The day the Toronto Star article came out, I got contacted by a reporter with a Chinese newspaper that read that article and were interested in doing a follow up story. The article came out yesterday, which you can find here. It was more focused on myself compared to the Star article, and I thought it came out pretty well.

Given some of the controversy of the first article, I thought it might be interesting to share my thoughts and reasons on why I decided to interview for this article, and my thoughts in general about interviewing. Before doing an interview, I think it’s always important to consider whether/how it can benefit you, how others will perceive it, and generally the implications of doing it. While you aren’t the one asking the questions, you are the one giving the answers – and you can choose which answers you want to give.

Clarification

Many people have seen the original article in the Star that I posted last time. As I mentioned in my last post, the whole monetary aspect wasn’t clear. For example, just yesterday I had a family friend who told me they read the article and thought I actually received $200,000 in the bank from scholarships, which as I explained, is way off from the truth.

And although this Chinese newspaper has nowhere near the circulation and audience that the Toronto Star does, I thought it would still be a good opportunity to clear up what I actually did receive in terms of scholarship money. I appreciate them being willing to do that with me. Hopefully, some of the people who read the Star article will read this one as well. Of course, there probably aren’t too many that will, but every little bit helps.

Promotion of Personal Interests

News is publicity. An interview is a good opportunity to publicize and provide exposure to things you have a vested interest in. Many of you know that SMARTS continues to be one of my most important projects, and we could always use the exposure. An interview like this was a good opportunity to mention that.

Sharing Ideas You Believe In

An interview is also a good opportunity to send a message you believe in and share it with others. An example of this is in the interview where I shared some of my views and thoughts on success and achieving goals – the same ideas I have written about here on this blog.

Some Interview Tips

I’d like to close this post by sharing some of the things I have learned throughout the few interviews I have done the past few years:

• Don’t say anything you don’t want to be published. The fact is that anything you say is fair game for the writer to use. If you’re worried about something being published, don’t say it!
• Realize that only parts of what you say will be used. What that means is, it is very easy for you to be quoted or written about out of context. Focus on saying things that will not be misinterpreted even if mentioned on their own.
• Speaking clearly and concisely. If you’re going to be quoted, you can’t be explaining long paragraphs. Make sure to speak in a way that makes it easier for you to be quoted, by focusing on spelling out the main ideas clearly and simply.
• Be upfront with the reporter about what you’re willing to talk about. You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t to. Clarify up front and at the beginning what you’re willing to speak about. Just give a “no comment” if there’s something you don’t want to discuss.

Anyways, that’s all for now. I hope you guys enjoy the article!

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2. Motivating people by making them invested
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‘Super candidates’ cash in on huge scholarships

My Comments:

Based on the comments available on the Toronto Star website and things I have heard from friends, it seems this article has stirred up a bit of controversy – and unfortunately, some of it based on a misunderstanding of some of the scholarship programs.

One misconception is based on the numbers thrown around in the article. The huge six figure scholarship amounts mentioned were what a student was offered in total from various universities and private organizations – this is very different from what a student actually received to put towards post-secondary education. It seems some readers think that there are students selfishly pocketing amounts that could buy a house. This doesn’t happen for a few reasons. One is that you can only go to one university, so any scholarships offered from other universities cannot be accepted. Furthermore, most of the major private scholarships (e.g. Loran, TD, etc.) have stipulations that restrict the total amount of scholarship money you can receive (because they also believe in making sure scholarship recipients only receive approximately what’s required to cover a university experience, and nothing more, so that other students can benefit from the funding available).

Since I am mentioned in the article, I might as well use myself as an example. The Star article correctly states that I was offered over $200,000 in scholarships from many different sources – TD, Millennium, and several major university scholarships. What did I actually receive? $52,500 in total, which was put towards my three years of undergrad studies at York for biology, and my first year of medical school (since the TD scholarship supports your first four years of undergraduate studies). Although the value of the TD scholarship is valued up to $60,000, I received a total of $47,500 from them because undergraduate science tuition is not as expensive as say engineering. I also accepted $5,000 total from other sources (TD has a restriction that you can accept up to $5,000 in scholarships from other sources). $52,500 is a very significant amount and I am very grateful for the generous support I have received from these scholarship programs and institutions.

