If you applied to medical school this past year, you probably know where you’ll be this fall by now. Some of you may have been accepted into medical school and are excited for the journey that lies ahead. If so, congratulations, and best of luck as you start a brand new chapter in your life! Getting into medical school is an amazing accomplishment, but a lot of hard work and challenges still lie ahead. I’d suggest enjoying your summer as much as you can before the work really piles on =).

Others, however, may have fallen a bit short in the process and are now wondering what your next steps should be. If that’s you, then this article is for you. Before we go any further, you need to do something first.

Give Yourself a Pat on the Back

I know giving yourself a pat on the back won’t change the results of this past year, but fact is, you deserve it. Applying to medical school is hard, especially when you consider that you’ve really been “applying” since day one and not just when you started writing your application last fall. I’ll say it again: applying to medical school is hard. And tiring.

From filling out applications, to getting references letters, to doing interviews (not to mention staying on track of your school work, extra-curricular involvements, and your personal life) – the whole process is draining. And don’t delude yourself into thinking the process ends once you get into medical school. It keeps going because, well, you will have to compete for residency spots as well. Of course that is ways into the future, but it’s important to keep in mind that you’re still going to have to compete in the years that follow entering medical school. It is what it is.

So congratulate yourself for getting through this year. Even though you didn’t get in this year, going through the application process can only make you a better applicant for next year’s cycle. You will learn from your mistakes. Not only that, but you can build on last year’s application – a lot of the basic grunt work (for example, figuring out who your references will be, creating a list of all your achievements/experiences, etc.) is now done, and what happens now is more about improving than starting from scratch. That makes a huge difference.

Still, we can’t start analyzing what you should do in preparation for applying again. There’s still one more important question to ask at this point.

Should I even apply to medical school again?

Just because you have applied once or twenty times already, doesn’t mean you have to apply again this year, or ever again. Before you consider how to improve your chances, you need to decide whether this is something you want to try for again.

Perhaps you have realized there is something else you want to pursue instead of medicine. Maybe your responsibilities in life are increasing and taking a chance on medical school is no longer an option (e.g. you have a growing family, and you need to start your career now). Maybe you think you’ve done all that you can and you won’t be able to do this again.

Whatever the case, take the time to think about whether you really want to apply again. As we have established, the application process is time consuming, draining, and hard.

If your answer is still yes, you want to apply, then keep reading.

GPA / MCAT

As I have written many times before, if you are applying to medical school, you should care about your GPA and MCAT scores the most. Your academics are what get your foot in the door. It doesn’t matter how good the rest of your application is – if your academics aren’t good enough, you have no shot.

You need to ask yourself if your GPA is preventing you from being eligible or competitive for certain medical schools. If not, can you do well enough with another year of undergraduate courses to give yourself a better chance at more schools? For instance, if you had a <3.70 GPA for your first three years of undergrad, but a >3.70 GPA for your last year, it may be worth doing a fifth year of undergraduate studies and hopefully be eligible for Western and Queen’s medical schools, which require two years with a GPA >3.70.

Similarly, is it worth re-taking your MCAT? If you know you’re capable of doing better, and it could open up doors to more schools, then maybe it’s worth retaking. For example, you have a 40M on your MCAT, and have not gotten into the few medical schools you’ve applied to the past few years. It might be worth taking the MCAT again to give yourself a shot at Western/Queen’s (which require a higher WS score), especially since having scored 40, it’s likely you will do more than well enough on the non-WS sections. On the other hand, if you struggled to get a 30P, then it might not be worth taking the risk of writing the MCAT again unless those schools you will apply to again only look at your best score, and not your most recent.

Volunteering, Extra-Curriculars, etc.

Do you have medically/health care related experiences? Do you have leadership experience? Do you have teamwork experience? If your answer is no to any of these, then I’d suggest starting to do something in those areas.

Medically/health care related experience like shadowing physicians, volunteering in a hospital, attending a conference for students interested in medicine, etc. demonstrate a real interest in medicine and show that you have some basic understanding. It shows you are at least somewhat serious about a career in medicine – that you’ve really though about it and taken the time to explore medicine.

Physicians often need to take on leadership roles, such as in a health care team. You want to have some sort of leadership experience, such as running a school club.

Of course, physicians aren’t always in charge, and are very often team players. If you haven’t yet, get involved in something where you have to work with others, such as a team sport, musical band, school club, etc.

If you want to be really safe, read the CanMEDS roles, and see if you have some sort of experience that demonstrates those qualities.

Reference Letters

It would also be a good idea to think about whether you got the best reference letters possible the last time around. Is there someone who would write you a stronger letter? Could you benefit from a bit more diversity (e.g. are all your referees academics? Are they all non academics? etc.)?

Remember, most importantly, you want a referee who wants you to get into medical school. If you don’t think they support you that much, I would suggest looking for an alternative referee if you can.

Essays

If your essay(s) were good enough to get an interview, then it is probably not worth changing completely.

But if you didn’t garner an interview, it is probably worth starting completely from scratch and coming up with new and improved angles to answer the question.

And don’t think it’s too early to start thinking about something as challenging as revising, or perhaps, re-writing your essay. A friend of mine asked me for advice on an essay that wasn’t successful in this past year’s cycle, just a few months ago. I am confident his hard work will pay off in the upcoming application cycle.

