Applying to Medical School: the AMCAS Application and Personal Statement

Medical student applicants complete their AMCAS applications completely online at http://services.aamc.org. Upon completion of the application, the applicant designates the medical schools to which he or she wishes AMCAS to send his or her application. AMCAS charges the applicants based on the number of schools to which they intend to apply. AMCAS is divided into 5 broad categories:

1. Biographic information
This section allows the applicants to provide basic identifying information about themselves, parents or guardians, ethnicity, primary language, and reasons for which they should be considered for a disadvantaged status.

2. Post-secondary experiences
In this portion, the applicant provides detailed information about all employment, volunteer, clinical, research, teaching, leadership, or other extracurricular, civic, or military activities. They may also list any publications, honors and awards, important conferences they attended, and any artistic endeavors or hobbies. The AMCAS allows them to chronicle the duration of involvement in each activity, hours worked per week, pertinent reference contact information, and allots them 510 characters to discuss each activity or award. For a point of reference, this section contains 600 characters.

3. Essays
This document goes into more detail about these subsequently.

4. Academic performance
In addition to the applicant’s transcripts from each post-secondary institution that they attended, applicants must fill in each course they took and the grade they received in these courses. The AMCAS has some special formula of standardizing grades with which I am not familiar. The applicant’s yearly and cumulative science and overall GPAs are included in this section as well.

5. Schools attended
This section lists all of the academic institutions (high school, undergraduate, and graduate schools) that the applicant attended.

II. THE ESSAY

The Personal Statement
The instructions are as follows: "Use the space provided to add any personal comments to your application. The available space for your response is 5300 characters, or approximately one full page."

Some questions you might want to consider while drafting this essay are:

*Why have you selected the field of medicine?
*What motivates you to learn more about medicine?
* What do you want medical schools to know about you that hasn’t been disclosed in another part of the application?

In addition, you may wish to include information such as:

* Special hardships, challenges, or obstacles that may have influenced your educational pursuits.
* Commentary on significant fluctuations in your academic record which are not explained elsewhere in your application.

DOs
1. The application reviewer will have access to the client’s transcript, list of extracurricular activities and volunteer experiences, letters of recommendation, and description of any research and clinical endeavors in which he or she may have participated. Thus, their personal statement should focus on something unique about them that is not represented in these other portions of your application.

2. The MSPS should not be a prose form of the client’s CV. Many applicants often feel pressured to describe the clinical and research activities in which they have participated at the expense of introducing something distinctive into the statement. Only significant activities should enter the personal statement. The significance should not lie in the laudability of the activity itself, but rather the impact that the experience had on the applicant.

3. While all schools have a different type of individual who they wish to attract to their institution, clients should avoid coming across as the "typical pre-med." By this, I mean the undergraduate science major who has volunteered at a hospital or clinic, performed a bit of laboratory research (perhaps with a publication or two), and has known they wanted to be a doctor since age 7. Help your clients avoid portraying this all-too-common image and portray a more sophisticated, nuanced theme.

4. Some of the best personal statements mention very little, if anything, about medicine. The overall goal should be to paint multiple pictures of your clients in time such that the application reviewer can clearly see them, principles or experiences that have shaped them, and a clear direction into where their self development will continue to lead them.

III. SUMMARY
The MSPS is not a statement of purpose. Medical school applicants do not need to explain why they are qualified to be doctor in the MSPS at the expense of not showing how they are unique, well-balanced, accomplished individuals who can be distinguished from the "run of the mill" medical school applicant. If after editing their statement, you cannot read the essay and visualize a distinct individual who presents a part or parts of themselves that would make you want to interview them, you should spend more time on your revision or work with the client to construct a more personal essay.

Demetrius L. Dicks is a 4th year Stanford University medical student and active editor with EssayEdge.com which can help you with your Medical Personal Statement and Application essay needs


http://www.buzzle.com/articles/applying-to-medical-school-the-amcas-application-and-personal-statement.html

Choosing the Right College

Choosing the right college can be an overwhelming process, especially if you’re not sure where to start. You can read a hundred books, talk to dozens of people and surf the Net for possibilities, but if you don’t organize your priorities ahead of time, you may find it difficult to make a decision. Deciding what you are looking for in a college before hitting the books could save you frustration in the long run.

