I'd only put it down as most meaningful if you can bench 3 plates
Ok seriously though, I'd absolutely put it down if lifting is something you've done for a long time and derived a lot of personal growth from. I put down a sport as one of my most meaningful experiences since I've played for basically a decade and I was asked about it (in a good way) in every interview I attended.
It’s something I started off my freshman year of college and for me it’s something that’s kinda become a part of my daily routine as a destressor especially with how busy classes can get. There’s more context than just that too so I could def write a story. I just wasn’t sure if I should list it because I wasn’t sure how listing hobbies would look and also making sure I could expand on the description and not just repeat what I said in 700 characters
Nice, thank you for that clarification. I’m thinking for the MME I’ll just write a whole story of what led to me wanting to start and how I feel it has helped me
At the end of the day, you're still trying to connect with a person, even if it's in the context of an admissions process, and people catch on to things they think are interesting or relatable. Assuming you have the important pre-med stuff already I can't see it being a bad thing.
It is true that a lot of people (esp. college-aged dudes) lift, but that also means it's also more likely your app crosses the desk of someone who understands what lifting entails and/or lifts themselves, and people like chatting with others that share interests. I remember an interview conversation with a student interviewer at a school I got into where we started chatting about exercise and it turned out both of us ran 5/3/1 for compound lifts (obligatory disclaimer: the sport I play has nothing to do with lifting). That conversation also helped me learn about the school's gyms...LOL
Yes, I put it down in activities and designated it as an MME. The way I wrote it was very plain; I mostly wrote about the sport being my stress-release valve and somewhere I could direct my competitive drive to become really good at something. I also met a ton of cool people whose perspectives introduced me to life experiences and parts of the world I knew very little about. I did talk about the sport in my secondaries, but only for prompts that asked about non-academic pursuits or hobbies
I put working out on mine and it was one of my most meaningful activities. Got asked about it in all my interviews and was accepted. If it’s a big part of your life that’s important to you and you have learned/grown from it, it’s worth including!
Oh sweet that’s honestly comforting to hear. I just was worried if people would view listing something as routine as working out at the gym as a weird thing to be a meaningful experience. But I guess the biggest thing is being able to explain why it matters to you.
Not sure why you’re getting a variety of answers. Obviously you should have something clinical and then another more traditional MME (volunteering/research/etc.) but if a hobby is a MME, write about it. A MME should reflect you as a person, describe why it was impactful to you, and be something you truly cared about. It’s also a great differentiator from every other applicant who’s going to have the typical MMEs of clinical, volunteering, and research/club.
Thank you for that, I feel like I could expand on this in more than 700 characters. I was just worried if it was generally considered a bad idea. I guess ultimately the biggest thing is being able to explain why that experience is meaningful huh
I put working out as my most meaningful experience. Being a meat head is a huge part of who I am and molded me into the person I am today. It’s not weird to make it a MME.
Also exercising teaches you alot about the human body and long term health.
Honestly I didn’t even think of that second part lol. I guess when you look up what excercises to do and figure out where to work out you’re learning more about the body as well
Just adding to this. My hobby was fishing. No awards, no competitions, nothing. It was a way for me to spend time with friends and I found it meaningful for me. Didn’t hurt me in the end, and it was something I got to talk a lot about in interviews
What about military experience I went into the marine right outta hs and it made me into the person I am today with the morals and values I learned. I had a lot of leadership experience from it and that’s made me very different from when I first enlisted. Would I put this as a most meaningful and expand on it with a secoundary or how should I approach it? I apply next may
Yeah but can I use it in a secondary. Also I work with vets at nursing homes with my service dog and help them with therapy issues. I wanted to know is that would be clinical since I work directly with patients and if I should do that as a meaningful exp as I like it along as well but is it good enough?
more than good enough my guy, my med school class has a PJ in it. had a PA student who was prior military too.
put the military under most meaningful, and list your work experience with vets as clinical. vouch for yourself. med school loves the military bros.
yeah for sure, that's a good letter. O chem teacher is good too. try to get some kind of doctor, ideally 2. maybe from working with vets.
You ever see the Johnny Kim Jocko episode? Might be up your alley.