Have a Contingency Plan

I have to conclude by saying that no matter what, you need to be planning long term. Although you don’t have to stick to this plan, it’s good to think about your alternatives. If I don’t get in the next time, is that it for me? Should I apply again? Should I take a year off first?

These are all important questions you want to have at least some vague answer to so that you can form an outline for not just the coming year, but for the next few years to come.

Related posts:

1. Mastering the University of Toronto Medical School Essay – Part 4: How Your Premedical Studies have Prepared You for Medicine Disclaimer: I will be a University of Toronto medical student...
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Disclaimer: I will be a University of Toronto medical student starting this fall, but I am not on the admissions committee and never have been. All of the advice I will provide here is based on my own opinion and personal experience with the application process, so please take anything I say with a grain of salt.

Of the three idea the University of Toronto medical admissions committee wants you to address in your essay, I think the guideline referring to how your premedical studies have prepared you for medicine is least important. Not saying that you can neglect it (because you shouldn’t), but rather, it’s the one you should spend the least time and effort on compared to the other aspects. It’s also why this will be the shortest article in the series!

So Don’t Worry About It

The simple reason why you shouldn’t worry about this guideline too much is that good doctors can come from a variety of backgrounds, which is why medical schools have come to realize that it does not make sense to prefer certain undergraduate experiences over others, let alone certain university institutions. Everything you need to know to become a competent physician can be learned in medical school, but the question is which candidates have the best potential for medicine, and of them, who is ready at this point in time.

So don’t fret if your university background is not one of the more “popular” areas of premedical studies. Yes it’s probably easier for someone who is a kinesiology major to talk about their studies in anatomy or a biology major to describe their experience with immunology to demonstrate preparation for medicine, but don’t count yourself out if you come from something completely different, such as music.

There is more to being a doctor than simply basic science knowledge. Being able to work in teams, displaying compassion for your patients, problem solving, etc. are all important skill sets that go beyond knowledge, but are necessary for being a good physician. Some of these skills can definitely be better developed in programs other than kinesiology or biology, and if you’re in that group of applicants, then perhaps that’s something to think about.

Everyone Can Answer this Guideline

My message is simply this: no matter what your prior university studies have been, I’m sure you have learned something that will benefit you in a career for medicine. If you believe me, then the difficult part is already over – believing that you can answer this question. The next part is spending some time thinking about how anything you have learned or experienced in your premedical studies will help you in medicine.

How easy is it? Let me put it this way. In my own admissions essay, I wrote exactly two sentences about how I was attending York University for biomedical studies and how the courses I was taking are related to medicine. That is literally all I wrote for that guideline. I’m sure everyone, no matter what your university background is, can do something similar.

That’s not to say that you should only spend two sentences talking about your undergraduate studies like I did – if yours was very relevant to medicine and health care, and thus had a significant impact on your interest in medicine, then for sure, feel free to write more. For instance, perhaps you studied nursing, and thus already have a significant amount of experience in health care, then it would definitely be worth spending more time exploring this area of your life.

However, if you feel that your undergraduate experience had little impact on your interest in medicine, don’t worry about it. Do what you can, and if two sentences is all you can muster, be rest assured, that’s perfectly fine.

What’s Next

In the upcoming and final parts of the series, we will be looking at how to put our answers to these three guidelines together, and general tips for the overall essay.

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Disclaimer: I will be a University of Toronto medical student starting this fall, but I am not on the admissions committee and never have been. All of the advice I will provide here is based on my own opinion and personal experience with the application process, so please take anything I say with a grain of salt.

If there’s one question you should be able to answer, it’s “why medicine?”

Sure it’s arguably the most common interview question asked. But more importantly, you better have a darn good reason for wanting to be a physician because it would be pretty unfortunate if you did not think your decision though, and ended up regretting entering medicine after years of training and thousands of dollars invested. Of course it’s possible to change your mind and regret your decision even if you thought it though initially, though I would imagine you’re less likely to change your mind had you put a good amount of thought into it at the beginning.

That being said, I’m sure you also realize that your answer to this question is also important to medical schools, and the University of Toronto is no exception. As I outlined in Part 1, the UofT admissions committee wants your essay to: outline your choice of, and preparation for, a career in medicine.

Let me put that guideline in another way. Your essay needs to answer:

• Why do you want to be a doctor?
• What proof is there that medicine is something you have seriously thought about and are genuinely interested in?
• How do you know being a doctor is a good fit for you?

Why do you want to be a doctor?

One of the key messages I have been stressing is that medical school admissions committees want students who have a genuinely strong interest in medicine because those are the candidates who are likely to try their hardest to be the best physicians they can be. The depth of your reasons for wanting to be a physician are going to have a high correlation with this, which is why being able to convey them in a powerful manner in your essay is paramount to your success in the process.

When I talk to younger students interested in medicine, some of them just “feel” like they want to be physicians but can’t give me a tangible reason why, or they give me a really general response that could be applied to anything. For instance, one of the most common responses is “I like and/or am good at science, and I want to help people, so I want to be a doctor”. The problem with this statement is that you could remove “doctor” and replace it with many other professions, such as researcher, teacher, professor, etc. There are many careers that involve science and improving the lives of others – so why medicine, specifically?

If you can’t answer that question right now, it could mean one of a few things. It could mean that medicine might actually not be right for you, and you should start exploring some other careers.

