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Listing High School Under Abs Formal Education


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The instructions are to list activities that you feel have prepared you for medicine. High school was a formative time in my life. I have several meaningful ABS entries from my high school period. Therefore, I included high school. I don't think it is filler. 

 

To offer a counter-argument to Math's point, if you've done a Masters' its assumed you successfully completed undergraduate. Does that mean you don't include undergraduate? 

Either way, I don't think it is a critical decision. 

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It's not filler in my opinion, so you might as well include it if you have enough room on your sketch

 

Edit: Let me rephrase this... It's not padding

 

I mean, let's look at this from the perspective of admissions. Are they going to look down on an applicant because they put their high school education on their ABS? I think it should be pretty obvious that they won't. In fact, I personally think it's a good idea to include it, since it lets them know the region where your school was. This can be useful when looking at the geographical location of everything else on the sketch (ie. if it's near your unviersity or your home town)

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To offer a counter-argument to Math's point, if you've done a Masters' its assumed you successfully completed undergraduate. Does that mean you don't include undergraduate? 

 

 

Yes you've completed an undergrad, but in what? Was it a three year or honours option? Thesis based? Co-op? In a related or unrelated field? Did you do two or more?

 

High school on the other hand is just...high school. Though to be fair, you could have done regular day school, adult ed, night school etc. I'm just not sure what that would contribute to your sketch.

 

 

I mean, let's look at this from the perspective of admissions. Are they going to look down on an applicant because they put their high school education on their ABS? I think it should be pretty obvious that they won't. In fact, I personally think it's a good idea to include it, since it lets them know the region where your school was. This can be useful when looking at the geographical location of everything else on the sketch (ie. if it's near your unviersity or your home town)

 

 

This is a fair point for an application to somewhere like NOSM I suppose. However I have already listed the postal code of where I spent most of my formative years elsewhere on the application, I think it was mandatory.

 

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EDIT: One additional complication is that everything in your "Formal Education" section should be verified by your transcript(s)...but I'm not submitting a high school transcript, nor do my university ones make mention of where I went to school prior to that. How would you propose something like that be verified? (Honest question)

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Sorry to say, in fact, high school is not all the same. At least in Ottawa, for English public high schools:

 

1. Colonel By Secondary School runs IB program

2. Canterbury High School runs Arts program

3. Lisgar Collegiate Institute runs Gifted program

4. Glebe Collegiate Institute runs Bilingual Gifted program

5. Some schools run French Immersion program

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Actually this reminds me, I was in the gifted stream at my high school. But right now I don't have space to include high school. I can possibly take out Dean's honour list (80%+ average in undergrad) since pretty much everyone applying will have it? 

 

I think you should reconsider that - listing the gifted stream is great, but try to remove something besides another award if at all possible.

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Then in the event you're from a special program you should list that... But if you have a regular vanilla OSSD (as it sounds the OP does) then I still don't think there's a point.

 

Perhaps there isn't a point, but all I'm saying is that it's definitely not filler/padding. Nobody cares whether it's included or not included, but you might as well just throw it in there if you have the room

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EDIT: One additional complication is that everything in your "Formal Education" section should be verified by your transcript(s)...but I'm not submitting a high school transcript, nor do my university ones make mention of where I went to school prior to that. How would you propose something like that be verified? (Honest question)

 

Wait a sec, does it say this somewhere in the guide? I thought "Formal Education" is any type of education you've recieved, so I was planning on putting stuff like band and piano in that category. Would it be better to put those under "Extracurricular"?

 

Also, for anyone who did a research based thesis, did you include that as a separate "Research" entry, or just left it as part of your university "Formal Education" one?

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I'm not 100% sure at the moment if it said that in the guide or on the app itself (I've now submitted and can no longer check) but in either case I don't think band/piano would classify as formal education, unless you took an undergraduate program in Music. They're better suited as ECs or Awards/Accomplishments (depending on what exactly you write about them).

 

I did a research based thesis. I put my M.Sc. under Formal Education, and the thesis itself under Research.

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I'm not 100% sure at the moment if it said that in the guide or on the app itself (I've now submitted and can no longer check) but in either case I don't think band/piano would classify as formal education, unless you took an undergraduate program in Music. They're better suited as ECs or Awards/Accomplishments (depending on what exactly you write about them).

 

I did a research based thesis. I put my M.Sc. under Formal Education, and the thesis itself under Research.

 

Thanks. I was confused last year and put them under education since I did them in high school, but I think it does make a bit more sense to put them elsewhere. You didn't list your UG degree at all then?

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Thanks. I was confused last year and put them under education since I did them in high school, but I think it does make a bit more sense to put them elsewhere. You didn't list your UG degree at all then?

 

 I did, mine was in a non-traditional area, and I also have two of them. (Unfortunately, one of them doesn't count for boosting my GPA at all ): )

 

The degrees themselves went into Formal Education. I also included my Co-Op/practicum placements in Formal Education.

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