There remains controversy over the different types of funding available. Some scholarships are based more on financial need. On the other end of the spectrum are purely merit based scholarships, which are the ones being mentioned in the article. There are also many in between that consider both financial need and merit.

The purpose of merit-based scholarship programs are to identify young people with certain traits, experiences and/or potential that these institutions/programs want to invest in. As an example, a large scholarship program like the TD Canada Trust Scholarship for Community Leadership wants to invest in young people who they feel will be able to better continue serving their community with less of a financial burden. You also have post-secondary institutions offering scholarships based on merit, whether it be application-based ones looking at an entire student profile or the entrance scholarships offered automatically based on academic merit (grades) – post-secondary institutions do so because they are a centres of academia, and want to attract certain students to their own institutions versus others. The fact is that the programs and institutions who offer merit-based funding do so for specific reasons they believe in and for reasons that they believe benefit their personal interests. A post-secondary institution isn’t going to suddenly stop offering scholarships and putting all of their funding into bursaries because then a lot of students they would like to attract will go to other institutions that make them better offers.

Like most systems, the post-secondary funding one is not perfect at all ends of the spectrum. There is limited funding, and the funding is allocated based on competing interests and imperfect information. For example, you can have students who are in financial need but can’t get it because their parents are well off but choose not to support them.

What should be done? It’s hard to say. But before coming to any conclusion, I think it’s important to recognize all perspectives in place and all the competing interests they come from.

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Sometimes I read advice online for medical school admissions from medical students that I think is fundamentally wrong. Of course this would seem counter-intuitive – how could someone be wrong about advice if they got in?

Consider a game of rock, paper, scissors (yah yah, how many times have I used this example now?). Imagine your opponent is playing scissors. Now also imagine that you’ve never played the game before, so you enlist the help of a friend who has. This friend has defeated this opponent before and tells you to play rock because it worked for him last time. If you listen to him and play rock, you’ll win too. Great.

But what if your opponent decides to play paper instead? Of course your friend comes along and again tells you to play rock because that’s what he did last time and it worked for him. But if you play rock, you’ll quickly realize that it doesn’t work this time. So what went wrong, and how could your friend win at this game but fail to help you this time?

Short-Term Success does Not Necessarily Equate to True Understanding

The reason why you lost is because you assumed that your friend understood the game simply because he was successful at it once. He played one game of rock, paper, scissors and got it right, and you both jumped to the conclusion that he knew how to play. But once the situation of the game changed, it became clear that the value of his advice was limited – and the value of his advice was limited because his actual understanding was limited.

One of the mistakes we tend to make is being too results oriented, particularly when it comes to attributing the success of others to genuine understanding. This can become problematic if we spend more time asking for advice and less time actually thinking about it. If the main character in our little hypothetical situation spent time thinking and figuring out rock, paper, scissors, he would realize that the advice he received was bad. He would understand that the justification of “it worked for me last time” isn’t enough to guarantee success in the future.

So how does this relate to medical school advice, and well, advice in general? Sometimes I see successful individuals view their short-term results as evidence for the idea that their strategy was correct. But instead of thinking about why their strategy may have worked, they just assume it was a good strategy because everything worked out. But like I explained, unless you can actually explain why your ideas are good, you are taking the risk of actually being quite wrong.

For instance, there are some students with a resume a mile long who get into medical school. So when they see a medical school applicant list a shorter resume and ask what their chances of getting in are, these students chime in and say it probably isn’t long enough, since they got in with a longer one. I hope you can see the logical problems with this line of thinking, and while it may seem obvious, it’s amazing how often we don’t realize it at the time.

This is precisely the reason why I don’t like answering the questions like “what courses did you take and what things did you do to get into medical school?”. Instead, I like to write articles that take a more analytical approach to the admissions process and aim to provide an understanding of the process.

Common Pitfall: Projection

One common mistake we make when providing advice and thinking about it is projecting the way we think onto other people. It’s a mistake to think that other people or groups both should and do think the way you do.

For instance, let’s visit the claim that medical schools prefer students who have studied at more “reputable” universities. For the sake of discussion, let’s assume it’s true that these more reputable universities have, on average, more challenging undergraduate programs. Some students take this idea and think to themselves that it would only seem “right” to take this information to account, and thus, they propose that medical schools prefer students who go to these more challenging undergraduate programs.

However, such students are making huge and unfounded assumptions, primarily that medical school admissions committees think the way they do. That is, they are projecting their own model of thought on the admissions committees for no apparent reason. To students, if they have to work harder than others for the same grades, they deserve to have some sort of advantage in the admissions process.

Instead of assuming other individuals or groups think like you, it’s better to picture yourself in their shoes, and try and figure out how they would perceive the situation, concept, or idea at hand. Imagine you are on a medical school admissions committee. Even if you knew that certain undergraduate programs must be more challenging, how would you react to that? How would you know which actual courses were harder at which universities, and given that the student populations are different, how could you adjust the marks submitted to you? Moreover, how could you do it in a fair, objective way?

It’s really hard if you think about it, and personally, I haven’t been able to come up with a solution myself besides just leaving things the way they are.

Are You Saying I Shouldn’t be Taking Advice from Others?

Oh no, I am definitely not saying that. In fact, I take advice from others all the time. However, what you should do is not accept advice blindly. You need to spend the time critically thinking about advice you’re given, and whether it’s logical and makes sense. You are definitely doing yourself a disservice if you accept anything I say blindly.

Imagine if a lottery winner told you to pick the numbers 3, 14, 16, 22, 31, 44 because it worked for her. You would quickly realize that’s absurd – yet for some reason it doesn’t seem so absurd to many students when they hear from teachers, parents, guidance counselors, or older students that medical schools actually care which university you did your undergraduate studies at.

If you’re given advice that could seriously affect an important decision of yours, make sure you understand the reasoning behind the advice. And if you’re not sure, ask the person giving the advice. If they can’t provide a reason that makes logical sense, you should be wary of it.

However, keep in mind that not understanding the advice is not a justification for viewing a piece of advice as bad. It’s easy to shrug off things you don’t understand, but from personal experience, some of the best advice I’ve received were things I just didn’t understand at the time.

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I was once asked in an interview to talk about an accomplishment I was proud of. Prior to the interview, I had come up with a list of practice questions and what my general approach to them would be – the “accomplishment question” was one of them. I had planned on mentioning my TD Canada Trust Scholarship because of it’s prestige, the hard work it represented, and how it has allowed me to continue doing a lot of my volunteer/non-profit work during university without worrying about having to pay for my education. But as soon as I was asked the question, I decided to change my mind and pick an experience that I had spoken about before, but had not planned on using as my answer for this type of question.

Instead of the TD Scholarship, I decided to talk about June 29, 2006. It was 9 a.m., and I was at City Hall in downtown Toronto. I was also really, really tired. I was tired because the previous day was a big day for me. Not only was June 28 my 18th birthday, but it also ended up being the day of my graduation and high school prom (yah, my high school was weird that way). Needless to say, June 28 was a really big and exciting day for me, but also a very tiring one.

So why did I need to be up at so early the day after my birthday, graduation, and prom? The previous fall, my friends and I started a Make Poverty History student banner that was signed by students in over 30 schools and university campuses in Southern Ontario. June 29, 2006 was the one-year anniversary of the Live 8 concert, and so there was a Make Poverty History press conference held at City Hall to commemorate the event, as well as remind world leaders to put issues of poverty on the agenda for an upcoming G8 meeting. To celebrate the work of all the students involved, we were given the opportunity to present our banner at the press conference.

Part of that presentation involved me giving a speech about the banner. It was a really cool experience, especially the chance to share the podium with the likes of Gerry Barr (past-chair of Make Poverty History Canada), Steven Page (of the Bare Naked Ladies), and Toronto Mayor David Miller. The reason why I was proud of that moment was more than because it culminated the achievement of our banner campaign. It was a great personal achievement for myself – if you had told me four years before when I started high school that I would be at that podium a day after turning 18, I would never have believed it. That wasn’t the person I was when I entered high school – I was much too shy. For me, that moment also represented the personal transformation I went through in high school as I opened myself up to more experiences, and for that reason, I was very proud of myself.

Telling Stories

The reason I changed my answer at the last minute was because I remembered the importance of being memorable and producing memorable answers. This is important for a few reasons.

You see, in most scholarship or medical school interviews, the interviewers aren’t writing down what you say. Rather, they hear what you have to say, and then discuss and score you afterwards. Interviewers are regular people just like you and me – meaning that, just like you and me, they aren’t going to remember everything you say. In general, interviewers are going to remember two types of candidates – people they liked and people they didn’t like. When competition is stiff for so few spots, you want to be the good kind that’s remembered.

