue a career in medicine?
• What do you hope to glean from this career path?
• What impact do you hope to have on others?
• Why are you drawn to medicine? What excites you most about a career in medicine?
• How will you enrich the medical community?
• What are your long-term goals and how will a medical degree help you get there?

Your responses to these questions will give admissions insight into who you are, what’s important to you, and where you will go from here. Ultimately, the purpose of the Personal Comments essay is to humanize your application and distinguish you from other similarly qualified applicants. Acceptance rates at top U.S. medical schools have been steadily declining over the last decade, which means it’s tougher than ever to secure a spot at a competitive med school. 

Luckily for you, the written portion of the application is an opportunity to further differentiate you in the eyes of admissions officers. Think of it as an introduction; let admissions get a peek at the future healthcare provider behind the quantitative data. 

We recommend starting by making a list of the most important aspects of your identity, goals, and/or background. This way, you have a blueprint to follow when you’ve deemed it time to put pen to paper (fingers to keyboard?) (stethoscope to chest??).

The most successful AMCAS essays will not repeat information provided elsewhere in the application. Instead, they will reveal new information to an admissions committee about the applicant. The more memorable your essay, the better!

In addition to the answers to the questions listed above, AMCAS offers applicants the opportunity to include information such as:

• Unique hardships, challenges, or obstacles that may have influenced your educational pursuits.
• Comments on significant fluctuations in your academic record that are not explained elsewhere in your application.

This essay, unlike many other optional essays, is truly optional. If you haven’t faced a hardship or challenge that impacted your academics or educational pursuits, this prompt is not for you.

If, however, you have something to address here (a drop in your GPA, a gap in your resume, etc.), we advise you to write about the challenges and hardships you have faced in ways that emphasize resilience, responsibility, and growth. 

With an essay character limit of 5,300 (roughly equals a page), brevity is paramount. Do your best to avoid spending too many words on explaining what has happened in the past, since admissions is mostly interested in your future (hopefully at their school!). 

Once you have your outline ready, or at least an idea of what you want to address in your essay, we recommend writing everything down that comes to mind, stream-of-consciousness style. Trust us: it is so much easier to edit subpar drafts than it is to develop a blank page! You don’t need to write a stellar essay on the first go; you can always step away and revisit your writing at a later time (as long as you don’t have a deadline lurking). 

The final piece of advice we want to leave you with is this: share your draft with someone whose opinion you trust. Whether it’s one of our expert Advisors, your loved ones, your peers, or your mentors, it’s incredibly helpful to get a second opinion before you submit! A pair of fresh eyes can often reveal opportunities for both expansion and compression, and is, at the very least, a new lens in which to view your own submission.

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Category: Postgrad , Uncategorized

Tags: AMCAS , applying to med school , med school , med school admissions , med school secondaries , medical school , Personal Comments Essay

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7 Tips for Writing Your AMCAS Personal Comments Essay

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The Personal Comments Essay section of the AMCAS application is your opportunity to tell medical school admissions officers who you are and what makes you unique. Here are seven tips to help you as you write your essay.

Which program are you applying to?

Accepted Admissions Blog

Everything you need to know to get Accepted

December 19, 2018

Writing an Awesome AMCAS Essay

You’ve taken the MCAT, completed all the pre-reqs, and maybe shadowed a physician, done some research, and volunteered. Now it’s time to make sure you’re all in for the last legs of this long journey. In this series , we’ll discuss how you can continue to navigate your way to a med school acceptance by analyzing your profile, creating a strong med school application, writing stellar AMCAS and secondary essays, and nailing your interview.

“Why do you want to be a doctor?”

Surely this is an important question to answer in your own mind and address in your personal statement. That assumption doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that you should begin the essay by answering the question or that your answer should be the focus of the piece.

Some applicants have compelling stories to tell about an illness or injury, an inspiring mentor or a memorable service experience that pointed them in the direction of medicine. If you have such a story, you’re set with your opening paragraph and your theme; your challenge is to draw readers in and make them want to know what happened next.

If you’re like most applicants – an intelligent person who has an aptitude for science, a strong inclination toward service and no life-altering experiences or “light bulb moments” that led you to choose medicine – your focus should be on what sets you apart from the rest of the thousands of applicants . Is your college major a bit offbeat for a premed? Did you or your family face economic or other hardships and obstacles? Do you have any unusual jobs, interests, or hobbies? (Consider the candidate who taught classical Indian dance at her college while she was an undergrad and studied the discipline in India for a year before applying to medical school. Or the guy who opened an on-campus organic juice bar to promote health and local, clean eating.)

If you devote the valuable and very limited space AMCAS provides for the essay to those qualities and accomplishments that make you unique, admissions committees will gain a better understanding of the kind of person you are.

Related Resources:

• Ace the AMCAS Essay , a free guide • Different Dimensions of Diversity , a podcast episode •  Create a Winning AMCAS Application , a free webinar

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Personal Statement and Essay Prompts 2020: AMCAS, AACOMAS, and TMDSAS

Looking for a comprehensive index of all required essay prompts for the AMCAS, AACOMAS, and TMDSAS applications?

Look no further. Personal statements, short essays, experience descriptions - it’s all covered here.

All the prompts and character limits were gathered online from primary sources ( AAMC , AACOM , etc.) or from our past 2019 students. We’ve tried to ensure that this information is accurate and up-to-date, but please note that it’s subject to change.

We want to be a one-stop shop for all the medical school primary essay prompts, so please let us know if you notice any discrepancies. Don’t forget to brush up on the AMCAS, AACOMAS, and TMDSAS Deadlines .

Oh, and if you’re looking for tips and examples, you’ll find those here, too.

Just follow the links:

Table of Contents

2020 AMCAS Essay Prompts

Personal Statement Prompt

Institutional Action Prompt

Disadvantaged Information Prompt

Experience Descriptions Prompt

Most Meaningful Remarks Prompt

2020 AACOMAS Essay Prompts

2020 tmdsas essay prompts.

Personal Characteristics Prompt

Optional Essay Prompt

Most Meaningful Essays Prompt

BONUS: All Medical School Secondary Essays 2019-2020 (by state)

2020 AMCAS PERSONAL STATEMENT PROMPT

(5300 characters max)

Use the space provided to explain why you want to go to medical school. The available space for your response is 5300 characters, or approximately one full page. You will receive an error message if you exceed the available space. For additional assistance, click "help" on the tool bar at the top of the screen.

There are a few follow up questions to help you:

• Why have you selected the field of medicine?
• What motivates you to learn more about medicine?
• What do you want medical schools to know about you that hasn't been disclosed in other sections of the application?
• Unique hardships, challenges, or obstacles that may have influenced your educational pursuits.
• Commentary on significant fluctuations in your academic record that are not explained elsewhere in your application.

SAVVY PRE-MED TIPS:

Whew, where to start? Hmm… probably here:

Savvy Pre-med's Ultimate Guide to Writing Your Personal Statement

But seriously, the personal statement is a complex, multifaceted process, so you might want to target certain areas. Here are some elements we’ve covered:

Getting Started on Your Draft

Writing Attention-Grabbing Hooks

Average vs. Compelling Personal Statements

Crafting Your “Why Medicine” Answer

Cliches to Avoid

How to Know Your Personal Statement is Finished

Our full archive of articles on the personal statement

Jump back to the Table of Contents .

2020 AMCAS INSTITUTIONAL ACTION PROMPT

(1325 characters max)

MILITARY DISCHARGE

The question asks if you’ve ever been discharged by the Armed Forces. If you answer Yes, you’ll be asked if you received an honorable discharge or discharge under honorable circumstances. If you answer No, you must explain in 1,325 characters the circumstances of your discharge, including the circumstances leading to your discharge, your period of service, and your rank at the time of discharge.

FELONIES AND MISDEMEANORS

You must indicate if you have ever been convicted of, or pleaded guilty or no contest to, a felony crime or misdemeanor, excluding

(1) Any offense for which you were adjudicated as a juvenile

(2) Convictions that have been expunged or sealed by a court (in states where applicable).

You need not disclose any instance in which you:

• Were arrested but not charged

• Were arrested and charged, with the charges dropped

• Were arrested and charged, but found not guilty by a judge or jury

• Were arrested and found guilty by a judge or jury, with the conviction overturned on appeal

• Were arrested and found guilty but received an executive pardon

If you answer Yes, you’ll have 1,325 characters to explain the circumstances of your conviction, including the number of conviction(s), the nature of the offense(s) leading to conviction(s), the date(s) and location(s) of conviction(s), the sentence(s) imposed, and the type(s) of rehabilitation.

Academic Probation

You must answer "Yes" if you were ever the recipient of any institutional action resulting from unacceptable academic performance or a conduct violation, even if such action did not interrupt your enrollment or require you to withdraw. You must answer "Yes" even if the action does not appear on or has been deleted from your official transcripts due to institutional policy or personal petition. If you answer Yes, you’ll have 1,325 characters to explain the circumstances.

If you are not certain whether or not you have been the subject of an institutional action, contact the registrar, student affairs officer, or other appropriate party at the institution for confirmation of your record. Applicants who become the subject of an institutional action after certifying and submitting the AMCAS application must inform their designated medical schools that an action has occurred.

Don't feel obligated to fill all 1325 characters for this essay:

PARAGRAPH 1

1-2 sentences to explain the factors that led to the institutional action

It's wise to let the facts speak for themselves. If there were extenuating circumstances that led to this anomalous blip in your record, make sure to include those as evidence, BUT DON'T editorialize or try to make direct excuses for what happened. The goal in the beginning is to just acknowledge and own up to the IA.

PARAGRAPH 2

3-4 sentences to explain how you've rectified the situation

This will depend a lot on your situation, but typically, it will involve some kind of probation, mandatory classes, written letters, court appearances, etc. Beyond explaining the requirements you fulfilled and your current good standing, discuss the ways you've sought to improve overall as a person.

PARAGRAPH 3

1-2 sentences to explain the growth, personal qualities, and lessons you’ve gained

Again, this will depend a lot on your situation. Perhaps there's some activity or endeavor that you can use as "proof" of your growth as a person (i.e. tutoring other struggling students or serving on the student judiciary board). If not, just explain what you learned from the experience and how it's turned you into a better person moving forward.

2020 AMCAS DISADVANTAGED INFORMATION PROMPT

When you click the box on the AMCAS application to see if the status applies to you, here is what AMCAS provides:

Underserved: Do you believe, based on your own experiences or the experiences of family and friends, that the area in which you grew up was adequately served by the available health care professionals? Were there enough physicians, nurses, hospitals, clinics, and other health care service providers?

Immediate Family: The Federal Government broadly defines “immediate family” as “spouse, parent, child, sibling, mother or father-in-law, son or daughter-in-law, or sister or brother-in-law, including step and adoptive relationships.”

State and Federal Assistance Programs: These programs are specifically defined as “Means-Tested Programs” under which the individual, family, or household income and assets must be below specified thresholds. The sponsoring agencies then provide cash and non-cash assistance to eligible individuals, families, or households. Such programs include welfare benefit programs (federal, state, and local) Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC or ADC); unemployment compensation; General Assistance (GA); food stamps; Supplemental Security Income (SSI); Medicaid; housing assistance; or other federal, state, or local financial assistance programs.

If you think there are other circumstances that have contributed to your disadvantaged status that are not listed, don't feel constrained by the above.

In addition to requesting family financial data, AMCAS provides the opportunity for a 1,325 character statement explaining why you should be considered disadvantaged.

EXAMPLE PARAGRAPH 1

2-3 sentences to explain the factors that contribute to your disadvantaged status

I am blessed to have been adopted by my grandparents, who provided a stable life by removing me from a destructive environment with an absent father and drug-addicted mother. However, due to my grandparents’ age and physical limits, I missed out on many things people take for granted, like playing catch with one’s father or enjoying student-parent activities.

EXAMPLE PARAGRAPH 2

5-6 sentences to illustrate the day-to-day struggles as a result of your status

I am a first-generation college student who has been financially independent since age 18. My discipline stems from my teenage years when I worked manual labor on construction sites. This translated into dedication and focus, as I later sought a scholarship to subsidize my schooling and worked full-time alongside a rigorous course load. To fund my college experience, I attended a local university and gained merit-based aid, balancing school (20+ unit semesters) and three jobs (totaling 40+ hours/week). My lack of expendable income prevented me from accessing certain opportunities off-campus. Luckily, the Wilkinson Honors Scholarship provided a dorm stipend that covered most of my living expenses. However, to further cut costs, I went without a car and obtained an on-campus job and research opportunity.

EXAMPLE CONCLUSION

1-2 sentences to explain the growth, personal qualities, and lessons you’ve gained as a result of your status

Overall, my obstacles have given me more resolve to plan ahead, meet my goals, and help others do the same.

2020 AMCAS EXPERIENCE DESCRIPTIONS PROMPT

(15 activities or less, 700 characters max for each)

The Work/Activities section of the application is designed to give you the opportunity to highlight your work experience, extracurricular activities, awards, honors, or publications that you would like to bring to the attention of the medical schools to which you are applying.

You may enter a maximum of 15 experiences, and you may enter four separate date ranges for recurring experiences. This section cannot be edited or updated after the original submission of your application. Work and activities will appear on your application in chronological order and may not be rearranged. However, please be aware that medical schools sort your entries and view them in a variety of different orders to suit their specific review processes.

Medical schools receive your Work/Activities descriptions as plain text. Therefore, formatting options such as bulleted lists, indented paragraphs, and bold/italic fonts do not appear for reviewers and are not available.

You have the opportunity to describe or summarize each experience. The space allotted for each description is 700 characters.

We often get questions about whether it’s better to use bullet points or paragraphs for these descriptions. Either is fine! The key is being consistent in the way you choose to format your descriptions. Here’s an example of both methods:

BULLET POINT EXAMPLE

Outreach Coordinator                St. Augustine Orphanage, Tijuana, Mexico

- Planned, fundraised, and led a volunteer service trip to impoverished communities in Mexico

- Coordinated and managed a team of 20 volunteers and faculty

- Executed simple, precise interventions to spread change across a population

- Improved communication and bedside manner while engaging locals about their health problems and barriers to care

- Lived alongside children in multiple orphanages in Tijuana and poorer rural areas

- Brought clothes and supplies and provided hygiene demos for the children

- Gained insight into disparities and social determinants of health in underserved populations

- Wrote detailed protocol and reflection exercises for future leaders to use on their trips  

PARAGRAPH EXAMPLE

As outreach coordinator, I fundraised and led a service trip to impoverished communities in Mexico. In this role, I managed a team of 20 volunteers and faculty to execute interventions and spread change across a population. As part of this experience, we lived alongside children in multiple orphanages in Tijuana while donating supplies and providing hygiene demos. I improved my communication and bedside manner while engaging locals about their health problems and barriers. During this time, I gained insight into disparities and social determinants of health for the underserved. After the trip, I wrote a detailed protocol and reflection exercises for future leaders to use on their trips.

In your experience descriptions, try to show your “Trackable Progress”:

“Trackable progress” can be any number of things:

- Earned promotion within first three months of working for Lab XYZ

- Assigned new responsibilities of training recent hires and creating orientation manuals

- Ran promotional campaign that tripled our club’s active membership

- Garnered over half of the company’s referrals during the last two years

- Updated and improved the lab’s protocols to cut costs by more than half

If possible, support these bullets with quantitative evidence and stats (EX: raised membership by 50%, trained 50+ employees, etc). This data will show a lot about your contributions without taking up too much space.

