Whether applying to medical school, residency, fellowship, or dental school, applicants seem to get tripped up on questions about their reasons for pursuing their career goals. How can you make your answer distinctive from all of the others’? The key is to use your accomplishments to a) distinguish yourself and b) prove your point. You want to be a doctor because you like to think analytically about scientific problems? Showcase your research. You want to be an anesthesiologist because you like pharmacology? Detail how you tutored the subject to first-years.By using evidence of your accomplishments, you’ll convince your interviewer and remind her of your worthiness.
Blog Archives
Why Do You Want to Be a […]?
Urgent, Urgent, Emergency
Every September a swarm of panicked residency applicants contacts me asking for urgent editing help. Don’t be one of those candidates approaching your future career goals in a frenzy.
Get started now on your ERAS® personal statement and experiences section. MyERAS® opened on July 1 for candidates to start working on their applications, and residency tokens are already available for International Medical Graduates (IMGs) through the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates® (ECFMG).
Even if you have a super-fast editor like me on your side, you should expect that you will revise your materials multiple times and that each of your drafts will take you many days or weeks to craft.
For those of you who don’t think the quality of your personal statement matters, take a look at the (bizarrely) high percentage of residency directors who site the personal statement as a factor in selecting whom to interview in the most recent NRMP Program Director Survey.
Here is a list of the residency application services I provide and here is my comprehensive package.
Finally, for fun, take a look at my under-one-minute Guru on the Go® stop-motion, animation video “Honors Won’t Make It Write” about the import of the residency personal statement.
ERAS 2015 Information Now Available for International Medical Graduates (IMGs)
If you are an IMG applying to residency this year, please take a look at the newly available ERAS Support Services section of the ECFMG website. There you’ll find important information regarding obtaining your token (available July 1) and submitting your supporting documents.
Note that for ERAS 2015 all letters of recommendation must be submitted through the AAMC’s LOR Portal (LoRP) or ECFMG’s Medical School Web Portal. The former is for waived letters (highly recommended by me) and the latter is for unwaived ones.
Tags: Eras, Imgs, Residency Application
Getting Into Residency: Put a Ring On It
Many of you already know about the Insider Medical Admissions’ Guru on the Go© video shorts – a free, stop-motion animation series that provides critical advice in under one minute for medical school and residency applicants. I received some great feedback last year after rolling these out, including a nod from the NRMP® itself. Check out this brand new getting into residency video called “Put a Ring on It.” Also, take a peek at the Insider Medical Admissions Guru page for more shorts.
Tags: Guru on the go, NRMP, Residency Application
Another Plug for the NRMP Program Director Survey
A residency applicant recently asked me if Board scores, grades, and academics in general were no longer significant once someone had gotten past the interview stage; she wondered if those factors were important to get to the interview but not get on the rank list.
Of course, every program is different, but generally, questions like this one can be answered with evidence – using the NRMP Program Director Survey. (According to the survey, academic issues are still a critical factor in deciding whom to rank.)
If you want to know what Program Directors really want, check out the Survey. The NRMP is very good about culling and publicizing data.
Tags: NRMP, Residency Application
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
