Personal Biography & Activities

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Activities cannot be edited after you submit your application. If anything changes, keep a log of these changes to share with the schools during your interviews.

 

 Activities

There is no limit to the amount of activities you can enter.

• Dental and Medical Applicants: enter all activities you've engaged in since you've graduated from high school (or received a high school diploma equivalent).
• Veterinary Applicants: you may include activities you were engaged in prior to graduating from high school.

Entering Your Activities

Each activity should only listed in one section of the Personal Biography section of the application. The only exceptions are:

• Healthcare and Employment: An activity may be listed in both categories if the experience was a paid position and fits under BOTH Healthcare and Employment.
• Leadership: Any activity that results in a leadership role may be entered in both categories.

 

You know your activities best, so use your best judgment in selecting which category corresponds to your activities based on what you would like to highlight from each activity.

Resources for entering your activities.

The Anatomy of an Applicant from the AAMC shows how activities reflect the core competencies. See a sample set of activities and how you might enter them in your application. Advisors/Pre-Dent/Pre-Health Experiences/Pre-Med/Pre-Vet/TMDSAS Categorizing Your Activities in the TMDSAS Application TMDSAS asks that each of your activities be entered in one category - here's how to do that.

 

NOTE: Unlike other application services, you do not need to enter the contact information in the activity descriptions.

 

Bring your questions to our weekly TMDSAS Office Hours sessions. Tune in live every Monday at 1 pm CT. Watch recordings of previous sessions.

 

Academic Recognition

List academic honors, awards, and other recognitions received since graduating from high school. (Veterinary applicants should list academic recognitions since beginning high school.)

• Indicate the award title, date received, city, country, state, and a brief description of the award (300 character limit). Click on [Submit] to save the record. Additional records can be added by clicking the [Add an Award] link.

 

Non-Academic Recognition

List non-academic honors, awards, and other recognitions received since graduating from high school. (Veterinary applicants should list non-academic recognition since beginning high school.)

• Indicate the award title, date received, city, country, state, and a brief description of the award (300 character limit). Click on [Submit] to save the record. Additional records can be added by clicking the [Add an Award] link.

 

Leadership

List any leadership roles or positions of responsibility held since graduating from high school. (Veterinary applicants should list activities since beginning high school.) Examples may include leadership roles in clubs/organizations, supervisory roles, etc. In the absence of these roles, you may list leadership qualities you have learned from other opportunities.

• Indicate the role title, start date, end date, city, country, state, and a brief description of the position (300 character limit). Click on [Submit] to save the record.
• Additional records can be added by clicking the [Add a Leadership Role] link.

 

Employment

List all jobs (paid work experience) held since graduating from high school, including military Paid healthcare activities may be listed here in addition to the healthcare activities section.

• Indicate the employer, job title, when the job was held, start date, end date, city, hours worked per week, country, state, and a brief description of the job (300 character limit). Click on [Submit] to save the record.
• If you held a job every summer, enter each time period as a separate record.
• Additionally, if you held this job for consecutive terms, select “Other” for the question “When did you hold this job?” You will be able to provide more details if you wish.
• Additional records can be added by clicking the [Add an Employment Activity] link.

Veterinary Applicants: Do not include any experience that you listed in Veterinary, Animal, or Research experience. This should be non-animal care employment. Employment activities since beginning high school may be listed here.

 

Research Activities

List any significant research activities (paid or volunteer) you have participated in since graduating high school. (Veterinary applicants should list activities since beginning high school.)

• Include any publications (submitted as well as published), abstracts, presentations, and posters.
• Indicate the research activity name, start date, end date, city, approximate hours worked per week, total cumulative hours, country, state, and a brief description of the research (300 character limit). Click on [Submit] to save the record.
• If research culminated in any publications, abstracts, presentations, or posters, you will have the opportunity to provide details. (500 character limit)
• Additional records can be added by clicking the [Add a Research Activity] link.

 

Healthcare Activities

List all direct healthcare-related activities you have participated in since graduating high school. For example, these may include: shadowing, scribing, clinical research, serving or working as a patient care tech, a nurse, and any direct observation or participation in patient care in a clinic, hospital, or with a physician or dentist.