020 AMCAS MOST MEANINGFUL REMARKS PROMPT

(choose 3 of your activities, 1325 characters max for each)

You may identify up to three experiences that you consider to be the most meaningful. This designation will allow you an additional 1,325 characters to explain why the experience(s) was particularly meaningful to you.

When writing your summary, you may want to consider the transformative nature of the experience, the impact you made while engaging in the activity, and the personal growth you experienced as a result of your participation. If you have two or more experience entries, you will be required to identify at least one as the more or most meaningful.

You may change which experience(s) you designate as Most Meaningful until the initial submission of your application. The text you entered in the Experience Summary section will be lost if you remove an experience from those you have designated as Most Meaningful. Your Most Meaningful selection(s) will be designated as such by a check-mark in the Work/Activities main screen.

If you’re in doubt about what to choose, many students will include one medically oriented activity, one leadership activity, and one extracurricular (research, service, etc). As long as you’ve invested significant time and energy into the activity (compared to your others), then it’s fair game for a most meaningful essay.  

Once you’ve narrowed down your possible choices based on time and commitment, you’ll want to ask yourself some brainstorming questions to determine the best activities and angles to explore in your most meaningful essays.

Remember that it’s okay to overlap the experiences of the personal statement and most meaningful essays, as long as you don’t repeat stories or lessons verbatim.

BRAINSTORMING QUESTIONS:

Which of the activities had the most setbacks or failures? Can you recall one or two specific moments that required your resilience?

Which of the activities presented the steepest learning curves? Why were they so challenging? Did you have to change something about yourself to succeed?

Did any of the activities expose you to people much different than yourself? Were their difficulties in communicating and collaborating with them?

Which of the activities most surprised you? Can you recall any moments within them when your perspective on medicine or life shifted?

Did you get more than expected out of a particular activity? Why? Vice versa, were there activities that disappointed you for some reason? How did you respond?

Which of the activities made you the most apprehensive? Why? Can you recall one or two moments that pushed you outside your comfort zone?

Which of the activities taught you a new skill that you otherwise wouldn’t have learned? Did you learn or realize how you could apply this skill moving forward?

How-to Guide and Most Meaningful Essay Example

5 Reasons You Should Apply to DO Schools - MUST READ!

2020 AACOMAS PERSONAL STATEMENT PROMPT

This section is where you can write a statement, which is shared with all your osteopathic medicine schools. Once you submit your application, you cannot edit this section.

• Keep your topic general : Keep the statement general as this essay is sent to all the programs you apply to. If you plan to only apply to one program, we still strongly recommend keeping your statement general in case you later apply to additional programs. Once you submit your application, the essay cannot be edited or changed.
• Do not exceed the maximum length : Refer to the number below the field in the application. This is the number of characters (not words) that you can use in your essay. As you type, you can see how many characters are still available. Characters include spaces, carriage returns, and punctuation. You cannot save your essay if it exceeds the character limit.
• Use your own words : Plagiarizing any part of your essay is a violation of the code of conduct and may subject you to sanctions.
• Use simple formatting : Formatting such as tabs, italics, multiple spaces, etc. will not be saved. To delineate paragraphs, type a double return between each paragraph.

Thankfully, the AACOMAS recently decided to give candidates more space, as compared to past years when you only had 4500 characters.

Still, most candidates face the challenge of converting an MD personal statement into a DO one. What to cut? What to add? What are the essentials to include?

We’ve distilled our years of wisdom from helping candidates down into:

5 Simple Steps to Turn Your AMCAS Essay into Your AACOMAS Essay

2020 AACOMAS DISADVANTAGED INFORMATION PROMPT

There is no essay on the AACOMAS to explain your disadvantaged status, but the application has a series of questions to categorize you:

(Yes/No) Your parent's family income falls within the table's guidelines and you are considered to have met the criteria for economically disadvantaged.

(Yes/No) I am from a family that lives in an area that is designated as a Health Professional Shortage Area or a Medically Underserved Area.

(Yes/No) I graduated from a high school at which many of the enrolled students are eligible for free or reduced price lunches.

(Yes/No) I am from a school district where 50% or less of graduates go to college or where college education is not encouraged.

(Yes/No) I am the first generation in my family to attend college (neither my mother nor my father attended college).

(Yes/No) English is not my primary language.

Savvy Pre-med Tips:

Use some space in the personal statement to elaborate on your disadvantaged background, especially if the circumstances require contextual explanation.

Also keep in mind that the DO secondary essays tend to be rather generous in the amount of space they provide (sometimes up to 500 words per essay). These essays will give you additional opportunities to discuss disadvantages.

Refer to our tips for the AMCAS Disadvantaged Information Prompt .

2020 AACOMAS INSTITUTIONAL ACTION PROMPT

(500 characters max)

Applicants will be asked to disclose information regarding prior criminal offenses. Failure to accurately and truthfully disclose such offenses on the AACOMAS application may result in an offer of admission being rescinded or, if the omission is discovered after enrollment in medical school, in dismissal.

Have you ever been disciplined for student conduct violations (e.g. academic probation, dismissal, suspension, disqualification, etc.) by any college or school?

Have you ever been disciplined for academic performance (e.g. academic probation, dismissal, suspension, disqualification, etc.) by any college or school?

Have you ever been convicted of a Felony?

Have you ever had any certification, registration, license or clinical privileges revoked, suspended or in any way restricted by an institution, state or locality?

Have you ever been convicted of a Misdemeanor?

If you answer Yes to any of these questions, you’ll have 500 characters to explain.

Refer to our tips for the AMCAS Institutional Action Prompt .

2020 AACOMAS EXPERIENCE DESCRIPTIONS PROMPT

(600 characters max for each entry)

Key differences between AACOMAS and AMCAS experience descriptions:

• AACOMAS does not have Most Meaningful Remarks
• AACOMAS gives you 100 fewer characters for your descriptions
• AACOMAS breaks its “Supporting Information” into Experiences and Achievements - no limit on the total number of entries for either
• AACOMAS has fewer category distinctions for Experiences (only volunteering, healthcare experience, or paid/non-healthcare experience)
• Achievements include honors/awards, presentations, or publications
• Distinguish your AACOMAS hobbies as “non-healthcare experience”

Refer to our tips for the AMCAS Experience Descriptions Prompt .

2020 TMDSAS PERSONAL STATEMENT PROMPT

(5000 characters max)

The personal statement essay is limited to 5000 characters, including spaces. Explain your motivation to seek a career in medicine. Be sure to include the value of your experiences that prepare you to be a physician.

Refer to our tips for the AMCAS Personal Statement Prompt .

2020 TMDSAS PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS PROMPT

(2500 characters max)

The personal characteristics essay is limited to 2500 characters, including spaces. Learning from others is enhanced in educational settings that include individuals from diverse backgrounds and experiences. Please describe your personal characteristics (background, talents, skills, etc.) or experiences that would add to the educational experience of others.

It’s wise to choose one of your Most Meaningful AMCAS essays and expand upon it (from 1325 to 2500 characters).

Is one of your three Most Meaningfuls more distinct than the other two? Does one focus on a more atypical pre-med activity? If so, that’s probably the one to choose, since this prompt is looking for “diverse backgrounds and experiences.”

If all three of your Meaningfuls feel equally distinct (or equally average), pick the one that would give you the most useful insights to share with your future classmates (i.e. “add to the educational experience of others”).

When adding content (~1000 characters) to your Most Meaningful, here’s where to focus your attention:

Add 1-2 sentences to the “hook” of the essay (paragraph 1) to make the experience even more vivid and concrete for the reader

Add 3-4 sentences to the “plot” of the essay (paragraph 1 or 2) to expound on your biggest responsibilities, contributions, and accomplishments

Add 3-4 sentences to the “reflection” of the essay (paragraph 2 or 3) to explain how this activity and its lessons make you a diverse and valuable candidate

Refer to our tips for the AMCAS Most Meaningful Essays Prompt .

2020 TMDSAS OPTIONAL ESSAY PROMPT

The optional essay is limited to 2500 characters, including spaces. The optional essay is an opportunity to provide the admissions committee(s) with a broader picture of who you are as an applicant. This essay is optional; however, you are strongly encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity. Briefly state any unique circumstances or life experiences that are relevant to your application. This is not an area to continue your essay or reiterate what you have previously stated - this area is provided to address any issues which have not previously been addressed.

If you’ve written or will be writing a Disadvantaged Essay for the MD application (discussed in the following module), then it makes sense to use that same essay here and expand upon it (from 1325 to 2500 characters).

When adding content (~1000 characters) to your Disadvantaged Essay, here’s where to focus your attention:

Add 1-2 sentences to the “hook” of the essay (paragraph 1) to make your backstory even more vivid and concrete for the reader

Add 3-4 sentences to the “plot” of the essay (paragraph 1 or 2) to expound on your biggest challenges, obstacles, limitations, etc.

Add 3-4 sentences to the “reflection” of the essay (paragraph 2 or 3) to explain how your hardships and their lessons make you a valuable candidate

Even if you’re not disadvantaged, you should still answer this TMDSAS Optional Essay by using another one of your Most Meaningfuls. With the two choices remaining, choose the one that has more autobiographical or personal relevance, or perhaps the one that better illustrates your exemplary qualities (leadership, creativity, problem solving, innovation, initiative, etc.).

Add 3-4 sentences to the “reflection” of the essay (paragraph 2 or 3) to explain how this activity and its lessons make you a valuable candidate

2020 TMDSAS DISADVANTAGED INFORMATION PROMPT

There is no essay on the TMDSAS to explain your disadvantaged status, but the application has a series of Yes/No questions to categorize your socioeconomic standing:

1st generation undergraduate:

1st generation graduate:

Parent/guardian of dependent children:

Primary language:

Bilingual or multilingual:

Fluent in languages other than English:

Household size:

Household income:

Residential property value:

Ever live in subsidized housing:

Ever receive benefits from the Federal Free and Reduced Meal program:

Responsibilities raising other children in household while attending elementary and/or high school:

Were you required to contribute to the overall family income (as opposed to working primarily for your own discretionary spending money) while attending high school:

Zip Code to age 18:

Lived outside US to age 18:

Percentage of college expenses provided by:

Academic scholarships:

Financial need-based scholarships:

Jobs/Employment:

Other Sources:

Received a Pell Grant during undergraduate education:

Still full-time student:

Use the TMDSAS Optional Essay to elaborate on your disadvantages.

Refer to our tips for the TMDSAS Optional Essay Prompt .

2020 TMDSAS INSTITUTIONAL ACTION PROMPT

(600 characters max)

If you answer Yes to any of the following questions, you’ll be given 600 characters to explain.

(Yes/No) Has your education ever been interrupted for any reason?

(Yes/No) Were you ever the recipient of any action by any college or professional school for unacceptable academic performance?

(Yes/No) Were you ever the recipient of any action by any college or professional school for conduct violations?

(Yes/No) Have you ever been sanctioned or received disciplinary action by a State Licensure Board of any kind (i.e., nursing, pharmacy, legal, etc.)?

(Yes/No) Are you currently under charge or have you ever been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor, or have you ever received a felony or misdemeanor deferred adjudication?

2020 TMDSAS EXPERIENCE DESCRIPTIONS PROMPT

(300 characters max for each entry, no limit on number of entries)

Healthcare and Employment Activities may be listed in each category if the experience was a paid position; otherwise, do not list experiences in more than one section. For example, a scribing job would be listed in both Healthcare Activities and Employment. The Employment and Activities categories are as follows:

• Academic Recognition
• Non-Academic Recognition
• Research Activities
• Healthcare Activities
• Community Service
• Extracurricular & Leisure Activities
• Planned Activities
• Identifying Top Meaningful Activities

REFER TO OUR TIPS FOR THE AMCAS EXPERIENCE DESCRIPTIONS PROMPT .

2020 tmdsas most meaningful essays prompt.

(choose 3 of your activities, 500 characters max for each)

This section was recently added last cycle. The TMDSAS now asks you to identify three top meaningful activities.

With only 500 characters, try to capture the activity through an emotionally-gripping or inspirational scene:

As our team approached the scene, we were greeted by the scorched remnants of Dave’s trailer - four deflated tires and a melted frame - the result of an arsonist attack. This was my first ride-along with the American Red Cross. The Disaster Action Team provided clothes, water, blankets, and a few hundred dollars, but it was clear Dave needed more than temporary supplies. A humble realization set in - I will not be able to save everyone, but I will always strive to be a buoy to keep them afloat.

499 characters

END OF CONTENTS

We hope you find this resource useful. Make sure to bookmark it as a reference throughout your application cycle!

If these essays feel overwhelming, you can BOOK A FREE MEETING with our expert medical school advisors for more guidance. We’ve helped hundreds of students write their personal statements and essays, and we’d love to help you on your writing journey!

Good luck!  

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All work on this site is our own. The content for the Savvy med school search was found on the webpages of the respective medical schools.

Advisor Corner: Crafting Your Personal Statement

New section.

Being able to articulate an answer to the question “why medicine?” is critical for an applicant as they apply to medical school. One of the first opportunities for an applicant to convey this message to admissions officers is through their personal comments essay in the AMCAS application. We asked three pre-health advisors how they advise their students to put their best self forward when crafting their personal statements.

The personal statement is an unfamiliar genre for most students—you’ve practiced writing lab reports, analytical essays, maybe even creative fiction or poetry, but the personal statement is something between a reflective, analytical narrative, and an argumentative essay. You want to reveal something about yourself and your thoughts around your future in medicine while also making an argument that provides evidence supporting your readiness for your career. Well ahead of when you’re writing your personal statement, consider taking classes that require you to create and support arguments through writing, or those that ask you to reflect on your personal experiences to help you sharpen these skills.

As you draft your essay, you may want to include anecdotes from your experiences. It’s easiest to recall these anecdotes as they happen so it can be helpful to keep a journal where you can jot down stories, conversations, and insights that come to you. This could be recounting a meaningful conversation that you had with someone, venting after an especially challenging experience, or even writing about what keeps you going at times when you feel in danger of giving up. If it’s more comfortable, take audio notes by talking into your phone.

While reading sample personal statements can sometimes make a student feel limited to emulating pieces that already exist, I do think that reading others’ reflective writing can be inspirational. The Aspiring Docs Diaries blog written by premeds is one great place to look, as are publications like the Bellevue Literary Review and Pulse , which will deliver a story to your inbox every week. Check with your pre-health advisor to see if they have other examples that they recommend.

Rachel Tolen, Assistant Director and Premedical Advisor, Indiana University I encourage students to think of the personal statement not just as a product. Instead, I encourage them to think of the process of writing the statement as embedded in the larger process of preparing themselves for the experience of medical school. Here are a few key tips that I share with students:

• Start writing early, even months before you begin your application cycle. Expect to revise many versions of your draft over time.
• Take some time to reflect on your life and goals. By the end of reading your statement, the reader should understand why you want to be a physician. 
• When you consider what to write, think about the series of events in your life that have led up to the point where you are applying to medical school. How did you get here? What set you on the path toward medical school? What kept you coming back, even at times when it was challenging? On the day that you retire, what do you hope you’ll be able to say you’ve achieved through your work as a physician? 
• Don’t waste too much time trying to think of a catchy opening or a theme designed just to set your essay apart. Applicants sometimes end up with an opening that comes across as phony and artificial because they are trying too hard to distinguish themselves from other applicants. 
• Just start writing. Writing is a means for thinking and reflecting. Let the theme grow out of the process of writing itself. Some of the best personal statements focus on ordinary events that many other people may have experienced, but what makes the essay stand out are the writer’s unique insights and ability to reflect on these experiences.