How do you produce answers that are memorable? One way is by telling stories.

Everyone loves a good story, and I would guess that most people would rather here a story than facts. You have to keep in mind that your interviewers are probably going through a long day of interviewing many candidates. Anytime you can entertain them, make them laugh, or give them something interesting to listen to, you are being a bright spot in a sometimes long, tedious day for them. Stories can accomplish all of these things.

Imagine if I had told the interviewers that my greatest accomplishment was my TD Scholarship – just straight facts. It’s not something that’s likely to be remembered. It’s also not that interesting. And if my interviewers don’t remember my answer when they are evaluating me after the interview, it’s almost as if I didn’t answer the question.

But compare that to the story I told about June 29, 2006. Talking about city hall, Steven Page, etc. creates a vivid image in my interviewers minds about that day. It likely captivates them much more than talking about my scholarship – it is clearly way more interesting, and so they are less likely to zone out when I’m talking. And as a story, it is something they are way more likely to remember after the interview.

In a vacuum, is the story that much of a better answer than talking about my scholarship? Perhaps not, but if it is significantly more likely to be remembered and gives the interviewers a more positive, captivating experience, then it is most likely much better.

If the interviewers are looking at a wall of photos of candidates at the end of the day, comparing the interview experiences, telling interesting stories makes me less likely to be one of the candidates who they don’t remember interviewing at all (that’s hopefully an extreme case, and I would hope that doesn’t happen to any candidate, but you get the point). They might not remember my face on its own, but they’ll remember my story, and if they do, they will probably remember my face and the rest of me.

A Second Example

I also like to use this approach whenever I’m asked in an interview about an important leadership experience. When answering this question, I think some candidates might just pick their most impressive-sounding leadership experience – but I don’t think this necessarily ends up being the best possible answer. Let me use myself as an example to better explain this.

One of my most impressive and important leadership experiences was creating the SMARTS network for Canadian youth interested in science. If I had to give a one hour talk about leadership, it’s one of the stories I would definitely focus on. But you don’t get one hour to talk about a leadership experience in an interview – you get maybe a few minutes to answer the question.

Trying to convey a complete, captivating, and most importantly, coherent story about SMARTS in just a few minutes would probably come out pretty awful – I just wouldn’t be able to do it. I could try, but I think I would end up just confusing the interviewers more than anything. I could just focus on the basic details, but then I wouldn’t have time to talk about the leadership skills I developed and obstacles I overcame, which I think are things you want to mention in your answer. And if I focused on those things, I wouldn’t have time to talk about all the details, and so on.

So instead, I like to talk about my leadership experience at the Shad Valley summer program and the company and product my teammates and I developed. It’s not only an interesting story, but as the project only lasted two months, I am able to tell a complete, coherent story in the few minutes I have.

Basically, my point is that if you choose to answer a question with a story, it’s important to be strategic about exactly which stories you choose to tell. Not all stories make sense to be used in the context of an interview. So if you choose to tell a story, you should select one that’s interesting, meaningful, and can be delivered clearly within a few minutes.

Be Careful – Don’t Use Stories Just for the Sake of Using Them

I want to make it perfectly clear that you don’t need to spend a ridiculous amount of time and effort making everything you say memorable. Of course that’s not going to happen, and it would be a pretty awkward interview if you answered every single question with a story.

Some questions are going to lend themselves better for stories than others. I just want to get you thinking about and exploring the possibilities of improving the memorability of your interview by using stories.

In preparing for an interview, one of the things I suggest you do (and I will explore this technique more later on) is come up with a list of questions you are very likely to be asked, and come up with some possible ways you could answer each question. Explore story and non-story type answers, and see what works better for you for those types of interview questions.

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Every medical school has a different philosophy when it comes to evaluating applicants. Some schools, like Queen’s and Western, look at your GPA and MCAT scores first, and pretty much guarantee you an interview if you meet certain cutoffs. Some schools, like the University of Toronto, look at your entire application package first before granting an interview: GPA, MCAT, personal essay, biographical sketch, and reference letters.

As with any medical school, you will get complaints about the process. Personally, I think it’s great that the medical schools have such different philosophies on admissions, so that many great candidates with different backgrounds are likely to get in somewhere. But when it gets more personal, and your application package isn’t as competitive at a certain school, it’s understandable for people to be a bit frustrated.

