Victoria Zhang
With limited characters, your ABS cannot tell your entire story. The goal is not to list everything you did, but to give the reader a clear sense of what you contributed, why it mattered, and what your role looked like in practice.
Here are a few strategies that can help.
1. Think beyond your responsibilities
A common ABS description might say:
Assisted with orientation activities, answered questions, and helped organize events.
This tells the reader what you were responsible for, but not much about your contribution.
Instead, try asking: What did my involvement actually mean for the people or project I was working with?
For example:
Guided incoming students through orientation, helping them navigate academic and campus resources during their transition to university.
The second version gives the reader more of a picture of why the role mattered.
Impact does not have to mean a statistic. It can be quantitative, but it can also describe the experience you created, the problem you addressed, or the difference your involvement made for someone else.
2. Let your actions show your strengths
You do not need to explicitly write that you demonstrated leadership, communication, or teamwork. Your responsibilities can show this for you.
Rather than:
Demonstrated leadership and communication by supporting volunteers and participants.
Try:
Trained new volunteers, adapted instructions for participants with varying needs, and coordinated shift coverage during busy events.
The reader can identify the skills being demonstrated without being told what to think.
This is also where the CanMEDS roles can be useful. Rather than trying to force a role into every entry, consider whether your collection of activities gives the reader a sense of the different qualities medical schools are looking for. Across your ABS, you may be able to demonstrate communication, collaboration, leadership, advocacy, scholarship, professionalism, and other aspects of your development without explicitly naming them.
3. Use the title strategically
Your title is part of the limited space you have. It can provide context that allows your description to focus on the “so what?”
For example:
Healthcare Appointment French Interpreter
Molecular Biology & Neuroscience Lab Project Lead
A descriptive title can tell the reader something important about the nature or complexity of your role before they even reach the description.
4. Focus on one meaningful aspect of the role
Trying to fit every responsibility into one entry can make the description difficult to follow.
Instead, consider focusing on one central responsibility and its impact, or two closely related responsibilities.
For example:
Supported the social well-being of 20 residents living with dementia through weekly group programming and individualized 1-on-1 engagement.
This gives the reader a clear picture of both what was done and who it mattered to.
For another role, you might focus on a specific contribution:
Created science curricula for children ages 5–10, fostering a safe learning environment where students could explore questions and develop curiosity.
The goal is to help the reviewer picture what you actually did rather than giving them a list of duties.
A useful question to ask
When revising an entry, move beyond:
“What did I do?”
Try asking:
“What did I contribute, why did it matter, and what does this experience reveal about me?”
You do not need to answer all three explicitly in every entry. But if your ABS consistently gives the reader enough information to answer those questions, your experiences will feel much more personal and meaningful than a list of responsibilities.
Your ABS is a picture of how you spent your time, what you contributed, and the kind of person you were becoming through those experiences.