Just before going back to school to do my prereqs I went to culinary school as a last ditch effort to do something fast and easy. (7 months and “wammy” your a pastry chef – errr… not really)
Do I need to include the transcripts in my AMCAS application? My grades were excellent, but would they even care? I am worried because the path I took to get here is circuitous enough, and this was my one last major detour. I don’t want to appear completely directionless, and I don’t want to mention it in my Statement of Purpose. (I am almost done and I don’t have the room.) Can I leave it off of my application?
Hmm, you can certainly leave out any activity that you don’t wish to reveal to the world, but in this case it sounds like something interesting that you would want to include, especially if you went to culinary school because you love cooking, and not just to fill in six months between jobs.
To my knowledge, the only thing you must include is your university coursework. Any courses taken at vocational schools (culinary, massage, electronics, etc.) is OK (and usually good) to mention but not necessary.
The classic problem of traditional applicants is finding enough activities to flesh out their application. Old premeds have rather the opposite problem of too many things–what to include, what to omit? The important thing is to include the things that demonstrate your qualities that you want the admissions committee to understand. Best of luck,