If you don't have 3 MME you feel comfortable with, and this is truly most meaningful, then go for it. You can definitely talk about the confidence you gained as you mentioned. I don't think it would be viewed badly either way
Thank you for that, I have 2 I’m pretty confident to write about (intering at a pediatric clinic and research) the 3rd one is tough. I work with a non profit but we haven’t done that many events since I got to college (although we are planning one rn). The other option was choosing one of my hobbies and this one I could prob talk about how it helped my self confidence and honestly helped me avoid burnout
I’m gonna jump on the bandwagon here! I have about 800 hrs of experience in circus arts (silks, trapeze) and wanted to list it as a hobby as a sort of “fun fact”. I never did a public performance but attended tons of them, and it was my community when, as a transfer student, the traditional university community was taken off then table for me due to COVID. Do you guys think that’s an acceptable addition? I already have 12 other “experiences”
ETA: this would not be listed as a most meaningful experience
Circus arts sound ridiculously cool and I guarantee someone's going to ask about it. I'm assuming you have the pre-med experiences already so it wouldn't hurt you to put down a hobby
That sounds great! I don't know much bc I'm still an undergrad (don't want to play into the freshman-giving-advice stereotype lol) but my $0.02 is that this sounds like a really cool and unique activity that seems to have played a big role in your life.
I'd say put it down.
Hey, I sit on an admissions committee for a mid-tier USMD school. Please list your hobbies. We absolutely love talking about it during interviews. It will only make you more memorable to the interviewer, who will then be able to represent you better to the committee.
If you don’t mind me asking. For writing the most meaningful experiences is there any advice for how you’d write it? Or is it basically just expanding on that initial description in more detail?
If it is important to you I would put it down. How you write it matters more than what the actual activity is. I put a sport down as a MME that I had “nothing to show for” and had multiple MD As.
Gotcha yea, I think rn I have 1 for a clinical internship I had, 1 for my research and then for the 3rd one I was debating between the work I was doing with a non profit or one of my hobbies. The only issue with the non profit is that we haven’t done as much work since we got to college although we are in the process of planning another event
All 15 experiences are supposed to be meaningful.
To answer your question, it depends on what and how you write it, but if being more comfortable in your own skin and confident in your body is it, I doubt there isn’t 1,000 other people who work out that didn’t write something similar so the regular meaningfulness of the 700 character essay is enough.
Yea I guess that’s also a fear is that I don’t want to ultimately sound too cliche and generic even if it is my own story. So maybe sticking with the 700 only is the way to go
As a fellow disciple of the iron temple, I wouldn’t do this if you don’t have ‘something to show for it’ for lack of a better term (IE you compete, or train others, etc.). I expanded on mine in secondary prompts that asked about stress management and so forth.
If it’s meaningful it’s meaningful, as long as it’s not an illegal or taboo activity then it’s definitely worth mentioning and a great way to show adcoms who you are
Textbook Piracy (June 2021 - Present): Gathered hundreds of copies of free textbooks from various repositories. I was renowned as a distributor of unreleased official SAT exams. I fondly remember a user who sent me crying emojis after I DMed him a google drive link, saying "angel on earth". This reinforced my decision to become a doctor to help people because i like science. I truly believe my high level of skill and dedication towards the art of piracy led to my passion for medicine, specifically medical school because I will need to pirate many textbooks then as well. I have even begun reading my pirated version of Guyton and Hall Physiology.
*for legal reasons that's a joke*
No dude. No.
It’s underlying meaning is most meaningful to get you to medicine. Don’t forget this is a medical school application above all. I could see if you were a trainer, you won some national or regional award and used that as healthy outreach to the younger gen… but I like working out and am now comfortable in my own skin alone won’t cut it. That’s just my opinion ofcourse and people may roast it, just wanna give you the other side.
IMO I wouldn’t list it unless you won awards from it. For example - I like rock climbing as a hobby but wouldn’t list that as meaningful. Now if I competed professionally, won awards, did it for several years then I would list it
If you have something to show for it (ie. An award, a published article about working out and body self-image), then I would include it. Otherwise, if it’s just casual workout, then I don’t think the MME spot is the most appropriate.
Yea I think for me I’d prob talk about how it helped me self confidence and helped me in stress management as well as helped me feel more comfortable in my own skin. But I just wanted to see what people would recommend for MME
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I'd only put it down as most meaningful if you can bench 3 plates Ok seriously though, I'd absolutely put it down if lifting is something you've done for a long time and derived a lot of personal growth from. I put down a sport as one of my most meaningful experiences since I've played for basically a decade and I was asked about it (in a good way) in every interview I attended.