Dana Lovold, MPH, Career Counselor at the University of Minnesota Your personal statement can and should include more than what you’ve done to prepare for medical school. The personal statement is an opportunity to share something new about yourself that isn’t conveyed elsewhere in your application.

Advisors at the University of Minnesota employ a storytelling model to support students in finding and writing their unique personal statement. One critical aspect of storytelling is the concept of change. When a story lacks change, it becomes a recitation of facts and events, rather than a reflection of how you’ve learned and grown through your experiences. Many students express concern that their experiences are not unique and wonder how they can stand out. Focusing on change can help with this. Some questions you may want to consider when exploring ideas are:

• What did you learn from the experience?
• How did you change as a result of the experience?
• What insight did you gain?

By sharing your thoughts on these aspects of your preparation and motivation for medicine, the reader has a deeper understanding of who you are and what you value. Then, connect that insight to how it relates to your future in the profession. This will convey your unique insight and demonstrate how you will use that insight as a physician.  

In exploring additional aspects of what to write about, we also encourage students to cover these four components in the essay:

• Motivation refers to a student’s ongoing preparation for the health profession and can include the initial inspiration.
• Fit is determined through self-assessment of relevant values and personal qualities as they relate to the profession.
• Capacity is demonstrated through holistically aligning with the competencies expected in the profession.
• Vision relates to the impact you wish to make in the field.

After you finish a working draft, go back through and see how you’ve covered each of these components. Ask people who are reading your draft if they can identify how you’ve covered these elements in your essay so that you know it’s clear to others.

How to Skillfully—and Successfully—Revise Your AMCAS Personal Statement

Last Updated on June 26, 2022 by Laura Turner

Nowhere else on your medical school application will you have the chance to represent your personality and goals as strongly as you do in your AMCAS personal statement. Your personal statement is one place to which schools will turn to understand who you are separate from your MCAT score and GPA. For those individuals aiming to submit their primary AMCAS applications in June or early July, revising your personal statement throughout May is essential to crafting an application that represents your unique attributes as a future physician, as well as what you will bring to your medical school class. Use this checklist as you revise to ensure that you are covering all that you must in order to submit a successful personal statement. 1. Interest your audience with a strong opening If your personal statement currently begins with the words, “I want to go to medical school because…” consider rewriting your first sentence in a more engaging manner. Develop a hook at the beginning of your statement that will make medical school admissions committees want to learn more about you. For instance, perhaps you open with a specific scene that represents how you were inspired to pursue medicine, or another example that you feel represents your journey toward a career as a physician. 2. Avoid listing your accolades Your personal statement should not read as a laundry list of classes you have taken, extracurricular positions you have held, locations you have volunteered, and publications and awards that you have received. These types of details are best left to the Course Work and Work and Activities sections of your AMCAS application. As you revise, ensure that any classes, extracurriculars, research projects, and so on that you describe are included because they are a necessary part of your narrative. 3. Answer the question you ask or the topic you raise What story are you trying to tell? Your personal statement should not be a synopsis of your life; rather, it should seek to address a specific question or topic that you feel best highlights your motivation for a medical career. Ensure you are not straying from the main goal of your personal statement by verifying that every paragraph is aimed at answering the question that you ask or exploring the topic that you raise. 4. Emphasize coherence and flow Flow describes the way in which one sentence moves to another without seeming clunky or deviating from the established rhythm of the essay, while coherence refers to how your sentences logically fit together. When revising your personal statement, pay close attention to both flow and coherence. For example, is your sentence structure varied and interesting? Do the words you chose convey a clear message without sounding lofty or pretentious? Do your paragraphs move in a logical progression, telling your story with purpose? Do you have any extraneous or off-topic sentences that you need to eliminate? Rework your personal statement with care for the language that will represent you to medical school admissions committees. 5. Eliminate clichés Clichés should have no place in your personal statement—you should be able to express yourself in your own words without having to borrow overused phrases. Forget about being a chip off the ol’ block, and following your heart. Tell  your  story, and use  your  voice to do it. 6. Check your spelling and grammar It goes without saying that you should reread your personal statement to do one last scan for spelling and grammatical errors. Do not rely on the automatic spelling and grammar check offered by your word processing program; these checks often misread sentences with complex structures, and they have a host of other errors that are easily caught by a real reader. Checking for spelling and grammar should be your last step before you send out your personal statement. After you complete this final step, rest assured that you have crafted a personal statement that best represents you and your application.

Cassie Kosarek, MD is a professional tutor with Varsity Tutors , a live learning platform that connects students with personalized instruction to accelerate academic achievement. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Bryn Mawr College and was a member of the Class of 2021 at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College.

Crafting a Powerful AMCAS Most Meaningful Experience Essay

Crafting a powerful AMCAS most meaningful experience essay can be a daunting task, but with the right guidance, you can create an impactful and compelling essay that showcases your unique experiences and qualities. Keep reading to learn more!

Posted July 9, 2024

Featuring Pravesh S.

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Starting wednesday, september 18.

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Table of Contents

If you’re applying to medical school , you know that the application process can be daunting. One of the most important components of your application is the AMCAS (American Medical College Application Service) most meaningful experience essay. This essay allows you to highlight your personal qualities and the experiences that have influenced you to become the aspiring physician that you are. In this article, we’ll guide you through the process of crafting a powerful AMCAS most meaningful experience essay that will help you stand out in the competitive pool of medical school applicants.

Why the AMCAS Most Meaningful Experience Essay is Important

The AMCAS most meaningful experience essay is crucial as it provides a comprehensive overview of who you are as an individual and what drives you as a medical professional. It allows you to highlight your strengths, demonstrate your commitment to the field, and showcase your communication skills. A well-written AMCAS most meaningful experience essay can make the difference between being accepted into medical school and being placed on the waitlist. The admissions committee wants to know what motivates you, your goals, and your personality. This essay helps them determine how you'll fit into the medical community.

One of the reasons the AMCAS most meaningful experience essay is crucial is that it provides you with the opportunity to distinguish yourself from other applicants. Medical schools receive thousands of applications each year, many of which have similar academic backgrounds and extracurricular activities. However, your most meaningful experience essay is unique to you and can highlight your individuality. It also showcases your ability to reflect on your experiences and how they have influenced your perspective on medicine.

Furthermore, the AMCAS most meaningful experience essay can help you prepare for medical school interviews. The experiences you write about in your essay can serve as talking points during interviews, allowing you to expand on your thoughts and experiences. It can also help you articulate your goals and motivations for pursuing a career in medicine, which is a common question during medical school interviews. Overall, the AMCAS most meaningful experience essay is an important component of your medical school application and should be taken seriously.

Understanding the Purpose of the AMCAS Most Meaningful Experience Essay

The purpose of the AMCAS most meaningful experience essay is to provide the medical school admissions committees with insight into your character and values. In many ways, this is the equivalent of a personal statement you might submit to a job. It enables them to gain insight into your personal and professional perspectives, the impactful experiences in your life, and what drives you to pursue a career in medicine. While grades and test scores are important factors in the admissions process, the AMCAS most meaningful experience essay allows you to take center stage and highlight your achievements outside of the classroom.

When writing your AMCAS most meaningful experience essay, it's important to choose experiences that deeply resonate with you. Instead of just focusing on impressing admissions committee members, select experiences that have significantly impacted your life and contributed to who you are today. This approach will enable you to craft a more genuine and compelling essay that truly highlights your unique qualities and strengths.

Another key aspect of the AMCAS most meaningful experience essay is to reflect on the lessons you learned from your experiences. Admissions committees are interested not only in what you did but in your personal growth and development as a result of these experiences. It's essential to emphasize the skills and qualities you gained, such as leadership, teamwork, empathy, and resilience. This will illustrate to the admissions committee that you possess the personal and professional attributes necessary for success in medical school and beyond.

What is a Most Meaningful Experience in Medical School and Why it Matters

A most meaningful experience in medical school is an experience that has shaped you personally and/or professionally. This experience could have occurred during clinical rotations, volunteering, medical research/clinical trials, or extracurricular activities. It is important because it provides a deeper understanding of your motivations and how you will contribute to the medical community.. Being able to articulate your most meaningful experiences in detail is essential in demonstrating to the admissions committee why you would be an ideal candidate for medical school.

How to Choose the Right Most Meaningful Experience for Your Essay

When selecting your most meaningful experience for your essay, it’s important to reflect on your experiences and identify those that have had the greatest impact on your personal and professional development. Keep in mind that it's not just the experience itself that makes it most meaningful, but how it affected you and the lessons you learned. After considering a few experiences, think about which ones best demonstrate the personal qualities and characteristics you want the admissions committee to know about you.

Tips for Brainstorming and Selecting Your Most Meaningful Experiences

It can be challenging to brainstorm and select your most meaningful experiences, but it’s important to spend time reflecting on your experiences to articulate why they were important to you. Take a few minutes to do some free writing to generate possible ideas. You might also try brainstorming with a friend or family member to get a fresh perspective. Once you have a few possible experiences in mind, create a list of the personal qualities and values you exhibited during each experience. This will help you decide which experiences will best showcase your strengths and fit in with the message you want to convey to the admissions committee.

Tips for a Powerful Essay

Strategies for writing a compelling introduction to your amcas essay.

The introduction is the most important part of your AMCAS essay. You need to capture the reader's attention and give them a reason to continue reading. One way to do this is to start with a personal anecdote or a thought-provoking question related to your most meaningful experience. Another approach is to begin with a quote or a surprising fact that helps to frame your essay's topic in a compelling and relevant way. Regardless of the approach you choose, ensure that your introduction is engaging and sets the stage for the rest of your essay.

Structuring Your AMCAS Essay for Maximum Impact

The structure of your AMCAS essay is crucial for ensuring maximum impact. You should present your experiences in a clear, concise, and organized manner that is easy for the reader to follow. A common structure for the AMCAS essay is to start with an introduction, followed by a description of your most meaningful experience, a reflection on what you learned, and a conclusion that ties everything together. You can also use headings to help organize your essay and make it easier to read.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Your Most Meaningful Experience AMCAS Essay

There are several common mistakes to avoid when writing your AMCAS most meaningful experience essay.

• Avoid being vague or generic
• Focus on the impact the experience had on you rather than just the experience itself and explain its significance
• Don’t try to include too much in your essay - concentrate on a single experience and explore it in-depth
• Make sure to proofread and edit your essay for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors

Key Elements of a Successful AMCAS Most Meaningful Experience Essay

Remember to include these key elements in a successful AMCAS most meaningful experience essay:

• Provide a clear and concise description of your experience
• Explain what you learned and how it impacted you
• Reflect on how the experience has influenced your values, beliefs, and goals
• Showcase your personal qualities and characteristics that make you an ideal candidate for medical school
• Be authentic to yourself in your essay

How to Edit and Revise Your AMCAS Most Meaningful Experience Essay for Clarity and Coherence

It's important to edit and revise your AMCAS most meaningful experience essay to ensure it's clear and coherent. Start by reviewing it for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. Then, read it out loud to catch awkward or unclear sentences. Consider having someone else read it and give feedback. Finally, make sure the essay flows smoothly and that your most meaningful experience is presented in a logical way that highlights the personal qualities you want to showcase.

How to Make Your AMCAS Most Meaningful Experience Essay Stand Out from the Crowd

Make your AMCAS most meaningful experience essay stand out by focusing on presenting a personal narrative with specific details and emotions. Use descriptive language that draws the reader in and allows them to connect with your experience. Additionally, showcase your personal qualities and characteristics that make you unique as an individual and a candidate for medical school. Lastly, ensure that your essay is authentic to who you are and what motivates you personally and professionally.

Final Thoughts

When writing a powerful AMCAS most meaningful experience essay, it is important to engage in reflection, introspection, and attention to detail. Selecting an experience that is genuinely meaningful to you and demonstrates personal qualities that would make you an asset to the medical community is crucial. When crafting your essay, it's important to avoid common mistakes, structure it appropriately, and use descriptive and engaging language. By following these tips and writing from the heart, you can create an essay that stands out and helps you take the first step toward realizing your dream of becoming a medical professional.

Get Into Your Dream Medical School With the Help of an Expert

We understand how overwhelming the medical school application process can be. Fortunately, our experienced medical school admissions coaches are here to provide you with personalized guidance and support. From selecting your most meaningful experiences to perfecting your essay, these experts are dedicated to helping you succeed in getting into your dream medical school. Take a look at our full list of med school coaches here , or view our highest rated experts below.

For more expert tips on how to successfully navigate the medical school application process, check out these articles:

• Preparing for Medical School: A Comprehensive Guide
• Mastering Medical School Interviews: Questions and Strategies
• How to Craft the Perfect Medical School Interview "Thank You" Letter
• How to Get Clinical Hours for Med School: Building Your Experience
• How to Write a Standout Internal Medicine Personal Statement

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AMCAS Work and Activities Examples: How to Stand Out

• Cracking Med School Admissions Team

Dr. Rachel Rizal and Dr. Rishi Mediratta , your Cracking Med School Admissions application advisors, have literally read tens of thousands of AMCAS Work and Activities descriptions. We strategize new ways to help our students stand out on their AMCAS Activities section each year. We update this “AMCAS Work and Activities Examples” blog post several times a cycle so that you have the latest, high-yield tips.  Read all our tips to write an outstanding medical school application below. Learn from several AMCAS work and activities examples from successful applicants!

BOOKMARK THIS PAGE TO MAKE IT YOUR GO-TO GUIDE FOR AMCAS ACTIVITIES DESCRIPTIONS!

Last Update May 2024

Learn how to write  excellent AMCAS work and activities descriptions: 

How to Write an AMCAS Activity Description

Amcas activity categories.

• Shadowing descriptions
• Research descriptions
• Clinical descriptions, including Paid and Volunteering
• Non-Clinical Volunteering descriptions
• Paid employment descriptions
• Publication descriptions
• Poster presentation descriptions
• Conferences Attended descriptions
• Honors/Awards/Recognitions descriptions
• Leadership descriptions
• Extracurricular activities descriptions
• Intercollegiate athletics descriptions
• Military service descriptions
• Teaching / Tutoring / Teaching Assistant

AMCAS Work and Activities Tips

• FAQs about AMCAS work and activities
• Cracking Med Medical School Application Packages – get edits for your med school applications!

Need help with your AMCAS primary application, including the AMCAS activity section? Send us a question below .  We can help you shine on your medical school primary applications, secondary essays, and interviews!

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How To Write an AMCAS Activity Description

The basics: how to fill out the work and activities section .

On the AMCAS application, one of the major sections is the AMCAS Activities section. You have space to fill up to 15 work and activities entries. For each activities entry, you can identify which category best describes your experience, and you have 700 characters to describe the activities, known as the “activity description.”  Additionally, you can designate three of your activities as your most meaningful experiences. For these 3 most meaningful activities , you have an additional 1325 characters to write why this activity is meaningful to you. We have an entire blog post dedicated on how to write your AMCAS most meaningful experiences .

An AMCAS activity description contains several pieces of information, including demographic information and descriptive information.

• Experience Type (Look at AMCAS Activity Categories right below)
• Experience Name
• Organization Name
• Hours per Week
• Contact Name, Title, email, and phone number
• City / State / Country
• Experience Description – 700 characters each
• 3 Most Meaningful Activities – 1325 characters each

The experience description on the AMCAS is where students can really shine and stand out among thousands of applications. It is absolutely critical that you try to optimize the 700 characters allotted. When you look at the AMCAS example below, you’ll see the various elements of a good AMCAS activity description. 

Look at the AMCAS activity description example below to see what an AMCAS activity description looks like to an admission committee application reviewer! 

