I’ve started editing ERASes this cycle and have developed this list for guidance:
1. Include relevant pre-professional accomplishments from college. If you conducted research, for example, list and describe it. Do not include high school achievements unless they were truly unique (worked at the White House, sang on Broadway, published in Nature).
2. While you want to include many strong achievements, you do not want your ERAS to be so long that your reader is tempted to skim it, so avoid small activities (like an afternoon health fair).
3. Keep your descriptors to approximately five to seven sentences. Fewer can look lazy and more can look self-indulgent.
4. Use full sentences. It’s a formal application, and you want to make your written materials as readable as possible.
5. Avoid abbreviations. Ones you think are common might not be familiar to the reader.
6. Avoid contractions; they are too informal for your ERAS.
7. Make sure you spell out your accomplishments clearly. If your reader doesn’t understand an activity, you won’t get “full credit” for what you’ve done. Make no assumptions – not even that the reader has reviewed the experience’s introductory information (location, name of activity).
8. Write about yourself and your role – not an organization. For example, don’t use the space to discuss Physicians without Borders. Use it to discuss the specifics of your role at Physicians without Borders.
9. Use numbers to be persuasive. Saying that the conference you organized had 300 participants says it all.
10. 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.
11. Do your best not to leave the “Medical School Awards” section blank. Even if you have to simply include clerkships in which you obtained honors (or high honors), fill that section out.
12. If you have not already, consider joining your specialty’s national organization and listing it under the “Membership in Honorary/Professional Societies” section. If you are applying in two fields, take this advice, though.
13. Try to end your entries with a sentence about how the experience you just described will help you as a future specialist. Making that connection for the reader furthers your candidacy.
14. As with all good writing, avoid redundant language. Having the word “research” three times in two lines is distracting and demonstrates a lack of originality.
15. Get help. Don’t submit your residency application without having it reviewed by someone with a lot of experience. You do not want to put forward suboptimal materials for a process that is this important and competitive.
