What Should You Actually Write About in Your AMCAS Essay

In this blog series, youll get succinct, practical tips on how you can optimize your AMCAS application for acceptance to top medical schools.   As I discussed in the first post  of this series, your AMCAS essay serves as your introduction to the med school admissions  board. In this way, your essay much more resembles a human interest story than it resembles a report. As a â€Å"science person,† you may be more familiar with factual, data-driven, analytical writing, with reports that are based on facts, figures, and statistics. In your application, all of this data will be included in your score reports and your resume†¦ not in your essay. Your AMCAS essay, your own personal human interest story, needs to be anecdotal and emotional. This is your opportunity to reveal your passion, your humor, your drive, and, in short, your unique personality. Remember, the admissions members reading your essays are human beings. Their job is to wade through a mountain of boring, trite, monotonous essays in search of that compelling gem of a story – the one that you’re going to write. For that gem to gel, you will need to choose meaningful experiences that show your strength of character, integrity, individuality, and most importantly, your non-academic qualifications and motivation for pursuing medical school and a career as a physician. Which would be a more interesting essay – one in which you speak generally about how you volunteered in a volunteer setting, or one in which you talk specifically about your experience working in Uganda with Doctors without Borders? Obviously the latter – an experience shared only by a handful, if any, of your competitors, will stand out more than an essay in which you talk about a vague experience that every other applicant shares. But what if you haven’t worked in Uganda or climbed Mt. Everest or discovered a cure for cancer while a freshman? What if your most notable achievements are a little more pedestrian? Specifics and stories will still make them stand out. Furthermore, if you include in your essays your distinctive motivations, take-aways, and insights from those critical events that are important enough to you to include in your AMCAS essay, you will have a killer essay. When you choose your essay topic, ask yourself the following questions: 1. Will this topic authentically introduce me to the reader? 2. Is this topic distinctive, or is it just going to come across as one more essay about how a grandparent’s illness directed the author at the age of 10 to medicine? 3. Does this essay reflect positively on my fitness for a career as a physician? â€Å"WHAT Should You Include in Your Essay?† is taken  from the Accepted guide,  Ace the AMCAS Essay.  To download the complete  guide,  Click here. Learn more about writing a strong, memorable medical school application when you  join us live for our upcoming  Create a Winning AMCAS Application  webinar on Tuesday, April 10, 2018. For individualized assistance, check out Accepteds  AMCAS Application Advising and Editing Packagesget matched with an expert med school advisor who will help you highlight your competitive advantage and get ACCEPTED! By Linda Abraham, president and founder of Accepted. Linda earned her bachelors and MBA at UCLA, and has been advising applicants since 1994 when she founded Accepted. Linda is the co-founder and first president of AIGAC. She has written or co-authored 13 e-books on the admissions process, and has been quoted by The  Wall Street Journal, U.S. News, Poets Quants, Bloomberg Businessweek, CBS News, and others. Linda is the host of Admissions Straight Talk, a podcast for graduate school applicants.  Want an admissions expert help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch! Related Resources: †¢Ã‚  Ace the AMCAS Essay, a free guide †¢Ã‚  Admissions Tip: BE YOURSELF! †¢Ã‚  Meaningful Experiences For Medical School Applicants