Introducing Game-Changing AMCAS Work/Activities Update for 2023 That You Can't Afford to Miss!

As we know applying to medical school involves significant planning, adequate coordination, and efficient execution. As a pharmacy student or graduate, this can be even more challenging as we balance our daily education responsibilities with a very unfamiliar application process. 2023 has brought new changes to the allopathic (MD) primary application known as "AMCAS," specifically seen in the Work/Activities Section!

As a medical school applicant, one of the most important parts of the AMCAS application is the Work/Activities section. This section provides a platform for applicants to showcase their personal skills, highlight significant experiences, and portray their humanistic qualities to medical school admissions committees. For the 2023 application cycle, the Work/Activities section has undergone some updates that applicants should be aware of to ensure they can present themselves in the best possible light!

What is the Work Activities Section?

The Work and Activities section on medical school applications allows students to share up to 15 work or extracurricular experiences, with each experience being summarized in 700 characters or less. Applicants are asked to identify up to three experiences that they consider the most meaningful, with at least one being identified if they have multiple entries. When selecting the most meaningful experiences, applicants should consider the transformative nature of the experience and the impact they made, what they learned, and their personal growth. Traditionally, all of these experiences needed to be historical or previously completed, however things have changed for the 2023-2024 application cycle (more on this below!)

How to Write Your Work/Activities Description:

Summarizing your experiences in 700 characters can be a daunting task, especially when you have so much to say. However, with the following tips, you can effectively convey the most important aspects of your experiences in a concise and clear manner for the AMCAS Work/Activities Section:

1. Start with a clear statement: Begin your summary with a clear statement of what the experience was, such as the name of the organization, the position you held, or the event you participated in.

2. Focus on the impact: In the limited space available, it's important to focus on the impact that the experience had on you and others. Highlight the most significant contributions you made and the results you achieved.

3. Be specific: Use specific examples to illustrate your experience and provide details about your responsibilities and achievements. Don't be afraid to use numbers to quantify your impact.

4. Avoid jargon: Use language that is easily understood by someone outside of your field or organization. Avoid jargon or technical terms that may not be familiar to everyone. While it may be tempting to share the complex mechanisms involved in your bench work cell studies, it might not strike as much interest if the reader can't grasp what you were working towards in the first place!

5. Proofread and edit: Once you have written your summary, read it over carefully and edit it for clarity and brevity. Make sure there are no typos or grammatical errors that could detract from your message. Typos are distractions that take away from the meaning of the content!

By following these tips, you can effectively summarize your experiences in 700 characters for the AMCAS Work/Activities Section and showcase your achievements and contributions to medical schools. Follow these tips to make a strong impression on admissions committees!

Changes to the Work/Activities Section for the 2023 Application Cycle:

• A new feature that allows applicants to separately list anticipated experiences

• The existing/ongoing experiences section now requires applicants to divide their hours between completed and anticipated hours

Anticipated Experiences: One of the most significant updates to the Work/Activities section is the new feature that allows applicants to list anticipated experiences separately. These are activities that applicants have not yet started but plan to participate in. This probably sounds like music to your ears as a Pharmacy Applicant gearing up for your clinical rotations (APPEs)! Going back to my application days, I was restricted to only sharing one of my clinical rotations. By the time I was ready to apply I had only completed a singular APPE! Now students can preemptively share what future rotations/experiences you will complete, however there should be some reservations when choosing to do this. As a former admissions committee board member, and following common sense logic, it obvious that completed experiences will hold more weight than "anticipated" ones. Therefore, I wouldn't recommend you flood your application with these events but rather strike a balance. Completed experiences should far outweigh the number of anticipated that you plan to share, but you now will now have the opportunity to talk about the fun rotations you have on the horizon.

Are there Limitations? Yes! While you can showcase anticipated content, applicants cannot input anticipated hours for honors/awards, conferences, publications, or presentations. Moreover, an anticipated experience CANNOT be a most meaningful experience (duh).

Experience Types that can be used:

• Artistic Endeavors

• Community Service/Volunteer-Medical/Clinical

• Community Service/Volunteer - Not Medical/Clinical

• Extracurricular Activities

• Hobbies

• Intercollegiate Athletics

• Leadership - Not Listed Elsewhere

• Military Service

• Other

• Paid Employment - Medical/Clinical

• Paid Employment - Not Medical/Clinical

• Physician Shadowing/Clinical Observation

• Research/Lab

• Teaching/Tutoring/Teaching Assistant

Existing/Ongoing Experiences: Applicants can now enter their hours in the same experience entry to indicate which hours have been completed and which hours are anticipated as future hours. The completed hours section should include the month and year the applicant began the experience as the start date. The end date should be the month and year the applicant concluded the experience, but it cannot go beyond the month and year the information is entered, which is the month/year that the applicant submits the application.

Conclusion: In conclusion, the Work/Activities section is a critical component of the AMCAS application, and the updates for the 2023 application cycle provide applicants with new opportunities to showcase future or anticipated experiences! I believe this new feature will suite non-traditional applicants well as they are given broader opportunities to showcase the uniqueness of their educational training!

For a closer look at the AMCAS Update, check out the AAMC Guidelines here.

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