However, it could also mean that while you know you are attracted to medicine, you haven’t spent enough time thinking about it, and being able to extrapolate your thoughts onto paper. If that’s you, then now’s a good a time as any to start thinking. You want to be as complete as possible when answering why you want to be a physician, so here are some questions to help you brain storm:

• Was there an event/experience that sparked your interest in medicine / becoming a doctor?
• Do you have any personal / family reasons that made you interested in medicine?
• What is it about being a physician that attracts you? What does medicine have that you want but can’t find in other careers?

Some students are concerned that they don’t have that “magical moment” of wanting to be a physician, like after using CPR to save a person’s life. Or they fret about not having a close relative who was afflicted with some disease. Basically, there are students who are concerned that they don’t have an “inspiring” set of reasons for becoming a physician, so dwelling on the reasons why is a waste of time for them, and so they focus their essay too much on other things.

This is a mistake. No one’s reasons for becoming a physician are “better” than anyone else’s. And regardless of how “amazing” you think your reasons and motivations are, realize that delivery of those reasons is just as, if not more, important than the actual content of those reasons. Remember, application essay writing is a skill. I am sure that if you put the time into thinking your reasons through fully and spending the effort to craft a strong delivery, you can answer “why medicine” just as well as anyone.

With regards to those three questions I wrote above, you might be able to answer only one of them well, or your answer might encompass all of them. It doesn’t really matter how you use those questions, so long as you can provide a comprehensive answer.

Prove to me that you have seriously thought about a career in medicine

It’s easy to say that being a doctor is something you have really thought about, but when you have to filter through thousands of applicants, having some evidence really helps.

Imagine you are the scout for a basketball team. A young man comes up to you, saying that he is interested in playing for your team. He sounds very passionate about basketball, so you ask him what experience he has. Has he been on a basketball team before? No. Okay, well has he ever just played basketball recreationally? No. Has he ever even watched a game of basketball before? Still the answer is no. As the scout, not only does this young man’s request to join your professional team sound rather strange, but taking him on would seem like an unwise risk. Furthermore, you question how he can even be sure basketball is for him, if he’s never even played before?

While it’s impossible to “play doctor” before actually entering medical school, the overall concept still applies. If you have never demonstrated the slightest interest in medicine, it’s not very believable to the admissions committee that being a doctor is something that you are actually serious about. Which is why I highly recommend that you do explore medicine in any way possible. Perhaps that’s shadowing a physician, volunteering at a clinic or hospital, etc.

But having these medically-related experiences isn’t the only important thing. You now have to go ahead and mention these experiences in your essay. If you volunteered in a hospital and got the opportunity to follow a physician around, even for a short period of time, I think it’s crucial that you mention it. It shows that you’ve taken the time to explore medicine as a potential career, and thus you are serious about it. Otherwise, your interest in medicine may appear questionable.

When writing about these medically-related experiences, it’s important to not just describe them, but explain their impact on you and your aspirations for a career in medicine. What did you learn from these experiences about being a doctor? How did they confirm or support your interest in medicine?

How do you know medicine is a good fit for you?

When the essay asks you to explain how you have prepared for a career in medicine, it’s a bit misleading in the sense that nothing you do before medical school can really “prepare” you the way that medical school does.

But in terms of preparation, I think one of the key things you can do is not just learn more about medicine and being a physician, but trying to find out if it’s something you actually want to do. It’s easy to say you like or don’t like something with limited information, but the conclusions you draw may not be fair – I mean for most of us, besides going to a doctor for check ups or when we are sick, how much do we really know about doctors and medicine?

Exploring medicine through volunteering, shadowing, and so on is a good opportunity to improve our understanding of what it means to be a physician, and whether it’s still something you want to do. And if these experiences do support your belief that you would enjoy medicine and would be a good fit for it, why do you think that?

Drawing on your past experiences, hobbies, and interests is crucial for making this connection. Perhaps you believe you would make a good physician because you have always been a very compassionate person and are passionate about taking care of others. It’s not only important that you say this, but connect this statement to prior experiences that prove this side of you.

Related posts:

1. Mastering the University of Toronto Medical School Essay – Part 4: How Your Premedical Studies have Prepared You for Medicine Disclaimer: I will be a University of Toronto medical student...
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Disclaimer: I will be a University of Toronto medical student starting this fall, but I am not on the admissions committee and never have been. All of the advice I will provide here is based on my own opinion and personal experience with the application process, so please take anything I say with a grain of salt.

As you have read in Part 1 of this series, I strongly believe that your essay should have an overall focus on your genuine desire to not only be a physician, but one who is dedicated for the long run – that is, help the judge understand that being a physician is something you are so passionate about that they will feel motivated to do anything to help you.

Just to be clear, when I talk about showing long term dedication, I’m not saying you need to say that you will do this or that once you are a physician. What I’m saying is that you need to illustrate that you have seriously thought about your decision to apply, because individuals who are serious about applying would have done some decent research into what it means to be a physician, and yet still want to be one. Someone who shows this seriousness and maturity about life decisions is likely to be someone that will strive to do their best in their role as a physician for years to come.

In this article, we will focus on the first item the University of Toronto admissions committee wants us to comment on within our essay: Your personal background, including particular interests and extracurricular experiences.

However, I’d like to make my own modification to that statement. I think your essay should comment on your personal background, including particular interests and extracurricular experiences, which are relevant to your journey towards a career in medicine.