This is what an AMCAS activities section description looks like filled out

Elements of an AMCAS description:

Your 15 AMCAS activity entries need to complement each other. In some, you may highlight your clinical knowledge. In others, you may talk more about your research and analytical skills. Here are elements you can incorporate into your AMCAS work and activities descriptions. 

• Organization overview: If it is not obvious what the organization what the organization is, then you can write one sentence MAX about the organizations goals and mission. This will help provide context about your extracurricular activity experience. 
• What you did: Write a description highlighting what YOU did for that specific work or activity. Focus on impact. One common mistake our Cracking Med School Admissions team finds is that applicants talk too much about the organization and not enough about what the applicant did during the activity.
• Story:  You may want to discuss a challenge you overcame or a memorable patient. Stories bring you and the individuals you help through your activities to life. We strongly recommend incorporating a story! The stories you include in your AMCAS experience description  should not be the same as the stories that you include in your medical school personal statement . 
• Reflections and Lessons Learned:  You can add specific lessons learned and insights from your experience. The key to standing out is to be very specific.
• Leadership Role:  Highlight any leadership roles you had, especially if you were a Founder or President. 
• Awards / Publications / Impact: If you won any awards, make sure to note them. Finally, if you can tie the activity with how you can relate it to your future career in medicine, you should mention it in the end. You can use a few characters to say “1st author publication” or any other notable presentations or publications. But, you should also have an entire AMCAS activity description dedicated to your publication(s) and another AMCAS activity description dedicated to presentation(s).

As you can see, you can write a lot in 700 characters! It is definitely an art to bring together a solid AMCAS activity section. 

How Many Activities on AMCAS primary application? 

You can put up to 15 activities on your AMCAS application. No, that does not mean you had to be involved with 15 school activities. AMCAS activities include: gap year activities, including gap year jobs and gap year volunteering; summer internships and other summer opportunities; part-time work experiences; and other special talents you possess. 

FAQ: How Many Activities Should I Put on AMCAS? 

Our Cracking Med School Admissions team only wants you to stand out. So, we will only advise you to submit strong applications. From our experience as admissions readers and medical school admissions experts, we see that strong applicants write 13 or more AMCAS activity entries on their AMCAS applications.

AMCAS Experience Hours

Med school applicants can add different date ranges for when they were involved in an activity. For example, if you did an activity two different summers in college, you may have dates ranging 06/2022 – 08/2022 and 06/2023 – 08/2023, and include the hours for each period. 

AMCAS also differentiates between completed hours – for activities that you have already participated in – versus anticipated hours – for anticipated activities. 

There’s an entire strategy as to whether you should split your hours into numerous date ranges or put it as one continuous date. In general, we recommend that our students split their activities into different date ranges when applicable. 

FAQ: What should you do if you are expecting to do the activity this upcoming year? 

If you are doing this activity only in the next year, then you would put one date range, with the end date as the last month you expect to do that activity. For example, you would put the experience date range like 07/2024 – 05/2025 (# of expected future hours).”

FAQ: What should you do if you are expecting to do the activity this upcoming year AND you have already started the activity?

But what if you have already been doing the activity? In this case, we want to showcase the amount of time and dedication you have already done the activity  and  the amount of work that you will continue to do for the experience. Therefore,  our team recommends putting two date ranges: the past and the future. For example, you would put something like 09/2022 – 05/2023 (# of past hours) AND 07/2024 – 05/2025 (# of expected future hours). 

FAQ: Should you even include an anticipated activity?  In general, medical school admissions committee members know that plans change. In general, Drs. Rachel Rizal and Rishi Mediratta do not think you should prioritize writing about an anticipated activity (or anticipated activities). There are some exceptions:

• Anticipated work or research related to a post-graduate award (for example, if you will be pursuing a Fulbright Fellowship or the NIH postbacc program).
• Pursuit of a graduate degree related to your healthcare interests.
• You do not have all 15 work & activities entries filled out, and there is space for a major anticipated activity.
• You want to convey you will have a clinical role during the following year (e.g., full-time medical scribe or full-time medical assistant).

Contact us  or email us at  [email protected] if you have questions about your AMCAS activity hours! We’re master AMCAS activities strategists and we’ll help your AMCAS activities stand out to the medical school admissions committees!

FAQ: Should my AMCAS Descriptions be in Bullet Points or Paragraph Style?

There are two main ways an applicant can write the work activities descriptions for the AMCAS.

• Bullet points: Think about this as “resume” style. These descriptions tend to be to the point and emphasize what an applicant did for each activity.
• Paragraph form: This allows medical school applicants to write more stories and describe their activities. We recommend this format for the AMCAS and AACOMAS. 

It is a personal preference and there is not one correct format to write your AMCAS extracurricular activities descriptions. We’ve seen students succeed both ways! We strongly suggest that you stick to one format, and not alternate between bullet point and paragraph form.

We recommend our students to write most of their AMCAS work and activities descriptions in paragraph form because you can more easily incorporate a story and reflections. 

Must have Elements for Each Activity Description

• What YOU did:  What were your responsibilities? What impact did you have in this organization? Oftentimes, we read descriptions that describe the program or project, and barely touch on what the applicant did. Leaving this out is one of the most common mistakes we see.
• Reflection is KEY:  Reflection shows maturity and growth. Some reflections you can discuss in your description – What lessons did you learn? Did you face any difficulties? How did this experience impact you or change the way you think about patient care and healthcare? What did you gain from this experience that you will bring to the medical field? 

Step Up Your Game: Make Your Activities Descriptions From Good to Great

Add these components to strengthen your AMCAS activities descriptions.

• Awards and Accolades: Did you win any awards? Did you publish your research? Accolades are external validations that support the strength of your medical school application. 
• Leadership:  Especially if you were founder, first author, or president, highlight your leadership role in your activity description and make it bold.
• Impact:  Discuss the impact you had on the organization, project, or people you served. You can think about these questions: How did you impact the patients or individuals you helped – how did you change their lives or health? How did you individually drive your research project? How did your leadership and effort affect that organization’s performance? 

Most Meaningful Experience Remarks

You choose 3 activities that are your “most meaningful activities” and you have an extra 1325 to write a short essay in the “most meaningful experience remarks” description box. Think of your most meaningful experience remarks as mini personal essays. At least one of your most meaningful activities should be a clinical experience / clinical activity. Your most meaningful experience remarks should also complement what you write in the experience description section. Read the research activity example below to see how the “most meaningful experience remarks” and “experience description” can complement each other.

Additionally, we have an entire blog post dedicated to AMCAS most meaningful experience remarks tips! 

There’s a lot of strategy with filling out the work and activities section AMCAS. We’ve helped numerous students strategize about how to present their activities and work experience. And we can help you transform your AMCAS descriptions to your AACOMAS application and TMDSAS application.

If you need a second opinion or need help with how to best position your activities,  don’t hesitate to schedule a call with us by filling out the contact form below. 

AMCAS Work and Activities Categories

In the “Experience Type” field of the AMCAS activity section, there are several AMCAS activities categories that you can choose from for each of your activities. Keep scrolling for AMCAS work and activities categories tips and frequently asked questions ! You can also click the hyperlinks for AMCAS work and activities examples for various categories!

AMCAS Work and Activities Categories:

• Artistic Endeavors
• Community Service/Volunteer – Non-Medical/Clinical
• Community Service/Volunteer – Medical/Clinical
• Conferences Attended
• Extracurricular Activities
• Honors/Awards/Recognitions
• Intercollegiate Athletics
• Leadership – Not listed elsewhere
• Military Service
• Paid Employment – Medical/Clinical
• Paid Employment – Non-Medical/Clinical
• Physician Shadowing/Clinical Observation
• Presentations/Posters
• Publications
• Research/Lab
• Social Justice/Advocacy
• Teaching/Tutoring/Teaching Assistant

If you need to add context about the organization or program, then you can write a short description about the organization or activity background. You do not need a description of the organization if you are writing about a "Teaching Assistant" position; medical school admissions committee members know what teaching assistants do. If you are going to write about the organization in your AMCAS work and activities description, then we typically recommend it to be one sentence in length. We strongly recommend 2 sentences MAX.

There is no better way to get your question answered than to email us at [email protected] or contact us below. However, we want to give you some examples of common premed activities and under what category you can list them on the AMCAS. 

Leadership - Not Listed Elsewhere

• Student club officer
• Student activism/government/Greek activities
• Starting a non-profit/student organization/business
• Academic awards (e.g. honor societies, dean's list)
• Certifications and recognitions you received, including non-clinical certifications (e.g. a black belt in a martial arts, placing in a competition, certified as pilot, EMT certification, CPR certification)
• Competitive research position or grant funding which you had to apply for
• Phi Beta Kappa, Cum Laude, Dean's List

Community Service - Medical/Clinical

• If you are working in close proximity with patients, it is clinical.

Community Service - Non-Medical/Clinical

• If it doesn't fall into the above, you didn't get paid for it, and it isn't a leadership or teaching opportunity, it probably falls here. For example, volunteering for non-profits or charitable organizations, volunteer work you have done at your university.

Teaching/Tutoring/TA

• Activities that fall under these AMCAS work and activities categories not only include formal TA-ing and tutoring, but also mentoring and coaching.
• Use this if you were a keynote speaker, received major recognition, or attended a medical conference related to your interests or research. 
• Typically, we do not suggest students to fill out an activity description that falls under the "conferences attended" category because it's a passive activity. However, if you have fewer than 12 AMCAS activities, we strongly suggest that you think about filling a "conferences attended" description.
• Important Note: If the conference gave you an opportunity to present a poster or presentation, consider labeling it as Presentations/Poster s instead with the name of the conference attended so application screeners can easily find it.

If you’re going to write in bullet-point fashion, make sure to use strong action verbs . Additionally, applicants use the same verbs for multiple bullet points in a row. Don't do this - it does not appeal to the reader.

Here's an example...

Not Ideal Description:

• Helped my research professor in collecting samples for our experiment
• Helped analyze the data for our research paper

Instead, here's a better way to write this description:

• Developed a bioengineered composite scaffold capable of promoting cellular proliferation 
• Analyzed 3,000 samples using STATA to discover that our new scaffolding technique was 30% more efficient than the current standard practice

These tips will help you STAND OUT on your work and activities.

1. You do not need an experience for each activity category.

2. Some AMCAS work and activities categories are stronger than other AMCAS work and activities categories.

Read more details right below in the FAQ section .

Question: Do I need to have an experience for each category?  

Definitely not! You do not have to fill out an activity for each one of the categories. For example, you can have 4 “extracurricular activities” and 0 “artistic endeavors.”

There is a lot of strategy related to choosing categories and activity type, so  contact us if you want help with strategizing and editing help with your AMCAS primary application. We can help you with all parts of the application process! 

Question: Which AMCAS categories are better than others?

You should accurately place your various work and activities experiences in the appropriate categories. However, some activities can be placed in multiple AMCAS categories. And this is where our Cracking Med School Admission s strategy comes in!

Here are common AMCAS category strategies we have recommended to students we help through medical school application editing.

• Many med school applicants will list their school clubs as extracurricular activities. But, when we read their descriptions, they have actually had leadership within the school club! It is better to identify the activity as “leadership” than “extracurricular activities” in almost all cases.
• In more than half of cases, if you LED a community service initiative, we think “leadership” is a better AMCAS category than “Community Service/Volunteer.” However, this is a case by case basis and it depends on whether you have other leadership experiences and other community service activities. Contact us if you have questions on this one.
• Medical school admission committee members will always be more impressed if you presented research at a conference rather than attended a conference. If you did a oral presentation or poster presentation, please label this experience as a “Presentation/Posters” AMCAS category rather than a “Conferences Attended” AMCAS category.
• When premeds serve as Scribes or Medical Assistants, they are working in a clinic (paid or unpaid), speaking with patients, setting up the facilities, conducting vitals, and shadowing physicians all at the same time! In general, you should designate these activities on your AMCAS as Medical/Clinical activities (doesn’t matter if it’s paid or unpaid) and  not the “Shadowing/Clinical Observation.” Medical schools want to see that you are taking an active role in patient care. They do not want you to be merely an observer on the side lines. Don’t get us wrong. Observing is great but having direct clinical exposure is even better!
• This is typically not a strong AMCAS category. Our strongest applicants will not write hobbies on their AMCAS activities section and they will still fill 15 work and activities descriptions. 

The best way to start planning your AMCAS categories and descriptions is to brainstorm using our AMCAS Workbook ! It is totally free. We created it so students can start brainstorming and reflecting on their activities. 

Download the AMCAS workbook directly here or fill out the form right below !

FREE AMCAS Work & Activities Workbook

Use this workbook to write STELLAR AMCAS descriptions. This section is as important as your personal statement.

" * " indicates required fields

Question: What are examples on the AMCAS where a student has written something for the “Other” category?

AMCAS activities section examples for the “Other” category include: 

• Taking care of a sick family members or friend
• Taking care of a sibling
• Other large, personal time commitments

AMCAS Work and Activities Examples

We want to give you samples of common medical school application activities and excellent AMCAS work and activities examples. We want to share our advice on popular premed AMCAS work and activities! Want more examples, download our AMCAS Work and Activities workbook here or fill out the form right above . It is also a brainstorming tool to help you figure out what to write in your activities descriptions! 

Shadowing AMCAS Examples

How to list shadowing on amcas.

• You can list your shadowing on AMCAS either through bullet points or paragraph style.  It depends on the number of different doctors you have shadowed.
• Additionally, you can list shadowing experiences on your AMCAS in 2 different activity descriptions. When do we advise this? If students have 1 medical doctor they’ve shadowed a lot and you want to write about that shadowing experience in detail. OR If you did shadowing abroad vs. shadowing in the United States, then you can have 2 different shadowing AMCAS activities descriptions. 

We always push students to optimize the space by either writing clinical details or insights from their shadowing experiences. 

A common question the Cracking Med School Admissions team receives is, “ How to write about shadowing experiences in the AMCAS work and activities section? ” Read out examples and tips below!

AMCAS Work and Activities Example – Shadowing

STAND OUT: Make Your Activities Descriptions From Good to Great

One thing you can do in  your AMCAS work and activities description is to describe the significance of each shadowing experience or highlight key points. Looking back on the above example, the following sentences definitely stand out on their own:  

• “Observed open heart surgeries” (You’ll never see this in Family Medicine!)
• “Patient consultations…dialysis centers” (Again, unique to nephrology)
• “Attended international infectious disease conferences” (Sounds like an exciting opportunity, and makes one think of the 1995 film Outbreak, starring Dustin Hoffman)

Your AMCAS shadowing experience can give the application reviewer a sense of the broad clinical exposure you have had as a premed student.  For example, this applicant has shadowed in 5 different clinical settings across at least 4 different medical specialties. As evident by the periods of time identified in each shadowing activity, the applicant took advantage of summer breaks and her gap years to shadow various doctors. Her clinical exposure shows her that she was interested in learning more about medicine over a long, sustained period of time. 

Analysis: The applicant has had several shadowing opportunities throughout college, so she decided to mention several of them. The applicant was specific about procedures, types of chief complaints, and patients they encountered in certain shadowing experiences, as much as space would allow. 

The benefit of having a wide range of shadowing experiences is that you can clearly convey that you’ve acquired a multifaceted perspective of healthcare. The best way to do this is to incorporate experiences unique to each specialty in your description.

Other shadowing AMCAS examples:

• OB/GYN: Shadowed live births or fetal ultrasound sessions
• Radiology: Shadowed dark room sessions during an ER shift and learned to differentiate matter based on density on MRI scans.
• Orthopedic Surgery: Shadowed rounds at clubfoot clinic
• Plastic surgery: Shadowed cleft palate repair surgery and follow-up outpatient care clinic.

