How importantly do some of the top medical school in the US (Johns Hopkins, Harvard, etc.) regard one's volunteer background? I've heard from someone that while your volunteer background is extremely important on your application to Johns Hopkins, Harvard would hardly care about it. Is there any truth to this? Thanks.
Importance of Volunteer to Top Medical School?
- Thread starter WorldWiz
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Take every advice with a grain of salt.
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Check the MSAR for the % of students that have volunteer experience.
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I wouldn't worry about top medical schools until you take the MCAT. If you are going to volunteer, do something you like/won't hate. As for me, I did 0 hours volunteering. I regret nothing.
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If your only thinking about applying to Harvard, this is not relevant-sorry. The majority of schools like volunteer? So why limit yourself to build your app around only ONE school.
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I feel like that statistic is flawed, since you could put down "1 hour per week for one month freshman year" and still be included in the percentage for having participated in volunteering.
Or maybe there's some kind of threshold before it's included? Plus, it all depends on what you're volunteering in.
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Having Harvard as a goal is completely setting yourself up for disappointment. I've seen quite a few mdapplicants profiles of people with 40+ MCAT's and they didn't even get an interview invite to Harvard
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Having Harvard as a goal is completely setting yourself up for disappointment. I've seen quite a few mdapplicants profiles of people with 40+ MCAT's and they didn't even get an interview invite to Harvard
Just checking in...
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Having Harvard as a goal is completely setting yourself up for disappointment. I've seen quite a few mdapplicants profiles of people with 40+ MCAT's and they didn't even get an interview invite to Harvard
On the flip side, if you make yourself competitive for Harvard, you'll likely make yourself competitive anywhere else.
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Right, but what's odd is some people can get accepted to most top schools but still be rejected from mid or low tier schools, such as rochester and drexel. 😕
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Yeah drexel didn't even give me an interview..... a buddy in my class got in there with much lower stats and ECs. I have no idea what they want
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I've got no insider information on what they want but I can imagine that if they have a limited number of interview slots and they need to fill a specific number of seats, if they give all the interview slots to people who are "out of their league" then they are going to end up having no one (or very few) accept the offer of admission because all of those folks will be matriculating at more highly ranked schools or cheaper state schools.
I think that it might make sense to really make a case for "why this school" in the secondary or in an unsolicited letter of interest if you have a strong reason (legacy, geography, etc) to want to attend that school very specifically despite having stats that could get you into a much "better" school.
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Why not just do it? ER volunteering is great, just be active. It doesn't have to be 1000+ hours. Maybe do 100-150. If do need it, you'll have it, if not, then you don't really lose much.
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Thanks LizzyM! That essentially clarified this irony and it makes more sense, although it's a bit upsetting, since there's no such thing as a safety school...
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I interviewed at Harvard, Hopkins, Wash U, Yale, etc and had virtually no volunteering on my application. I also had a 3.45 gpa. It is by no means mandatory. At the same time, realize that doing volunteer work is important to many adcoms across the country and not doing it because others didn't is generally a bad idea.
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Probably, by the time I got the letter from them I had already gotten in where I wanted so it was more just a shot to the ego than anything else
It was just one of many things along the way that taught me that med admissions is HIGHLY subjective, and even useful tools like the lizzy score (which I only discovered after the fact), which give exponentially more insight into chances than just measuring your stats against those you find on the web, come with a still very distinct level of uncertainty.
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But also it is important to note to all the other premeds on this thread that it is becoming increasingly necessary to have volunteering. I'm not saying it will make you or break you, but it certainly helps, especially if you have a somewhat lower GPA.
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I disagree. I think that if you have a lower GPA you better have something more than volunteering as your focal point. It is hard to be incredibly productive as a volunteer.
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Well yeah I mean, increase your GPA or do a medical masters, but I'm saying additional volunteers hours may OR may not help.
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Same, except in my case it was 0 hours of research. Worked out for me
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When I was in high school, I picked up a volunteering commitment so that I could set myself apart for colleges. This was the mentality back then, because very few students actually undertook any significant volunteer commitments during the undergraduate admissions process. On the contrary, when it comes to medical school admissions, you pretty much expect that everyone has it. You'd think someone is a nutjob if they told you they've never volunteered.
