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[Goro]

Hi SDN!

On my AMCAS I put down 190 community service hours with my sorority, which includes ~75 hours of soup kitchen volunteering and volunteering at breast cancer walks and around 115 hours dedicated to volunteering for our philanthropy and fraternity philanthropies to help raise money for our organizations.

Question is was I supposed to put the 75 hours on its own and list the 115 philanthropy hours as "Other"? I was told by my premed advisor to group them all into community service but I had a friend who separated them so now I'm not sure which one is correct.

Any advice is much appreciated!

Community service is doing stuff for others, not your frat.

 

[LizzyM]

What's done is done. You could have done it differently. Not likely to make a difference -- 190 is believable. If you had said 1100 hours of service because you counted every moment you were breathing in your sorority house that would be a different story.

 

[queencaffeine]

Hi SDN!

On my AMCAS I put down 190 community service hours with my sorority, which includes ~75 hours of soup kitchen volunteering and volunteering at breast cancer walks and around 115 hours dedicated to volunteering for our philanthropy and fraternity philanthropies to help raise money for our organizations.

Question is was I supposed to put the 75 hours on its own and list the 115 philanthropy hours as "Other"? I was told by my premed advisor to group them all into community service but I had a friend who separated them so now I'm not sure which one is correct.

Any advice is much appreciated!

Hi! I did not include my philanthropy work as hours for community service at all. That is not the main purpose of a Greek organization in my opinion. Greek life gave me an amazing leadership opportunity that I wrote about in AMCAS, but did not mention community service linked to Greek life at all.

 

[Goro]

It may not be the main purpose, but community service and philanthropy mean a lot to us and we dedicate a lot of time raising money for local non-profit domestic violence orgs. I think that's amazing and definitely one of the reasons I loved being a part of our chapter!

@Goro @LizzyM Thanks for the replies! I'm a bit confused, why would dedicating your time to raise thousands of dollars for the community not be considered community service to an adcom?

Let's clarify:
Raising money for charities: very OK
Raising money for the frat: not OK.

 

[OneTwoThreeFour]

Let's clarify:
Raising money for charities: very OK
Raising money for the frat: not OK.

I also think it depends on how the fundraising for charities went. I was less impressed when the activity was a party that happened to donate 10% of the door to a charity.

 

[queencaffeine]

It may not be the main purpose, but community service and philanthropy mean a lot to us and we dedicate a lot of time raising money for local non-profit domestic violence orgs. I think that's amazing and definitely one of the reasons I loved being a part of our chapter!

@Goro @LizzyM Thanks for the replies! I'm a bit confused, why would dedicating your time to raise thousands of dollars for the community not be considered community service to an adcom?

I understand why you'd think that this is community service, but I disagree. You said you're raising money for philanthropies in general through attending your own philanthropy events and other fraternity philanthropy events. These are things like capture the flag and other "fun" events that you collect money from your sisters and other sources to attend. I do not think this counts as community service in the traditional sense, because while you raised money to support another Greek organization's philanthropy, you are supporting that org's mission and not so much the group itself. If you were to go volunteer at a shelter, work DIRECTLY with them instead of donating through your Greek org, I think that holds more credibility. It just seems like a bit of stretch

 

[queencaffeine]

Like LizzyM said, what's done is done, and if it were me I would have put the 75 soup kitchen hours as community service and included the 115 hours of fundraising in the Greek life work/activity section without dubbing it community service. Either way, I'm sure it won't matter in the grand scheme!

 

[LizzyM]

I've done fund raising and I've done direct service to the poor. They are both exhausting and challenging but fund raising can be fun and creative and team building. And going to a ball or a gala or a dinner or auction can be fun, too. Prep and cooking in a soup kitchen, sorting donations, serving coffee and sandwiches to the homeless, visiting the sick and unemployed in their homes, is a different level of volunteerism. It puts you face to face with the people you are serving and these are the people you may be caring for as a physician. Taking care of them now, in a way you are capable of doing, is a way of determining if you want to take care of people like that in the future. Raising money is nice, it is admirable and necessary, but it is a bit removed from the nitty gritty that physicains typically deal with daily.

 

[OneTwoThreeFour]

I agree with both and attending fraternity philanthropies may be a stretch I realize, but I spent a lot of time not just attending but organizing our own philanthropy. While that’s still different than hands on community service I do think helping organize a fundraiser for an amazing cause has a lot of merit to it.

I do have other community service hours though which hopefully better emphasizes my dedication to others, so hopefully adcoms don’t judge me too much for this 🙁

Don't even worry about it. Back when I was a premed applicant I did the same stuff.