• Reminder: both paid and unpaid healthcare activities can be listed here.
• Multiple doctors, same location: If you shadowed multiple doctors at the same location DO NOT create multiple entries – instead, create ONE entry per location and list each doctor in the description. If each doctor you shadowed had a different specialty, you may make a separate entry per specialty.
• Indicate the activity name, start date, end date, city, hours worked per week, total cumulative hours, country, state, and a brief description of the activity (300 character limit). Click on [Submit] to save the record.
• Additional records can be added by clicking the [Add a Healthcare Activity] link.

Veterinary Applicants: Include only human healthcare-related activities. You may list activities since beginning high school.

How healthcare activities have shifted due to COVID-19 impacts: In Episode 64 of the Inside Health Education Podcast, we share advice from TMDSAS schools about how to adjust and find opportunities to keep you moving forward with your preparation.

 

Veterinary Supervised Experience (Veterinary Only)

List all experiences where >50% of your time was spent interacting with, or under the direct supervision of, a Qualifying employment goes here.

• Veterinary experiences should relate to veterinary clinical, agribusiness, or health science experiences that you have had with veterinarians. Include all relevant experiences, whether voluntary, paid, or academic experiences.
• The experiences reported in this section should be different from those entered for Animal and Employment experience. Experiences gained in high school may be included. DO NOT include future expected hours of experience.
• Indicate the activity name, whether it is volunteer experience or paid experience, location, veterinarian name, start date, end date, city, total cumulative hours worked, country, state, and a brief description of the experience (300 character limit). Click on [Submit] to save the record.
• Additional records can be added by clicking the [Add a Veterinary Supervised Activity] link.

 

Animal Experience (Veterinary Only)

List any animal experiences not supervised by a veterinarian, or any other general animal experiences.

•  Include all relevant experiences, whether they are voluntary, paid, or academic experiences.
• Only 100 hours of pet ownership per species (with a maximum of 2 species) will count towards overall animal experience.
• Include farm and ranch experiences, 4-H membership, animal training, agility, working in a boarding kennel or other similar activities, and only if NOT under the supervision of a veterinarian.
• The experiences you report in this section should be different from those entered for Veterinary and Employment experience. Experiences gained in high school may be included. DO NOT include future hours.
• Indicate the activity name, whether it is volunteer experience or paid experience, location, supervisor name, start date, end date, city, total cumulative hours worked, country, state, and a brief description of the experience (300 character limit). Click on [Submit] to save the record.
• Additional records can be added by clicking the [Add an Animal Experience Activity] link.

 

Community Service

List any non-healthcare-related community service or volunteer activities you have participated in since graduating from high school. (Veterinary applicants should list activities since beginning high school.)

• Indicate the activity name, start date, end date, city, approximate hours per week, total cumulative hours, country, state, and a brief description of the activity (300 character limit.) Click on [Submit] to save the record.
• Additional records can be added by clicking the [Add a Community Service Activity] link.

 

Extracurricular Activities

List any significant extracurricular, leisure activities, or hobbies you have participated in since graduating from high school. (Veterinary applicants should list activities since beginning high school.)

• Indicate the type of activity, start date, end date, city, approximate hours per month, total cumulative hours, country, state, and a brief description of the activity (300 character limit). Click on [Submit] to save the record.
• Additional records can be added by clicking the [Add an Extracurricular/Leisure Activity] link.

 

Top Meaningful Activities

Here you will talk about which of your previously listed activities (from each of the [Activities] sections) were most meaningful and why.

• You are required to identify the most meaningful activity and may list up to three total (500 character limit, each entry).
• Add an identifier so the schools know what activity you are referring to.
• These should only be activities that have been completed or are on-going. Do not include activities with a future start date.

 

Planned Activities

Indicate future activities you plan on participating in between the application deadline and matriculation (August 2023).

• This should include any future employment as well as any future research, healthcare, community service, or extracurricular activities.
• Indicate the Activity Type, start date, planned end date, city, total projected hours, country, state, and a brief description of the activity (300 characters). Click on [Submit] to save the record.
• Additional records can be added by clicking the [Add a Planned Activity] link. Do not include activities past the point of matriculation.
• Planned activities are just that - plans. If anything changes, you can maintain a log of activities to share with the schools during your interviews. 

During a special Inside Health Education Courage Session Q&A, we asked an advisor about preparing for the application and how, exactly, applicants should take away meaning from their activities. Tune in here!