As an example, some applicants have voiced frustration with the fact that UofT’s medical school admissions places a greater weight on reference letters than some other schools. The most common argument is that there is a lot of variance involved with reference letters since it is out of the applicant’s control, in terms of how well the referees are able to write. So it is very possible that an applicant is fantastic, but his or her referee just lacks the skills, experience, and knowledge to put those ideas well onto paper.

In this article I want to analyze this common frustration, and then give my argument for why I think a medical school (or scholarship organization, summer program, etc.) might value reference letters.

Variance Exists Everywhere – Deal with It

I’m not going to deny that there is variance when it comes to reference letters. Considering the letters are supposed to be confidential, it’s quite possible that no matter how hard your referee tries, he/she could end up writing a letter that is relatively poor compared to the average, simply because he/she isn’t used to writing stuff like this. For sure, there is some skill involved in writing a strong reference letter, and it takes experience and knowledge to do that.

The problem with this complaint is that it’s essentially founded on the ideas of variance, chance, and luck. If you’re going to be upset with variance, then logically, you should be upset with the entire medical school application process.

For instance, it’s true that some applicants are naturally better writers than others. Should we throw out the personal essay too? Or, let’s analyze that fact that most applicants don’t get the same interviewers, which also leads to a lot of variance (as I’ve written extensively on before). Should we scrap the interview process too?

The fact is that most things in life, whether medical school related or not, consist of some things out of our control. Sometimes you just need to be lucky.

That being said, one question we can ask is whether a component of the admissions process has an unacceptably high amount of variance. While we can’t eliminate variance or chance, we should always try to reduce it whenever possible. And this is a question that needs to be asked for every component of the process.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the knowledge or experience to say whether there is too much variance in the use of reference letters. I would like to think that the admissions committees have seen enough reference letters over the years to recognize the type of variance involved, and adjust their selection process accordingly (and likewise with other aspects of their admissions process).

The Second Factor: How Strongly a Potential Referee is Likely to Support You

I’d imagine that most applicants have only been on one side of the reference letter process – that is, have had reference letters written for them but have never been in a position to write reference letters for others. As the founder of SMARTS, I have had to write my fair share of reference letters for some of our student volunteers over the past few years. By now having been on both sides of the fence, I’ve come to understand an extremely important concept that I don’t think many applicants realize about reference letters.

There are essentially two factors that affect the strength of your reference letter. The first factor is something we already know, and that is somewhat uncontrollable: the skills of the referee in writing a good reference letter. However, there is a second factor that most applicants don’t really realize, and I don’t think put enough thought into when choosing potential referees.

You see, many applicants just assume that anyone they could reasonably ask is going to write them the most fantastic reference letter. They assume that just because they asked for a fantastic letter, they are going to get one. The reality is that this is simply not the case. How good of a reference letter you can get also comes down to how strongly your referee feels about supporting you.

For example, when I’m asked to write reference letters for SMARTS student volunteers, I can honestly say that not all students get the same quality of letter from me. If you’re a student who I don’t work with on a personal basis, not only is it hard for me to fill up a letter with content and impossible for me to comment on your personal qualities, but I don’t have a strong enough personal connection with you to feel the urge to write you the best letter possible. The result is a letter that is much more formal and sparser in detail – I’d be lying if I wrote otherwise. In such a case, it would have made much more sense to ask a teacher or other supervisor who has seen your work in action, and can comment on personal qualities in a detailed fashion.

On the other hand, if you are a SMARTS student volunteer who I know personally and have seen in action on a regular basis, not only can I write much more detailed about you, but I end up writing a ridiculously fantastic letter. Why? Because of the personal connection we have developed, I personally want you to succeed and want to do anything possible to help.

So What Do Reference Letters tell Medical School Committees (or other judging committees)?

The importance of the reference letters is that they tell medical schools about how other people think about you, and how good of a physician they think you’d make. It’s easy for you to write a personal essay claiming to be a fantastic person – but of course they expect you to do that. And of course your opinion of yourself is going to be positively biased. You might say that you are a fantastic leader, communicator, and team player – but where is the proof? The closest thing to objective proof that the judges have are your referees.