College is a big investment, both financially and personally. The last thing you want is to sign up for classes at a college you think is right for you, only to find that it wasn’t what you thought it would be. If this happens, you then have to go through the process of searching for the right college all over again, hoping that the credits you have earned thus far are transferable.

It’s true that even if you go through the process of carefully analyzing your priorities you may still find that the college you choose isn’t the right fit. But, at least if you take the time to consider important factors ahead of time you may significantly reduce the odds of this happening. So before you jump into your college search, take a few minutes to consider (at least) the following three important factors of choosing a college:

Cost
Cost is usually a big factor when choosing a college. Set a realistic budget for your college education, considering course fees, room and board, books and meal plans carefully. This will help narrow the list of colleges you consider, leaving you with a more manageable and less overwhelming list of colleges to choose from. If you plan to apply for financial aid, understand the terms of your loan and, if possible, the amount you are approved for before you begin your search.

Programs
If you already know what field you want to major in, the programs that a college offers will likely be a large factor in your decision. Depending on how broad your chosen major is, you will either have several colleges to choose from, or very few. Either way, with a major in mind your list of college choices will likely narrow, giving you a more manageable list to work from.

If you aren’t sure what field you would like to major in, but you do not want to delay your college education while you decide, you may want to consider choosing a college that offers a variety of programs. This way, when you decide on a major you might be able to continue studying at that college and not have to go through the process of changing schools. Another benefit to choosing a college with a variety of programs is that you can gain more exposure and insight into different fields than if you were to choose a college offering fewer programs. In this respect, choosing a college offering several different programs can be beneficial, especially for the undecided student.

Location
Next on the list of important things to consider when choosing a college is location. Are you looking for adventure at a college across the country or internationally? Would you like the freedom of going away to college while still being within driving distance of your hometown, or would you prefer attending a college in your hometown or surrounding area? Depending on your personality, location can make a huge difference in your college experience. It’s not just the distance from home that matters either; the environment of the college is equally important. If you enjoy the fast pace and multicultural uniqueness of a city, for example, then a college tucked away in a rural town may bore you, and vice versa. Since location plays a large role in your college experience as a whole, it is a good idea to take this into consideration when making your decision.

Once you have narrowed your list to a few potential colleges, it is always a good idea to pay them a visit. Get a feel for the atmosphere, speak to an admissions counselor and tour their facilities. It’s one thing to read about a college in a book, or to look at photos online, but it’s another to experience the college first hand. Taking the time to visit potential colleges will likely influence your final decision.

When it comes to choosing a college, cost, location and programs offered tend to be the top three deciding factors. Choosing the right college can be overwhelming and even a little intimidating. After all, your education is a big personal and financial commitment that has the potential to greatly influence your life. By taking the time to determine your priorities, you have the power to make this potentially overwhelming experience an exciting adventure.


http://www.buzzle.com/articles/choosing-the-right-college.html

Healthcare Training

Healthcare Careers: Search this directory for information about Healthcare Careers, and find the perfect campus or online degree program. Please request free information from as many schools as necessary to make the right decision for you - it is risk free and there is no obligation.

Healthcare Careers Healthcare careers are on the rise. Why? Nearly 80 million individuals born between 1946 and 1964 are causing a huge healthcare careers demographic shift in the United States. Some call it the aging of America. Let's face it - baby boomers are getting old.

And with old age usually comes an increase in health related issues. Add in the increased average life expectancy and you have an increasing need for healthcare, and an unprecedented need for healthcare professionals.

For people with healthcare training, great healthcare careers are available in many fields, including many that you can qualify for in a year or less. Gone are the days when you have to spend half your life in school to qualify for healthcare positions. Some possibilities:


http://www.educationcenteronline.org/Healthcare-Careers/index.html

Legal Careers - Careers in Law

Legal Careers: Search this directory for information about Legal Careers, and find the perfect campus or online degree program. Please request free information from as many schools as necessary to make the right decision for you - it is risk free and there is no obligation.

Legal Careers Today's successful law office includes more than a lawyer or two working litigation cases. Go behind the front desk and you'll discover a network of appointment secretaries, research aides, and paralegal professionals who work as a team to support briefs, motions, arguments, judgments and successful award settlements.

The legal system interacts with almost every level of our society, whether business or personal, and there are a wide range of legal careers within the profession.

