UMKC 6-Year B.A./M.D. Admissions Process: The Application
Just as the structure of the UMKC 6-Year B.A./M.D. is unique, it’s admissions process is as well! In this series of posts, I am going to explain the timeline from start to finish in a way that might provide more firsthand insight than their website provides. Remember, this is my personal experience with admissions and some people may have had different circumstances! This post is going to be about the application process and what to expect along the way.
Applications
GENERAL ADMISSIONS
First things first, you must complete UMKC’s General Application for Admission. IMPORTANT: You cannot provide a submission through the Common Application (Common App) as the deadlines are different for the program. After visiting the website and creating & completing a general application, you will need to submit transcripts and standardized test scores (if applicable). Once that is done, you are ready to move on to the supplemental application specific to the program.
UMKC B.A./M.D. SUPPLEMENTAL APPLICATION
There are 9 sections to the supplemental application: personal information, background information, education information, statement of student responsibility, technical standards, personal statement, high school/college activities, health experiences, and recommendation provider.
Personal Information, Background Information, Education Information
These sections are pretty straightforward as they are addressing your personal demographics and accessory information about yourself.
Statement of Student Responsibility & Technical Standards
These components only require reading and understanding some basic information regarding your responsibilities as an applicant and prospective student in the program. You will electronically sign for this.
Personal Statement
DISCLAIMER: Because I’m not entirely sure about the confidentiality of the application, I don’t want to give away any information or advice that the School of Medicine might not want to be public information; however, I can share my thoughts on information they have made public themselves.
This is the essay portion of the application. There is a “long essay” prompt and a few short essay prompts thereafter. The long essay prompt is as follows: “What motivates you to pursue a career in medicine?” and “What would you like the UMKC School of Medicine to know about you that isn’t available in other parts of the application?” Here is my advice to prospective students to keep in mind when composing your answers: be authentic. Medical schools have heard the typical “I want to help people,” or “people in my family are in the healthcare field.” While these are good beginnings, I urge you to think deeper. WHY do you want to help people? At what point in your life did you decide that medical school (specifically) was the correct path for you to do just that; in other words, why not education, law, nursing, etc.? For me, these questions went hand-in-hand. I wrote about two important people in my life who passed away: my father who was a physician and my grandpa who was a WWII veteran in the Medical Corps. I’d like to elaborate on this more in a separate post, but as it relates to the essay I want to give some context. Those two people, primarily my dad, are my reasons “why.” Knowing your “why” is extremely important not only in the application process but for perseverance thereafter. In my opinion, the prompt is asking you what is fueling you more than what sparked your interest. With that being said, the second half of the essay is allowing you to explain what sets you apart from other applicants as it relates to your motivations to pursue medicine. I think this is one of the most critical components of the application as it gives you the ability to communicate directly to the Council on Admissions about who you are. I strongly advise you to take full advantage of the 500 words they allow for this.
There will be a few additional short essay responses to further investigate your personal experiences and attributes that correlate with the values of the program. Because the short answer prompts are not public, I won’t share mine but I will offer the same advice: be authentic!! They aren’t looking for “right answers,” but rather responses that will tell them who you are and why you are different.
High School / College Activities
The application will allow you to list up to ten activities relating to your involvement with your school, community, and work experience. They will ask you to provide a short description of your personal experience with each activity and hours devoted to it (if applicable). They urge you to provide the experiences that you feel best represents your leadership and involvements as you are limited to 10 activities; however, it is not a requirement that you provide 10 so don’t freak out if you can’t come up with ten. I only had 9! But I strongly recommend that you provide AT LEAST 8 (this is my own opinion, NOT an official recommendation made by the School of Medicine).
To offer a few examples, I talked about athletics, jobs I have worked, and awards I received. Use this section to demonstrate leadership and involvement with your community. I think it is important to show that you are a person outside of your grades and all the really hard classes that you have taken. They are looking for experiences that demonstrate your ability to become a well-rounded physician.
Health Experiences
The School of Medicine describes this section as your opportunity to provide explanations toward your investigations of the medical field and involvement with healthcare. In other words, they want to know how you know this is what you want to do! This is where you list shadowing experiences, health programs, research, etc. Again, it allows up to 10 entries but you don’t have to provide 10. For this section, I provided 7. While it seems lacking, the experiences I provided had substantial weight to them so do with that information what you will. Allow me to put it like this: it is ideal to have more experiences listed, but the lower amount of experiences should be offset with the significance of those listed. For example, I decided that 90 hours of shadowing at that time along with an ED internship would be notable experiences that would allow for a good balance in this part of the application. Ultimately, it is up to your discretion.
The admissions process is holistic and the Council on Selection looks at much more than individual sections of the application. If you feel that you are behind in experience, my best advice would be to list everything you have done to show interest in the field and come up with a meaningful description of the activities and your involvement with them!
Recommendation Provider
You are required to have 3-5 individuals submit a recommendation forms on your behalf in order to complete the application process. These individuals can be anyone who is not family or friends that can speak to your academic performance and personal character in regards your status as a prospective medical student. You will provide contact information for these individuals, submit that, and then they will recieve an e-mail containing the recommendation form to complete.
I think that it is imperative you choose these individuals wisely and make sure that you have established a relationship that will allow them to be able to speak highly of you. It is also important that you communicate with these people weeks before prior to listing them as a recommendation provider! Ask for their permission to list their contact information and if they are willing to submit the form at all. It will look bad on you if they receive a random medical school recommendation form with no context.
After you have your providers that agreed to submit a recommendation, give them time to fill it out but don’t be afraid to follow up if they haven’t submitted their form in a reasonable amount of time. The applications open in August and are due November 1st. I recommend finding your providers at least a month prior to the deadline, allowing 2-3 weeks for them to fill it out, and if they haven’t submitted anything a week before the deadline then you should reach out to them once more. For this reason, I do recommend having 5 people to list in case 1 (or 2, worst case scenario) of them fail to submit it for whatever reason.
For my recommendation providers, I listed the following people: a physician who mentored me, my club volleyball coach, a supervisor from one of my jobs, my high school English teacher, and a nurse who coordinated my internship. This is a great variety of people who can each speak to different, unique aspects of my academic abilities and personal attributes that contribute to my aptitude to become a physician. The most important thing to keep in mind when choosing your providers is selecting those who can offer distinct, yet compatible, perspectives about who YOU are.
I want to point out something that almost jeopardized my application entirely but first, let me give some context. I decided to re-apply to the program very last minute (Literally like October 20th, I absolutely do not recommend starting this late; learn from my mistakes!) but luckily I had a good enough relationship with these individuals that I was sure they would agree and submit the form by the deadline. On the day of the deadline, November 1st, I saw that none of them had submitted it and I couldn’t even begin to describe the panic I was in. I reached out to all of them and told them the deadline was that night at 11:59PM, they all said they hadn’t received an e-mail. I was confused because the application website said that they did. It turns out, the forms were sent to all of their junk folders. Luckily, they came through and completed the forms that day but I wanted to tell this story as a warning to you and to advise you to tell your providers to check their spam boxes!! This almost cost me everything. Details matter!
After you have completed this long, meticulous application you are now ready to submit it to the School of Medicine and cross your fingers. You won’t hear a decision about being offered an interview until January. Congratulations!! You have officially entered yourself in the race and your journey begins here. 🙂
The next post in this series is my advice regarding the Multiple Mini Interview process (MMI), which is the mode of interview the UMKC School of Medicine uses for the 6-Year B.A./M.D. program. Find that post here:
