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How To Craft Stand-out Most Meaningful Paragraphs

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Back in 2012, seemingly out of the blue, a new component appeared on AMCAS®. Applicants were being asked to identify up to three of their most significant extracurricular experiences and support their selections with more writing. The instructions stated:

This is your opportunity to summarize why you have selected this experience as one of your most meaningful. In your remarks, you might consider the transformative nature of the experience, the impact you made while engaging in the experience and the personal growth you experienced as a result of your participation. 1325 max characters.

Now the Most Meaningful Paragraphs are par for the course, but applicants routinely make a few avoidable errors in crafting them. Here are tips to do your best work:

1) Don’t merge the descriptors with the Most Meaningful Paragraphs; they are separate sections: You can complete descriptors for up to 15 activities with a maximum of 700 characters each, plus up to three Most Meaningful Paragraphs with a maximum of 1325 characters each. The fact that these are two different tasks might seem clear to some, but every year, I receive AMCAS drafts to edit with merged descriptors and Most Meaningful Paragraphs.

2) Don’t use patient anecdotes in your Most Meaningful Paragraphs: Most medical school applicants have patient vignettes to share, which means that a patient story does not distinguish an applicant from the masses of other candidates. Also, these patient stories can sound trite or even inadvertently condescending. Talk about yourself instead. (See below.)

3) Don’t repeat what you’ve written in your descriptor. The Most Meaningful Paragraphs are an opportunity to delve deeper into your achievements. Let’s say you’re showcasing your experience as a teaching assistant (TA) who was promoted to head TA or simply asked to return the next semester. Highlight teaching achievements that propelled you to get the lead position or the return invite. Did you offer an unconventional way of learning the difficult material? If so, what was it? Did you provide service that was above and beyond what was required? If so, what exactly did you do and how did it help your students? Did you get excellent teaching reviews? By delving deeper, you can truly demonstrate the “transformative nature of the experience, the impact you made while engaging in the experience and the personal growth you experienced as a result of your participation.” Make sure you address at least one of the three topics mentioned in the prompt – transformative nature, impact, and/or personal growth – in your Most Meaningful Paragraph.

Bottom line: The Most Meaningful Paragraphs are an opportunity for you to demonstrate your distinctiveness and worthiness for medical school. Write substantively to make sure you don’t waste the opportunity to further your candidacy.

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Avoid These Ten Common AMCAS Mistakes

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Here’s a brief list of AMCAS Work and Activities section errors to avoid at all costs:

1. Don’t write to write. While you want to include many strong achievements, you do not want your AMCAS to be so wordy that your reader is tempted to skim.

2. While you need to be brief, don’t write in phrases; use full sentences. It’s a formal application, and you want to make your written materials as readable as possible.

3. Don’t assume your reader will carefully study the “header” section (including the title of the activity, hours, etc.). Make sure your descriptor could stand alone: Instead of “As an assistant, I conducted experiments…” use “As a research assistant at a Stanford Medical School neuroscience lab, I conducted experiments…”

4. Don’t be vague, dramatic, or trite. Make sure you spell out your accomplishments clearly and substantively. If your reader doesn’t understand an activity, you will not get “full credit” for what you’ve done. Make no assumptions.

5. Avoid abbreviations. Again, you want to be formal; plus, abbreviations you think are common might not be familiar to the reader.

6. Write about yourself and your role – not an organization. For example, don’t use the space to discuss Doctors without Borders. Use it to discuss the specifics of your role at Doctors without Borders.

7. Avoid generalities and consider using numbers to be persuasive. Saying that the conference you organized had 300 participants says it all.

8. Don’t merge the descriptors with the most meaningful paragraphs because they are separate sections: You can complete descriptors for up to 15 activities with up to 700 characters each plus up to three most meaningful paragraphs of up to 1325 characters each.

9. Unless your PI won the Nobel, avoid using supervisors’ and/or doctors’ names in your descriptors as they will be meaningless to the majority of your readers.

10. Choose the right category for each activity, so you get “full credit.” (Please note AMCAS added a category last year called “Social Justice/Advocacy.”)

Bonus: Get help. Do not submit your medical school application without having it reviewed by someone with a lot of experience. You do not want to showcase suboptimal materials for a process that is this important and competitive.

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Aim for All Stuff and No Fluff

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The goal of your written materials (and your interview) is to distinguish yourself from everyone else to demonstrate that you are worthy of a competitive medical school or residency slot.