For more AMCAS activities examples, download our FREE AMCAS work and activities workbook . 

Experience Type: Physician Shadowing/Clinical Observation

Experience Name: Neurosurgery and Nephrology Shadowing

While shadowing residents and faculty neurosurgeons, I observed morning rounds and observed several ventriculoperitoneal shunt surgeries, lumbar spinal fusions, and skull base tumor resections. During one surgery, I was asked to reset a 3D brain mapping device. My requested participation illustrated how treating a patient is not just a one-person job, but a team effort. I also had the opportunity to round with nephrologists at an in-patient hemodialysis clinic. I learned that for patients with chronic kidney disease, maintaining proper phosphorus levels is vital to prevent the weakening of bones and calcification of blood vessels.

Our Cracking Med School Admissions team wanted to show you an AMCAS shadowing description experience example in paragraph form. 

• Give specific procedures and clinical skills you learned – the more specific, the better!  
• You can highlight your favorite patient encounter or procedure

Analysis: This applicant is very interested in neurosurgery and neurology. Therefore, he focused one clinical experience story on a neurosurgery case he witnessed. Additionally, this student shows strong clinical acumen, as he discussed the phosphorus levels with dialysis patients. The more insights you can bring about clinical medicine, the better! But remember, you might get asked about these in your medical school interview . 

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Amcas research experience examples, amcas work and activities – research description tips.

Many med school applicants will have research experience as one of their AMCAS extracurricular experiences. However, the AMCAS research experience entries are the most common fields in which applicants FAIL TO EFFECTIVELY SELL THEMSELVES. We have met students who have invested three years into a research lab, but failed to effectively convey their research experiences. And we’ve coached them through our application advising services to make sure their AMCAS activities help them stand out.

In your AMCAS research activities description, you should highlight the following elements:

• Your specific research study question and goals. Oftentimes, people make the mistake and talk too much about their overall labs’ missions and not enough about their independent research project’s goals.
• What YOU did; many students spend too much space talking about what the lab does in general.
• Skills you applied and learned. This can include: basic research techniques gained; how to write IRB approval applications; grant writing; patient recruitment into clinical studies; research design; analysis; and special programming skills like R and STATA.
• Publication & presentation mentions (although you should also allocate an entire AMCAS experience  for “publications” and another AMCAS experience dedicated to “posters & presentations.”
• How you independently led the research project, and what specific parts of the project.
• Highlight your critical thinking.
• Impact and transformative nature of your research project – what impact will your research have in medicine?

Did you create a research project of your own? Did you mentor somebody in your lab? Make sure to write about these teaching experiences because they show leadership and a propensity to clearly communicate! 

AMCAS Work and Activities Research Example

Here’s a basic science AMCAS research experience example.

Experience Type: Research/Lab

Experience Name: Mycoplasmology Lab Research Assistant

I investigated the proteomic differences of Mycoplasma iowae cells, a pathogen associated with decreased hatchability and leg abnormalities in poultry, grown in aspartic acid and asparagine. I performed multiple SDS-PAGE gels, allowing for comparison of proteins present or absent in whole cell lysate. Additional observations were measured by staining cellular DNA with 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole and calculating the aspect ratios of the cell bodies. Ultimately, I proposed a potential mechanism promoting intracellular survivability and learned to refine my techniques in each subsequent experiment in order to attain reputable results.

Publication: Co-author, Veterinary Microbiology Journal.

• We have a clear idea about the research topic and research project from this medical school research applicant.
• Give specific procedures you learned – the more specific, the better!  
• There was space to highlight the publication

Analysis: We get a good sense that this applicant played a key role in conducting this independent research. Her actions are technical, but the reader still understands the overall topic and her involvement. Added bonus was the publication addition! Not all students will have a publication, and that is okay. Moreover, some students with a publication may not have space. If you have the space, you should strive to put a line about your publications or posters, even if you have a separate AMCAS activity designated for  all your publications, posters, and oral presentations. Dr. Mediratta and Dr. Rizal work with a handful of students each year on their AMCAS applications. Check out our medical school application packages and contact us if you are interested in working with us! 

FAQ: How much of my research experience has to be technical jargon?

You should be able to describe key points of your research, i.e. relevant information, utilized techniques and procedures, etc. in your activity. (Keep in mind that you may have to elaborate on your research during the interview). However, you need to write your description geared towards an individual who does not have a science background and knowledge about your field of study. Additionally, our Cracking Med School Admissions team thinks it’s very important to also describe what you learned from this research project. You can add personal reflections and insights.

Let’s read another AMCAS research example, but this time, we’ll read an excellent description from a student who was in a clinical research role, involved with several research studies.

Experience Name: Breast Cancer Clinical Research at UCLA

At the Breast Cancer Clinic at UCLA, I investigated the barriers to care for breast cancer patients and  coordinated 4 clinical trials. In one of my main studies, I analyzed the oncology registry to assess the utility of ultrasound monitoring following chemotherapy compared to MRI monitoring. I found that ultrasound and MRI were equally effective in distinguishing chemotherapy response. Our work will allow for most cost-effective techniques for oncology management. Throughout my career, I aspire to conduct more research and clinical trials to decrease the costs and barriers to care for oncology patients.

Presentation: 1st author, American Cancer Society Conference

• We have a clear idea about the research topic and research project from this medical school research applicant. The studies were communicated clearly and concisely.
• The applicant told us that she was involved in multiple studies.
• Based on how she talked about a specific project, we understand that the applicant  led at least one of the research projects. And because she did a good job, the reader may infer that she was heavily involved in the 3 other research projects. 
• The reader understands the impact of her work.
• The reader understands the applicant’s career aspirations to improve oncology care and to decrease the overall barriers to care. 

Analysis: Similar to the example above, we also get a good sense that this applicant played a key role in conducting this independent research. This applicant did not have a publication, but she did have a poster, which she mentioned at the end of the activity description. Have questions about YOUR AMCAS research descriptions? Contact Dr. Mediratta and Dr. Rizal!

FAQ: What if I have multiple research projects and studies within the same lab – do I need to talk about all research studies?

Typically, there is not enough room in the 700-character AMCAS activity description to write about  all your research studies. You can mention that you were involved in a number of studies, similar to the clinical research AMCAS description above. We typically advise students who work with us through our Application Packages to include more details about one of the studies. It is important to show the admissions committee that you led a project, and weren’t just collecting data for numerous projects. They want to see that you were critically involved in the research as well as problem-solving through the research project.

FAQ: What if I don’t have posters and presentations to include?

That’s okay! A majority of students do not have posters and publications for their research projects! However, you can still write an EXCELLENT activities descriptions that highlight your strong research work. If there is any extra space, you can discuss what you learned about the research process.

The next AMCAS research experience example is a more creative research example, and the student also selected this as a most meaningful activity.

Insights to learn from this research AMCAS work activity example: 

From the above experience, note how the research study is limited to one brief – yet extremely descriptive – sentence. Then, the applicant highlighted the laboratory skills & research techniques he gained. As a reader, we can envision this applicant dissecting tissue samples in the lab! 

Second, the applicant’s research example in the AMCAS Work and Activities emphasized two points:

• Learning from his mistakes (“I never wasted my failures”)
• Establishing a pristine work ethic (“scrubbed flasks, washed counters, keeping my mind busy to rub away regrets, rinse thoughts, and repeat…”) and discipline “methodical discipline, meticulous organization…”

Third, look at how the most meaningful experience remarks description complements the experience description. The individual gave additional details that showed impactful experiences during his research journey. The most meaningful experience remarks did not repeat the AMCAS activity experience description. Instead, the applicant told a story about a time when he failed and how the procedure (and the research experience overall) helped him become more disciplined and resilient in research.  The reader learns about the reader’s resilience, critical thinking abilities, and problem solving capabilities. This will help the applicant stand out among thousands of applications!

Another common type of research premedical students write on their AMCAS work and activities section is public health research. Here, we’ll include an AMCAS work and activities example in which a student conducted qualitative public health research.

Experience Name:  Barriers to Immunization in Multi-ethnic parents in Hawaii

For my senior thesis, I conducted a study to explore the barriers to immunizations in parents whose children were not immunized by age 2. I recruited participants and organized 13 focus groups. I learned how to conduct qualitative research, including: creating a standardized questionnaire; coding participant; and analyzing themes from responses. The research found that parental issues like substance abuse, lack of motivation, and limited mobility were core themes as to why children were not immunized. In medical school, I want to continue conducting public health research that understands barriers to preventive care and work with communities to combat challenges.

• We understand in detail what the applicant did for the research project.
• The applicant discusses what the type of research and healthcare issues she wants to pursue in medical school.
• Based on how she talked about a specific project, we understand that the applicant  led this qualitative research project.

Analysis: The applicant did a good job communicating the various steps she did for the research project. We love how she gave the research results and linked them to her desire to improve challenges to preventive care. Compared to the research examples above, this person did not have a presentation or publication, and that’s okay! The applicant used the space effectively in order to walk the reader through details of the research. Have questions about YOUR AMCAS research descriptions? Contact Dr. Mediratta and Dr. Rizal!

AMCAS Clinical and Medical Activities

Amcas work and activities – medical / clinical experience description tips.

Having medical / clinical experiences is a must! There are some medical schools that calculate all your clinical hours and then reject applicants who don’t have enough clinical hours. If you have questions about whether you have enough clinical hours, definitely contact us below!

But, how do you stand out on your medical / clinical AMCAS work and activities descriptions? 

• Include a patient study
• Show your involvement in a person’s medical care
• Discuss the impact you had on an individual’s health
• Give your reflections about taking care of patients. What did you learn about clinical medicine and being a medical doctor? How will you apply what you learned to your medical career?

AMCAS Work and Activities Examples – Medical Experiences

Let’s take a look at different but strong ways to write about your clinical and medical experiences on your AMCAS work and activities section. 

Experience Type: Paid Employment – Medical / Clinical

Experience Name: Dermatology Medical Assistant

I aided dermatologist Dr. Manche in skin cancer removal surgeries. I conducted patient interviews to document medical histories in the “History of Present Illness” (HPI) format. Presenting cases to Dr. Manche using HPI format readies me for future presentations to attending physicians. One 46-year-old patient with a history of prolonged sun exposure presented to our clinic with a growing lesion on their arm. We diagnosed them with melanoma, necessitating immediate surgery. Clarifying our treatment plan, gathering patients’ feedback, and addressing questions strengthened my patient rapport. These experiences are pivotal in shaping me into a physician with strong communication abilities.

• Add a patient story.
• Use medical terminology, when appropriate.
• Show that you were directly involved with patient care.

Insights learned from the Clinical Activity:  

Many medical school applicants are Medical Assistants and Medical Scribes, so we thought this would be a great AMCAS activity description to include! We loved how the student used the term “History of Present Illness” and even gave an example of a brief HPI of a patient. This will show the medical school admissions committee that he has tons of clinical experience and he is functioning at the level of a medical school clinical student! Additionally, we liked this activity description because it showed that the applicant was directly involved in patient care. 

Dr. Mediratta and Dr. Rizal work with a handful of students each year on their AMCAS applications. Check out our medical school application packages and contact us if you are interested in working with us! 

Experience Type: Community Service / Volunteer – Medical / Clinical

Experience Name: President of Stanford Blood Donation Drives

As President, I organized 4 blood drives at Stanford, resulting in 180 pints donated, helping 540 patients. At the drives, I educate donors about the importance of blood donations and closely monitor patients after donations. Once, I was the first to notice a donor who was at risk of fainting on his bike ride home due to his pale complexion. I immediately called our on-staff physician and we continued to monitor the donor until he felt better.

I partnered with other universities to plan blood drives around our community. I created video educational modules to train other students about blood donations. As a physician, I will use my leadership skills to organize health fairs in my community.

• Include any leadership or initiative you took in somebody’s medical care.
• Add #’s and quantitative data when applicable. Frequent #’s include the number of patients you met and the number of health events you organized.
• Include any connection to what you want to do in the future as a physician.

This clinical activity is unique because it showed a premedical student’s leadership in a medical setting. It’s great that the student enumerated the number of blood drives she organized. Since she went to a strong undergrad institution, it’s great that she squeezed in her University’s name (Stanford). We loved how this student discussed her ambitious desire to make a greater impact beyond her university. By saying that she worked with other schools to plan blood drives in the community, we saw this applicant’s commitment to improving the health or her community. Finally, the applicant emphasized leadership by discussing how she was the President, organizing events at school and in the community, and creating video modules. She also stated that she wanted to be a physician leader at the end. This applicant used the space efficiently!

Dr. Mediratta and Dr. Rizal can help you stand out as a leader, even through your clinical experiences! Check out our medical school application packages and contact us if you are interested in working with us! 

• Include your impact and initiatives you led. This will help the reader understand your leadership. 
• Relate the activity to what you learned or how this activity relates to what you will do in your career. Why was this an important life experience? 

For more AMCAS activities volunteering examples, download our free AMCAS work and activities workbook .

AMCAS Community Service and Volunteer Examples

Amcas work and activities – community service & volunteer experience description tips.

Many premeds have volunteered in both clinical and non-clinical settings. To differentiate yourself, you need to write about your experiences with insight and demonstrate passion. Therefore, while it is important to describe your responsibilities, the bulk of your description should focus on the impact you had and the lessons you learned. Furthermore, remember that medical schools want to recruit mature students with rich life experiences. Ultimately, being a doctor is about connecting with patients on a human level, so take advantage of discussing your volunteer experiences and describe what you learned about working with people. 

AMCAS Work and Activities Examples – Volunteer Experiences

Experience Type: Community Service / Volunteer – Non-medical/clinical

Experience Name: Volunteer head basketball coach for at-risk and low-income middle schoolers through Coaching Corps

As a volunteer coach, I ran practices and games. I became a dependable mentor for kids who lacked a consistent figure in their lives. Most recently, I created a virtual basketball class that kept 15 kids across Orange Unified School District physically engaged throughout the pandemic. Working with kids from low-income communities also illustrated the need to increase health education. In one instance, I explained basic preventative health strategies, the importance of vaccines, and what a head injury is to Zane, an 8th grader who shared my teachings with his family. As a physician, I will push policies that open more free clinics and increase public school funding for health education.

• Add a story if you can – especially if you write in paragraph form. 
• Relate the activity to what you learned or how this activity relates to what you will do in your career. What insights did you gain that will help you in your future career as a physician? Why was this an important life experience? 

Insights learned from the Volunteer Activity:  

We gain a sense of compassion and commitment to underserved communities through this applicant’s activity description. It was great that this applicant even included a story of Zane. The applicant goes above and beyond  in teaching his team about preventative health strategies. This shows the applicant’s dedication to health education. Finally, we love how this individual has a vision to improve public schools and healthcare for low-income communities. 

Frequently Asked Questions about AMCAS Volunteering and Community Service

Here are some commonly asked questions about AMCAS volunteering. Read more AMCAS tips and AMCAS FAQs at the end of this blog post!

Typically, we love students to have at least 50 hours from an activity in order to include it as one of the 15 AMCAS activity descriptions. However, if a community service or volunteering project was particularly meaningful, put it in as 1 of your 15 AMCAS activities descriptions! The quality and meaning matter more than the number of hours. 

If you include these smaller-length community service activities, the reader can still learn a lot about you! Stick to the AMCAS work and activities tips we've been preaching throughout this blog post.