Extremely strong reference letters show medical schools that there are actually people, other than yourself/your family, who genuinely believe you would make a great physician. If someone else can write a letter advocating for you so strongly, logic says there must be something really good about you. And unless they lack a ton of integrity (and are just making stuff up), referees are generally not going to write you absolutely fantastic letters unless they really believe you deserve one – I mean, do you really think that first year biology professor who only knows you from class really cares to write you an outstanding letter? I mean, why would he care whether you get into medical school or not? Why would he waste his time getting the letter “just right”? Furthermore, strong letters show that you can form meaningful personal relationships with other individuals.

I’d imagine that any referee would approach the letter writing process like I do. If they know you well, are impressed by you, and honestly desire to support you to the best of their ability, they will spend their time writing the best letter possible. But if they barely know you or aren’t particularly impressed by you, it’s a bit naive to expect a really strong letter.

So What Does this Mean for Picking My Referees?

In short, this means that you should pick referees who know you very well and who you know want to support you.

Don’t just pick someone because they have a really prestigious title. The person’s title makes up a few words, but what he/she writes makes up the entire page – which part do you think the judge is going to focus on and remember?

I know when I picked my medical school referees this year I followed those two exact criteria. I picked people who I knew for at least a few years, who I felt were impressed by me, and who I knew genuinely wanted to support me in my endeavours.

If you do that as well, I think you will be getting your best reference letters possible.

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Although I am a recipient of the TD Scholarship, I have no experience on the judging committee, so please take my information or advice with a grain of salt. Oh, and good luck!

Dress Code

In general for interviews, I think anywhere from semi-formal to formal is fine. For my interview, I wore a dress shirt, dress pants, and dress shoes – no tie, no blazer. I honestly don’t think the judges really care about your attire as long as it’s presentable.

Pre-Interview

I believe you are asked to come to your interview for maybe half an hour or so before it’s actually your turn. You get to spend this time with a few past TD Scholars, and feel free to ask them questions and just have a nice relaxing chat. Hopefully the warm welcome will take your mind and nerves away from the situation.

In addition, you will receive an information sheet with a short biography of each of your judges. The judging panel includes Jane Thompson (Executive Director of the TD Scholarship program), a past TD scholar, and around three leaders from the community. The point of the biographies is just to give you a bit of background information on who you will be talking to. Don’t worry about memorizing the biographies, it’s not like you will be quizzed on them or anything! That being said, it’s some good information that you can use to maybe figure out how you can better relate and connect with them.

Inside the Interview

When you enter the interview room, I suggest going up to each judge, shake each of their hands, and get to know their names before sitting down – I think it’s important to know who you are talking to during the interview.

As far as questions, I think they were pretty simple. I found the TD interview process pretty relaxing and laid back. The judges seemed more concerned with just getting to know me than asking me really difficult or trappy questions.

Most of my questions were pretty basic – tell me about this from your application? Why did you start this? Oh, so it says here you are interested in studying neuroscience in university, why? It says here you are in a choir, tell me about that?

Conversely, I never got questions like: What are the most important qualities of a leader? What are your strengths or weaknesses? Nothing like that. All of the questions were just there to learn more about me as a person and the activities I’ve been involved in.

The most important thing is to answer honestly and be yourself. Sorry if that is cliche, but I think not being completely myself is what hurt me at my Loran interviews. During that process, I tried too hard to answer “correctly” instead of answering honestly, and that really messed me up. I think I prepared for a week for the Loran, whereas for the TD, I maybe prepared for maybe 15 minutes the day before, and just decided to walk in and speak honestly – and it worked!

For example, I’m pretty sarcastic as a person and I like to joke around, so I was sarcastic and made jokes when I felt like it in the interview – I didn’t force anything, I just spoke as I would normally speak to people. So honestly, just be yourself, and answer truthfully and from the heart.

At least from my experience, that’s what TD cares about. The want to see real people in their real element. There were even times in the interview where the judges were discussing random ideas with each other and not just asking me questions – that’s how laid back the TD scholarship interview is.

Hope that helps, and best of luck to all the finalists!

Related posts:

1. Motivating people by making them invested
2. The 30 Posts in 30 Days Challenge
3. Video: Science Expo 2011 Talk

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Questions?

If you have any further questions about the University of Western Ontario National Scholarship Program, please leave a comment, and I will do my best to answer them!

Related posts:

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3. 10 Things You Can Do Today to Improve Your Medical School Application

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Questions?