This is a medical school essay, so talk about medicine

Even though the essay asks you to talk about your personal background, interests, and experiences, realize that you have a word limit (1000 words, which isn’t very much) and so you need to be selective – that being said, even without the word limit, you should be selective in the first place because this is not a random personal essay. This is an essay for your application to become a doctor. So if you’re going to write a life story, it shouldn’t just be your entire life story – it should be the parts of your life integral to your journey towards medicine.

Everything you mention in your essay should somehow relate to your overall theme – that is, if you were to pick any paragraph in your essay, you should be able to tell me exactly how it relates to your interest medicine and/or your journey towards becoming a physician. If you can’t do that, then you might need to rethink that part over.

Now, the relationship doesn’t have to be extremely direct – that is, every paragraph or idea you mention doesn’t have to be about doctors, hospitals, diseases, etc. But everything you write should always be relevant to your overall theme, and this relevance should be made obvious. The admissions judge should not have to think about why you’re mentioning this experience in your essay – you want to be direct and clear.

For instance, in my essay I mention that a lot of my community involvement has involved working with or advocating for children and youth. If I had just described these experiences and left it at that, this would be a rather weak component of my essay – it would be some floating experience. While those experiences have played a significant role in nurturing my interest in medicine, not elaborating further on why would be a big mistake. So I didn’t stop there. Rather, I made it quite clear (in fact, I even blatantly stated so), that these experiences have motivated me towards pursuing a medical profession in pediatrics.

Perhaps you ran a university club that has nothing to do with medicine or health care. Yet if you strongly feel that this experience has helped you develop collaborative, leadership, and communication skills that will make you a good doctor, then yes this is definitely relevant – but like I said, you need to make this connection clear in your essay.

The important thing is not necessarily the experience, event, or accomplishment itself in a vacuum, but how it has impacted/shaped your journey towards medicine.

So when considering what background/interests/experiences you should focus on in your essay, ask yourself these questions:

• What experiences have inspired / motivated me to consider medicine as a potential career? Which had the most impact, and why?
• What events have significantly impacted the type of physician I want or hope to be?
• What experiences have helped me develop skills that would be useful as a physician?

Making sense: Why mentioning “relevant” experiences is crucial

People don’t like to be confused. Everything is easier when things make logical sense. In the same way, it is easier for an admissions judge to see you as a future doctor when the essay you give them suggests it makes sense for you to be one.

Imagine an applicant whose essay focused on him being the top student in his philosophy program, winning an Olympic gold medal in figure skating, and representing Canada at a prestigious international conference on climate change. Despite their amazingness in a vacuum, none of these experiences, without further elaboration, clearly point to an interest in medicine. So unless the applicant can clearly explain how mentioning these experiences relate to his interest in and long term dedication towards a career in medicine, it may have been better to mention less “unique” experiences, such as the year he spent volunteering in a medical clinic and interacting with patients.

You don’t want the admissions judge questioning either your interest in, readiness, or ability to be a competent physician. You put all of that at risk unless your essay demonstrates that it “makes sense” for you to be a physician.

The Obsession with Standing Out

I think there is sometimes an obsession with applicants about the need to “stand out” – to be unique among the rest of the applicants. Here are the facts though – admissions committees are not looking for individuals who are different, they are looking for individuals who they believe will be good doctors.

My take on this is that you can stand out by writing a more powerful, moving essay than anyone else. Write your true, honest story about your desire to be a physician. But in order to do that, you need to be selective about the aspects of your personal history you mention – and it should all be clearly relevant to your interest in the medical profession.

Related posts:

1. Mastering the University of Toronto Medical School Essay – Part 4: How Your Premedical Studies have Prepared You for Medicine Disclaimer: I will be a University of Toronto medical student...
2. Mastering the University of Toronto Medical School Essay – Part 5: Putting it All Together Disclaimer: I will be a University of Toronto medical student...
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Disclaimer: I will be a University of Toronto medical student starting this fall, but I am not on the admissions committee and never have been. All of the advice I will provide here is based on my own opinion and personal experience with the application process, so please take anything I say with a grain of salt.

I want to share a secret with you. It’s something I discovered last summer, and is the reason I believe my essay was successful in the University of Toronto medical school admissions process.

It began when a friend of mine (who by coincidence, or perhaps not, is also entering UofT medicine this fall) showed me the essay of one of his friends who was accepted into UofT’s medical school last year. The content of the essay was rather unexpected as it went against the common intuition of what the essay should include. I think most applicants think that the essay should be some sort of interesting piece that simply highlights the applicant’s accomplishments and qualifications for medicine – but if anything, this essay had a different overall focus.

Without getting into the specifics of the essay, I remember reading through it, and being rather engrossed in it. And when I finally finished the essay, I had this strong feeling inside of me – the essay made me want to help him get into medical school.

It wasn’t that the applicant was a Rhodes scholar, or published in a million journals, or had a resume that blew my mind. And it’s not like he had some traumatic life changing moment that made him want to be a doctor that moved me to tears. No, nothing like that. In fact, there was nothing particularly outstanding about him on paper that would make him stand out among any other random applicant.

I mean, let’s think about it. If I read that you’re a Rhodes scholar who has been on the front page of Nature magazine, I’m sure as heck going to be really impressed and think you have the sickest resume ever. But that isn’t necessarily going to give me this strong, deep feeling that I want to do whatever possible to help you become a doctor. I’m just going to think you’ve done some crazy cool things.