Legal Careers: Choices
Lawyers, also called attorneys, act as both advocates and advisors in our society. As advocates, they represent one of the parties in criminal and civil trials by presenting evidence and arguing in court to support their client. As advisors, lawyers counsel their clients concerning their legal rights and obligations and suggest particular courses of action in business and personal matters. Whether acting as an advocate or an advisor, all attorneys research the intent of laws and judicial decisions and apply the law to the specific circumstances faced by their client.

Training for Legal Careers
Whether you're just beginning your way into the field of law or advancing an existing career, there are law schools, legal colleges and universities, and paralegal and legal assisting schools that can prepare you for the journey. Law school graduates earn the degree of juris doctor (J.D.) and pass a bar exam for the state in which they hope to practice.

Legal assistants or paralegals can earn trade certificates or associate and baccalaureate degrees that prepare them for top research work at law firms, government agencies, or corporate law departments. Legal secretaries can learn their trade at dedicated business schools with a law focus to prepare them in the filing of subpoenas, briefs, complaints, and summonses
Employment Outlook for Legal Careers

The trend in law practice today is for firms to rely more and more upon support services of assistants and paralegal professionals to take on research and preparation duties once handled exclusively by attorneys.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a great number of positions will open across the country in legal assisting fields over the next decade to support this trend. If you begin training now, you'll be ready when the jobs come open.


http://www.educationcenteronline.org/Legal-Careers/index.html

Trade Schools & Vocational Training Programs

Trade schools: Search this directory for information about Trade schools, and find the perfect campus or online degree program. Please request free information from as many schools as necessary to make the right decision for you - it is risk free and there is no obligation.

According to the dictionary, trade schools - also known as vocational schools - are secondary schools that teach the skilled trades. This day and age, a trade school can actually be a professional school specializing in one field, or a local community or vocational college where several disciplines in a variety of fields are taught.

In recent years trade schools, no matter the type, have proliferated. As competition for well-paying jobs sharpens, more and more workers are looking to vocational schools to buffer their resumes, and take a pro-active stance towards better guaranteeing good wages for the future.

Specifically, trade schools provide you with skills and job training that is on the cutting edge of technology. The idea is that completion of a good trade school program should allow you to jump right in to the specific career field of your choice.

Evaluating Trade Schools

There are several things to keep in mind when thinking about enrolling in a vocational school.

Is the school accredited? ACCST or the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology is recognized as the leader in accrediting these schools.

What is your expertise? Could some facet of your professional experience turn into a career you desire, when complemented with a vocational training program. For example, if you have experience as an administrative assistant, how about upping your profile to paralegal? Or if you're an auto mechanic, how about becoming a better-paid diesel mechanic?

Trade Schools: Is Vocational Training Right For You?

Be honest with yourself! What kind of learner are you? If you are quite disciplined, do you need to plunk down the cash for a vocational training program? Maybe you could teach yourself, then get certified in your target field of choice.

Conversely, if your life is already frantically busy, are you sure you have the time and energy available to adequately devote yourself to a vocational training program?

But if the will and ability is there, attending one of the following trade schools is a great way to get ahead.

http://www.educationcenteronline.org/Trade-Schools/index.html

How Babies Alter Careers for Academics

Last year Jenny Spinner, an aspiring English professor, landed four job interviews, a feat that would make any graduate student proud. But as a nursing mother with a 5-month-old son at home, what should have been a happy time turned harrowing.

On each campus trip, Ms. Spinner brought along her curriculum vitae, a suitcase, and a breast pump, which she used every few hours around the clock. She pumped wherever she could -- in a faculty conference room while a secretary guarded the door and in a bathroom stall of a classroom building. Then she kept the milk on ice to take home.

Faculty members arranged dinners for times when, as a new mother, Ms. Spinner would normally have been heading to bed. When she found herself nearly dozing off during an interview with a vice provost one afternoon, she knew something had to change.

"I went home and told my husband: 'That's it. I'm not applying for any more jobs now. It's just too much,'" recalls Ms. Spinner, who got one job offer but turned it down because she says the campus wasn't a good "fit" for her. She is 33 and will earn her doctorate in English from the University of Connecticut next spring.

Her son, Aidan, is now 16 months old and she is starting to cut back on breast-feeding in preparation for a new round of job interviews. But Ms. Spinner's problems negotiating the academic world with a child in tow are just beginning, according to a new study, which says that having children wreaks havoc on the careers of academic women.