Therefore, if top schools are placing more emphasis on numbers and research in certain cases, then it might be a good idea to pursue some sort of volunteer commitment simply as a check-list item. Because at the end of the day, having volunteering is unlikely to make you look "good," but NOT having it will make it look like you are walking around with a sex toy strapped to your head.
Therefore, if top schools are placing more emphasis on numbers and research in certain cases, then it might be a good idea to pursue some sort of volunteer commitment simply as a check-list item. Because at the end of the day, having volunteering is unlikely to make you look "good," but NOT having it will make it look like you are walking around with a sex toy strapped to your head.
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What set ur app apart then?
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40+.
Sorry, I was on my phone earlier, so I could only write a quick reply. My points are very simple. You do not need volunteering on your application to interview at any of those top schools. I know because I did. You also don't need more than a 3.45 to interview at any of those schools as well. I know because I did. If you have other things that adcoms want, they can outweigh just about anything else on an application.
Now, do NOT misinterpret what I said. Volunteering is a positive for any application. Having a good GPA is incredibly important for medical school and it will increase your odds of interviewing and matriculating at any school. But, you no single aspect of your application is absolutely necessary to be more than bare minimum. You should not do something for the sake of doing it. Yes, for less competitive schools, simply have a couple hundred hours of volunteering will be beneficial to your application. But, you are not going to blow anyone away at the top top schools without actually producing something substantial.
I got asked by only one interviewer why I didn't have more than token volunteering. Nobody seemed to care.
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I had a good MCAT score. My GPA was low for a medical school applications, but since I decided to apply to medical school in my Junior year, it simply reflected my pursuits up to that point. I never took less than 18 credits a semester and just as an example, my second semester freshman year I was taking Math 233, Chem 112, Physics 198, Physics 314, Physics 217, Physics 317, Biology 292 plus my required writing seminar. Not many pre-meds take 4 physics classes while taking the normal pre-med pre-reqs. I was taking Calc III and Chem II as they were required for my major and the biology was because I knew I needed to get stronger in bio for lab reasons. Starting my freshman Summer, I also started working in various labs. During the school year I was working 20-40 hrs/week, Summer closer to 70-80 hrs/week. I had a couple of publications, but those were miniscule compared to my lab contributions designing and building a beowulf cluster, writing programs to optimize genome analysis and annotation (I stopped by my undergrad a couple weeks ago while on vacation and noticed that at least 2 labs are still using the software I wrote based on their posters and the unmistakable drawings that my programs produced). I also TA'ed pre-med/intro Physics from Sophomore year until graduation.
So, MCAT, reasonable explanation for GPA, research, and teaching. Outside of that, while I haven't historically been the 'best' athlete in any group of people, you would have a hard time finding a sport or game that I'm not reasonably good at. I certainly have an ego that can get in the way of things, but I can very honestly tell people that project, sports, games etc. you will want me on your team. I am a superior communicator and I produce no matter what situation I am in. Oh, and I only need to sleep 4 hours a day. That is always a plus 😉.
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On the other hand, times change and the competition gets stiffer. I've been going at this since sometime in the last century and what was adequate when mimelim applied might not be enough for an interview today. Just keep that in mind, too.
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Yeah times do change quite a bit... I remember that when I initially started looking at going pre-med, things like mission trips looked really good. Now they might actually have the opposite effect on your application! Things go in, and go out. But volunteering is one of those safe cookie-cutter ECs that everyone will continue to do, though it probably looked "good" back in the day before everyone started doing it. Things are definitely getting more and more competitive these days, and thank you LizzyM for always providing help with these topics! 👍
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Are u doing medical physics stuff now?
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Thats what I was getting at.
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Things have gotten more competitive in the last 4 years. I doubt that there is a huge difference. I know a 3.1 that got into Hopkins last year. *shrug*
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Yeaaaa I heard getting into medical school back in the day was much easier, like they pretty much just had to graduate from any college with a decent gpa 3.4+ and they were good lol
That's just what I heard though, it could be an exaggeration
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...Who probably built an orphanage and published 10 papers lol
This is a recent example that I can think of:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=966446
People like that can get in despite low gpa's