However, this essay was different – in his own words, he was able to make me, the reader (and potential admissions judges) want to help him get into medical school. And if there’s someone you want to have that feeling, it’s the person deciding whether you get an interview or not.

Why is this so powerful and how was his essay able to make me feel this way?

The fact is that, right now, there are too many qualified applicants for medical school spots. As a result, the admissions committee probably receives a lot of essays that present very qualified applicants – and I’m sure many of these applicants would make good doctors. But with so many applicants who could be “good, competent doctors”, how do you sift through them even further?

Think about it from the admissions committee’s perspective. Training a medical student involves making a significant investment of time and money. So they want to pick students who they think will be good long term investments.

The reason this person’s essay was so powerful was because he was able to demonstrate to the reader that he would go above and beyond as a physician – that he is seriously interested in being the best physician he could be for the long haul. He showed that he has put serious, mature thought into being a doctor, and that he wasn’t applying just for the heck of it. He demonstrated that it really does make sense for him to be a doctor.

When there is an abundance of talent and impressive resumes, “stats” alone aren’t good enough. And from the perspective of medical schools and health care, perhaps that’s rightly so. They want (and as patients, wouldn’t you?) candidates who won’t just be competent at their jobs, but will be dedicated day after day for the unforeseeable future – because dedicated individuals are more likely to make significant impacts in health care and in the community. An essay jujst focusing on accomplishments and qualifications, while impressive, isn’t enough to create that special feeling in the reader.

And while you might very well be that serious, long-term dedicated individual, as I’ve mentioned countless times before, no one knows that unless you tell them – and the same goes for the telling the admissions committee in your essay.

So how do we show this serious, long term interest and dedication?

Of course, we need to present these ideas in a structured manner in the context of the essay. The UofT admissions committee helps us out by presenting three items they want us to think about and answer within the 1000 word essay. It’s amazing not only how often applicants neglect the guidelines (either absentmindedly, or as if thinking they know better than to answer the actual questions the admissions committee want answered), or don’t spend enough time thinking deeply about those items and why they might be asked. These guidelines are provided for a reason. Without further adieu, here they are:

1. As a general guideline, the statement should address and discuss the applicant’s personal background, including particular interests and extracurricular experiences.
2. Candidates should outline their choice of, and preparation for, a career in medicine.
3. Applicants should also describe their premedical studies, expanding on what they have chosen to pursue and how this has prepared them for their future, including a career in medicine.

In the next three parts of this series, we will analyze each of these questions in terms of what they really mean, figure out why the admissions committee want to know about them, and therefore, what we need to be presenting in the essay. Moreover, we will study how we should be answering these questions in the context of the overarching concept of showing our long term dedication, and thus, making the reader want to help us become physicians.

Related posts:

1. Mastering the University of Toronto Medical School Essay – Part 4: How Your Premedical Studies have Prepared You for Medicine Disclaimer: I will be a University of Toronto medical student...
2. Mastering the University of Toronto Medical School Essay – Part 5: Putting it All Together Disclaimer: I will be a University of Toronto medical student...
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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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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.

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I am sure there are many extremely qualified candidates for medical school. In fact, I think there are probably significantly many more people who would make fantastic physicians than there are spots. And in some cases, I think it is possible for some of the most promising physicians to not get into medical school.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: for any admissions process, be it a scholarship, professional school, or job, it’s not the best or most deserving candidates that get selected – it’s the candidate who does the best at the admissions process. It’s the candidate who markets himself or herself the best, and makes the evaluators think he or she is the best candidate.

About a month ago, the day before Ontario medical school applications was due, a close friend of mine was busy typing up one of his admissions essays. He was really worried about it, as he thinks he’s not very good at these, so he asked me to take a look at it and provide some advice. My friend is super intelligent, and I think that he would make a fantastic physician. This essay could be the make it or break it part of his application, and despite how good of a physician he might possibly be, this essay is the one of the few pieces of evidence the admissions committee has to come to that conclusion themselves.

So I read his essay, and I could instantly see a few problems in the writing process that he had, and it is a problem I am sure many students make when writing admissions or scholarship essays.

Anecdotes

My friend had borrowed one of those published books that contained successful medical school admissions essays (these essays were meant for United States medical schools, but a lot of it is probably useful for Canadian schools as well), and tried to write his essay with a similar style to the ones in the book.

A lot of the essays in the book start off with a vivid image of an experience, to draw the reader in. The concept of using an anecdote to start an essay is actually a pretty good one, and it’s one I will sometimes use. However, the fact of the matter is that for essay writing, you should be writing with a purpose, and not writing something for the sake of writing it.

You see, my friend’s perspective was that since other successful medical school admissions essays had an anecdote, he is best off using one as well. This is a major problem in mindset that I see a lot of students having. However, this really isn’t the right way of looking at it. Rather, you should consider using an anecdote, only if you have one that is useful and strengthens your essay – that is, if you can write a stronger essay without an anecdote, then don’t use one!

In this case, while my friend’s essay started off with a really great anecdote, the problem was that the rest of the essay just didn’t flow.

Flow

If you ever have an essay coaching session with me, the most important concept I will stress is flow. To me, flow occurs when the order of ideas, and even the individual sentences, are composed in a way that makes sense. Any two essays can have the same set of ideas and themes thrown around, but the essay that puts these ideas in an order that makes sense is miles ahead of the other essay.