The study provides what is believed to be the first national data on how professors with children fare in academe. While having children, particularly early on, can severely damage the job prospects of women, fatherhood is actually a boon to academic men, it found.

Mary Ann Mason, dean of the graduate division at the University of California at Berkeley and the study's director, dubbed her project: "Do Babies Matter?" It is based on data collected until 1999 by the federal government from 160,000 people who earned their doctorates between 1978 and 1984, and continued working in academe.

Ms. Mason completed the study with Marc Goulden, a research analyst at Berkeley. She delivered a paper based on the study at a conference in October, and it will be published in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science next year. She says she wanted "to address the question my women graduate students always ask me, Is there a good time to have a baby?"

Kids After Tenure

The worst time for women who pursue careers in academe to have a baby is within five years of earning a Ph.D., the study found. Women who do have babies then are nearly 30 percent less likely than women without babies ever to snag a tenure-track position. And of those women in the study who had babies early on, only 56 percent earned tenure within 14 years after receiving their Ph.D. Of men who became fathers early on, 77 percent earned tenure. Of men who never had babies, 71 percent got tenure.

"Women are doing part-time things, or staying at home for a while, which is quite appropriate when children are small," says Ms. Mason. But jumping back onto the tenure track after a few years off frequently proves impossible, she says.

The study also looked at how putting an academic career first, at least for a while, affected the chances that academic men and women would eventually have a family. "What happens to the men and women who secure that first assistant-professor job before becoming parents?" Ms. Mason asks in her paper. "Will they still have a baby?" The answer, she says, is that "men do, but women don't."

Men who took a university job without children were 70 percent more likely than their female counterparts to become parents, the study found. Only one-third of women who took a university job without children ever became mothers.

Over all, male professors were much more likely to marry and have a family than female professors. Only 44 percent of all the tenured women in the study were married and had children within 12 years of earning their Ph.D.'s. But 70 percent of tenured men married and became fathers during that time period.

About a quarter of tenured women were still single without children 12 years after earning their doctorates. Only 11 percent of men were.

Academic women, says Ms. Mason, are expected to work hardest during their tenure-track years, precisely when their biological clocks are ticking the loudest. "The average age for receiving a Ph.D. is 33," she says. "Many professors do not secure tenure under the age of 40. These busy career-building years are also the most likely reproductive years."

Fathers are more successful in academe than mothers, says Ms. Mason, because they are more likely to have a spouse who stays at home. In 1999, only 48 percent of men who were married and were full professors in the sciences and social sciences had wives who worked full time. But 91 percent of women who were married and were full professors in those disciplines had spouses who worked full time, according to the study.

"We are being made to compete with people who are single and have all the time in the world, or with married men who have a wife at home," says Joline J. Blais, an assistant professor of new media at the University of Maine's Orono campus and the mother of two young children.

Not all academic women struggle with motherhood. Kathryn L. Lynch, a 52-year-old professor of English at Wellesley College, recommends having children early in graduate school. She did, and her son and daughter were school-age by the time she took her first tenure-track job at Wellesley. "I don't think I've had to make disturbing compromises in my career," says Ms. Lynch, who had another son the year she came up for tenure. "I think you can have it all."

Academe certainly isn't the only demanding career that women have trouble negotiating with a family. It is also hard to be a lawyer or a doctor, for example, while raising small children. But those careers do not have an "up or out" point that is as unforgiving as the tenure system. If a woman wants to work in academe but is not within the tenured or tenure-track ranks, she is likely to be an adjunct or lecturer with little job security and meager pay.

"There is only one genuinely legitimate career path in the academy," says Kathleen Christensen, director of the Workplace, Workforce, and Working Families program at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. "It's very rigid, up or out, and you have to get on and stay on or you're penalized if you deviate."

Joan C. Williams, director of the Program on WorkLife Law at American University, says academe is still based on a model in which men worked and their wives stayed at home with the children. "This is a job structure that systematically excludes mothers," she says. "It shows that so long as we continue to identify the ideal academic worker as someone who works full time, 60 hours a week for 40 years straight -- surprise! -- that will overwhelmingly be men."

The University of California system has started a family-friendly initiative, financed by the Sloan foundation. The effort, Ms. Mason says "is aimed at altering the workplace structure to accommodate families."

