2016-2017 Albany Medical College Application Thread

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How should I make the "Describe yourself" and "Tell us one thing about yourself that would help the Admissions Committee determine if you should be admitted to our program" unique? It seems like both questions are about what qualities do you have that make you stand out?
For the second question, should I focus on one key aspect of the school itself and why I'm a good fit for the program or should I pick one of my personal qualities that I am proud of which I'll use to succeed in their program?
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coltsorbroncos said:
Does a low MCAT (508. 127/126/127/128) constitute an academic inconsistency?
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I honestly don't think a 508 is too low of an MCAT to be considered academic inconsistency... I mean maybe for SDN standard it could be, but SDN is not a good representation of the applicant pool.
 
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Gibbward said:
I honestly don't think a 508 is too low of an MCAT to be considered academic inconsistency... I mean maybe for SDN standard it could be, but SDN is not a good representation of the applicant pool.
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I'll see what they say tomorrow
 
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Huggy said:
WTF. A 508 is what 85th percentile? If you even consider explaining your performance of a 508 I would reject you for a lack of common sense above all things. Not checking MSAR Id assume a 508 is above 3/4 of those who apply.
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That's the pool of applicants, not matriculants. I don't have the information available but I assume a rather small percentage of people with that score actually matriculate. I think 508 translates to roughly a 29-30 on the old exam. Most people agree a 29-30 is a pretty low score and it was below the national average for matriculants in 2014-2015 (31?)
 
coltsorbroncos said:
That's the pool of applicants, not matriculants. I don't have the information available but I assume a rather small percentage of people with that score actually matriculate. I think 508 translates to roughly a 29-30 on the old exam. Most people agree a 29-30 is a pretty low score and it was below the national average for matriculants in 2014-2015 (31?)
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You asked about academic inconsistency.

Your answer is no... no it does not constitute academic inconsistency.

Is it a crazy good score? No.

But there won't be any "is this person capable?" questions...
 
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SydSing said:
You asked about academic inconsistency.

Your answer is no... no it does not constitute academic inconsistency.

Is it a crazy good score? No.

But there won't be any "is this person capable?" questions...
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Ok, thanks
 
Okay, so when you get a prompt like "describe yourself" how exactly do they like you to respond to that? Like, how much "fun" can I have with it? Do they literally just want, like, "I'm x years old. I grew up in y. I like z." or can it be something more colorful?
 
Mandalore said:
Okay, so when you get a prompt like "describe yourself" how exactly do they like you to respond to that? Like, how much "fun" can I have with it? Do they literally just want, like, "I'm x years old. I grew up in y. I like z." or can it be something more colorful?
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I wrote it like a short narrative of my life. Just highlight what you think is most important about yourself, imo.
 
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OrangeMed said:
How should I make the "Describe yourself" and "Tell us one thing about yourself that would help the Admissions Committee determine if you should be admitted to our program" unique? It seems like both questions are about what qualities do you have that make you stand out?
For the second question, should I focus on one key aspect of the school itself and why I'm a good fit for the program or should I pick one of my personal qualities that I am proud of which I'll use to succeed in their program?
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As to your latter question, I would go with one of your qualities that makes you feel you'd be a good fit rather than the other way around, since that's basically what the question asks.
And the former question, you can go the description-of-personal-qualities/interests route (minus talking about the one you would use for "Tell us one thing..."), which is how I did it (so basically a kind of diversity essay). But here are some other ideas from last year's thread:

winterwind_23 said:
Anyone having trouble with the "Describe yourself" secondary prompt? It's only 1,000 characters, so not much space to elaborate on specific examples and provide anecdotes, as is usually advocated for essays. Anyone want to share their approach to this secondary? Scanning through old threads, I've read about various approaches to this essay:
  • Non-medical approach (personal hobbies, interesting childhood upbringing, a unique experience)
  • Write a straightforward autobiography ("I was born in California...")
  • Medically-related approach (why you would be a good doctor)
  • Why you want to attend Albany specifically
  • Use the diversity essay from another secondary
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I used both questions to highlight a specific aspect of my life that I think is important. TBH is used modified versions of my "diversity" and "passion" essays.
 
How long did it take you guys to get a secondary? I submitted my amcas to them about a week ago and haven't gotten anything back...


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Can someone clarify the LOR requirement? It sounded like it was pretty flexible right? Do we have to submit any course professor LOR's or can we just submit letters from volunteer/research supervisors?
 
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How does one talk about an unbalanced MCAT score without sounded like one is making up excuses? :oops:

For my case about low CARS: Arabic was my first language..but not anymore. The transition from Arabic to English fluency started in grade school. Would this be a waste of my time & bring too much attention to my score?
 
Dream_big said:
How does one talk about an unbalanced MCAT score without sounded like one is making up excuses? :oops:

For my case about low CARS: Arabic was my first language..but not anymore. The transition from Arabic to English fluency started in grade school. Would this be a waste of my time & bring too much attention to my score?
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Do you mind sharing how low your CARS score actually is? If the score is not actually too too low, it may not be worth mentioning as adcoms might not even look twice at it. I have a 125 in one of my MCAT sections, but have not discussed it as a low score in any secondaries.
 
