How does our application appear to reviewers?

[blissworm]

I'm just curious. When we download our application, it looks pretty rudimentary, and all the activities are sorted by start date. Everything's in a particular order, from demographic data to grades, MCAT, WA, personal statement. Is that also how the application appears to medical schools?

I imagine it would be different. Can medical school see what other schools we listed are application to go to, or our full set of letter writers including the ones that they are not getting? Also, I've heard medical schools can rearrange activities in ways they want, so I imagine they don't just get the PDF that we do. Also, is it common for reviewers to get the full application, or do some schools only send the activities and personal statement, and leave demographic and statistical data out?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Goro]

I'm just curious. When we download our application, it looks pretty rudimentary, and all the activities are sorted by start date. Everything's in a particular order, from demographic data to grades, MCAT, WA, personal statement. Is that also how the application appears to medical schools?

For AACOMAS, that's what I see.

I imagine it would be different.

Can medical school see what other schools we listed are application to go to,

no

or our full set of letter writers including the ones that they are not getting?

no

. Also, is it common for reviewers to get the full application,

School-specific

or do some schools only send the activities and personal statement, and leave demographic and statistical data out?

Some schools indeed redact certain elements

 

[cj_cregg]

Different for different schools and I believe there are also different "portals" or websites/tools schools can use to review apps. On my school's I have one link to pull up the primary and can tab through different parts of the app (PE, EC list which I can re-sort/filter in different ways, transcript, demographic info, etc.), another link to pull up secondary essays, and another link to pull up letters. Schools cannot see other schools you applied to or letters you did not send. My school gives the full app to app reviewers and just pieces of it to interviewers.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Exactly... admin portals are different from reviewer portals. We don't even give people the full PDF app anymore. We can redact things from certain reviewers (like the chair and the dean can get full access to IA descriptions, but interviewers can't). We can even chop the application up for screeners so they can only look at your W/A, your PS, or other essays without your name or other potentially biasing information. (Harder to do that with letters but I would keep them as a bundle.) Admins can pull down spreadsheet data to present to committees that can be further sorted and filtered so that committee members don't have to read or search for every single file.

While You Are Waiting: Processing Health Professions Applications - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

 

[blissworm]

I see. So it sounds like it doesn't go in a PDF format at all, more of an interactive web page with options to play around. Another reason I was curious about this was because a few of my activity descriptions have links to web pages that I've built for various experiences I was involved in, which was part of my job duties, and my publications entry has a link to a full list of my publications cause I couldn't fit everything into one entry. I wasn't sure about leaving them in, but if it's an interactive web page that people are reviewing on their computer, it might be easier to click it or copy and paste it into a browser?

Also, is it possible for people to read your personal statement before your work and activities? For our PDF view the work and activities comes before the statement, so I haven't bothered to re-explain and reintroduce some of the activities I discuss in my personal statement because they're already described in the activities. But, if it's possible for the statement to be read first, I imagine it would be necessary to include an extra sentence for each activity I talk about, a brief introduction for when it is?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I see. So it sounds like it doesn't go in a PDF format at all, more of an interactive web page with options to play around. Another reason I was curious about this was because a few of my activity descriptions have links to web pages that I've built for various experiences I was involved in, which was part of my job duties, and my publications entry has a link to a full list of my publications cause I couldn't fit everything into one entry. I wasn't sure about leaving them in, but if it's an interactive web page that people are reviewing on their computer, it might be easier to click it or copy and paste it into a browser?

Also, is it possible for people to read your personal statement before your work and activities? For our PDF view the work and activities comes before the statement, so I haven't bothered to re-explain and reintroduce some of the activities I discuss in my personal statement because they're already described in the activities. But, if it's possible for the statement to be read first, I imagine it would be necessary to include an extra sentence for each activity I talk about, a brief introduction for when it is?

Every expert here may interact with your AMCAS differently. Despite all requests to cut down on printing paper and our carbon footprint, some professors are still going to print applications out.

Is it possible...? Yes, it's always possible to read the PS first before W/A. It's always possible to only read one or the other. Some of us read your secondary application essays with more interest than your PS. Some of us read the MME's over what you write in your W/A. There's no way you can predict how we read your application, so each item needs to be able to stand up on its own, but the whole application needs to be as coherent as possible.

Just be smart in how you use your characters. We won't always want to look up a weblink, which could/not line break properly (data exchange can screw up non-alphabetic/numeric characters without regard to your intentions) and mess up our ability to go to your hyperlink. Shortlinks are your friend, but are not failsafe. I also assure you that only a rare number of faculty throughout all of medical education is going to look at your link, even though I encourage many to do it.

(Note: this is a pet peeve I have with many people on YouTube who get fixated on the presentation of AMCAS according to the PDF, saying that W/A is read before the PS. I scan for your hobbies, or I read the disadvantaged essay first, for example.)