SELF-DIRECTION
The committee will give a separate score for evidence of self-direction.  This score will be based on answers to the personal essay, letters of recommendation, work experience, phone interview, and portfolio. 
 

WORK EXPERIENCE

Paid and volunteer experiences in any area will be considered.   You may include work experience prior to the last five years, if it is pertinent or demonstrates your flexibility, self-direction, or leadership.  Please be as specific as possible regarding dates and hours/week worked.  More weight will be given to positions requiring leadership, creativity, flexibility, and self direction, so be sure to include in the description of the key responsibilities if appropriate.

LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION

Three letters of recommendation are required, and are also required by DICAS.  We would like one of them to be from an instructor in a major subject and one from a work supervisor.  Work recommendations do not have to relate to dietetics, but you should include any experiences where you had a leadership role, were required to work independently or display flexibility.  If you have letters of recommendation you want to include beyond the 3 you use on DICAS, you can include in your portfolio.

PERSONAL STATEMENT AND ESSAY QUESTIONS:

In addition to the standard personal statement requested by DICAS we are asking you to answer 2 additional essay questions.  In this part of your application, we are looking for creativity, writing skill, and evidence of the characteristics of flexibility, self-direction, and leadership.  Remember, the examples you use for the 2 supplemental questions DO NOT have to be work or school related.   Follow the guidelines for other programs to which you are applying in answering the DICAS-required personal statement questions.
 

GRADES

Submit transcripts from all post secondary schools attended.   Total GPA and GPA in DPD required courses will be evaluated.   

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PORTFOLIO

Your portfolio can be an important part of your application.  It is a way to tell us about yourself, your interests, hobbies, accomplishments.  Be as creative as you want.  You can include anything that you feel you would like us to know about you.  This is different than your school portfolio or a portfolio you would put together for job interviews.  You can certainly include items from school (papers, projects, awards, etc) or from your work.  And you can also include more personal items--such as interests, accomplishments, hobbies.  We will judge the portfolio on how it is put together.  Is it neat and organized?  Is it easy to read and understand?  The work you put into it will demonstrate to us your commitment to wanting to be a part of this internship.  We will also look at the variety of items you include.  We are not looking for a large volume of material, but for representations of the scope of your interests and skills.  We are also looking for you to explain the items that you include and tell us why you included them.

You can send the portfolio as a binder, a DVD, a CD or a Flash Stick.  You can also send a link to a website that you develop or have published to one of the many sites available.  A site like Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) is a wonderful way to share items.  PLEASE NOTE:  WE WILL NOT RETURN ANY ITEMS, SO PLEASE MAKE COPIES OF ITEMS YOU WISH TO KEEP.

TELEPHONE INTERVIEW

Once the applications are screened and evaluated, some of the applicants will be called for a telephone interview.  The purpose of this interview is to give the selection committee more information about your personality, your philosophy and your work habits.  You will not be quizzed about your clinical knowledge.  One or more of the internship faculty will interview you on GoToMeeting, and will tape the conversation for those on the selection committee who cannot be present.  A time will be arranged by email that is convenient for both you and the interviewer.  Please be sure to check your email often once you have submitted your application.

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SOME WORDS OF ADVICE FOR COMPLETING YOUR APPLICATION

• We DO value creativity and a sense of humor in this program.   We encourage you to answer the questions for the essay questions above and to put together your portfolio in a way that will show us what your personality is like and what your talents are.  It will help us in our decision if we can get a better feel for you as a person.  We are most interested in finding candidates who would be a good match for this program.  When you are completing your application, think about what makes you unique and a good match for us.  Adding creative or humorous touches to your application will help you to show your uniqueness and help you to stand out from the other candidates, not to mention the fact that it will make our review of the applications much more enjoyable! 
  
  NOTE:  Since the materials you submit on DICAS will be reviewed by all the internships to which you apply, you should plan to keep those parts more formal.
   
• A well-organized, neat and easy-to-read application makes a good first impression for any program you are applying to.  It tells us that you are serious about your application to our program and are interested in showing us your best.  This is true of the portfolio, in particular.
   
• Please read everything over carefully.   (For example, make sure you spell Sodexo correctly!)  While we expect you to write your personal essay yourself, it is certainly permissible to have someone else read it over to catch any spelling or grammatical errors.  We prefer that the answers to the essay questions above  be typed.  Of course anything on DICAS will be typed as well.
   
• Make sure you tell your recommenders what qualities we are looking for in our applicants (self direction, leadership, flexibility) so that they can address these qualities in their letter of recommendation.  This is true for any of the programs you are applying to.
   
• Please have all supplemental application materials sent to the address in New Boston, NH (133 Hooper Hill Road, New Boston, NH   03070).  If you send it to the Waltham address, we will get it, but it means the staff at the office will have to forward it on to me and it will be delayed.
   
• While we have set our deadline to coincide with the D&D Digital  and the DICAS deadline, we get a large number of applications at the last minute and sending it early would be very much appreciated by the selection committee.  The DICAS website is available after December 8.  It may also increase your chances of getting an interview, as our early cut-off score is generally lower than our later score.