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Taking the Fifth

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The goal of every medical school, residency, and fellowship interview is to distinguish yourself from everyone else to demonstrate you’re worthy of a competitive spot. So what happens when you get this (ugly) question:  

If there were one reason not to accept you, what would it be?

When a (salty) faculty member asks you this interview question, her motivation might be to determine whether there’s a weakness in your application she’s missing. Or she may be assessing how you manage stressful situations by posing a question that is unpleasant.

While you need to be honest throughout the entire application process, you do not need to volunteer information that might harm you. So, for a charged question like this one that conflicts with your goal, you might answer, “While no candidacy is perfect, I have a strong application, and I don’t see a reason not to accept me.” Then you can leverage the question as an opportunity to mention the strengths of your candidacy. Remember: You have a duty to further your application, not damage it.

Contact me for mock interview help. I still have some October slots open, as of this writing.

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AI-Generated College Essays

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“I hope this letter finds you well…”

When my family and I played around with ChatGPT – asking it to craft silly letters to different people – every ChatGPT response started with that phrase. I quickly realized that originality is not ChatGPT’s strong suit.

On top of the fact that most institutions consider AI-generated essays to be unethical (even plagiarism, at Yale), an applicant’s ability to write something distinctive (and persuasive) is really what demonstrates his or her worthiness for competitive university spots.

I found this amusing New York Times piece called, “We Used A.I. to Write Essays for Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Here’s How It Went” reinforced my strong distaste for AI-generated personal statement writing.

Although challenging to craft, your written materials are a tremendous opportunity to showcase your creativity and further your candidacy.

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BS/MD Programs

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Here is an AAMC piece about BS/MD programs. While these curricula do provide some benefits to students with an early interest in medicine, I am generally not a proponent of the BS/MD option, as it really precludes most participants’ ability to take full advantage of the college experience; the caveat may be 8-year programs (like Brown or Tufts) that don’t accelerate students, as much as give them early assurance of admission to medical school (assuming individuals maintain their grades). 

My bias is that taking more time – for example, a gap year – is a way to enjoy the school experience and approach medical training with maturity and career choice confidence. 

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Ten AMCAS Mistakes You Absolutely Want to Avoid

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Here’s a quick and dirty list of AMCAS Work and Activities section errors to avoid at all costs:

1. Don’t write to write, and don’t fill to the maximum character count unless necessary. While you want to include many strong achievements, you do not want your AMCAS to be so wordy that your reader is tempted to skim.

2. While you need to be brief, don’t write in phrases; use full sentences. It’s a formal application, and you want to make your written materials as readable as possible.

3. Don’t assume your reader will carefully study the “header” section (including the title of the activity, hours, etc.). Make sure your descriptor could stand alone: Instead of “As an assistant, I conducted experiments…” use “As a research assistant at a Stanford Medical School neuroscience lab, I conducted experiments…”

4. Don’t be vague or trite. Make sure you spell out your accomplishments clearly and substantively. If your reader doesn’t understand an activity, you will not get “full credit” for what you’ve done. Make no assumptions.

5. Avoid abbreviations. Again, you want to be formal, and abbreviations you think are common might not be familiar to the reader.

6. Write about yourself and your role – not an organization. For example, don’t use the space to discuss Doctors without Borders. Use it to discuss the specifics of your role at Doctors without Borders.

7. Avoid generalities and consider using numbers to be persuasive. Saying that the conference you organized had 300 participants says it all.

8. Don’t merge the descriptors with the most meaningful paragraphs because they are separate sections: You can complete descriptors for up to 15 activities with up to 700 characters each plus up to three most meaningful paragraphs of up to 1325 characters each.

9. Unless your PI won the Nobel, avoid using supervisors’ and/or doctors’ names in your descriptors as they will be meaningless to the majority of your readers.

10. Choose the right category for each activity, so you get “full credit.”

Bonus: Get help. Do not submit your medical school application without having it reviewed by someone with experience. You do not want to showcase suboptimal materials for a process that is this important and competitive.

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15 ERAS Tips to Boost your Residency Candidacy

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I’ve started editing ERASes this cycle and have developed this list for guidance:

1. Include relevant pre-professional accomplishments from college. If you conducted research, for example, list and describe it. Do not include high school achievements unless they were truly unique (worked at the White House, sang on Broadway, published in Nature).

2. While you want to include many strong achievements, you do not want your ERAS to be so long that your reader is tempted to skim it, so avoid small activities (like an afternoon health fair). 

3. Keep your descriptors to approximately five to seven sentences. Fewer can look lazy and more can look self-indulgent.

4. Use full sentences. It’s a formal application, and you want to make your written materials as readable as possible.

5. Avoid abbreviations. Ones you think are common might not be familiar to the reader.

6. Avoid contractions; they are too informal for your ERAS. 

7. Make sure you spell out your accomplishments clearly. If your reader doesn’t understand an activity, you won’t get “full credit” for what you’ve done. Make no assumptions – not even that the reader has reviewed the experience’s introductory information (location, name of activity). 

8. Write about yourself and your role – not an organization. For example, don’t use the space to discuss Physicians without Borders. Use it to discuss the specifics of your role at Physicians without Borders.

9. Use numbers to be persuasive. Saying that the conference you organized had 300 participants says it all.

10. Unless your PI won the Nobel, avoid using supervisors’ and/or doctors’ names in your descriptors as they will be meaningless to the majority of your readers.

11. Do your best not to leave the “Medical School Awards” section blank. Even if you have to simply include clerkships in which you obtained honors (or high honors), fill that section out.

12. If you have not already, consider joining your specialty’s national organization and listing it under the “Membership in Honorary/Professional Societies” section. If you are applying in two fields, take this advice, though.

13. Try to end your entries with a sentence about how the experience you just described will help you as a future specialist. Making that connection for the reader furthers your candidacy. 

14. As with all good writing, avoid redundant language. Having the word “research” three times in two lines is distracting and demonstrates a lack of originality. 

15. Get help. Don’t submit your residency application without having it reviewed by someone with a lot of experience. You do not want to put forward suboptimal materials for a process that is this important and competitive.

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About Dr. Michelle Finkel

Dr. Michelle Finkel

Dr. Finkel is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School. On completing her residency at Harvard, she was asked to
stay on as faculty at Harvard Medical School and spent five years teaching at the world-renowned Massachusetts General Hospital.
She was appointed to the Assistant Residency Director position for the Harvard Affiliated
Emergency Medicine Residency where she reviewed countless applications, personal statements and resumes. Read more

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