If you have any further questions about the York University Awards of Distinction, please leave a comment, and I will do my best to answer them!

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“What is real? How do you define real? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”

This is a famous quote from the character Morpheus of one of my favourite movies of all time, The Matrix. In this part of the movie, Morpheus is helping Neo to realize that the world he once believed to be his reality was no more than a computer simulation. Yet for everyone else stuck in the “matrix”, this simulation was as real as anything.

After watching The Matrix for the first time, I remember randomly asking myself: How do I know this world I’m in is real? I know I can hear my own thoughts, but how can I know for sure that everything around me is real? My family and friends seem real, but without being able to hear their thoughts, how can I know for sure?

But because I can perceive all of the world around me, I believe it to be real. Because I can smell roses, I believe them to be real. Because I can hear my brother speak, I believe he is real. In order to live in my reality, I have to rely on the notion that my perceptions are interpreting a true reality.

Marketing: Delivering a Perception You Want Customers to Adopt

Marketing takes advantage of this very same concept. In marketing, you’re not just promoting a product – you are also promoting a specific image or idea about that product. Essentially, marketers present a certain perception of their product that they want customers to have. And for potential customers, that perception is often interpreted as reality.

For instance, take the famous brand name paper towel product: Bounty – “the Quicker Picker-Upper”. Their television commercials portray Bounty as a superior paper towel that is able to absorb moisture much better than its competitors. Most of us don’t and will probably never know if Bounty is even among the best paper towel products, but due to the perception their company has created for their product, many of us who have seen the commercial probably believe that Bounty is indeed the best paper towel in the market.

The fact of the matter is what we only know what we’re told. That is, unless someone else comes along and tells us that Bounty isn’t the best paper towel, we see no reason to believe otherwise. I mean, seriously, when is the last time you researched studies for the best paper towels? Or the most durable shoe on the market?

By nature, humans are quite lazy in that sense. We don’t like working for information – we would much prefer that the information to come to us. The problem with this mindset is that by allowing other people to control the information that is “marketed” to us, we are essentially allowing other people to dictate our perceptions, and subsequently our realities.

Marketing Yourself: Creating the Image You Want

When I was in Grade 7, I was selected to represent Toronto at the Ontario Mathematics Olympics. Because of the size of our city, Toronto was allowed to send three teams to the competition. Each team was composed of one Gr. 8 girl, one Gr. 8 boy, one Gr. 7 girl and one Gr. 7 boy.

After the initial 12 students were selected, a single preparation day was held before the actual event for the students to go through some practice problems. In addition, the coordinators of Team Toronto would use this day to do a bit more evaluation of the students and try and make the best teams possible. Because of the difficulty of the competition, it would make sense for the coordinators to put all of the best students on the same team, thus maximizing the chances for Team Toronto to be victorious. There was one student was clearly the best mathematics student there by far, and it made sense for the coordinators to try and build the best possible team around him.

On the actual preparation day, I was just myself. But for those of you that know me, that meant just doing what I was told, not answering questions unless someone asked me, etc. On the other hand, I noticed a few students who were more talkative and participated more in the activities – these students ended up being on the “best” team with that exceptional student I mentioned earlier. Led by that student, this team ended up placing an excellent 5th in the province.

Nothing motivates me more than losing, so when I made Team Toronto again the following year, I was determined to be a part of the “best” team. Recalling the previous year, I realized that the coordinators probably assumed that whoever participated the most in the preparation day were probably the strongest students. That was their perception of ability, and in all fairness, the only real evidence they could go by. I mean if you think about it, if only certain students answer your questions, you can’t assume the other students even knew the answers. Maybe this logic isn’t the best, but I believe this is what the coordinators went by.

So when I was in Gr. 8, I went to that preparation day determined to be outspoken, answer questions, and generally participate as much as possible. My suspicions turned out to be correct when I ended up being on the same team as the other students I believed to have been the strongest. I definitely was not the strongest Gr. 8 male math student there (I am sure one of my other friends was), but I ended up on the better team because I projected the exact image the coordinators were looking for.

They believed I was the strongest candidate because they perceived me to be the strongest.

You Are Whoever You Say You Are

This is essentially the same concept I am talking about whenever I say that it isn’t necessarily the best candidate who gets rewarded, but rather, the candidate who the judges perceive to be the best – because perception is reality.