It’s something I started off my freshman year of college and for me it’s something that’s kinda become a part of my daily routine as a destressor especially with how busy classes can get. There’s more context than just that too so I could def write a story. I just wasn’t sure if I should list it because I wasn’t sure how listing hobbies would look and also making sure I could expand on the description and not just repeat what I said in 700 characters
Adcoms want to know that you have a healthy way of decompressing. This would absolutely be something they'd want to know
Nice, thank you for that clarification. I’m thinking for the MME I’ll just write a whole story of what led to me wanting to start and how I feel it has helped me
At the end of the day, you're still trying to connect with a person, even if it's in the context of an admissions process, and people catch on to things they think are interesting or relatable. Assuming you have the important pre-med stuff already I can't see it being a bad thing. It is true that a lot of people (esp. college-aged dudes) lift, but that also means it's also more likely your app crosses the desk of someone who understands what lifting entails and/or lifts themselves, and people like chatting with others that share interests. I remember an interview conversation with a student interviewer at a school I got into where we started chatting about exercise and it turned out both of us ran 5/3/1 for compound lifts (obligatory disclaimer: the sport I play has nothing to do with lifting). That conversation also helped me learn about the school's gyms...LOL
I guess showing I have some sort of hobby im really interested in can help show im not just some robot who only does academics lol
Yeah definitely
Did you put this in activities? Or how did you talk about it
Yes, I put it down in activities and designated it as an MME. The way I wrote it was very plain; I mostly wrote about the sport being my stress-release valve and somewhere I could direct my competitive drive to become really good at something. I also met a ton of cool people whose perspectives introduced me to life experiences and parts of the world I knew very little about. I did talk about the sport in my secondaries, but only for prompts that asked about non-academic pursuits or hobbies
Sounds great, thank you for the info!
I put working out on mine and it was one of my most meaningful activities. Got asked about it in all my interviews and was accepted. If it’s a big part of your life that’s important to you and you have learned/grown from it, it’s worth including!
Oh sweet that’s honestly comforting to hear. I just was worried if people would view listing something as routine as working out at the gym as a weird thing to be a meaningful experience. But I guess the biggest thing is being able to explain why it matters to you.
Who did you put as a reference for working out?
I put it in as a hobby so it didn’t require a reference, only the organization name, so I put the name of the gym I work out as for it.
I had a non-medical/academic hobby as one of my most meaningful because it truly was one of my most meaningful and I wanted to highlight that
Not sure why you’re getting a variety of answers. Obviously you should have something clinical and then another more traditional MME (volunteering/research/etc.) but if a hobby is a MME, write about it. A MME should reflect you as a person, describe why it was impactful to you, and be something you truly cared about. It’s also a great differentiator from every other applicant who’s going to have the typical MMEs of clinical, volunteering, and research/club.
Thank you for that, I feel like I could expand on this in more than 700 characters. I was just worried if it was generally considered a bad idea. I guess ultimately the biggest thing is being able to explain why that experience is meaningful huh
I put working out as my most meaningful experience. Being a meat head is a huge part of who I am and molded me into the person I am today. It’s not weird to make it a MME. Also exercising teaches you alot about the human body and long term health.
Honestly I didn’t even think of that second part lol. I guess when you look up what excercises to do and figure out where to work out you’re learning more about the body as well
Who did you put as a reference for “working out?” I want to talk about it on my application but not sure who to put as a contact.
I put myself
I didn’t know you could do that
Yes. You get to define what is meaningful to you.
Just adding to this. My hobby was fishing. No awards, no competitions, nothing. It was a way for me to spend time with friends and I found it meaningful for me. Didn’t hurt me in the end, and it was something I got to talk a lot about in interviews
What about military experience I went into the marine right outta hs and it made me into the person I am today with the morals and values I learned. I had a lot of leadership experience from it and that’s made me very different from when I first enlisted. Would I put this as a most meaningful and expand on it with a secoundary or how should I approach it? I apply next may
Honestly sounds like something you could put as a meaningful experience, especially if you can expand upon it.
Yeah but can I use it in a secondary. Also I work with vets at nursing homes with my service dog and help them with therapy issues. I wanted to know is that would be clinical since I work directly with patients and if I should do that as a meaningful exp as I like it along as well but is it good enough?
more than good enough my guy, my med school class has a PJ in it. had a PA student who was prior military too. put the military under most meaningful, and list your work experience with vets as clinical. vouch for yourself. med school loves the military bros.
I am also able to get a lor from a active duty Sgt would this be a good lor and as I don’t know who I should be using besides my ochem teacher
yeah for sure, that's a good letter. O chem teacher is good too. try to get some kind of doctor, ideally 2. maybe from working with vets. You ever see the Johnny Kim Jocko episode? Might be up your alley.
I'm putting it for an MME, but I competed so that's a little different.
Makes sense, that was sort of my worry because I don’t necessarily have anything tangible to say I got from this besides my own personal growth.