For example, say you are writing a medical school admissions essay. You want to convey four main experiences/ideas/themes: (1) Volunteer experience in a hospital; (2) Family member’s health problems; (3) University undergraduate health studies; (4) Sports hobbies.

Given that we have four ideas we want to use, there are 4x3x2x1 = 24 possible different ways we can order these ideas in an essay. But for sure, I think one order can make much more sense, and would form the outline for a much superior essay.

Someone who isn’t thinking too much about order and flow might randomly do an order of 1,4,3,2 – that is, start off with an anecdote about their experience in the hospital, then mention the team work they’ve learned through sports, continue on with their health studies and its relevance in medicine, and then finally mention that their interest in medicine came from living with a family member with a serious health problem.

However, if it were up to me, I think an order of 2,1,3,4 is probably the best order – start off with an anecdote about your family member with the health problem, and how that got you interested in medicine, which led to your desire to try out hospital volunteering, which in turn confirmed your interest in medicine, so you decided to study health studies at university, and then end with some sports hobbies to show your diverse interests.

I think this second order shows the origins of your interests in medicine and your path towards it in a much more clear manner, and more importantly, in a way that shows how each of your decisions to pursue each subsequent experience makes sense. The first example really doesn’t show this at all.

In my friend’s essay, he started off with an anecdote of one of his experiences in a health clinic in a third world country, and then from there, he instantly jumped to his undergraduate biology studies. The problem for me was that there simply wasn’t any flow – there was no reason for the essay to jump randomly from one experience to the other. And when there’s no flow, it makes the intentions of the essay very confusing.

Clearly, given the same person and same ideas to use, the essay can come out very differently depending on how you choose to order and structure your ideas. That is, you need to structure the ideas of your essay with a clear purpose. Although the quality of candidate hasn’t changed, your chances of getting an interview are significantly increased with a better structured essay.

Every Word, Every Sentence, Every Idea Must have a Clear Purpose – And It Must be a Good One

In order for the ideas to make sense, there must be an overall purpose behind them – that is, you must have clear intentions and reasons for writing what you write. This purpose should go even deeper, that is, your individual sentences and sometimes even words alone should serve a specific purpose. And these small individual purposes should add up to the overall purpose of your essay.

When I was going through my friend’s essays, and all of the major components of it, the number one question I asked him was: “Why did you write this?” That is, what’s the importance for each of these components? If you don’t have a good reason for putting it there, maybe it’s not worth mentioning for this specific essay.

A bad reason that my friend used for some things, and that I think many students make the mistake of using, is the reason of: “I thought I was supposed to” or “I saw other successful applicants do it”. In theory, both these reasons can be good, but often tend to lead you down a bad path because students use these reasons incorrectly. These reasons are only good reasons and only make sense if they apply to you.

For example, as I mentioned earlier, my friend used an anecdote for the sake of using one – because he thought that’s what medical school admissions officers want to see. And that works sometimes, but like I mentioned, it didn’t flow into his next idea properly. Not saying it couldn’t – perhaps with the right transition sentence or paragraph it would, but at the time, no such paragraph existed – and that’s crucial.

Another example in my friend’s essay was near the last third of his essay, where he randomly listed some of his extracurricular activities – sports teams, club activities, etc without explaining why they were there. I asked him why he included these, and he simply answered, “I assumed they wanted to know what I’m involved in”. I’m not saying he shouldn’t mention these activities, but he gave no strong reason why he should. In fact, the school already receives a list of your activities as part of the application – so why randomly include them here again?

If you’re going to list an activity, you should make your intentions clear. Do these activities help you relieve stress? Did they teach you team work skills that will help you work with your future medical colleagues? If you’re going to mention something, it needs to have purpose and flow in the overall context of your essay.

You should be producing an essay that highlights your story the best, not an essay that includes a myriad of components that you just assume you’re supposed to have.

Writing with Reason

You need a good reason for everything you write. Every time you want to include a significant component in your essay, you need to ask yourself: Why am I including this? Does it support my overall theme? Is this the right place to include it? Does it make sense for me to have this here? Am I including this because I have good reasons to and it strengthens my essay?

Things that might seem obvious to you, won’t necessarily seem obvious to the reader. Remember, the reader knows nothing about you. All they have is that 1,000 word essay you hand in. That’s how they view you. And you gotta make sense.

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I was sitting in my Advanced Biochemistry class the other day, and the professor was talking about a well-known scientist (that I can’t remember) who helped pave the way for some very important discoveries in biology. The professor said that the reason why the scientist was so successful was not because he knew all the answers right away, but because he knew the right questions to ask.

Asking the Right Questions

Whenever you are solving any type of problem, the first thing you need to ask yourself is: what is the question really asking? Because if you don’t understand the question, then you’re never going to get the right answer. And the best way to understand a question, is to question the question itself (this sounds kind of tricky, but really it’s not!).

Being able to look at problems by asking the right questions is an important concept that applies to anything, and is something I find particularly useful in my undergraduate life sciences studies. Last year, I began tutoring first year chemistry students as part of the chemistry department’s peer mentoring program. Students would come in with chemistry problems they were having trouble with, and we would help figure them out.

While some of the other tutors just solved the problems for the students in front of them (and granted, that’s all some of the students wanted), I don’t feel this is the best way to help the students. Because if the students knew how to approach correctly, well, they wouldn’t need to be asking for help in the first place. So in general, I don’t like just solving the problems for them. What I try to do is guide them through the process of answering the question, and I do so by asking them questions. I ask them the questions they should be asking themselves while doing the problem.

