This question was originally posted on Quora.com, and below is one of the best answers: Answered by, Helen Yang, studied at Harvard University I’ll take a stab at answering this question, even though everyone has unique experiences and it’s not really unhelpful to generalize. Two thoughts: HMS encourages students to pursue their interests, whether inside or outside of medicine. The pass-fail curriculum (and the fact that professors don’t write exams to be as hard as the materials are) make it possible for us to pursue many interests. Everyone is involved in a research project or two (or ten) in all fields, some people are involved in advocacy efforts, others continue part-time careers doing other things like teaching or dancing, the list goes on. People spend the majority of their time on things that are not studying. You can conclude, thus, that admissions officers look for accept students who’ve shown significant interests in things beyond just excellent grades from studying. Only a minority of the class graduates in the standard 4 years. The majority of the class takes one or more years to either do a second degree (PhD, MPH, MBA, etc), do research, or a slew of other meaningful activities. One person took a year off to write a book. Others do it for personal reasons. HMS is very accepting of this, and in fact many mentors encourage you to make the most of your time here instead of just rushing through it. Source