• Include stories
• Tell the reader what you gained from the experience

We typically recommend students to combine their smaller volunteer activities into a single AMCAS activity description. Discuss any commonality in your volunteer activities if there is one. For example, students we've worked with through our medical school application packages group their volunteering by writing it was all part of a service fraternity / sorority. Or, some students we've worked with have a "problem they are trying to solve" through their volunteering, such as advocacy, working with individuals with disabilities, or environmentalism. You can still highlight one volunteer activity by adding details, an example, or a story.

AMCAS does not verify your volunteer hours or any of your other hours in any description. There is an honor system though. So, you should put the accurate number of hours you volunteered. Don't stress if it's 161 hours versus 162. Make your best and most accurate estimate of volunteer hours. 

It is also very rare for medical school admissions committees to call individuals you listed as "contact" in your various activities. However, we have heard about rare instances every few years when admission committee members will call individuals on applicant's AMCAS. How do we know this? Because students whom we've done mock interviews with have told us that their medical school interviewer contacted somebody on their AMCAS contact information. 

Any volunteering experience where you interacted with patients or volunteered in a medical or clinical setting counts as clinical volunteering on the AMCAS. These should be unpaid. These including experiences with patients not in physical hospitals and clinics, such as volunteering in the community.

Here are a list of common clinical volunteering we see students list on the AMCAS:

• COVID clinic volunteer
• Mobile health clinical volunteer
• Free clinic volunteer
• Volunteer at a hospital or medical clinic
• Tutoring sick pediatric patients at a Children's Hospital
• Scribing (unpaid)
• Medical assistant (unpaid)
• EMT (unpaid)
• Translator at a clinic
• Crisis Text Line or other Crisis Lines

AMCAS Paid Employment Examples

Many premeds have full-time and part-time work experiences, including tutoring and summer jobs. Some applicants think that these non-clinical work experiences are not relevant, but they definitely are! Additionally, working a job during the school year shows medical school admissions committees that you can handle several responsibilities at a time. 

There are two Paid Employment categories on the AMCAS: 1) Paid Employment. – Medical / Clinical and 2) Paid Employment – Non-Medical / Clinical

Common Paid Employment Activities By Previous Applicants:

• Medical Assistant
• EKG or Medical Procedure Tech

Non-Clinical

• Summer internships, including research, consulting, technology companies
• Full-time jobs, including working for a consulting firm or technology company
• Tutoring (usually part-time)
• Teaching in a classroom
• Restaurant – waitressing or manager
• Research Coordinator or Research Technician

 AMCAS Work and Activities – Paid Employment Description Tips

Some medical school applicants think that they should not write about non-medical jobs they held, especially non-medical part-time jobs. WRONG!  We strongly encourage applicants to include AMCAS activities descriptions for non medical/clinical paid employment. Think your Starbucks barista job is not related to clinical medicine? WRONG! You definitely have learned customer service skills. 

Dr. Rizal wrote an article for the U.S. News that shows how students can leverage their non-clinical experiences:  How to Make Premed Non-Clinical Experiences Relevant to Medicine

We strongly encourage students to link their non-clinical experiences with medicine in their AMCAS descriptions. 

AMCAS Work and Activities Examples – Paid Employment

Analysis of AMCAS Activity Description:

This applicant did a great job in balancing what she did and what she learned. She was able to include a story, and we can visualize the applicant in this story.

We see this student in action! She even says that she performed CPR! We see that this student can apply her theoretical medical training in acute, life-saving settings. 

• If you are discussing a clinical experience, use the same tips from the clinical volunteering experiences that we have already discuss. Bring in skills and procedures that you learned.
• You can write about a lot of aspects of your job. However, highlight the ones that were most impactful to your personal growth and the most impactful to the organization / people you were serving. Additionally, highlight your leadership and initiative in your job. 

Category: Paid Employment

Starbucks Barista – August 2017 – May 2018

• Responsible for training new employees, customer service, and product ordering.
• Worked 20 hours per week while attending school full-time

Mayor’s Office for the City of Memphis – Summer 2018

• Worked at the Mayor’s Office for the City of Memphis.
• Responsible for organizing community events for underserved communities in Memphis.
• Worked on projects related to decreasing health disparities.
• Worked 40 hours per week while taking 1 summer class

Grocery Store Worker – August 2018 – May 2020

• Worked as a cashier for a major grocery store chain.
• Worked 30 hours per week while attending school full-time

Tip: As you can see in this AMCAS activity description, the applicant combined 3 jobs. We suggest appilcants do this when you have more than 15 activities but you want to include all your non-clinical jobs. Remember, non-medical jobs show a lot about a student’s character related to teamwork, hard work, grit, and customer service. Additionally, it can show a person’s commitment to specific populations like immigrants or underserved communities. By combining multiple jobs into one activity, you are able to save 2 spaces in the Work/Activities section. But, you are still able to show that you have significant work experience and have the ability to juggle a job and school. Contact us if you have questions about application strategy !

AMCAS Work and Activities - Publications

Amcas work and activities – publication description tips.

If you do not have a publication, do not worry! You can still get into medical school!

If you do have a publication, kudos to you! It will certainly help increase the strength of your medical school application. It is important to put all your publications in the AMCAS work and activities section. 

Shorten the author list. You do not need to list all the authors in the paper. Because there are very few characters, we advise students to shorten their AMCAS publication description by not listing all the authors.

The typical format we recommend for listing publications on your AMCAS is the following: What author order (1st author among 3 co-authors), Article title, Journal name, Year publication. PMID # so someone can find your abstract on PubMed.

For example: “1st of 6 authors, Increasing Vaccination Access in Middle-Income Countries, Journal of Global Health, 2021. PMID #######.”

If you need to shorten further, you could remove the title, but definitely keep the PMID number. 

• While we typically recommend all your journal publications be listed as bullet points in one activity, there are certain circumstances where you can split your publications into different AMCAS experience entries. For example, let’s say you have multiple publications in two broad topics (health economics & OB/GYN). You might want to put one AMCAS experience entry for your publications in health economics and one AMCAS experience entry for your OB/GYN publications.
• What did you learn about the publication process? 
• What motivated you to study this topic (these topics)? 
• How is this research related to your career?

AMCAS Work and Activities Example – Publications

To maintain privacy and confidentiality, we did not want to use the actual publication from our advisee’s application for an example. The AMCAS publication example below emulates a strong AMCAS publication description.  

1st of 6 authors, Increasing Vaccination Access in Middle-Income Countries, Journal of Global Health, 2021. PMID #######.

I was inspired to conduct research on vaccination access because I learned during my “Vaccines” seminar at Princeton that successful vaccination campaigns required an interdisciplinary effort among pharmaceutical companies, public health officials, health policymakers, & physicians. I aim to continue doing research on access to preventative health services in my future career. 

As we mentioned in our AMCAS publication description tips above, you should include utilize any extra space for any insights about your motivations and/or lessons learned. 

In this AMCAS publication example, the application reader learns that this individual is passionate about vaccinations and conducted a senior thesis in college. The admissions committee members or med school interviewer may be prompted to ask you about your senior thesis, which is great! The application reader also learns that the person understands the various stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem. 

AMCAS Work and Activities - Posters & Presentations

 amcas work and activities – poster and presentation description tips.

The same tips and strategies apply for posters & presentations as what we discussed in the AMCAS publication description tips above. 

First off, what is considered a presentation? Typically, presentations include: 1) poster presentations and 2) oral presentations / podium presentations.

In poster presentation sessions, there is a room full of individuals who each showcase a poster about his or her research. In oral presentations at conferences, a conference participant does a podium presentation in front of a room and presents on his or her research topic. After the podium presentation, the presenter answers questions from the audience. Oral presentations do not include presentations you make for a college class or a school club. You can include university-wide research symposiums for undergraduate students. 

Some people include lectures or talks at large conferences. For example, we had one mentee present to the World Health Organization!

How do you write posters and presentations? 

Because there are very few characters, we advise students to shorten their AMCAS poster presentation description by not listing all the authors.

The typical format we recommend for listing publications on your AMCAS is the following: What author order (1st author among 3 co-authors), Poster or presentation title, Conference you presented at, Year. 

For example: “1st of 6 authors, Increasing Vaccination Access in Middle-Income Countries, United for Sight Global Health & Innovation Conference, 2021.

If you need to shorten it further, you could shorten the name of the conference as long as it will still be recognizable. 

Lastly, if your presentation relates to one of your activities, you can include the poster or presentation as part of another activity description.

Here is an example of how an application included a presentation at the World Health Organization: 

AMCAS Work and Activities Example – Posters & Presentations

To maintain privacy and confidentiality, we did not want to use the actual presentation from our advisee’s application for an example. The AMCAS presentation example below emulates a strong AMCAS poster and presentation description.  

1st of 6 authors, Increasing Vaccination Access in Middle-Income Countries, Yale Global Health Symposium, Poster Presentation, Connecticut, 2021.

2nd of 5 authors, Epidemiology of Hepatitis B, Infectious Disease Conference, Oral Presentation, India, 2020.

I presented my senior thesis work on vaccination access and policy at conferences. I shared ideas to improve vaccination campaigns with global health leaders at these conferences. I learned that partnerships with local NGOs and health centers are key for success. I will continue doing research on access to preventative health services in my future career. 

Analysis of the AMCAS Poster & Presentation Example:

Notice that we still have enough space after the 2 poster presentations. Therefore, you can add more context about why these topics 

Alternatively, students discuss what they learned through presenting. These can be presentation techniques or discussions they had with other individuals at the conference!

• We recommend all your posters and oral presentations be listed as bullet points in one AMCAS activity.
• What did you learn about the presenting your research? 

AMCAS Work and Activities – Poster and Presentation Description FAQs

Question: what if i did a virtual presentation during the covid-19 pandemic .

Poster presentations and oral presentations have been virtual throughout the COVID pandemic. You should definitely include those in your Work and Activities section! 

Our Cracking Med School Admissions team has advised students in which we broadened the definition of presentations. Some of our students have given presentations for City Councils, State Legislatures, and international bodies like the World Health Organization. We typically recommend that they include these accomplishments under the AMCAS Posters and Presentations category. 

Question: What if my presentation is not in the medical field? 

Include your non-medical presentation in your AMCAS activities! We typically recommend med school applicants to include presentations in non-medical fields. We have had students include presentations at poetry readings and history conferences on their AMCAS applications!

 AMCAS Work and Activities – Conferences Attended Tips

Almost all students will not add a “conferences attended” category description in their AMCAS work and activities section. In general, we do think this is a weaker category to write in your AMCAS activities section. 

So, when is it valid to write a “conferences attended” activities description? 

Our Cracking Med School Admissions advisors think that students should put a conferences description attended if: 

• The conference is relevant to your interest
• Chatted with physicians and other healthcare professionals
• Able to articulate what you learned and gained from the conference
• You have less than 10 activities descriptions and need more activities (not ideal that this is the situation though)

AMCAS Work and Activities Example – Conferences Attended

With an interest in surgery, I attended the 2023 International Conference on Surgical Cancer Care in Boston, Massachusetts. Here, I was able to speak and learn from Surgical Oncologists. For example, I spoke to Dr. Patel about his work in pioneering the techniques of Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy and Cytoreductive Surgery throughout Indonesia. I learned about this procedure and the financial barriers indigent cancer patients in Indonesia encounter. This opportunity showed me that complex care in Surgical Oncology is multifactorial. As a fierce advocate for my future patients, I will be cognizant of factors, such as healthcare disparities, that my patients may be facing.

AMCAS Work and Activities - Honors, Awards, and Recognitions

 amcas work and activities – honors, awards, and recognitions.

Believe it or not, many students forget to include awards and honors in their AMCAS activities section!

Do not forget any awards from school, community service, or any other organization that has recognized your awesomeness!

Awards and honors you should include:

• National or international awards and recognitions
• Post-graduate Fellowships and Scholarships like the Fulbright, Rhodes, Marshall, and Gates
• Awards and recognitions from professional societies
• Awards and recognitions from non-profit organizations
• Non-academic awards from school organizations
• Academic awards from your university. Don’t forget the Dean’s List!
• Scholarships from your university
• Special academic recognitions from your university
• Awards received for your research or presentations at research symposiums & conferences

How to list awards on AMCAS

Awards are usually written in a list format. A good format is 1 honor or award per line. 

If you have multiple awards, choose one award organization to write for the contact information. For example, if you have many academic awards, you can put your Major’s Department Chair or your School Registrar’s Office.

STAND OUT: Tips for Optimizing Your Awards AMCAS Description

If students only have 1 or 2 awards, we suggest that you utilize the space to discuss an aspect of your background related to your award.

For example, if you received a community service award, then you can discuss a community service project that you enjoyed. Make sure it doesn’t duplicate information in other activities that you have discussed in your AMCAS activities section. 

As another example, if you receive an academic award from your major, you can discuss your favorite class or your honors thesis. 

AMCAS Work and Activities Example – Honors/Awards/Recognitions

Fulbright Scholarship – Selected as 1 of 10 Fulbright Scholars for the Philippines 2018-2019

Cum Laude – Princeton University

Global Scholar Award – Philippines National Cancer Institute

Dean’s List (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018) – Princeton University

I enjoyed the small, discussion classes at Princeton. My favorite classes were the graduate-level classes in the Princeton School of Public & International Affairs. In one seminar, we discussed the pros and cons of Thailand’s approach to HIV prophylaxis education among sex workers. I will continue pursuing health public policy and advocacy as a physician. 

Insights to learn from this Conferences Attended AMCAS Activities description: 

Your conferences attended AMCAS experience can give the application reviewer the impression that you are a lifelong learner. These activities show that she has made an effort to continue her education in her field of research and reflect on the research that she has conducted. While attending conferences are worthwhile and provide students with the opportunity to learn about a wide variety of topics, we want to stress that solely attending a conference is not as strong as presenting at a conference .

AMCAS Work and Activities - Leadership

 amcas work and activities -leadership activity description tips.

Including impactful leadership experiences in your application can be beneficial for several reasons:

• Demonstrates that you possess qualities that are highly valued in medicine, such as initiative, teamwork, consistency and communication skills. Exemplifying these qualities show medical school admissions committees that you are ready to take on the challenges of a career in medicine.
• Sets you apart. Engaging in leadership activities can help set you apart from applicants who have similar academic achievements. For example, describing an experience in which you have served a community that is important to you can demonstrate that you are committed to making a positive impact in a specific niche of medicine. Ultimately, highlighting the impact that you have made and will continue to make as a future physician.
• Provides examples of your ability to overcome challenges. Leading a multi-faceted healthcare team in the future will be challenging. Admissions committees look for applicants that can overcome obstacles and solve problems. Describing how you adapted to certain circumstances and unexpected situations through examples can attest that you have what it takes to be a successful healthcare leader. These qualities are essential for success in medical school and in your career as a physician.

AMCAS Work and Activities Leadership Example

In the AMCAS example description below, the applicant wrote about starting a non-profit. 

Insights to learn from this Leadership not listed elsewhere AMCAS description: 

From the above experience, note that the applicant describes a unique leadership experience that she is passionate about. Through this description, the application reviewer gains insight into the student’s impact, initiative ability and teamwork skills. Moreover, the applicant shows the admissions committee that she would be an asset to the student body because she is passionate about a specific niche in medicine and demonstrates that she is committed to making a positive impact on others.

• Tell a story! Work on going one step further in your reflections; provide concrete examples to showcase your potential.
• Emphasize your impact. Did you lead a team in a ground-breaking research project? Did you organize a community health fair to educate underserved patient populations that are often overlooked?

Demonstrate your consistency. Committing to your leadership experience for a long period time can demonstrate your passion and provides you with the opportunity to showcase admissions committees that you can make a sustained impact as a leader.

