So hey guys, I have a quick question. I honestly am getting the impression (albeit SDN, so not sure how accurate it is, given that it’s SDN) that you really do need to have a ridiculous number and/or quality of ECs in order to be competitive for admission. Personally, I find the idea of doing something just for the sake of looking better rather repulsive, so here’s my question:
will membership to several organizations where I’m not necessarily active, I just get discounts, magazines, health insurance for diving etc. (Diver’s Alert Network, PADI Diving Society), I’ll join a diving club in Santa Barbara once I move so there’ll be that too, I’ll being certified as a PADI Master Diver (basically the highest level of non-professional diving you can get through PADI and what im working on now), being certified in multiple diving specialties such as deep diving, enriched air diving, etc., having done the hospital volunteering thing, paid EMT for several years and participation in a few college clubs (probably not any special positions such as president) be good enough to be competitive to at least middle-tier schools?
I honestly don’t care (to an extent) where I go to med school, and I care even less about doing an EC just for the sake of it looking good, so I’m hoping the aforementioned is good enough. If I get free time during undergrad, I’d rather spend it 60 feet below the ocean off the coast of Channel Islands instead of doing something else. 
Tim, Just out of curiosity (not that I believe everything on SDN either) but how many ECs are you seeing mentioned for
competitive entry? I am just wondering because unless I literally just stop sleeping every night, I can’t fit anything
else into my schedule. 
From speaking with my advisor she thinks I’m on track to be a good candidate, but I was
wondering how much these other people you are reading about are able to accomplish.
Taryn
- JCE Said:
competitive entry? I am just wondering because unless I literally just stop sleeping every night, I can't fit anything
else into my schedule. :-) From speaking with my advisor she thinks I'm on track to be a good candidate, but I was
wondering how much these other people you are reading about are able to accomplish.
Taryn
Taryn,
It really does vary on the person, but typically, I see at least one major research (sometimes a publication, sometimes not) that's been conducted over a year or more, hospital volunteering over multiple years plus one or more different types of volunteering, sometimes a medical mission trip to another country, presidents or other leadership positions of numerous clubs, etc. etc...I'm sure some of these people are lying about some of their ECs, but since I have no way of verifying that, I have to assume that they've really done all that. And yeah, I'd say sleep is far more important than a fluff EC.
Tim, well let’s hope they’re not lying, that would be a shame, but I guess they’d have karma to deal with.
Taryn
Somebody with the activities Tim described would likely be a qualified candidate. That doesn’t mean you have to be some kind of superman and do EVERYTHING to get into med school . Do what interests you, and see if your interests reflect your interest in medicine (they don’t all have to; there’s nothing wrong with thoroughly enjoying scuba diving, and it probably makes you a little more interesting than the average applicant).
The MSAR gives some statistics about what percent of matriculants have done Volunteer work, Research, and one other thing (I forget what the third is, alas). So for school X, 80% of em volunteered, 65% had some research, etc. We can’t tell who’s done all three, but obviously, it’s not everybody.
To put it another way, don’t look at yourself as competing with Clark Kent, w/ his 4.0 GPA, 42 MCAT, president of the X-Ray vision club, medical missions in 32 different countries in the same day, volunteering to save the world. Try to get a more grounded comparison… and perhaps not one from SDN 
.
Tim,
I totally agree with Adam!
Be yourself and make the best of it! If you have no time or passion for research - don’t do it! You probably won’t be a perfect applicant for Harvard, but there are plenty of people in med school, who haven’t done any research!
And no - don’t sign up to the clubs so you could list them on your application! I didn’t really belong to any clubs, and I got in!
I had bunch of volunteering though … random things - some tutoring, work with special need children, some hospital volunteering, hospice volunteering etc. Some of these activities though were very short, and I did them to check what I might really like; so I just grouped them in one category instead of listing everything separately! I think that quality is more important than quantity, and I know most of the admission committees will agree.
Most of the folks at SDN are ‘traditional’ applicants, and they don’t necessary have your experiences/ wisdom/ or … whatever else we want to call it - so they have to make-up for this in quantity.
