Should I submit my research abstract?
I am applying to BU 7-year accelerated medical program, and on the common app it asks if I would like to submit any additional info, materials, and essays (I assume research abstracts are included) and I am having difficulty deciding if I should submit the abstract for my AP Capstone Research class. For those of you unfamiliar with the AP Capstone program, this class focuses on a year-long independent academic research paper on basically any subject of our choosing. I made a pretty sophisticated and compelling paper on how the concentration of an ethnic group in an area impacts the rates of depression among immigrants of the same ethnicity residing there. I also interviewed a focus group of immigrants in my community to investigate their sentiments on how welcomed or ostracized they felt moving here and how a feeling of belonging to a community here impacted that sentiment. I was awarded a 5, the highest grade so I would assume it's pretty solid. My only concern is that I don't know if it is "legit" enough for BU to consider seriously. This paper was overseen by my highschool teacher, not a college professor. It was peer-reviewed by my classmates, not by a board of professional researchers. It isn't published anywhere because my school's institutional review board would review my project in time, and it was not necessary in order to present a completed paper to the collegeboard. What should I do?
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3 answers
I’m applying to BU through the regular decision deadline, and I’ve noticed a lot of their dynamic opportunities through their view book: the accelerated medical program and the MMEDIC program in particular.
Though, I don’t believe anyone here could answer that question specifically. For me, I was going to submit “chapter 1” of a novel I was writing because, personally, I felt as though it was an important representation of my ambitions and academic goals.
It really comes down to “if you believe it is an accurate depiction of your interests of study?”
For a more complete answer, I suggest contacting your BU admissions counselor:
http://www.bu.edu/admissions/visit-us/staff/
Scroll down, click “read more” and scroll further till you see your state or territory of residency to find your admissions counselor—Good luck!!
So this is fairly iffy with no absolute answer. As a BSDM applicant or a similar program a project on demographics is not super clear (unless you focus on health on the research?) but as you didn’t seem to have it be medical related it’s a tossup. There are a lot of non-arts majors who submit a music portfolio and I’d say with certainty that the research is more impactful in admissions than music.
But you run into the question of relevance. As it would just be the research it’s not an EC as it was for a class also most AOs only have about 15-20 minutes per each application. And that time includes all of the essays transcripts extracurriculars et cetera. So because of that causing the supplemental materials to fall to the last thing to be reviewed, it may not be worth it. Personally, I’d email your Boston/Baylor (can’t tell which BU) admissions officer and ask if they would like to take a look or if they would evaluate it.
I’d submit it but definitely don’t count on it impacting your application all that much. I’d definitely submit it if you won a class award for like most unique research or something like that.
Hope this helps and please comment if you need clarification as I’d be happy to help clarify!
TLDR: Submit it but don’t count on it changing anything.
I’m applying to BU through the regular decision deadline, and I’ve noticed a lot of their dynamic opportunities through their view book: the accelerated medical program and the MMEDIC program in particular.
Though, I don’t believe anyone here could answer that question specifically. For me, I was going to submit “chapter 1” of a novel I was writing because, personally, I felt as though it was an important representation of my ambitions and academic goals.
It really comes down to “if you believe it is an accurate depiction of your interests of study?”
For a more complete answer, I suggest contacting your BU admissions counselor:
http://www.bu.edu/admissions/visit-us/staff/
Scroll down, click “read more” and scroll further till you see your state or territory of residency to find your admissions counselor—Good luck!!
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Don’t ask me why two of these were submitted, I don’t know what i did. Clone myself maybe? 😬