Leadership Not Listed Elsewhere AMCAS Frequently Asked Questions

Question: how many hours for leadership amcas work and activities, question: how to list leadership experience on amcas.

When listing hours for a leadership position on AMCAS you must be honest. Include all hours spent preparing, training, and working in your leadership experience. Estimate the “Hours Per Week” and multiply it by the “Weeks per Year” spent in this position to get the total number of hours.

Question: How to put hours for leadership position on the AMCAS?

One mistake applicants make is to not include time they are planning activities. Make sure to include all the time you invest in planning and organizing the organization (or events)! As we said in the first FAQ above, there is no minimum or maximum number of hours. 

AMCAS Work and Activities - Extracurricular Activity

 amcas work and activities -extracurricular activity description tips, question: what counts as an extracurricular activity .

One common mistake that we mentioned in the “ AMCAS Categories ” section above is that students categorize leadership or community service as an extra-curricular activity. It is not wrong to do this, but it is not ideal because you are not selling yourself as well as you can.

Activities that we typically advise to label as an “Extracurricular Activity” is involvement in a school club without a leadership position. 

• Member of a fraternity or sorority
• Member of a pre-professional club
• Member of a ethnic or diversity club

AMCAS Extracurricular Activities Example

Experience Type: Extracurricular Activities                                     Dates: 02/2018 – 06/2022

Experience Name: Alpha Chi Omega sorority member

Contact Name & Title: B. Evans

Organization Name: Alpha Chi Omega sorority member

In college, I was a member of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority. The sorority was a great way for me to make a close group of friends in my large university. We were involved in various community volunteering project, including the Garden Club, where we taught gardening to inner-city elementary school students in Chicago. After a local organization donated several plant seeds, we worked with students to growing herbs that they could sell in their neighborhoods. This project taught students about budgeting, space parameters, and the conditions needed for seed germination. I realize that as a physician, I have the power to be a resourceful to improve the health of my local community.

• Even though you don’t hold an official leadership position in an activity you would label as an AMCAS Extracurricular Activities, you can still include a story and specific examples.

Analysis of AMCAS Extracurricular Activity description:

We love how the student talked about a specific volunteer project she did with her sorority. From the single entry above, note that the applicant describes a singular, impactful experience from an extracurricular activity he was involved in for two years.

She also tied it to her interest in working with the community, especially urban communities, by saying she taught in an “inner-city” school. Through this description, the application reviewer gains insight into the value the applicant brings to his community and how insightful he is.

Moreover, the applicant shows that he learned important problem-solving skills which he will utilize both in medical school and as a physician.

Finally, we loved the medical school applicant’s integration with her reflections about being a physician in the last sentence.

AMCAS Work and Activities - Intercollegiate Athletics

 amcas work and activities – intercollegiate athletics description tips.

Intercollegiate athletics are a unique part of the college experience that can have a significant impact on undergraduate students both during and after their college years. Whether participating in sports as an athlete, coach, or fan, collegiate athletics offers students the opportunity to develop interpersonal and leadership skills.

Involvement in intercollegiate athletics can be a valuable addition to your AMCAS application. Participation in sports can demonstrate your ability to balance academic and extracurricular commitments, as well as your dedication to teamwork, discipline, and perseverance. Additionally, being a student-athlete often involves time management skills, which can be beneficial in medical school and as a physician. You may also have developed leadership skills as a captain or team member, and these experiences can provide unique examples for your personal statement or interview responses. Overall, highlighting your involvement in intercollegiate athletics can showcase your well-roundedness and ability to excel in multiple areas of your life.

AMCAS Work and Activities Example – Intercollegiate Athletics

Experience Type: Intercollegiate Athletics                                            Dates: 08/2019 – 06/2021

Experience Name: Arizona State University Women’s Tennis

Contact Name & Title: A. Smith

Organization Name: Arizona State University

Tennis has always played an influential role in my life. This sport serves as my primary source of stress relief. As a former team member of ASU’s Women’s Tennis team, I have the ability to remain focused for an extended amount of time and have learned to employ good sportsmanship and discipline in pertinent life skills. I expect to demonstrate these skills as a physician by working hard, upholding the values of the Hippocratic Oath and overcoming adversity and failures. Additionally, tennis will provide me with an outlet in the face of overwhelming responsibilities as a physician.

• Discuss important skills you gained through collegiate sports: teamwork, leadership, communication, and resiliency. 
• Tie to a career in medicine.

Insights to learn from this AMCAS work activity example:

When deciding whether to label your athletics experience as an “Intercollegiate Athletics Experience” or as an “Extracurricular Activity,” note that intercollegiate athletics is conducted between colleges. If you were part of an intramural sports team that was not conducted between colleges, consider listing your involvement as an “Extracurricular Activity.” In addition, although this applicant could have described her athletic skill in detail, she focuses on the valuable non-athletic skills that she can utilize both in medical school, and as a physician. Through involvement in Intercollegiate Athletics, the application reviewer gains insight into the applicant’s dedication and future outlet to recharge as a medical student.

AMCAS Work and Activities - Artistic Endeavors

 amcas work and activities – artistic endeavors.

It can be beneficial to include an artistic endeavor on your AMCAS application because it has the potential to set you apart from others. Although an artistic endeavor will not help you overcome a low science GPA, you can demonstrate that this endeavor will serve as an outlet for stress in the face of overwhelming responsibilities as a medical student.

AMCAS Work and Activities Example – Artistic Endeavors

• Don’t be afraid to put thousands of hours and a long time range (as you can see from the above AMCAS description example). Many people have played a musical instrument or danced since they were younger, and continued it during college! 
• Connect your artistic endeavor with medicine or medical school if you can.

From the above experience, note that the applicant describes an impactful artistic endeavor she has been involved in for nearly a decade. Through this description, the application reviewer gains insight into the applicant’s diversity and dedication. Moreover, the applicant shows the admissions committee that she would be an asset to the incoming class because she has a unique perspective that encourages her humanitarianism .

Question: Can I include activities before college?

In general, we advise our application package students to only include college experiences and gap year experiences. The exception to that is if an individual has been involved in a college experience / gap year experience that he or she started before college. Then, you can add a long time horizon. For example, the harmonium player in the Artistic Endeavor example above played the harmonium for 9 years and even anticipates playing the harmonium during the application cycle! 

AMCAS Work and Activities - Hobbies

 amcas work and activities – hobbies.

Most medical school applicants make the mistake that they should look “well-rounded” and include an activity for each category. That is incorrect. Yes, medical schools want a “diverse” student body class — but that does not mean they are trying to recruit students with different hobbies from one another. That is not the medical school admissions committee’s priority; adcoms want to recruit diverse student bodies in which students have a wide range of passions and talents to improve healthcare. As we stated in the “ AMCAS categories ” section, there are some categories that are stronger than others. The strongest applicants to medical schools have 15 or more activities that are not classified as “Hobbies.”

Again, do not feel like you have to include a hobbies in your AMCAS activities section. 

AMCAS Work and Activities Example – Hobbies

• Similar to artistic endeavors, don’t feel bad if you have 1000+ hours dedicated to a hobby. 

From the above experience, note that the applicant describes a hobby she has been involved in for nearly a decade. Through this description, the application reviewer gains insight into the student’s discipline and determination. Moreover, the applicant shows medical school admissions committees that she would be an asset to the student body because she has a strong coping mechanism to rely on when faced with difficulties.

AMCAS Work and Activities - Military Service

 amcas work and activities – military service description tips.

Thank you for your military service! We commend you.

Some medical school applicants think that military service or ROTC involvement should not be included in their AMCAS 15 activities section. We disagree.

Involvement in military service can be a compelling addition to your AMCAS application. Military service can demonstrate your commitment to serving others, as well as your ability to handle high-pressure situations, adapt to challenging circumstances, and work collaboratively with diverse groups of people. Additionally, military service can provide unique experiences that may have helped shape your character, values, and perspective on the world. Your military background may also be relevant to certain medical specialties, such as emergency medicine or psychiatry, where understanding and working with individuals who have experienced trauma or stress is critical. Overall, highlighting your involvement in military service can demonstrate your leadership, resilience, and dedication to serving others, making you a strong candidate for medical school and the medical profession.

AMCAS Work and Activities Example – Military Service

Experience Type: Military Service                                            Dates: 02/2014 – 06/2016

Experience Name: Combat Medic Specialist

Contact Name & Title: J. Bell

Organization Name: United States Army

As a Combat Medic Specialist, I administered emergency medical care to both soldiers in combat and civilians in humanitarian situations. I have been trained, meticulously, on starting IVs, administering advanced drugs and caring for patients with conditions, such as tension pneumothorax. Aside from working on the field, I trained 19 junior soldiers in first responder courses and provided care during emergencies. With my team, I implemented a curriculum involving navigating disasters, preparing for different causalities, and stabilizing wounded soldiers in the field. This experience fostered my growth as a teacher and taught me the pivotal role collaboration plays in sustaining success.

• Highlight your leadership and teamwork.
• Include a story, if you can. The military service AMCAS activities descriptions we’ve read have been fascinating and inspiring!

An applicant’s service in the military can distinguish him or her from other med school applicants. From the above experience, the application reviewer is able to gauge the applicant’s aptitude for stressful situations, teamwork, and leadership roles. These are important qualities for future doctors. If you have a military background, consider listing your experience as a “most meaningful experience.” You can utilize the additional characters to tell stories that can be applied to medicine.

AMCAS Work and Activities - Teaching / Tutoring / Teaching Assistant

 amcas work and activities – teaching description tips.

Teaching is very relevant to medicine because you will be teaching the public about health topics and you will be educating your patients about how to take care of their health. We all must remember, a career as a physician incorporates lots of peer-to-peer teaching and the option to train the incoming generation of doctors entering the field. Additionally, as an effective clinician, one must stay up to date, each year, as practice standards and guidelines are updated and new medications are released. Thus, with a teaching experience, you can draw many parallels to medicine and demonstrate your leadership capabilities.  It is no surprise that “Doctor” comes from the Latin word “Teacher”!

• Tell a story! Work on going one step further in your reflections; bring the value of your work to life by sharing a personal experience with a student. 
• Connect this with how you envision your role as a physician to be! For example, teaching students with different learning styles could help you be more flexible/adaptable when communicating illnesses to patients.
• If you have multiple teaching experiences, then the lesson learned or application to patient care should be nuanced and different each time. 
• Answer “How does this experience reflect why I will be a good medical doctor?”

Read below for Teaching AMCAS work and activities examples. 

Frequently Asked Question: Can you abbreviate Teaching Assistant as TA on the AMCAS?

Yes. We typically tell students to spell out Teaching Assistant the first time they write it out.

Example: “As a Teaching Assistant (TA) for Organic Chemistry lab.”

AMCAS Work and Activities Teaching Examples

From the above experience, note that the applicant describes a unique overseas teaching experience that will help her stand out from others. Through this description, the application reviewer gains insight into the student’s diversity of thought and skillsets. Moreover, the applicant shows the admissions committee that she would be an asset to the incoming class and future interdisciplinary teams because she values collaboration and teamwork.

Experience Type: Teaching/Tutoring/Teaching Assistant

Experience Name: Huntington Learning Center Tutor

Organization Name: Huntington Learning Center

Total Hours: 1200

I teach students who possess developmental or learning disabilities. My responsibilities include creating a rapport with students over time to shape lessons that fit their unique needs and academic goals while accommodating positivity. For example, I taught the ACT Math and Science curriculum to Mareena, a student diagnosed with ADHD. I created engaging sample problems and strategies to solve these to ensure score improvement . I established a caring relationship with every student and in turn they demonstrated dramatic changes in behavior, effort, and performance. I am confident that this will translate well in a career that incorporates lots of peer-to-peer teaching and patient education.

One thing we love about this activity is that there is a story of a specific individual the applicant helped. Mareena comes to life. From the above experience, note that the applicant describes an insightful teaching experience that will help her stand out from others. Through this description, the application reviewer gains insight into the student’s leadership, adaptability, and commitment to disadvantaged populations. Additionally, we can picture the applicant working with a student, because of the story of Mareena. An admissions committee reader can infer that the applicant will work well with diverse patients and medical professionals. Finally, the applicant shows the medical school admissions committee how this experience has prepared her for a multifaceted career as a future physician.

Experience Name: Organic Chemistry Teaching Assistant

Organization Name: Harvard University

Total Hours: 120

As a Teaching Assistant (TA) for Honors Organic Chemistry, I worked with students who each possessed different learning patterns. This challenged me to adjust to everyone by customizing each student depending on their level of understanding and speed. One of my students, Mina, was struggling with passing their Organic Chemistry course, I knew that our sessions needed to accommodate her personal drive and meta-cognition. Most of our sessions were spent working through complex problems related to concepts such as reaction mechanisms and verbalizing her thought process throughout. As a physician, I will have the aptitude for effectively communicating difficult diagnoses to each patient.

Many times, applicants will write Teaching Assistant descriptions and write all the logistics they did. While that is not wrong,  it does not stand out.

In the above TA description, we read about what this applicant learned through being a TA. We particularly liked this sentence: “This challenged me to adjust to everyone by customizing each student depending on their level of understanding and speed.”

Additionally, there is once again a very specific story of a specific person the applicant worked with. This is what we push our students to do.

How Will You Stand Out?

How will you make your medical school application stand out among the 50,000 other applicants? 

The two big pieces of medical school application tips we give to premeds so that you can stand out are:

• Highlight a niche in medicine you are interested in: Make sure your entire medical school application highlights a niche in medicine you are interested in. It doesn’t have to be a specific medical specialty, like radiology or pediatrics. It can also be an aspect of patient care or a problem in the medical field that you are passionate about. Are you a global health guru? Love research? Figure out your niche. And highlight these strengths throughout your medical school application. For example, say you are interested in health education. You should highlight this passion in your personal statement, AMCAS activities reflections, secondary essay applications, and your medical school interviews.
• Paint a picture of your s elf through stories:   Our Cracking Med School Admissions team has found that stories are the most powerful way to display an applicant’s relationships with other individuals, teamwork, compassion, and empathy. Your AMCAS personal statement, AMCAS letters of recommendation, and secondary essays should all include stories.

More AMCAS Work and Activities Tips

Amcas work and activities tip #1:, don’t talk too much about your extracurricular activities themselves. instead write more about what you did and the impact you had..

One of the common mistakes we see applicants make is that they do not focus their AMCAS activities section on THEM. Instead, they write too much about the organization or what the team accomplished as a whole. While it is important to show that you are a team player, it should not be at the expense of the reader learning about YOU. When filling out the AMCAS activities section, remember to explain WHY you did something and your personal motivations. One of the key components of a good application is the ability to weave the entire application into a coherent story. Explaining your motivations is a great way to connect your past experiences to your future goals and aspirations. It’s also a great place to talk about your personal reflections on how you’ve grown as a person.

For examples of great AMCAS activities descriptions, download our AMCAS work & activities workbook  here . 

AMCAS Work and Activities Tip #2:

Don’t duplicate information on your primary application and your secondary applications.

To be successful on your AMCAS application, you must combine a variety of stories together to explain why you are a good match for a medical school. Avoiding redundancy is key here, which goes to say that you do NOT want to be repeating information an admissions committee already knows about you. This seems obvious, yet you’d be surprised how many pre-med applicants either re-state information in their secondaries, or complain that they don’t have enough unique stories to craft a winning application.

