Tomorrow Belongs to Those Who Can Hear it Coming

That's right: Tomorrow, May 1 is the day before the official open date of AMCAS 2019. (Okay, I know that sounds confusing, but originally the AMCAS open date looked to be May 1 and is still posted as such in multiple locations. As it turns out, it is May 2.) So, at 9:30am EST on Wednesday, you can start inputting your data. 

Because of rolling admissions, submitting a complete application early in the cycle has distinct advantages at many schools.That doesn't mean you should submit suboptimal written materials; it means you should start early enough (now, at the latest!) that you are offering your best work.

Rolling admissions means that a school takes applications in the order in which they are received and makes decisions about interviews and then acceptances, accordingly. So, as times goes by, there are fewer interview and admissions offers remaining to be made.

If your application is not complete, your candidacy may not be evaluated early when there are more opportunities for interviews and admissions. So, if you have not already, get started immediately. It could make a huge difference in your available opportunities.

Making a List and Checking it Twice: The Fellowship Match Checklist

The 2018-9 Fellowship Match process is heating up. The NRMP recently posted a brief but useful fellowship match check list with links to important dates for all fellowship matches.

As many of you may know, the range of time frames varies tremendously among the different fields - from abdominal transplant surgery (now) to adolescent medicine (autumn) - so it's worth taking a look at this information even if you just matched for residency, believe it or not.

DNR

Recently, I was socializing with an old friend who reviews residency applications for his academic program. We were discussing personal statement errors (don't worry - we chatted about nonprofessional topics too), and he told me that he and his colleagues have a term for candidacies that are represented by bad written materials: DNR, or Do Not Rank.

Make sure your candidacy is not hamstrung by bad writing. Avoid common personal statement errors that can bomb your application. Good writing takes a lot of time, so make sure to start early. AMCAS is opening on May 1, so medical school applicants should be completing their essays and experience descriptors. Residency applicants should be starting an outline for their personal statements and a draft of their experiences.

Contact me (soon) for help.

Talented Pre-Meds: Leverage your Money

Recently I’ve heard from a few fortunate Insider medical school applicant clients who were not only accepted to several medical schools, but also were offered scholarship money to attend. They’ve asked me this: Is there a way to leverage the money I’ve been granted at one medical school to get funding at another?

Well, it’s worth a try.

As long as you’re diplomatic, contacting other medical schools, advising them of your scholarship, and requesting a match might help, although I’d suggest having low expectations. Still, if done politely, it cannot hurt.

In a different vein, a sometimes-successful technique I’ve encountered is to use the scholarship award as a means of obtaining an interview or trying to get off the wait list at another school.  Send a note to your wait listed schools to let them know of your promised funds. After all, if you’re competitive enough to earn a scholarship at one place, you should be competitive enough to be accepted at another.

You Can Lead the Witness: Letters of Recommendation Part 2

This is my second blog entry regarding actions you can take immediately to help you obtain strong letters of recommendation (LORs). The first entry describes two initial strategies for improving your medical school letter of recommendation process.

As a Harvard Assistant Residency Director, I bore witness to how weak – or even mediocre – LORs had the potential to bomb an otherwise competitive candidacy. Once you’ve followed directions and asked the right people (see my previous entry), it’s time to influence the content of your letters by making the job of letter writing easy:

Influencing the Content
When pre-meds, residents, nurses, and physician colleagues asked me to write them LORs when I was Assistant Residency Director, the first thing I requested was that they send me background information to make my letter robust…and my job easier. Accordingly, I strongly recommend you create a “LOR packet,” which can include the following:

1. A brief, well-written cover letter defining all of your important accomplishments
2. Your curriculum vitae (CV)
3. Your personal statement in its final form
4. Your transcripts.

With regard to the cover letter, keep it streamlined. No one will skip the beach or her two-year old’s birthday party to read your exhaustive biography, so you want to thank the writer and highlight your pre-professional achievements in one page. The point of the cover letter is to supplement a letter writer’s knowledge of your candidacy and offer flattering content for inclusion. A professor may know that you made the only A in an organic chemistry class, but her LOR will be more complete, and she will demonstrate a more intimate familiarity with you if she knows enough to write that you volunteer regularly at a homeless shelter.

With regard to the CV and personal statement, these make useful supplements to the LOR packet only if they are in professional and final form. Don’t include rough drafts, as poorly organized background information leaves your writer the impression that you are a disorganized person. Also, only include the transcript if it bolsters your candidacy, demonstrating academic achievement. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot if you have some bad grades or an incomplete you’d rather not showcase.

Bottom line: An applicant who offered me a list of her accomplishments in a tidy, accessible package was more likely to get a strong, comprehensive letter that was submitted promptly. She also distinguished herself from the majority of candidates who requested letters without demonstrating a comparably sophisticated understanding of the demands this process made on my time. If you can make a letter writer's job easier, your forethought is likely to pay dividends in the letter you receive. This is not a court of law, so the savvy applicant can take subtle advantage of her ability to "lead the witness."