For each of the past two years I have been heavily involved in the production of the 24-page admissions brochure of the Temple University School of Medicine which—based on the number of applications that floods the school each year—is the fourth most popular medical school in the country. This year my major responsibility involved interviewing six students and two professors in order to create profiles that illustrate the types of students the school attracts. Given their impressive past and current accomplishments, such as their research, global medicine and community service endeavors, the challenge was to limit the features to about 180 words each.
One of my favorite student profiles highlighted now third-year student Kathryn Anne Stockbower, who spearheaded an effort to create the Science in Philadelphia Schools (SIPS) program. It involves Temple med students helping 8th-graders at a nearby, resource-strapped public school conduct hands-on science experiments two afternoons a week. During my interview with her, she modestly told me that she had played tennis and basketball while at Swarthmore College. Did she ever! When I happened to mention her name to a friend who lives in Swarthmore and is familiar with the college, he told me she might have been the best woman to ever play basketball there. Checking it out, I discovered that Kathryn Anne was an Academic All-American who set the NCAA Division III women’s basketball for the most double-double games (both points and rebounds in double figures).
My assignment also included turning disparate text submitted by the school’s five different clinical rotation sites into a more uniformed whole and giving most of the rest of the 24 pages of text a quick edit and some slight revisions.
Click here to see a full PDF of the Temple University School of Medicine admissions brochure.