Fewer Children

Women trying to combine motherhood and academic careers don't find the study's conclusions particularly surprising. Many, it seems, have their own stories of just how hellish the endeavor can be.

Elizabeth Scala, an associate professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin, earned tenure last year despite giving birth to two daughters in the last six years. After her first daughter, Madeleine, was born in 1997, Ms. Scala regularly rose at 3 a.m. to nurse the baby. She would then stay up, grading papers and working on her book until she left home for her morning classes.

When her second baby, Claire, was born two years later, "I taught on fumes," recalls Ms. Scala, who has posted a picture of herself with her two girls on her university Web site. "I was sleepwalking through teaching The Canterbury Tales for the sixth time in a row, and spending all my brain power" on finishing a book in time for tenure review, she says.

Looking back, says Ms. Scala, who is 37 and earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University: "I could have done more work if I didn't have kids. I probably could have written a second book already -- maybe I could have a job at Yale."

Young academic women think a lot about whether they can have it all, and if not, what the trade-offs will be. Lorelei Mitchell is a 35-year-old graduate student in social welfare at Berkeley who has worked with Ms. Mason. She had her daughter, Lydia, 17 months ago, even though she knew the data showed she would be better off waiting until after she had earned tenure. "I wasn't about to wait until I was 42," says Ms. Mitchell.

But she is already wondering whether she and her husband will have another child, and if so, when. Being pregnant on the tenure track won't be easy, she knows. An alternative, says Ms. Mitchell, is to have another baby and forgo a tenure-track job for work as a researcher. For Ms. Mitchell, it comes down to what she wants more -- another baby, or a tenure-track career.

A second study, of 8,700 professors in the University of California system, also by Ms. Mason, shows that Ms. Mitchell is not alone. Thirty-eight percent of the female faculty members in the study said they had fewer children than they wanted.

One female assistant professor at a major research university had considered giving up on the idea of becoming a mother. But at 36 she decided she "wasn't willing to do that," and has just learned she is pregnant.

Still, she's worried. "I'm committing career suicide," she says. She hasn't yet told anyone at the university.

Part of the problem, says the woman, who wanted to remain anonymous, is that while she has several female role models, none of them offer advice on how to manage a baby with a tenure-track career. "You get a lot of mentorship about how you negotiate for your salary and for course load reductions," she says. "But the questions usually aren't: 'If I'm a woman, and I want to have kids, what do I do?'"

Losing 20 Pounds

Ms. Blais, the assistant professor at Maine, says there is a silence in academe surrounding parenthood. Raising two young children while holding down two academic careers has been demanding for Ms. Blais and her partner, Jon Ippolito, who is also an assistant professor of new media at Maine. They could use some advice, she says.

The couple do much of their scholarly work together, developing teaching strategies that encourage information-sharing over the Internet. They travel frequently to New York and abroad and must scramble to find someone to watch their 3-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son.

Ms. Blais was 40 years old when she gave birth to their daughter, and returned to teaching two months later. A month after that she was scheduled to fly to California for work with Mr. Ippolito. But she found herself too exhausted to travel, and wound up getting pneumonia and losing 20 pounds in three weeks.

Many universities allow female faculty members just six to eight weeks of paid maternity leave, and require young professors to find someone to fill in for them if they give birth during a semester. Some universities, primarily major research institutions, provide a semester's paid leave from teaching.

Micki McGee, a faculty fellow in interdisciplinary studies at New York University, has a 6-year-old daughter. She says the paucity of mothers in academe is higher education's loss. "Academe deprives itself of that kind of robust understanding that parenting provides to people by limiting the number of mothers in the community," she says.

Ms. Spinner, the graduate student who will earn her Ph.D. from Connecticut in May, has put some limitations on her own career. She won't apply for jobs at major research institutions because she believes it would be too hard to manage the kind of work required with a family. Always an overachiever, Ms. Spinner has had to lower her standards.

