Dr. Rachel Rizal and Dr. Rishi Mediratta, your Cracking Med School Admissions application advisors, have literally read tens of thousands of AMCAS Work and Activities descriptions. We strategize new ways to help our students stand out on their AMCAS Activities section each year. We update this “AMCAS Work and Activities Examples” blog post several times a cycle so that you have the latest, high-yield tips. Read all our tips to write an outstanding medical school application below. Learn from several AMCAS work and activities examples from successful applicants!
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Last Update May 2024
Learn how to write excellent AMCAS work and activities descriptions:
Need help with your AMCAS primary application, including the AMCAS activity section? Send us a question below. We can help you shine on your medical school primary applications, secondary essays, and interviews!
On the AMCAS application, one of the major sections is the AMCAS Activities section. You have space to fill up to 15 work and activities entries. For each activities entry, you can identify which category best describes your experience, and you have 700 characters to describe the activities, known as the “activity description.” Additionally, you can designate three of your activities as your most meaningful experiences. For these 3 most meaningful activities, you have an additional 1325 characters to write why this activity is meaningful to you. We have an entire blog post dedicated on how to write your AMCAS most meaningful experiences.
An AMCAS activity description contains several pieces of information, including demographic information and descriptive information.
The experience description on the AMCAS is where students can really shine and stand out among thousands of applications. It is absolutely critical that you try to optimize the 700 characters allotted. When you look at the AMCAS example below, you’ll see the various elements of a good AMCAS activity description.
Look at the AMCAS activity description example below to see what an AMCAS activity description looks like to an admission committee application reviewer!
This is what an AMCAS activities section description looks like filled out
Elements of an AMCAS description:
Your 15 AMCAS activity entries need to complement each other. In some, you may highlight your clinical knowledge. In others, you may talk more about your research and analytical skills. Here are elements you can incorporate into your AMCAS work and activities descriptions.
As you can see, you can write a lot in 700 characters! It is definitely an art to bring together a solid AMCAS activity section.
You can put up to 15 activities on your AMCAS application. No, that does not mean you had to be involved with 15 school activities. AMCAS activities include: gap year activities, including gap year jobs and gap year volunteering; summer internships and other summer opportunities; part-time work experiences; and other special talents you possess.
FAQ: How Many Activities Should I Put on AMCAS?
Our Cracking Med School Admissions team only wants you to stand out. So, we will only advise you to submit strong applications. From our experience as admissions readers and medical school admissions experts, we see that strong applicants write 13 or more AMCAS activity entries on their AMCAS applications.
Med school applicants can add different date ranges for when they were involved in an activity. For example, if you did an activity two different summers in college, you may have dates ranging 06/2022 – 08/2022 and 06/2023 – 08/2023, and include the hours for each period.
AMCAS also differentiates between completed hours – for activities that you have already participated in – versus anticipated hours – for anticipated activities.
There’s an entire strategy as to whether you should split your hours into numerous date ranges or put it as one continuous date. In general, we recommend that our students split their activities into different date ranges when applicable.
FAQ: What should you do if you are expecting to do the activity this upcoming year?
If you are doing this activity only in the next year, then you would put one date range, with the end date as the last month you expect to do that activity. For example, you would put the experience date range like 07/2024 – 05/2025 (# of expected future hours).”
FAQ: What should you do if you are expecting to do the activity this upcoming year AND you have already started the activity?
But what if you have already been doing the activity? In this case, we want to showcase the amount of time and dedication you have already done the activity and the amount of work that you will continue to do for the experience. Therefore, our team recommends putting two date ranges: the past and the future. For example, you would put something like 09/2022 – 05/2023 (# of past hours) AND 07/2024 – 05/2025 (# of expected future hours).
FAQ: Should you even include an anticipated activity? In general, medical school admissions committee members know that plans change. In general, Drs. Rachel Rizal and Rishi Mediratta do not think you should prioritize writing about an anticipated activity (or anticipated activities). There are some exceptions:
Contact us or email us at info@crackingmedadmissions.com if you have questions about your AMCAS activity hours! We’re master AMCAS activities strategists and we’ll help your AMCAS activities stand out to the medical school admissions committees!
