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Discover Your Odds of Getting into Medical School
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I think I calculated mines out to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 hours a week of ECs. ~10 hours a week of basic science laboratory, ~5 hours a week on other research endeavors, ~4 hours of volunteering a week, ~10 hours on misc. clubs and leadership positions.

If you do research, particularly basic science research, it's quite easy to rack up huge numbers.
 
for me, it was three to five hours per week volunteering, plus around 20-30 hours at work during the year and a half i spent as a scribe.

i occasionally did some lab research and worked on extra-curricular projects, each of which might have taken up to 5 hours per week at their peak.

laid bare like that, it doesn't sound like a lot, but on top of a full-time science curriculum? i sure felt busy!
 
Per AAMC, the average matriculant had 1251 research hours and 406 of community service.
 
bumblebee953 said:
Per AAMC, the average matriculant had 1251 research hours and 406 of community service.
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interesting. the research number seems incredibly high to me. it must be skewed by people who took gap years doing full-time research and quickly built up thousands of hours. i wonder what the median is.
 
heresiarch said:
interesting. the research number seems incredibly high to me. it must be skewed by people who took gap years doing full-time research and quickly built up thousands of hours. i wonder what the median is.
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Has to be. And it may also include research hours from pre-req labs.

 
For me, it was like 50 ish hours a week (averaged out) until December of last year, then it has been about 25-35 since.
 
This is a bad game to play. Don't try to check a box. Each school will weight criteria differently. I was waitlisted at 5 programs the first year I applied. I spoke with each dean or assistant dean of admissions for feedback and each one had something different to say. One program thought I didn't have enough service hours. Another program had no problem with my service hours but wanted more clinical exposure. In the end, I was left with 5 different opinions on how to strengthen my application. As a student you have limited time in your day. How you or a peer spends it will be different, but that doesn't make one of you better or worse.
 
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