"I knew I wasn't going to be on my deathbed thinking, 'If only I had written three more articles. If only I had chaired that committee,'" she says. "I had to decide to come to terms with the fact that I may be an A scholar, rather than an A-plus scholar, in order to have a family."



http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i15/15a00101.htm

Fulbright Application Essay

On one hot late-summer day when I was in high school, my parents came back from a shopping trip with a surprise present for me: the legendary board game, Diplomacy. At first I scoffed at such an old-fashioned game. Who would want to waste glorious sunny days moving armies around a map of pre-World War I Europe, pretending to be Bismarck or Disraeli? But after playing the game once, I became absolutely riveted by the nuances of statecraft, and soon began losing sleep as I tried to craft clever diplomatic gambits, hatch devious schemes, and better understand the game's ever-changing dynamics. As my friends and I spent the second half of the summer absorbed by the game, my parents grinned knowingly. How could I resist being fascinated with Diplomacy, they asked me, when I incessantly read about international affairs, and liked nothing more than debating politics over dinner? How could I resist being fascinated, when I had spent most of my summers in Greece (and, much more briefly, France and England), witnessing first-hand the ways in which countries differ socially, culturally, and politically?

Though my passion for foreign policy and international affairs undoubtedly dates back to high school, I never had the chance to fully develop this interest before college. Once I arrived at Harvard, however, I discovered that I could learn about international relations through both my academics and my extracurricular activities. Academically, I decided to concentrate in Government, and, within Government, to take classes that elucidated the forces underlying the relations of states on the world stage. Some of the most memorable of these classes included Human Rights, in which we discussed what role humanitarian concerns ought to play in international relations; Politics of Western Europe, in which I learned about the social, economic, and political development of five major European countries; and Causes and Prevention of War, which focused on unearthing the roots of conflict and finding out how bloodshed could have been avoided. Currently, for my senior thesis, I am investigating the strange pattern of American human rights-based intervention in the post-Cold War era, and trying to determine which explanatory variables are best able to account for it.

Interestingly, I think that I have learned at least as much about international relations through my extracurriculars in college as I have through my classes. For the past three years, for instance, I have helped run Harvard’ s three Model United Nations conferences. As a committee director at these conferences, I researched topics of global importance (e.g. the violent disintegration of states, weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East), wrote detailed study guides discussing these subjects, and then moderated hundreds of students as they debated the topics and strove to resolve them. Even more enriching for me than directing these committees was taking part in them myself. As a delegate at other schools’ conferences, I would be assigned to represent a particular country on a particular UN committee (e.g. France on the Security Council). I would then need to research my country’ s position on the topics to be discussed, articulate my view in front of others in my committee, and convince my fellow delegates to support my position. Trying to peg down a country’ s elusive ‘ national interest, ’ clashing over thorny practical and philosophical issues, making and breaking alliances — - Model UN was basically a simulation of how diplomacy really works.

Thankfully, I have also found time over the past few years to cultivate interests and skills unrelated to Model UN and foreign policy. One of the most important of these has been community service. As a volunteer for Evening With Champions, an annual ice-skating exhibition held to raise money for children with cancer, and as a teacher of a weekly high school class on current events and international affairs, I have, whenever possible, used my time and talents to benefit my community. Another more recent interest of mine is the fascinating realm of business. Two years ago, my father’ s Christmas present to me was a challenge rather than a gift: he gave me $500,but told me that I could keep it only if I invested it in the stock market — - and earned a higher rate of return than he did with another $500. Since then, I have avidly followed the stock market, and become very interested in how businesses interact and respond to strategic threats (perhaps because of the similarities between business competition and the equally cutthroat world of diplomatic realpolitik). A final passion of mine is writing. As the writer of a biweekly column in the Independent, one of Harvard’ s student newspapers, I find very little as satisfying as filling a blank page with words -— creating from nothing an elegant opinion piece that illuminates some quirk of college life, or induces my readers to consider an issue or position that they had ignored until then.

Because of my wide range of interests, I have not yet decided what career path to follow into the future. In the short run, I hope to study abroad for a year, in the process immersing myself in another culture, and deepening my personal and academic understanding of international affairs. After studying abroad, my options would include working for a nonprofit organization, entering the corporate world, and attending law school. In the long run, I envision for myself a career straddling the highest levels of international relations, politics, and business. I could achieve this admittedly ambitious goal by advancing within a nonprofit group, think tank, or major international company. Perhaps most appealingly, I could also achieve this goal by entering public service and obtaining some degree of influence over actual foreign policy decisions -— that is, becoming a player myself in the real-life game of Diplomacy.


http://www.jobseekersadvice.com/career_education/articles/scholarship_essay_examples.htm