Lesson 15: Activities Wildcard Question
Top 10 Medical Schools that Use This Prompt:
Briefly describe your single, most rewarding experience. Feel free to refer to an experience previously described in your AMCAS application. (max 2,500 characters) (Johns Hopkins)
If you wish to update or expand upon your activities, you may provide additional information below. (500 words) (UCSF)
Have you participated in any global activities outside of the U.S. prior to submitting your AMCAS application? If so, explain in 1,000 characters or less (UPenn)
The most meaningful achievements are often non-academic in nature. Describe the personal accomplishment that makes you most proud. Why is this important to you? (NYU)
Describe your involvement in the one most important non-academic activity in your life. (800 char) (UCLA)
Because nearly every other component of the application relates directly back to describing your trajectory and why medical school is the inevitable next step, the Activities essay provides a unique opportunity to highlight intangible parts of your character. When medical schools ask for you to describe a non-academic activity, they mean it! Admissions officers want to understand your experiences, skills, and qualities that are crucial yet indirectly related to a clinical setting.
A well-rounded doctor—one who appreciates activities like hiking or ceramics or cooking—makes for a more relatable doctor who can provide the highest quality of care.
However, you don’t tell the reader this directly. For example, consider the following statement:
“Because of my extensive baking skills, I have a strong attention to detail, which will help me when working with patients.” This description is weak because it’s merely a self-evaluation. The admissions committee has no idea whether you’re actually a good cook.
If you wanted to write about cooking as a non-academic activity while also highlighting your attention to detail, try emulating a statement like this:
After every rotation of my whisk, I measure the batter’s consistency. Too thick? More milk. Too thin? More flour. I bang my mixing implement against the metal bowl and observe a thin layer of powder fall onto my batter. I eagerly incorporate this powder then sample. Each itty-bitty spoonful isn’t just a preview into my impending confection. It’s an assessment mechanism. I add a bit more cinnamon. These pauses, evaluations, and responses make me love baking. Just like baking, patient care requires all the senses—to stop, reflect, and provide a quality, thoughtful level of care, which I look forward to incorporating in my practice.
This response is effective because it first and foremost responds to the prompt. The essay, on the first level, is about a non-academic activity. However, this essay works effectively because it reinforces the notion that all of your activities, whether directly or indirectly, relate to your desire to go to medical school. While it’s important to maintain a work-life balance, it doesn’t mean life can’t inform your work or vice versa.
A strong narrative structure also strengthens this essay. One can readily imagine the “itty-bitty spoonful” while getting into the writer’s mind that he “add a bit more cinnamon.” This shift between image, idea, and reaction, enables the reader to understand, empathize, and relate to the writer, which, ultimately inclines the reader to want to get to know the writer and perhaps accept him.
An activity is not merely an activity. It’s a means by which you can discuss intangible aspects of your personality and worldview, a personality and worldview fitting for a physician.