I ask the students things like: What is the question asking us to figure out by the end? What information do we need to figure that out? Okay, so once we have that information, how do we get to the next step? etc. etc. When I do this, my hope is that the students retain this questioning method of problem solving. At some point, when this process becomes ingrained in you, you don’t really think about the questions consciously while say doing a test, but it’s essentially what you are doing while problem solving.

So What are the Right Questions to Ask when Approaching Interview and Application Questions?

After several years of application and interview success, I believe the following are the main questions you need to be asking yourself when approaching interview and application questions:

• What is the question asking?
• Why are they asking me this question? What is its purpose
• What types of answers are they expecting?
• Who is evaluating my answer?

What is the question asking?

For the most part, understanding the basic idea of most questions during interviews or applications should be pretty obvious. Recognize that it is important for you to understand the wording of the question correctly, so that you can produce a relevant answer. Sometimes interpreting questions correctly can be quite tricky. Remember, not answering the question is not that much different from having no answer, so you want to make sure you take the time to interpret the question correctly.

For example, let’s say you were asked the following question in a medical school interview: “What will you do if you don’t get into medical school this year?”

And let’s say you answer: “I will probably pursue a Bachelors of Education and become a high school biology teacher.”

This is a simple example of listening or interpretation gone wrong, which could cost you your medical school acceptance. While your interviewer was asking you what you would do if you did not get into medical school this application cycle, you accidentally thought he was asking what your alternative career plans are. So because of this small mistake, your interviewer now thinks you are not serious about becoming a physician since it appears that you are not willing to apply more than once (which may not be the case!).

So make sure you read/listen to the question carefully, and answer what is being asked.

Why are they asking me this question? What is its purpose?

Every question you are asked in an interview or application serves some purpose. By figuring out what the purpose is, you can tailor the best answer possible. You will be able to provide an answer that is relevant, and meet the exact criteria you are being judged for.

In order to understand the purpose of the question, you need to frame the question in the right context; that is, you need to answer the question in reference to the overall process. This is because different judges or committees can have different reasons behind the same question.

For example, let’s say the question was: “What is one of your most valuable volunteer experiences and what did you learn from it?”

If this is for a medical school interview, you might want to talk about your experience volunteering in the emergency room of a hospital. However, if this was for a community leadership scholarship, you might want to talk about that after-school tutoring program you created. While both of these experiences might be very meaningful to you, it makes sense to pick the one that is most appropriate to the context of the question.

Medical schools might ask this question because they want to see if you have a genuine interest in serving others, and to ensure you have the right attitude to do this as a long term career. In addition, they might want to see whether you have any health care experience, and to see if you consider such an experience among your most valuable (i.e. you enjoyed the environment).

A community leadership scholarship judge might ask you this question because they want to see whether you highly value taking initiative through servant leadership.

I hope it is clear that how you shape your answer is highly dependent on understanding why the scholarship judges are asking this particular question. They are asking you these specific questions for a reason, and the reasons for this will vary depending on the context of the question.

Figuring out the the purpose of both the individual questions and overall motivations of the judges will significantly improve your performance in the interview and application process.

What types of answers are they expecting?

It is important to be able to gauge what types of answer the judges are expecting, and to adjust your answer accordingly. For example, there are certain cases where there is a common answer that they almost always expect to get. However, standing out might be important in some situations, so you may intentionally choose an answer that separates you from the other applicants. For instance, a common question that I think many applicants sort of butcher is: “What is your biggest weakness?”

A lot of students have the fear that if they tell their weakness, it will hinder their success, so they end up saying something like “I’m a perfectionist” a lot of the time, because while it does have a bit of a negative connotation, it doesn’t sound so bad. However, I think this is an answer that a lot of committees and judges expect from the common applicant. So for a question like this, I personally never use the perfectionist answer.

On the other hand, there are cases where the judges are expecting a certain answer from ideal applicants. For example, if the judge is asking you to talk about an ethical dilemma you have been involved in, they are not looking for applicants who have a history of making unethical choices; because really, that’s a red flag right off the bat. So they are expecting you to pick a situation where you did the ethically correct thing, and in most cases, that’s the one you should talk about.

So make sure you consider what the judges expect the common applicant to answer, and whether it makes sense for your answer to reflect that, or sometimes, stray from it.

Who is evaluating my answer?

When I say who, I don’t mean the “medical school” or “scholarship organization”. I mean the exact individual person who is asking you the interview questions (this doesn’t really apply to applications, since you usually have no idea who is reading them. If you do, then I guess this will be relevant).

When I attended interviews for the University of Western Ontario’s National Scholarship in Grade 12, I was greeted by three professors. I had no idea who they were or what their academic backgrounds were, but I would say their ages ranged from 35-60 years old.

One of the questions I was asked was: “If you had one hour of free time, what would you do?”

I said something like: “I’d probably hang out with my friends and do something.”

Judges: “Like what?”

Me: “Umm… maybe see a concert or something.”

Judges: “Who would you see?”

Me: “I think I’d like to see Death Cab for Cutie…”

At this point I realized a few things:

1. They probably don’t know who Death Cab for Cutie was. (For those of you who don’t know, it’ s an indie rock band)
2. Since it has the word “Death” in the band name, they might think I listen to dark music about death. Which would be a bad thing.

So I continued with: “…have you heard of them?”

