There are so many steps in applying to medical school, and the AMCAS application is one of the first and most significant.
In addition to a personal statement and extracurricular activities, AMCAS, or the American Medical College Application Service, asks various biographical and demographic questions. Prior to the 2023-2024 application cycle, AMCAS included a question regarding if an applicant identified as disadvantaged, which was an opportunity for the applicant to include details about life circumstances that could affect their application.
However, AMCAS recently removed that question and replaced it with an optional section for the applicant to include “other impactful experiences.” With this new terminology, the Association of American Medical Colleges, which provides the AMCAS service, hoped to remove any potential negative connotations with the term “disadvantaged” and to provide additional clarity on how to answer the prompt.
What Are the Specifics of Other Impactful Experiences?
Here’s the specific prompt included on the AMCAS application: “Have you overcome challenges or obstacles in your life that you would like to describe in more detail? This could include lived experiences related to your family background, financial background, community setting, educational experiences, and/or other life circumstances.”
To remove some of the ambiguity that was associated with disadvantaged, AMCAS offers additional guidance, including some examples that can be shared about experiences that directly affected the applicant’s life opportunities:
— Family background, such as being a first-generation college student or serving as a caregiver to a family member.
— Community setting, such as living in a rural area or experiencing food scarcity, high poverty or crime rate, or lack of access to regular health care.
— Financial background, such as being from a low-income family, having worked to support your family, needing work-study to pay for college or having depended on federal or state financial support.
— Educational experience, such as limited access to advisers or counselors who were knowledgeable about higher education requirements.
— Other general life circumstances that were beyond your control and presented barriers.
[READ: How to Showcase Diversity in a Med School Essay.]
The instructions ask applicants to consider whether the question is relevant to them and notes that med schools don’t expect all applicants to answer “yes.” The question is intended for applicants “who have overcome major challenges or obstacles,” and it acknowledges that “some applicants may not feel comfortable sharing personal information in their application.”
Applicants who decide to answer the question are allotted 1,325 characters to explain the situation to medical schools.
How Do Medical Schools Use This Information to Evaluate an Application?
Though every medical school evaluates applicants differently, admissions committees use this additional information to contextualize an application.
For instance, perhaps an applicant who lived in a medically underserved area has fewer clinical activities than competing applicants. Admission committees tend to take that into account when reviewing the application. They realize that with fewer available opportunities, one applicant’s extracurricular activities may look different than those of similar applicants.
[READ: Ways Medical School Applicants Can Show Diversity Beyond Race, Ethnicity]
Including other impactful experiences in no way unlocks a secret door into medical school, but it can help the admission committee evaluate an applicant’s total application — including hardships or special circumstances they may have faced.
Should an Applicant Answer This Question?
Whether a med school applicant should include details here totally depends. They should be introspective and think about how their circumstances may have affected their education, social interactions, extracurricular activities and finances.
Often, if an applicant can’t readily identify a situation that they consider applicable here, then it is probably best not to add information. But for applicants with extenuating circumstances and hardships, providing this additional context allows them to explain the circumstances to medical schools and hope that admissions committees will take the information into account when reviewing the entire application.
What Should Be Written in the Allotted Space?
The applicant should use the space to discuss why they consider themselves disadvantaged and significant challenges they overcame.
It is important to not try to garner pity from the admissions committee. Instead, contextualize the circumstances and application. Avoid repeating the personal statement or theorizing about how things may have been different if an event had not occurred. The statement should help readers understand what the applicant has gone through and how it has affected their life and preparation for medical school.
As difficult as it can be to make the decision about whether to select disadvantaged, a draft of the statement is difficult to write, as well. If an applicant is unsure how to go about putting the situation on paper, work with an adviser to fully articulate the specific circumstances.
Opportunities for Students With Challenges in Their Application
An additional challenge for some students is they often cannot afford the same level of tutoring, advising and coaching as advantaged students. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, only about 22,500 students matriculated in medical school in 2022 from more than 55,000 applicants — only about four in 10 getting accepted. For students with financial or social challenges, their odds can be even lower due to their lack of resources and support systems.
Students who get one-on-one coaching can boost their exam scores and the application presentation, which is likely to substantially increase their odds of acceptance. For example, MedSchoolCoach offers a PreMed Scholarship for bright and deserving students who can benefit from medical school tutoring and advising, but for whom cost is prohibitive.
For disadvantaged students fortunate enough to get accepted but who may need help paying for medical school, organizations like online resource Fastweb provide students with connections to scholarships and financial aid.
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Meaning of Disadvantaged Med School Applicant originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 11/06/23: This article was published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