If you want to write about the same activity in your personal statement, AMCAS activities section, and your specific medical school secondary essays, we definitely support it. However, you should highlight different aspects about the activity. For example, you could use a hospital shadowing opportunity to write both about the rigors of the emergency room, and in a separate essay, you can talk about a personal interaction you had with a patient in the emergency room. Although both of these experiences came from shadowing, they reveal totally different yet essential qualities of a medical professional. And, if you talk about emergency medicine in different activity entries, then you can showcase your interest in emergency medicine.

AMCAS Work and Activities Tip #3:

Spelling and grammar mistakes .

No matter how many times some people are told to proofread and get essays edited, spelling and grammar mistakes always seem to slip through the cracks on the AMCAS application and on secondary applications as well. Unfortunately, that doesn’t give them an excuse, and spelling and grammar mistakes will be looked at unfavorably and taken as carelessness. It’s simple – get your essays edited!

AMCAS Work and Activities Tip #4:

Don’t forget to put all your activities down in your amcas activities section.

This happens more commonly than you think.

Some premed applicants have expressed that they feel they shouldn’t put non-medical related activities in their application because non-clinical activities may be perceived as a lack of focus and doesn’t contribute to their medical school candidacy. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, going “too deep” on a certain activity and not showing a variety of experiences can contribute to not getting any secondaries! Don’t feel bad to show you are well-rounded! However, also remember that there is a difference between a well-rounded applicant and an unfocused applicant. You should be able to explain how your diverse experiences have shaped you as a person and how these experiences will help you succeed in medical school and beyond.

AMCAS Work and Activities Tip #5:

Don’t forget to put all your honors and awards.

On a similar note to med school applicants forgetting to write down their activities, many premeds forget to write all their leadership positions and awards.  We are often on the phone with our premed advisees making sure they don’t forget about a lab presentation or a “Dean’s List” nomination.

The most common information premeds forget on their primary medical school applications: Students forget to put awards, honors, and leadership positions for each activity. Don’t forget to add your presentations, posters, or any other recognitions you’ve had! Even presenting in a lab meeting or to a small group of students should be recognized!

AMCAS Work and Activities Tip #6:

Show depth and commitment through your activities.

One of the common medical school application mistakes students make is that they do not show enough depth and commitment through their activities. From an admissions committee members’ perspective, this results in generic-sounding AMCAS extracurricular activities descriptions and essays. 

There are many opportunities for you to show commitment and passion with your activities throughout your medical school application.  First, your AMCAS work and activities section is a good place to show depth. Be sure to enter the number of activity hours you’ve committed to each activity. It goes without saying that you should choose activities you’ve spent a considerable amount of time across a long period of time. Note: activities picked up 3 months before applying to medical school are usually not strong activities.

Second, write a detailed description of the activity, and any leadership roles you’ve taken on shows commitment. Literally, we’ve been trying to highlight how to write strong AMCAS activities section examples throughout this entire “AMCAS Work and Activities Examples” blog post!

A second way to show your commitment to your activities and the people around you is through your essays – both your personal statement and your secondary essays. As we stated above in our 2 biggest medical school application advice section, be sure to tell stories. You can tell stories about how you have made a difference to an individual, how you have helped your community, and how you have made changes in an organization you lead. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Responses by Dr. Rachel Rizal and Dr. Rishi Mediratta – your Cracking Med School Admissions premed advisors

Work with us through our medical school application packages ! We will personally edit all your essays, and our packages include  unlimited edits!

We love helping students with their medical school applications! Simply leave us a message in the contact form below.

If you want personalized advising and detailed help with your medical school application, including personal statement edits and activities description edits, then check out our medical school application packages . 

Yes! In fact, we have many tips and pieces of wisdom to share with medical school applicants about their impactful experiences. We wrote an entire blog post dedicated towards the AMCAS most meaningful experience descriptions.

In case you missed it, there is also a research most meaningful experience remarks in the research activity description example . 

Here's our best practice - we advise students to have at least 13 activities. If you don't have this many activities, make sure you aren't forgetting any of your part-time jobs, awards, or extracurricular activities.

Remember, you can add non-clinical employment, like working as a barista or as an executive assistant to your AMCAS activities!

Most commonly, people forget that they did a volunteer activity and won an award from freshmen or sophomore year. Don't forget to use a space for awards, hobbies, and work experiences.

We have other strategies to increase the number of activities you have, like separating your honors / awards into multiple activities description. Feel free to contact us if you have questions or issues. 

AMCAS does not verify your hours. There is an honor system though. So, you should put the accurate number of hours you volunteered. Don't stress if it's 161 hours versus 162. Make your best and most accurate estimate of hours for each activity. 

Most pre-meds we've worked with or met through our Cracking Med School Admissions workshops typically underestimate their hours. Remember to include hours where you are planning. For example, students will write the numbers they are physically in lab, but they do not include all the hours they read literature or write publications!

Work experience is definitely important for you to list. 

The Work/Activities section is there for you to show off all of your skills. Holding down a job while doing well as a student, is a huge accomplishment that not everyone can handle. It also shows a well-rounded applicant who can move beyond the lab bench.

The most common mistakes we see applicants make are:

• Talk too much about the organization and not enough about what THEY did.
• Write too little. Some applicants only write 200 characters per activity.
• Forget their activities!

If you do not have 15 activities already, then yes, we recommend using 1 or 2 of the activities descriptions as hobbies. They oftentimes make students sound interesting.

However, if you are short on activities descriptions and you have 15 or more strong extracurricular experiences,  we do not advise you to add hobbies here. You can always write about your hobbies and interesting personality qualities in your secondary application essays. 

If you want more examples of AMCAS activities descriptions, download our AMCAS workbook !

Another trick for entering your activities is to group several different activities under one heading so that you are not wasting multiple spots.

For example, you can put all your works, poster presentations, or awards under one activity. 

Another popular activity that is grouped together is shadowing. In the shadowing example , the applicant groups all their shadowing experiences together. 

There are several ways to list your shadowing experiences on the AMCAS work and activities section. Here is what we see commonly among applicants:

• Write an activity description for each of your shadowing experiences. Since you have a lot of space, you can talk about what you learned, what type of doctor you want to be based on your observations of other physicians, and interesting patient cases.
• Group multiple or all your shadowing experiences in 1 AMCAS activities description. See the example above. 

Write down an individual who can vouch for you and can verify that you participated in that activity. Be sure to include the individual's contact information, such as an email address and phone number, even if it's an international number.

The only time we have heard medical school admissions committee members reach out to your AMCAS experience contacts is a) if they know the individual personally and want to ask about you (we hear this happens often with med school interviewers) and b) if the activity hours and information are egregiously extreme that they want to verify the accuracy of your application.

In general, medical school applications are an honor system. Medical school admissions committees do not want to waste time on figuring out whether your AMCAS application is accurate or not. 

Since the 2022-2023 application cycle, The AMCAS Work and Activities section has been updated to allow students to distinguish completed activities from anticipated activities. A completed activity is an activity that is finished, and its end date must be the current month or earlier. Keep in mind, the current month is the month and year your application is submitted. An anticipated activity is either a new activity or an activity that you are continuing past the month your application is submitted until August of the matriculating year.

This section can help you stand out as an applicant because you can show the admissions committee how you plan to grow while simultaneously applying to medical schools. Moreover, anticipated experiences can help the admissions committee gauge your interests and dedication through certain activities. It is important to note, however, you cannot list the following categories as an anticipated experience:

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AMCAS Guide: 10 Tips To Help You Succeed in Admissions

EssayEdge > Blog > AMCAS Guide: 10 Tips To Help You Succeed in Admissions

Follow these ten simple guidelines to help you keep focused and write a great AMCAS essay without all the long nights downing energy drinks that taste vaguely like cough syrup and tearing your hair out. Give it a try, it is easier than you probably think.

1. Do not obsess over the protocol.

Your protocol is 5300 characters with spaces. It is not necessary for your essay to be within five or 10 characters of this length. It should be over 5000 characters, but that is the only general rule to worry about.

Trying to get the essay to exactly 5300 characters gets a lot of applicants into trouble. If you realize at the last minute that your 5299-character essay includes a sentence that is not technically true, you need simply remove it (assuming that the corresponding transitions work). You need not obsess about replacing it. Generating a sentence simply to accommodate a character protocol can ruin your essay.

2.  Know your thesis.

Your thesis is the sentence in your essay that explains why you will be a great doctor. The best place for it is in your introduction, but it can appear elsewhere as well. The best time to write it out formally is after you have written your essay, but having a thesis in mind (e.g. “I am great on research teams”) will help tremendously in developing your essay. Your thesis should refer to your salient strength and interest.

3. Do not try to sound like a doctor.

This is the most serious error you can make in your AMCAS essay. Many candidates think they can get ahead using medical jargon.

This is not true! Staying humble is the easiest way to your reader’s heart. Keep the medical references clear and concise. Your reader wants to hear what sets you apart as an aspiring doctor – not medical jargon!

4. Include the facts with program names and locations.

This is important because your reader does not always have your resume, especially for programs that use multiple readers. Referring to volunteer experiences and projects without offering specifics can lose your reader. Always provide place names, program names, and timelines when applicable.

5.  Do not go back too far into your childhood.

If sharing a story about childhood or adolescence, do not go back too far (“I have wanted to be a doctor since I was four”). Even if this is followed by text that explains what you did when you were six, when you were eight, and when you were 10, this kind of content can lose your reader. It is ancient history.

6. Be concise and specific if discussing personal or family medical issues.

While it is true that you do not want to try to sound like a doctor, if referring to family or personal medical issues, be specific if possible. Demonstrating an understanding of a family medical situation (especially if it has been critical in your motivation) can help to win over your reader.

7. You do not have to touch every base .

Your AMCAS essay can share your academic successes, extracurricular achievements, research achievements, volunteer experiences, and life experiences. But it is not necessary to touch all of these bases! If you want to submit an essay about what a great researcher you are and what you have achieved in research, you don’t need to provide paragraphs about your leadership, grades, club activities, and so on.

8. You do not have to provide one critical anecdote.

If you have one, and it provides insight into your motivation, by all means share it. But if you do not, do not worry about this! Too much is made of personal anecdotes. Talking about your goals in medicine is a better approach than the literary development of an anecdote.

9. Avoid the drama.

Some of the best material for your essay may be about how you overcame a challenge. But avoid overemotional writing (“Although XYZ was devastating, I overcame it”). You must think of your essay almost as a marketing document. Too much negative emotion can ruin the effect.

10. Humility, humility, humility.

Your reader is your friend! This is something else that candidates do not understand. Treat your reader as your friend. Respect your reader’s time and make things as clear as possible for your reader. This can lead to the greatest rewards.

AMCAS essay is special, and it’s not surprising. If you plan to study medicine in college, you must be ready for the hardships you’ll face. And AMCAS essay is the very beginning. We tried to mention all the most obvious nuances of writing this essay, and it made this process much easier. The only thing you may need help with is editing: order a college essay correction here to get the result you expect.

You may also like Answering Your Questions about the AMCAS: An Overview

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Consultants' Corner

Strategies, Insights, and Tips from Gurufi's Consultants

Ten Tips for Your “Why Medicine?” AMCAS Personal Statement

As spring is upon us, a new crop of aspiring doctors begins their medical school application process! At the heart of your application is your AMCAS Personal Statement, which asks you a simple question: why medicine? During our 15 years of helping hundreds of medical school applicants earn admission to their dream schools , we have worked with clients to help them craft unique responses to this question that resonate with their experiences and come across as genuine, compelling, and personal. Here are some tips for you on how you should think about -and respond to- this question.

• Start with your personal story : The best way to make your response original is to use moments, challenges, successes, and failures from your life. Your personal story is a unique and powerful tool for communicating why you are drawn to medicine. This can include experiences you’ve had with healthcare providers, exposure to medical challenges faced by loved ones or your community, or a moment when you first realized your passion for medicine.
• Highlight your experiences : Discuss any relevant experiences you’ve had in the medical field, such as volunteering at a hospital, shadowing a healthcare provider, or participating in a healthcare-related research project. Discuss what you learned from these experiences and how they have shaped your perspective on medicine. To avoid your essay being a cliché, strive from depth in your personal statement, not breadth. What this means is getting very specific about a particular experience -an EXACT moment or conversation- and how it shaped you. An exercise that I like to do with clients is to say, “if you have to take me to a precise moment in a time machine, where would you set the dial?” This forces you to have a specific entry point to a story that would help me understand it so that you might say, “on my third day at the clinic, I met Fred, whose leg infection had gone septic…” instead of saying, “my time volunteering at Detroit Mercy opened my eyes.” Specificity is the difference between a well-told story and a boring one.
• Emphasize your understanding of the field : Show that you have a deep understanding of the field of medicine and the challenges that healthcare providers face. This can include discussing current issues in the healthcare system, such as access to care, the opioid epidemic, or the impact of social determinants of health. BUT, only do this if you in fact have the insight and experience to do so. Faking it will be easily detected, if not by the reader then certainly by a future interviewer who asks you about it!
• Express your passion : Share your passion for medicine and what motivates you to pursue a career in this field. Explain why you believe that medicine is more than just a job, but a calling to help others and make a difference in the world. If there is a single idea that you want to convey, it is positive excitement. People are attracted to optimism and energy, so find a way to convey that.
• Demonstrate your commitment : Show that you are committed to the field of medicine and that you understand the sacrifices and dedication required to succeed. Discuss your long-term goals and how they align with your passion for medicine. For every goal you seek to identify, first ask yourself, “what experiences have I had that prepared for pursuing this goal?” and “what about my past explains this goal?” and “what about my past justifies my belief that I can attain this goal?” Answering these three questions will help your aspirations come across as more believable and, importantly, allow you to SHOW your commitment to medicine by reference to things you’ve done.
• Be specific : Instead of simply stating that you want to become a doctor, be specific about why you are interested in a particular specialty or aspect of medicine. Discuss what attracts you to this area of medicine and what you hope to achieve in this field.
• Be honest : Be honest about your motivations for pursuing a career in medicine. Don’t try to sound like someone you’re not or exaggerate your experiences or achievements. Admissions committees can usually tell when someone is being insincere. This goes beyond lying, of course. Essays that are built purely around the idea of “tell the reader what they want to hear” usually feel hollow and insincere and, perhaps worst of all, come across as cliché.
• Edit and revise : Make sure your response is well-written, free of typos and grammatical errors, and that it clearly communicates your passion for medicine. Ask someone you trust to review your response and provide feedback .
• Address any weaknesses : If there are any red flags in your application, such as a low GPA or MCAT score, take the opportunity in your response to the “why medicine?” question to address these weaknesses and explain how you have overcome them. Remember, you can’t just avoid talking about bad moments and hope that the AdCom somehow misses it. They won’t. Thus, if it comes up in the meeting about your application, you’ll want to be sure that you frame it. Here is a video that I did to help MBA applicants , and though the examples I use are business-related, the core ideas are the same. Or, if you want the “TLDR” version without the specifics, check this out !
• Be yourself : Finally, be yourself in your response. Admissions committees are looking for applicants who are passionate, knowledgeable, and well-suited to the field of medicine. Your unique perspective and experiences are what make you a strong candidate, so be sure to let your personality shine through in your response.

All told, the “why medicine?” question is an opportunity to demonstrate your passion for the field, your understanding of the challenges and rewards of a career in medicine, and your commitment to pursuing a career in this field. By following these tips, you can craft a compelling response that will help you stand out in the medical school application process.

For more help with your personal statement, check us out at Gurufi.com . Our personal statement editors and consultants have decades of experience helping clients get into top medical schools. Our specialty is helping you craft compelling personal statements, Work & Activities sections, secondaries, and residency letters that move the needle in your admissions process! For questions, shoot us an email at [email protected] . Check us out on Facebook , Twitter , and LinkedIn .

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