Judges: “Nope.”

Me: “Errr… what about Coldplay? Have you heard of Coldplay?”

Judges: “Oh yeah yeah, we know Coldplay.”

Me: “Right… yeah I’d like to see them!” (Phew)

That’s a pretty simple example, but it just goes to show the importance of recognizing the backgrounds and situations of your judges or interviewers, and how they might react to your answer. If they are part of an older generation, you might want to make sure the examples you use and refer to are things they can relate to. For example, few people from the older generations would know about Death Cab for Cutie, but most people have still heard about the band Coldplay at one point or another. I mean I honestly would love to see either band, but in order to form a connection with the judges, it helped to pick an equally good answer that they would understand and relate to.

Or if they come from a traditional generation, it might be better to stray away from behaviour that is acceptable now but may not have been years before. For example, while it might be okay to tell your 2nd year medical school interviewer how you got “owned” on a test yesterday (though I personally still wouldn’t do it), you’re better off telling your senior professor interviewer that your test yesterday was simply “difficult”.

It is also important to analyze their personalities and the moods they are in, and how that might affect their perception of you. If they are very talkative, then you will want to react by also being fairly talkative. If they are not as active speakers, you might want to make sure you don’t dominate the conversation so they always get their questions or words in.

Really, it’s all about adjusting to the dynamics of the situation with those specific interviewers. Just make sure you keep in mind how your specific interviewers or judges will react to your answers.

It Takes Practice

Like with any skill, figuring out both what the right questions to ask are and how to answer them takes practice. A good idea is to take some random interview or application questions, and just ask yourself those four questions I suggested and see if it improves how you would normally answer the question. It also helps to form a group of friends to do this with. I find that bouncing ideas off other people and seeing how they would approach the same question can give a lot of great insight I would never have considered on my own.

If you want to go one step further in utilizing this concept in other parts of your life, try picking random problems you encounter during the day or hear about, and see if you can use the method of questioning the question to come up with better solutions. I am sure you will find this technique helpful in many different situations, and not just in the interview room.

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Imagine you are a scholarship judge or admission committees, and you are analyzing an application. It could be a scholarship essay, medical school essay, or something similar. Despite the specific qualities you are looking for, there is always one underlying question whose answer will consciously or unconsciously sway your opinion:

“Does it make sense?”

And I don’t mean grammatically (i.e. the sentences can be understood). For example, the medical school admissions committee might ask itself:

“Does it make sense for the applicant to become a doctor?”

For example, take Candidate A who says he wants to be a doctor because he is smart, likes science, and enjoys helping people. The problem with this argument is that it’s not convincing. I mean, is Candidate A saying that science teachers don’t help people? Or that medical researchers do not contribute to society in a meaningful way? From the admissions committee point of view, Candidate A has shown no real reason why it makes sense for him to be a physician. He has given no reason why he couldn’t be just as happy and successful doing something else.

Or take Candidate B whose family has a history of heart disease, which made her interested in human health and medicine. That is much more convincing, because she has an actual connection to the field. Candidate B has a genuine motivation to make strides in the field of heart disease. And because of this family tie, medical schools know she will be a better investment in that field, because she has a reason to be driven.

For all we know, Candidate A and B could be the same person who, in different realities, decided to talk about different things in their medical school application essay. But version B is much stronger.

What I’m saying is that you need to think deeply about your motivations, and how they affect how you present yourself as an applicant.

Motivation

Being convincing and making sense is all about your motivations. Whenever you write an application essay, the most important thing is to reflect on your overall motivation and your smaller motivations. The overall motivation is why you are applying in the first place. The smaller motivations are why you did the things you are writing about (e.g. your volunteer work, accomplishments, etc.)

This is important because if you’re honest with yourself, and you write from the heart, your essay will be convincing no matter what.

A problem I see people have is that they think the only way to be successful with applications is to fit the mold of accomplishment and qualification. And this ends up being what a lot of students write about in their essays. They write as if they are entitled to be a physician because of their hundreds of hours of volunteering at the local hospital, for example. They write as if they need to prove they are qualified.

I think this is a mistake. It’s a mistake because when you write like this, you’re leaving out something much more important: your drive and your motivation. You are forgetting to answer the questions of how and why you got involved in these activities/accomplishments in the first place. While your accomplishments will hang there on your essay, it won’t necessarily jive with the rest of your writing.

Explaining your motivations will improve your essay ten-fold

If you’re going to talk about your hospital volunteering, also mention that story where you saw that Sick Kids Hospital commercial on television that touched your heart and made you want to get involved.

Because if you don’t, the admissions committee might think: this guy probably did it to just pad his resume.

If you’re going to talk about how you created a tutoring program for first year science students at your university, first talk about your positive experience as a tutor in high school.

Because if you don’t, the admissions committee might think: wait, so when did this person start liking to tutor?

If you’re going to talk about your summer research about genetic diseases, you might want to share your family history of genetic diseases.

Because if you don’t, the admissions committee might think: oh, this student is another one of those typical premeds who thinks he needs to do research to get into medical school, but doesn’t necessarily care about research in the first place.

The idea is that leaving out your motivation and background creates holes in your argument. It makes you sound less convincing. Because really, that’s what your application essay is: an argument of why you should be selected. Furthermore, explaining your motivation for all aspects of your essay makes your story complete.

Your argument needs to make sense. And it won’t make sense without your motivation.

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