Huggy said:
I have a 123 in CARS. I didn't talk about it. Seem to be doing pretty dandy
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Hmm, personally, that is a red flag for some schools. I would discuss it in case! Better be safe than sorry! 125 is usually the cut off!


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yellowbottlesippin said:
Hmm, personally, that is a red flag for some schools. I would discuss it in case! Better be safe than sorry! 125 is usually the cut off!


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Simply not true. A quick glance at MSAR and you'll see that many school have matriculants who have received a 8 and were fine. Some schools also have 7 VR matriculants too (not as many) but with the new MCAT no one knows what "cut-offs" there are since the average (traditionally a 9) on CARS is about a 124.5 now.

Also, as some adcoms have stated on here, never highlight a negative. The consensus is to hope that the other parts of your app will compensate for a low section score. Sure, there are some schools that will be concerned if you say nothing, but how can you really justify a low section score without sounding like you're making excuses?
 
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II! LizzyM ~73, complete 7/11. Does anyone see the interview dates on the applicant page? It's not showing up for me ><
 
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II!

@Lurid, I just had to logout and wait a couple minutes and then it showed up for me :)
 
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ughh guys please help. Just got my II but the office is closed and I want to reserve my interview tonight (pressing competing plans) BUT the website doesn't respond when I hit "Save My Photo". No photo, no interview date :(
 
smolbirb said:
ughh guys please help. Just got my II but the office is closed and I want to reserve my interview tonight (pressing competing plans) BUT the website doesn't respond when I hit "Save My Photo". No photo, no interview date :(
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Use Firefox as your browser


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Congrats to all the II recipients! You better kill those interviews.
 
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Mandalore said:
Okay, so when you get a prompt like "describe yourself" how exactly do they like you to respond to that? Like, how much "fun" can I have with it? Do they literally just want, like, "I'm x years old. I grew up in y. I like z." or can it be something more colorful?
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Mine was very medical related and I got an II
 
Mandalore said:
Okay, so when you get a prompt like "describe yourself" how exactly do they like you to respond to that? Like, how much "fun" can I have with it? Do they literally just want, like, "I'm x years old. I grew up in y. I like z." or can it be something more colorful?
Click to expand...

I wrote down key things about myself that I wanted to convey. Then I wrote those in sentence form for my essay (in a declarative manner) and 1-2 following sentences that supported what I wrote.

It could've been anything and of course you can always relate them back to medicine or the mission of the institution.

Resulted in an II so.. I suppose it was okay.
 
Just submitted by primary here yesterday. Waiting for secondary.
 
Got my II a couple of days ago.. Does anyone know if the MMI eight minutes is just for us to talk, or does the interviewer ask us follow up questions after we speak (if there is time left over during that eight minutes)? Does it vary by school? I have an II at Duke as well with an MMI
 
namaste08 said:
Got my II a couple of days ago.. Does anyone know if the MMI eight minutes is just for us to talk, or does the interviewer ask us follow up questions after we speak (if there is time left over during that eight minutes)? Does it vary by school? I have an II at Duke as well with an MMI
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It varies by school! But since MMIs usually have stations, there's bound to be one with follow up questions.


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namaste08 said:
Got my II a couple of days ago.. Does anyone know if the MMI eight minutes is just for us to talk, or does the interviewer ask us follow up questions after we speak (if there is time left over during that eight minutes)? Does it vary by school? I have an II at Duke as well with an MMI
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I had an MMI here in Spring 2015. They have prompts outside in a computer and you read the Q, you have a minute or so to think about it, you enter the room and answer. The person will ask you follow up questions if it applies, and dont feel like you have to stay the whole time, once you are done answering you can walk out.
 
DoctressM said:
I had an MMI here in Spring 2015. They have prompts outside in a computer and you read the Q, you have a minute or so to think about it, you enter the room and answer. The person will ask you follow up questions if it applies, and dont feel like you have to stay the whole time, once you are done answering you can walk out.
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Can you speak more about the interview overall? I know you can't give any specific Qs, but was it generally congenial or intimidating? A lot of ethics questions? Any more "standard" interview type of questions?
 
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DoctressM said:
I had an MMI here in Spring 2015. They have prompts outside in a computer and you read the Q, you have a minute or so to think about it, you enter the room and answer. The person will ask you follow up questions if it applies, and dont feel like you have to stay the whole time, once you are done answering you can walk out.
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Thank you! Makes me feel much better :)
 
Should I bother applying here if I only have a very small amount (~25 hours) of non-clinical community service?
 
skrolls said:
Should I bother applying here if I only have a very small amount (~25 hours) of non-clinical community service?
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Is this a big community service school? I was not actually aware of that, though it would explain why I got an II early on.

EDIT: Nevermind, I posted this before realizing you posted the same question in 20 different topics.
 
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