Reapplicant questions

Well…this cycle was a disaster for me. :cry: Between GIANT AMCAS mistake and losing my appeal…I got no interviews. Bummed and also gearing up for the 2nd round. The AMCAS debacle will be fixed and my GPA will actually show what it is based on the 225 credits (cgpa. 3.85 sgpa 3.56) verses the 38 credits (3.32) on my first cycle. What a mess! I’ve taken the MCAT 2x–489 (Yikes!) and 496 (Not great). I’m retaking a 3rd time; my practice scores have been between 502-509 so that should help as well.



The one thing I can’t find information on is how to go about the 15 “Meaningful Things” part of the application. I have some new things to add from supplemental work, volunteering, etc. As an “Old Pre-med”; however, most my 15 things are based on my [former] career and other activities that have spanned 15 years or so. I didn’t write about being on the “Student Government” in college because I thought writing about being a school principal was more relevant and meaningful, for example and therefore have not changed much.



I know it’s important to write a new personal statement and new essays for 2ndaries. What have people done/heard about the 15 things essays? Is it acceptable to keep some of the same in this case? Do I keep the activity and write about a different aspect?



Any other advice for Old Pre-med reapplying is also appreciated.

As a person who had to re-apply, I would advise that once you have assured yourself that everything on the AAMCAS is correct, apply broadly and consider applying to Osteopathic programs as well.

Not sure how the grades happened, but that would be a huge killer for an app. With only 38 credits to your name, there’s no way that you’d be able to complete the standard 90 credit prereq, let alone “have” a degree, prior to matriculation. I’m really surprised AMCAS validated you, because they bounce your name against the national clearing house for grades/courses. They even called me out for not including a military education course that didn’t even count for any type of academic credit…



Scoring a 509 would definitely help your cause too. Be sure to be able to explain why you took it 3 times (really, be able to explain what you did differently to boost your score and what you learned from the experience).



In my opinion, your 15 things is your 15 things. Regardless of what people think, the things that are meaningful to you are meaningful to you. I applied 10 years after my undergrad program, and I only put things from college (aside from awards or whatever) after I ran out of other stuff to put and/or if it actually had a major impact on who I am today. If I were looking at an application of an older person, and their most meaningful things all happened in college, I’d have some serious doubts about taking them into my program. Being a principal >>>>> student government years ago. But putting student gov could show that you were able to handle prereqs during undergrad and were involved. Really though, I’d stick with things that show leadership, responsibility, altruism, or other characteristics. The only thing you might do is change what you wrote about them. Clarify what the “meaningful thing” is, but be sure to mention WHY it is meaningful to you, what you took from it, how it made you a better person, etc.

@Kennymac thank you so much! This was HUGELY helpful. @gabelerman, yes! I’m also applying to DO schools.

@Kennymac wrote:

They even called me out for not including a military education course that didn’t even count for any type of academic credit…




Kennymac,

I'm applying this cycle for the first time around and the only hang-up I'm having is what military courses I actually need to list! I'm active duty air force, the air university registrar is completely unresponsive, and the AMCAS and AACOMAS guides don't help much. I've only received graduate-level credits for one military course but I've taken a lot that show up on the VMET. Any advice?

- Michael

I had ASBC, SOS (res + non-res), and ACSC (non-res) done and didn’t think that they would be players for AMCAS. My original app was done for the 2018 class, and neither AMCAS nor AACOMAS asked for them for validation. When I had to “reapply” after my deferred year, AMCAS said I had transcripts in the clearinghouse that I didn’t have on my application. I want to say AU only had SOS and ACSC transcripts… I did not include any mil-specific training, like AFSC training or survival school or whatever, in the courseware but included some in the experiences section of the app.



I think there is some way through the AU website to have transcripts sent. At the time I found out, I was deployed to a non-.mil accessible place, but I was able to call someone (can’t remember who) to have them send transcripts to both AMCAS and myself. You might want to have them sent to you first so you can figure out how to list the individual classes or whatever. I wish I could help you out more, but AMCAS pretty much did the listing part for me as part of the verification process since I had finalized/submitted my app before I knew about this requirement. You can probably just list them as “military/other” or something like that. My “corrected” application listed AU as a school attended but there were no actual courses listed anywhere. It probably isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things. I’m not even sure schools know what they’re looking at for stuff like that.



Just out of curiosity, are you cutting ties or going through USUHS/HPSP? My class has a handful of prior O’s, split about 50/50 on clean break/reselling soul. Shoot me a message if you have any specific questions. I’m just at the end of MS1, and there’s another AF dude on the site who got accepted/deferred this year. Hopefully the trend continues for you!

That’s great! I plan on going HPSP. What about you? I’ve got the same issues with ASBC and SOS plus a few others I’m not sure about. I’ve emailed and called the AU registrar three times in as many days and have received zero responses. Greasy wheel gets the grease though…



AACOMAS is a little friendlier than AMCAS from what I’ve seen thus far too.

Kennymac, got your PM but for some reason I don’t have permissions to send PMs. I’m taking all pre-reqs online too so USUHS is out of the picture but I’m okay with that. It’ll be nice to have a break from military life for a few years!

Also an AF applicant (last year)…accepted and deferred to this cycle. Order an AU transcript for yourself: http://www.au.af.mil/au/cf/auregistrar/cfrr/au_transcript_request.pdf



It has all of your PME on it. List each PME “course” in AMCAS just as depicted on the transcript. When you order the AU transcript for AMCAS, send the AMCAS transcript request form and ask AU to send it with your transcript.



PM me if you have questions. Good luck!

Nice to meet ya! I worked directly with the AU registrar and my transcripts are in the mail. That’s the last of them so I’ll be ready to submit my application once I’ve cleaned my essay up. My next concern is interview season. I’m scheduled to deploy late Nov for 6 months…one school said to remind them of that after I submit my application and they’d interview me earlier if they like what I have to offer. I need to get more admissions offices on the phone to ask the same question. Anyone ever hear of VTC interviews happening or are they all in-person?



@kennymac, you said you listed awards in your 15 experiences section. Did you mean your military medals or college academic awards? For AACOMAS I added my military decs to the achievements section, because they seemed to fit well there.



Also, sorry for hijacking this thread but I still don’t have PM permissions…

I think I just put in college awards and academic organizations. I may have put academically-oriented mil awards in there from different training programs, but I don’t remember. I filled most of that section with different mil jobs I had, a very brief description of the responsibilities, and what I learned from the experiences. Mil decs came up in a couple of interviews with some former-mil docs, but I tend to not bring them up (not a fan of the AF candy-like decs process and feel I really only earned a handful).



You can pretty much copy-paste AACOMAS and AMCAS, as they’re both very similar. The biggest (only?) difference I remember making between the 2 was the word count for the personal statement.