Kasia
I would recommend that whatever you decide to get involved in, you do it with depth and conviction. Dabbling in a number of clubs just to say you were a member doesn’t carry any weight. To quote a former UCSF director of admissions, “Be so involved that when you leave, you will be missed.” (Or words to that effect.)
Cheers,
Judy
As others have already said, it is the quality of the ECs that matter, not the quantity. Ideally you will have some health care field experience (you may want to shadow some physicians along with being an EMT) and you will do something to give back to the community. You need to have some balance. It is great to having diving as a hobby, but it should not be your major EC on AMCAS if you are doing it merely for recreation. Adcoms are looking for a solid record of serving others and enough time spent around doctors that you have at least some inkling of what you’re getting yourself into. On the other hand, don’t be so extreme that you stop taking care of yourself. (That is rarely a problem with applicants, in my experience, but every so often there will be some kid who just never takes time for him/herself.) Most of the time, it’s the other way around: the kid has great grades, but s/he’s self-centered. Recently at my school, one applicant told the interviewer that he didn’t have time to volunteer because he was too busy working on achieving a new level in his role-playing game. Needless to say, this person will not be attending medical school here next year, in spite of the admittedly great amount of dedication he has to mastering his role-playing.
I also agree with the people who told you to do something you really care about. We don’t all have to serve by candystriping in a hospital. Take advantage of your skills and talents and use them to help others. If diving is your thing, maybe you could volunteer to teach low-income kids to snorkel, or you could collect sea life to take to a local school to teach the kids about marine biology, or…
- QofQuimica Said:
I also agree with the people who told you to do something you really care about. We don't all have to serve by candystriping in a hospital. Take advantage of your skills and talents and use them to help others. If diving is your thing, maybe you could volunteer to teach low-income kids to snorkel, or you could collect sea life to take to a local school to teach the kids about marine biology, or....
Granted, saying one doesn't have time to volunteer because he/she is too busy playing a computer game is one thing, however, most of us I would imagine have to work through college so it's simply a matter of if we have 4 hours to spare per week, better to spend it working than something else, since volunteering never put any food in front of me...those 8 months where I volunteered were 8 months where I was living with my parents and I had no need to work, hence I figured I'd do something constructive with my time. Now? I probably will not volunteer again, especially once I'm at UCSB, because grades are far more important to me than ECs.
I realize that adcoms think they're important, but if someone expects one to have a solid record of serving others, IE lots of volunteering, then it's great that that person didn't have to work through college, but I'm not so lucky, so I'll be spending my time making money so I can afford to pay my bills, eat, and dive once a month.
I think it's great that some people find time to volunteer while they're in college, but I don't see how someone could afford to do so at a university, unless they don't need to work...I mean sure at a CC I can see that since you don't need to work much to cover school costs, but at a university where the amount of time one needs to spend on homework is far greater, and the costs are far greater...eh, the idea of giving time away for free just boggles my mind. Especially when I'll have to take out a staggering $8,000 in student loans per year even with working 20 hours a week just to make ends meet.
Now, I do agree that someone should show a record of serving others if they want to do this path, but honestly, why isn't being an EMT fulfilling of that requirement? I help people a hell of a lot more every day at work than 99.9% of anyone in any volunteer capacity. In fact, one day at work teaches me more about medicine than the entire 8 months I spent volunteering. And it sure helps them a lot more.
I digress though. I appreciate all the advice given; I just find it amusing that we're expected to have all this free time to devote to ECs during undergrad when most of us work for a living and we're required to in order to keep ourselves alive. If I'm asked about /only/ 8 months of volunteering at interviews, I'm definitely not going to tell them I was too busy playing World of Wacraft, but I /am/ going to tell them that my time was better spent working as an EMT than volunteering at a hospital, seeing as it was a more valuable experience and it kept my bills from going to collections. If they can't understand that, then perhaps I'm not a good fit for that school.
Tim -
I don’t entirely disagree with your rant. When I went back to school to do my pre-reqs, my volunteering actually came to an end. With school, work and helping on the farm, there just wasn’t time to do the extensive volunteering I had done previously. If I had been asked about why I didn’t volunteer the previous two years during interviews (I wasn’t asked), that’s what I would have said. I don’t think there is anything wrong with saying that your time to volunteer was limited because you needed to work x amount of hours per week.