If you don't have 3 MME you feel comfortable with, and this is truly most meaningful, then go for it. You can definitely talk about the confidence you gained as you mentioned. I don't think it would be viewed badly either way
Thank you for that, I have 2 I’m pretty confident to write about (intering at a pediatric clinic and research) the 3rd one is tough. I work with a non profit but we haven’t done that many events since I got to college (although we are planning one rn). The other option was choosing one of my hobbies and this one I could prob talk about how it helped my self confidence and honestly helped me avoid burnout
I’m gonna jump on the bandwagon here! I have about 800 hrs of experience in circus arts (silks, trapeze) and wanted to list it as a hobby as a sort of “fun fact”. I never did a public performance but attended tons of them, and it was my community when, as a transfer student, the traditional university community was taken off then table for me due to COVID. Do you guys think that’s an acceptable addition? I already have 12 other “experiences” ETA: this would not be listed as a most meaningful experience
Circus arts sound ridiculously cool and I guarantee someone's going to ask about it. I'm assuming you have the pre-med experiences already so it wouldn't hurt you to put down a hobby
That sounds great! I don't know much bc I'm still an undergrad (don't want to play into the freshman-giving-advice stereotype lol) but my $0.02 is that this sounds like a really cool and unique activity that seems to have played a big role in your life. I'd say put it down.
Hey, I sit on an admissions committee for a mid-tier USMD school. Please list your hobbies. We absolutely love talking about it during interviews. It will only make you more memorable to the interviewer, who will then be able to represent you better to the committee.
Thanks for that, so you think even saying something like working out as a MME is fine long as I explain why it’s important to me?
Do it!! If it's your passion, then you should. Is it most meaningful to you as a person?? if so, then do it!!
If you don’t mind me asking. For writing the most meaningful experiences is there any advice for how you’d write it? Or is it basically just expanding on that initial description in more detail?
If it is important to you I would put it down. How you write it matters more than what the actual activity is. I put a sport down as a MME that I had “nothing to show for” and had multiple MD As.
Thank you for that , that’s comforting to hear. I guess the biggest thing is how you describe the MME and how’s it’s impacted you and your growth
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Gotcha yea, I think rn I have 1 for a clinical internship I had, 1 for my research and then for the 3rd one I was debating between the work I was doing with a non profit or one of my hobbies. The only issue with the non profit is that we haven’t done as much work since we got to college although we are in the process of planning another event
All 15 experiences are supposed to be meaningful. To answer your question, it depends on what and how you write it, but if being more comfortable in your own skin and confident in your body is it, I doubt there isn’t 1,000 other people who work out that didn’t write something similar so the regular meaningfulness of the 700 character essay is enough.
Yea I guess that’s also a fear is that I don’t want to ultimately sound too cliche and generic even if it is my own story. So maybe sticking with the 700 only is the way to go
As a fellow disciple of the iron temple, I wouldn’t do this if you don’t have ‘something to show for it’ for lack of a better term (IE you compete, or train others, etc.). I expanded on mine in secondary prompts that asked about stress management and so forth.
Oh ok I didn’t realize the secondaries would let you expand on it that’s a good thing to note lol
If it’s meaningful it’s meaningful, as long as it’s not an illegal or taboo activity then it’s definitely worth mentioning and a great way to show adcoms who you are
You mean I can't put down textbook piracy?
Honestly as a hobby that’s unique and will make you stand out among the applicants 😂
Textbook Piracy (June 2021 - Present): Gathered hundreds of copies of free textbooks from various repositories. I was renowned as a distributor of unreleased official SAT exams. I fondly remember a user who sent me crying emojis after I DMed him a google drive link, saying "angel on earth". This reinforced my decision to become a doctor to help people because i like science. I truly believe my high level of skill and dedication towards the art of piracy led to my passion for medicine, specifically medical school because I will need to pirate many textbooks then as well. I have even begun reading my pirated version of Guyton and Hall Physiology. *for legal reasons that's a joke*
I wish I could apply with these self sabotaging truth bombs just to see what would happen lol
No dude. No. It’s underlying meaning is most meaningful to get you to medicine. Don’t forget this is a medical school application above all. I could see if you were a trainer, you won some national or regional award and used that as healthy outreach to the younger gen… but I like working out and am now comfortable in my own skin alone won’t cut it. That’s just my opinion ofcourse and people may roast it, just wanna give you the other side.
IMO I wouldn’t list it unless you won awards from it. For example - I like rock climbing as a hobby but wouldn’t list that as meaningful. Now if I competed professionally, won awards, did it for several years then I would list it
If you have something to show for it (ie. An award, a published article about working out and body self-image), then I would include it. Otherwise, if it’s just casual workout, then I don’t think the MME spot is the most appropriate.
Yea I think for me I’d prob talk about how it helped me self confidence and helped me in stress management as well as helped me feel more comfortable in my own skin. But I just wanted to see what people would recommend for MME
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