Therefore, it’s critical that you avoid flowery or trite language, as using it does the opposite of making you distinctive. Recently, I read a piece by Lisa Miller called, “When Did Everything Become a ‘Journey’” about the overuse of the word. Miller cites Northern Arizona University linguistics professor Jesse Egbert who notes that “journey,” as a noun, has almost doubled in American English since 1990. 

In her piece, Miller also includes a wry quote from a Los Angeles clinical psychologist who describes the word “journey” as “eye-rollingly cheapened.” In editing personal statements, I see the word used frequently – maybe once in every four essays I revise.

Good writing takes a lot of time – brainstorming, outlining, and many drafts. Make sure your written materials are the best they can be by being diligent about your process (and by getting professional help).

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Avoid These Ten Common AMCAS Mistakes 

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Here’s a brief list of AMCAS Work and Activities section errors to avoid at all costs:

1. Don’t write to write. While you want to include many strong achievements, you do not want your AMCAS to be so wordy that your reader is tempted to skim.

2. While you need to be brief, don’t write in phrases; use full sentences. It’s a formal application, and you want to make your written materials as readable as possible.

3. Don’t assume your reader will carefully study the “header” section (including the title of the activity, hours, etc.). Make sure your descriptor could stand alone: Instead of “As an assistant, I conducted experiments…” use “As a research assistant at a Stanford Medical School neuroscience lab, I conducted experiments…”

4. Don’t be vague, dramatic, or trite. Make sure you spell out your accomplishments clearly and substantively. If your reader doesn’t understand an activity, you will not get “full credit” for what you’ve done. Make no assumptions.

5. Avoid abbreviations. Again, you want to be formal; plus, abbreviations you think are common might not be familiar to the reader.

6. Write about yourself and your role – not an organization. For example, don’t use the space to discuss Doctors without Borders. Use it to discuss the specifics of your role at Doctors without Borders.

7. Avoid generalities and consider using numbers to be persuasive. Saying that the conference you organized had 300 participants says it all.

8. Don’t merge the descriptors with the most meaningful paragraphs because they are separate sections: You can complete descriptors for up to 15 activities with up to 700 characters each plus up to three most meaningful paragraphs of up to 1325 characters each.

9. Unless your PI won the Nobel, avoid using supervisors’ and/or doctors’ names in your descriptors as they will be meaningless to the majority of your readers.

10. Choose the right category for each activity, so you get “full credit.”

Bonus: Get help. Do not submit your medical school application without having it reviewed by someone with experience. You do not want to showcase suboptimal materials for a process that is this important and competitive.

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How Sesame Street Can Help You Write a Good Medical School Personal Statement

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I learned an interesting fact years ago: When small children don’t understand something, they will simply tune it out and start to engage in another activity. That’s why great shows like Sesame Street use professionals to make sure their content is precisely age-appropriate. Children – and adults – don’t like being confused, and you can’t blame them.

In their personal statements, some medical school candidates make the mistake of referring to an accomplishment without explaining it. This is understandable since we are all intimately familiar with what we’ve done. The problem is that the vast majority of application readers are way too busy to do independent research or go back and forth checking an applicant’s supporting documents if she writes something that isn’t crystal clear.

I remember a talented candidate I advised who showcased an award she had won. She listed the name, but didn’t explain what it was. When I asked her, she told me the award was an academic honor given to only the top 1% of students out of several thousand. I was impressed! And, I asked her to rewrite the section so that her admissions readers would give her the credit she deserved for that extraordinary accomplishment. Because the medical school admissions process is so competitive, what you fail to adequately explain counts against you.

On a related topic, don’t expect a reader to understand something in your essay because it’s explained in your AMCAS activities. Different faculty members will approach the application in different ways, so – to get “full credit” for your accomplishments – you need to assume that your reader is seeing your essay first, independent of your AMCAS activities. Ensure your personal statement can stand alone and doesn’t rely on your AMCAS Activities section for clarification.

Contact me for help with your written materials. I have read thousands of essays, and I personally review every document sent to me.

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About Dr. Michelle Finkel

Dr. Michelle Finkel

Dr. Finkel is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School. On completing her residency at Harvard, she was asked to stay on as faculty at Harvard Medical School and spent five years teaching at the world-renowned Massachusetts General Hospital. She was appointed to the Assistant Residency Director position for the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency where she reviewed countless applications, personal statements and resumes. Read more

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