AMCAS significant research essay, what should be included

[hypophora]

Applying to MD/PhD schools this year, just about to submit AMCAS, but I am bit stuck on what to include in my Significant Research Experiences essay. I have two major recent research experiences, both with LORs from the PIs. This includes a PI I worked with during my postbac thesis research, and another whose lab I joined after my postbac. These two I'm definitely including.

However, I also have 3 miscellaneous research experiences from undergrad (2 research assistantships, one for 1 semester and one for 2 semesters, and one summer internship at a biotech company) as well as employment for 1 year post undergrad at a biotech company. I am not including LORs for any of these 4 earlier research experiences and I would say I did not accomplish nearly as much or have nearly as much interest in those experiences as my two more recent experiences. Are these worth including in my significant research essay? My current essay has paragraphs detailing each of those two recent experiences along with a short third paragraph that basically says "I have other earlier experiences the details of which can be found in the experiences portion of my AMCAS application". Is that appropriate?

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[s_med]

You have 10,000 characters of space to write about significant research experiences. At an estimate of 1,200 chars/paragraph that gives you room for 8-9 paragraphs. With as much research experience as you have, I wouldn't be able to understand why you would not use the space to your advantage and summarize all of it. Given what you have written so far, would you say you are facing space constraints already?

Any experience longer than 10 weeks would, for me, constitute a "significant" one. By this metric your two research assistantships certainly warrant some description and your biotech work may or may not (the latter also depends on the nature of your involvement with research during both experiences). Am I understanding correctly that you are relegating the description of your undergrad research to the experiences section of AMCAS? That section is highly segmented and its format may not give you the opportunity to discuss your projects in detail.

It may be a red flag if you don't have a letter from your undergrad PI(s), although considering you've been out of college for several years and that your post-bac experiences are stronger it might not be a big deal.

 

[hypophora]

Hi s_med, thanks for replying!

I think I may include my biotech employment (1 year) since I actually did complete a project with deliverable results there.

My research assistantships in undergrad involved doing routine labwork, but I had very little input into the scientific process, and no appreciable produced results. In light of that, do you think maybe I could append a bite size 1000 character paragraph detailing the research approach in my significant research essay? The problem is those experiences were so long ago (5+ years ago) and not very productive so I barely remember the science of what I did during those assistantships (especially the one I did in a genomics lab for 2 semesters) that I almost think it dilutes my application to talk about them too much. I would definitely be in a tight spot if an interviewer chose to grill me on those experiences as opposed to my other more recent productive work.

 

[s_med]

Hi s_med, thanks for replying!

I think I may include my biotech employment (1 year) since I actually did complete a project with deliverable results there.

My research assistantships in undergrad involved doing routine labwork, but I had very little input into the scientific process, and no appreciable produced results. In light of that, do you think maybe I could append a bite size 1000 character paragraph detailing the research approach in my significant research essay? The problem is those experiences were so long ago (5+ years ago) and not very productive so I barely remember the science of what I did during those assistantships (especially the one I did in a genomics lab for 2 semesters) that I almost think it dilutes my application to talk about them too much. I would definitely be in a tight spot if an interviewer chose to grill me on those experiences as opposed to my other more recent productive work.

In my experience interviewers usually give you the opportunity to bring up the project that is of primary interest to you, and then they focus on that -- but anything in your research history is fair game and people will expect you to be able to discuss it to some amount of detail if prompted. A keyword of your older research might, for example, catch the eye of some faculty interviewer and they could spend their 30 mins with you asking about that. So, even if it means dredging up information from the annuls of time and foggy memory, you should prepare to explain the research you did as an undergrad. It'll probably also serve you well to review that work because, hey, you never know when it might be relevant later on. And, you have substantial time to prepare for it before interview season.

The "bite size" description approach in the research essay seems appropriate but I wouldn't make any comment about lack of productivity or importance of that work. Adcoms aren't as interested in "productivity" anyway -- they want to see commitment to research and the ability to explain the scientific rationale behind it, not necessarily impactful results. Your emphasis of the recent work will speak for itself.