That being said, (and as Q mentioned), there are plenty of creative ways to volunteer without giving up a ton of time a week. Perhaps there are monthly/annual events that you could help with. Example - there always seem to be events around here that are looking for EMT’s to volunteer because their liability insurance requires it and they can’t afford to pay a full time crew to do so. Athletic type events especially require medical staffing on hand and a lot of them try to do with with volunteers (triathalons, marathons, Special Olympic events, etc).
- Emergency! Said:
This is definitely true. I'm actually working on getting one of these right now...there's a rally race up in Oregon according to my roommate who needs volunteer EMTs to stash the first aid station. We're waiting on getting a response back from them but we did put our names in. I figured that'd be something cool to do.
Volunteering as an EMT totally counts as volunteering. I never said that you had to spend four hours per week. But if the volunteering is important to you, then you will make time to do it periodically, just like you make time to dive. So if you’re busy during the semester, then volunteer during your breaks.
I really don’t have that much sympathy for people who say they have no time to volunteer. (I’m not talking about you specifically, Tim; I’m saying in general.) I have been working two part-time jobs throughout college, grad school, and med school. I financially supported my ex during grad school; paid off his some of his debts; and have always had enough time to excel in school and still do some volunteering here and there. No, not four hours per week, but I do what I can (ex. tutoring students before exams). If you have the will to make it happen, then you will make it happen.
Best of luck to you with school.
- QofQuimica Said:
I really don't have that much sympathy for people who say they have *no* time to volunteer. (I'm not talking about you specifically, Tim; I'm saying in general.) I have been working *two* part-time jobs throughout college, grad school, and med school. I financially supported my ex during grad school; paid off his some of his debts; and have always had enough time to excel in school and still do some volunteering here and there. No, not four hours per week, but I do what I can (ex. tutoring students before exams). If you have the will to make it happen, then you will make it happen.
Best of luck to you with school.
Thanks QQ.
I think that's the big difference...there's always time to do one volunteering event here and there, if a pre-med denies that then they're FOS, just maybe not a commitment to a traditional volly gig of 4/hrs a week.Volunteering as an EMT is definitely something I'll do any chance I get because I love patient care, so doing it at special events gets my vote. Ironically, most of my volunteering will probably be in the year I take off after I graduate...I'm thinking of moving up to Monterey afterwards and volunteering at the Monterey Bay Aquarium as a diver. They have a specific job where you clean the tanks as a diver, however, you have to do a year commitment to it and it's 4 hours a week, but I figure if I'm graduated and I just have to work and I have nothing else going on, there'll be plenty of time for that.
Something I feel needs to be thrown into this thread is that absolute fact that no amount of extra-currics will offset academic underperformance. Never sacrifice your academic record for the purpose of buffing your list of volunteerism.
You simply must rearrange your schedule in a manner that will allow you to focus on your academics & ensure that you perform at your best, both GPA & MCAT. I am not saying nor implying that you must hit a 4.0 & 40 - simply do your personal best. And, if you can maintain your personal best level of performance while volunteering for something that is important to you, then do so. It is not about quantity. It is about quality.
The capacity to balance your obligations to life, family, job & academics is a very tough one. And, for the most part, fairly unique to non-trads. This additional challenge has been one of the motivations for keeping OPM up & running. Throughout these forums & at our conferences members & guests talk about various strategies they employed to walk that delicate balance with success. For each person, the details will be unique, but the overarching concepts will be very similar: prioritization, compromise, malleability & watching for the snakes under the rocks.
By the way, the volunteering is not about learning medicine, as Tim implied with his EMT work statement. It is about demonstrating you dedication to helping your fellow mankind. It is never sufficient to claim you can & will do x, y or z on a med school application. They want evidence that you can & do ‘walk the walk’. Allied health professions work will certain provide insight on many different levels, it is rarely considered as enhancing your competitiveness & will certainly not gain you any levity for academic underperformance.