No one can know how great of a person you are unless you project that image. That’s why knowing how to market yourself properly on applications and interviews is extremely important.

Whether you are taking part in a job interview, applying for a grant, or anything else where you need to impress someone else, you’re not going to be successful unless you sell yourself as the best candidate.

If you look at any of my articles or videos about interviews or applications, you’ll realize the central theme to all of them is marketing. I think about the factors that could affect the judge’s perception of you, and try and highlight the specific factors that are good for you.

That being said, in the end, it comes down to you.

No one can market yourself except you!

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1. 10 Things You Can Do Today to Improve Your Medical School Application
2. Motivating people by making them invested
3. Are you succeeding? If not, maybe you’re measuring success the wrong way

Some students have been asking me if they could get a glimpse of my previous scholarship and application essays. But to be fair to everyone, I’m going to be consistent, and my decision is to not ever post or give out any of my previous essays.

Plagiarism

There are two main reasons for this. The first is simply because of possible plagiarism. I’d like to think that most students are not the plagiarizing type, but there are always a few students who get desperate at some point and end up plagiarizing. In addition, people tend to have distorted and different views on what actually constitutes plagiarizing – I have met students who didn’t think copying eight words in a row was plagiarizing. You might not realize it, but if you like something you see, you may subconsciously incorporate similar specific elements in your own essays, and you can imagine the weird trouble this could cause if a lot of students ended up with very similar application or scholarship essays. Overall, I feel it would be much safer for the application process if complete essays weren’t being thrown around the Internet.

Understanding My Approach is More Valuable

However, the main reason why I like to write articles about essay writing as opposed to posting my own is because I believe you learn something much more important this way. I want to teach you my approach to essay writing – that is, how and why I write what I do. The idea here is to get you guys really thinking about the best ways to market yourselves on paper. Posting my essays doesn’t explain why I wrote what I wrote – it just shows you what I wrote. And for students who are still gaining experience in essay writing, it is easy to misinterpret the elements you see in my essay, and I don’t want that happening to you.

If that doesn’t make sense, maybe this example will help. I know the basic rules of chess, but I am not a very good player and know next to nothing about even basic chess strategy. For those who haven’t heard of him, Gary Kasparov is arguably the greatest chess player ever. If I were to watch him play a single chess match and memorize his exact moves, and then tried imitating those moves against a decent opponent, I would probably still lose. This is because Kasparov has specific reasons behind every single move he makes – even something as simple as his opening move might depend on who is opponent is. In order to play as well as Kasparov, I would need to understand why he was making the moves he was, so that I could make the correct moves in my games.

I’m not saying I am the Gary Kasparov of application essay writing, but I’d like to think that I have a pretty good grasp of application essays in general. And in the same way that simply memorizing Kasparov’s moves from a single chess match will not significantly improve my chess game, I don’t believe just giving out copies of my essays will improve your essay writing skills. In addition, in the same way that hearing Kasparov talk or write about chess would be more valuable than watching him play, I’d like to think that reading my articles or watching my videos about the application process is much more valuable than seeing my work.

It’s a Matter of Experience

And to make it clear, I’m not saying that you would not be smart enough to understand the ideas behind my essays or anything like that – it’s a matter of experience. I have been writing application essays for probably 5-6 years now, and have spent quite a lot of time thinking about and discussing them. I have probably spent more time preparing for application essays than most students, and all that preparation has built up a lot of experience. It takes a certain amount of experience to understand applications the way I do, and if you have the experience to understand my essays, then you probably wouldn’t find most of my articles helpful in the first place.

To further that point, recall my article about writing with a purpose, where I talked about a friend who picked up a book with successful medical school admission essays, and tried to imitate some of the elements in those essays. This friend of mine is one of the smartest individuals I know, but he lacked experience in application essays, and at least in my opinion, he wasn’t successfully interpreting the elements he noticed in those published essays.

It is true that posting my essays with commentary explaining the different elements I used would probably be helpful, but then we get back to the whole plagiarism thing, and it just isn’t worth it to me in the end.

So I hope that explains why I don’t post my essays as samples. At the same time, I also hope you understand that you are getting significantly more value from understanding my approach than just seeing it.

Related posts:

1. 10 Things You Can Do Today to Improve Your Medical School Application
2. The 30 Posts in 30 Days Challenge
3. Video: Science Expo 2011 Talk